The rise and evolution
of social commerce in China
In the second half of 2020, to the backdrop of the post-pandemic recovery, our focus as brands and agencies must be to tap the vast growth potential of the domestic market.
If uncertainty is the new normal, brands must listen to consumers with a more positive, empathetic attitude, empower creativity with technology, and seize every opportunity with sophistication and gratitude.
Social commerce enables brands to sell products directly via social media platforms and personalized shopping experiences. For marketers, the ability to get products out in front of new audiences presents both challenges and endless possibilities.
This month we showcase our latest work from across dentsu China, demonstrating our expertise and artistry in this new and exciting technology-enabled social commerce space.
Creative Co-Chair of Dentsu China
CEO of dentsumcgarrybowen
Keita Ishikawa
Innovations-Webinarwas
conducted successfully
Dentsu Webinar “the New Normal accelerated by Covid-19” was co-organized by dentsumcgarrybowen China, Dentsu Top, Dentsu One and dentsu X in August 25th, facing to the Japanese clients that are resident in China, at Shanghai. Webinar shared a lot of information, including: the most advanced China in the digital field, the impact of the epidemic on consumer awareness and behavior, the attracting key points for the youth during the post-epidemic period, and the other cases, which reach their hearts, via the three aspects of this event, "Young consumer behavior", "Methods to approach them", and "Capability of Dentsu China". This event attracted nearly 200 people to watch online, and it was highly praised by more than 83% of satisfaction.
More Information: Contact.China@dentsu.com
Post-covid,Customer Loyalty
Management Strategy
of Catering Brands
2020 is a tough year for the restaurants, but the most difficult time has passed, we are now so pleased to see the great recoveries in this sector. According to the research conducted by Merkle Loyalty team, the per capita consumption of outdoor dining in China increased more than 5% YoY, and the market size exceeds four trillion yuan per year. Takeout, delivery and digital payment are most featured for the restaurants to sustain a profit operation after Covid-19. Branding and scale will be the main forces for restaurants to stand out from the hyper competition. Therefore, the relationship between brands and customers will be critical to expand the growth.
In response to such market trends, Merkle has summarized the following loyalty strategies for the engagements between restaurant brands and customers, which can be appropriately adopted by brands according to their own demands and business goals:
Basic strategy
Restaurants can choose basic membership incentives based on discounts and rewards, and establish their own membership marketing system, such as providing registration gifts, redeem rewards, birthday gifts, level cards etc. to strengthen the engagements with customers. The threshold for starting the basic strategy is relatively low for restaurants to acquire new members or activate existing members.
Advanced strategy
The core of the advanced strategy is to increase the stickiness of the members and to deep mining more value from the engagements. The activities include but not limited in incentives based on member interaction, group bargaining, member seckilling, invitations with rewards, fission marketing, etc.
Premium strategy
Restaurants can also provide a premium membership strategy which is a paid, premium subscription that offer a wide range of benefits across services and offerings. However, the premium strategy is not suitable for all restaurants, it depends on the business model and the loyalty of existing members.
// Development of virtual idols at home and abroad
Under the influence of the ACGN culture, the term "virtual idol" originated in Japan, and the global virtual idol's popularity is mainly based on VTuber (Virtual YouTuber). The development of the Chinese ACGN market is slightly lagging behind, and it started with the virtual anchor of Bilibili where the ACGN crowd was concentrated, and the development of 3D holographic live interactive technology has continued to expand from the ACGN culture to a more mass market.
//Opportunities and challenges of domestic virtual idols
Huge market potential
The main audiences tend to be younger and more receptive to new things, and the ACGN culture far exceeds the concept of "subculture" and is more accepted by popular culture
Virtual idols have better experience than real professional idols
The life cycle is longer, there is no need to worry about the collapse of the persona setting, which enhances the interaction with the fans and has more control for the holders
Influential local virtual idol
There is still a need to create virtual idol content based on local culture and unique personality influence, as well as related mature operating institutions
Hard to have national influence
Virtual idols are still not popular culture
Commercialization model needs to mature
In China, there are more B-end business models where virtual idols directly cooperate with brands. The C-end monetization model is still in the exploration stage. Compared with Japan, which has a more mature virtual idol industry, their C-end business model is more diverse, such as video clicks and live broadcasts rewarding, selling peripherals or offline concerts, etc.
