Clarins in China
Clarins 娇韵诗 is a French cosmetics brand, which specializes in face and body cares. Since its founding in 1954, Clarins has pushed out a wide range of products for different target segmentations, while keeping always the persistence the use of plant ingredients.
Clarins created a file in Shanghai in 2011 and began its development in China. As digital marketing in China is booming, Clarins makes some efforts in digital marketing.
1. Online PR strategy
A good press relationship is very important for the successful development of a brand. There are several professional websites with information about cosmetics and digital female magazines that have a large number of visitors. Clarins chooses as its PR some special sites in the field of cosmetics such as brands.self, yoka, Onlylady, pclady, etc.
On these websites, Clarins has its own page, there are the zones such as new product introductions, photos, promotion information, comments from users, etc.. It is important to maintain a good relationship with the presses since they are more likely to provide some “services” and highlight the products or services of the brand.
For Clarins, PR is effective to make it known to Chinese consumers. To a certain extent, the attitude of journalists decides the brand positioning and the public’s perspective. These websites with which Clarins works are professional in the field of cosmetics and are popular among Chinese women.
For example, on the website yoka which is specialized in girls’ fashion, there is a special page for the branding Clarins. The editors put the articles around Clarins, such as the introduction of the brand, and the presentation of the products…In these articles, yoka adds some technical evaluations to be seemed more official and gain the confidence of the readers.
This is the strategy of Yoka, and for another PR of Clarins, the website Kimiss, which is based on the comments of the public. Since we are in the Web 2.0 period, the public has more opportunities to express personal opinions about a product or a brand, either positive or negative. Besides, one of the Chinese consumption habits is consulting the experience of users online. Therefore, product reviews can influence the market directly. On the page Clarins on the site Kimiss, we can see that the most part is the user experience. Its strategy of Kimiss is to have the readers’ confidence through the opinions of the public.
2. Clarins and the social media
Clarins on Weibo
Sina Weibo is the first and the most popular social network in China. Clarins has its official page on Weibo, now it has 374,590 fans and it has posed 6618 pieces on Weibo. It puts on the page some small stories about the founding and development of the brand Clarins, videos, photos, care techniques, announcements of promotions and activities, etc. The community manager communicates directly with the public, mainly in the form of answering questions about products posed by the netizens. And we can find easily that the news which has the most replies from fans is the information about the promotions. For example, on January 17, Clarins posted a piece on Weibo and said, “in the new year of 2014, which skin problem do you want to perfect? Reply to me and maybe you have the chance to gain a gift from Clarins!” This news has got 686 pieces of reply and 1201 transmit.
Weibo is a good way to reach a large proportion of targets and prospects. In fact, it is not easy to make the communication on Weibo which has many users. It is better than the web page and aims to attract more followers through useful content or interesting forms instead of advertising. One example of Clarins is that “ Show my list of necessary goods for the Spring Festival: 1, meat 2, chocolate 3, my favorite fruit 4, vegetables 5, new clothes 6, fireworks 7, New Year pictures 8, a good face– Clarins Double Serum!” We can find that all the pieces on Clarins Weibo page are interesting news or interaction with fans.
Clarins on WeChat
Wechat is another popular social network nowadays in China. Instead of its function as a tool for the contact between friends in the beginning, now WeChat also opens its door to companies to provide them with a platform for promotion.
Since WeChat is used generally on the phone, it has the advantage of a large and frequent view. In the account of Clarins, it shared information about the brand, the methods of face and body care, activities, and privileges for fans…After becoming a fan of Clarins, you can get one-to-one service, for example, you can pose questions and get the answer immediately, and you can be the first to get information about the promotion activities…
3. Clarins and their new e-commerce strategy
Like most cosmetic brands, we can buy Clarins products directly on the official website of Clarins; in addition, Clarins cooperate recently with Sephora, which has shops in Tmall, Jingdong, and Amazon. Of course, the two websites special for cosmetics the most popular in China, Jumei, and lefeng, have also Clarins products.
Their Tmall
4, SEO and SEM on Baidu
A large proportion of searches start online. Baidu is the first and the largest search engine in China et it possesses almost 80% of the market. The website of Clarins has not had the optimization for Baidu, they only pay for the Brand Zone.
Clarins is still a brand in development in China, it has not been so popular that many Chinese people know it, so it’s important and necessary to optimize the search result on Baidu.
The Brand uses a lot of SEM (pay-per-click) to increase its visibility on Baidu.
For more information about SEO and SEM on Baidu, click here. For more information about cosmetics in China click here.
We are an agency professional in digital marketing for China, if you want to know more about the Chinese market, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Marketing Chine