// Explore the possibility of brand x virtual idol cooperation
1. Brand X starization virtual idol
Utilize celebrity traffic and influence will make virtual idols more plastic for short-term brand marketing and give the brand a new personality definition. For example, Tmall teamed up with Yi Yang Qianxi official to announce his virtual image "Qianmiao" as the second brand spokesperson
2. Brand X IP virtual idol
The essence is another form of collaboration between brands using IP traffic. Compared with real idols, it needs less investment to gain higher topicality and communication in the short term, such as Love Nikki-Dress UP Queen X Lux, Infinite King X Givenchy
3. Brand X brand owned IP Virtual idol
From the perspective of long-term development, brands can cultivate new virtual idols with unique brand spirit and personality, and create new platforms for brands to communicate and interact with audiences. They are not only mascots, but also super malleable value symbols that contain brand spirit. For example, the changeable virtual IT Girl “Miquela” shares various girl’s life scenes on social networking sites, thereby constructing a fake “virtual image” and enhancing the user’s interaction with it.
CGImmersive Virtual Live Streaming
Ideal for... Live Streaming Online Shopping Shows, Live Stream Product Launch Events, Virtual Brand Mascots, or anything you can imagine!
Customizable CG Virtual Studio Set
Indoor/ outdoor/ sunny/ snowy/ sci-fi/ ancient/ outer space...You can be anywhere
Customize the way of product presentation
Presenting RTBs and data in an interactive way
Tell the Brand/Product Story the Way You Imagine
Realistic virtual production
Motion+Voice Assisted Live-Rendered Virtual Anchor
Virtual and human character(s) can appear in the same real/ virtual scene
We developed a baby nursing and parenting mini-program for Mead Johnson China using our custom-built voice AI. Our technology implements iFlytek’s NLP module and leverages a global database of baby nursing and parenting entries. It is a scalable build that we hope to bring to other categories.
Tmall Super Brand Day“helps Nippon to achieve successfully the EC sales with a huge growth, and successfully set up first super brand day of home building materials category. And the total sales of Nippon Tmall Day in a single day ranks TOP1 in the home improvement industry and TOP1 in the basic building materials category.
Successfully and deeply bonding with Tmall and Alibaba Cloud and its other partners, which achieves Nippon‘s professional painting services and Tamll full path coverage marketing with data. Also it made an in-depth cooperation with Ali in the 3D model room and Fire Phoenix and other projects, through using data with three-dimensional and multiple circles to correctly reach to the audience. At the same time, through CCTV / Weibo / Super brand ETC / Shanghai Metro advertising to open the full matrix communication online and offline, obtained over 950 million brand exposure, reaching more than 700 million people Bringing a 50-fold increase AIPL of Nippon Paint's official flagship store.
Combining current hot programs and topics to create a Big Idea of "self-reliant changing, blooming elder sisters' power". Building Uni Marketing, which the content covers multiple industries and circles, and making the topic out of standing to reach a more effective recommendation for Whoo.
It innovated a live role-playing detective script game with an immersive experience, which open up a fresh way for live on Tmall and made enthusiastic social buzz. The number of live viewers reached 140w+ and the number of likes was 200w+.
During the Whoo Tmall super brand day, the turnover was as high as 360 million+, increasing of 1768% over the same period of the previous year, and a single day increase of 255%. The brand-new explosive product "Secret Paste Essence" increased by 2695% year-on-year in the essence category, which successfully made the No.1 in the beauty makeup ranking and achieved excellent performance in terms of exposure, topic volume, and sales volume.
Dentsu Shanghai worked with isobar, assisted Pretz and Honor of King to create collaboration packaging and limited gift boxes. Also they made an exclusive small game at the inside of Honor of King, which is the first time to authorize a brand to jointly develop brand-oriented heavy gameplay games, and for the first time to authorize a brand to use IP image to try products.
The popular hero in the game Li Bai and the famous anchor , Gu Ying, filmed their TVC together ，while using the online advertising insert of KCC events and the implantation of the interactive link of offline KCC summer camp. Through IMC Campaign effectively improve the sales of Pretz, letting more customers remember the brand proposition – #Kaci! Kaci! Enjoy my moment of king#.
Campaign started in pandemic period, and tightly closed to the present hit point and the insight of the customer, in order to make the customer to pay attention to the health of breakfast. Through online and offline communication with all-round, including offline materials, bus shelter advertising, product packaging, and online social communication. Deeply reaching to consumers deepened consumers' impression of the combination of breakfast and Vitasoy.
Through the creative execution method of micro-landscape, with rich breakfast food, build the national characteristic landmarks with various breakfast foods of various countries: China, France, Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
Having a MV collaboration with the annual No.3 internet media celebrity of Tiktok for the breakfast campaign.
Vitasoy work with the head internet KOL to carry out the KV and MV forwarding lottery, and the breakfast song and dance adaptation remake and the lyrics adaptation cover with tiktok anchors.
Thanks for reading, we look forward to checking your pulse again next month.
