Luxury China: Strategy to Connect with the Chinese Elite Society

Imagine the lifestyle of the Ultra-rich Chinese people is amazing! Imagine them stopping by Tiffany and Co. on the way to lunch to pick out that perfect piece of luxurious jewelry and then spending the afternoon with friends at the Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet. This is all followed by stopping by the Prada store to find that outfit to add to your ever-growing wardrobe, then ending the night at one of the famous Mandarin Oriental Pudong or another luxury hotel. Of course, all of this traveling happens in your beautiful Ferrari with your Hermes handbag lying on the passenger seat. Luxury clothing brands are no longer off-limits when you’re in the lap of luxury!

We all daydream about living a life like this Chinese elite life full of luxurious comforts.

 Create the Luxury Digital Consumers Experience

 

The New Luxury Lifestyle in China

There’s a certain curiosity about rich people’s lifestyle, they appear to be the ones holding the keys to paradise. It’s incredible how they influence us and we are still wondering how good their lives really are. What’s it like to indulge in any and every consumerist whim? It turned out the Chinese Elite is different their brands favored are: Patek Philippe watches, Mercedes E-Class cars, Gulfstream jets, Armani suits, Azimut Yachts, and Louis XIII brandy.

They also like to spend money on diamonds(no surprise there), wine, travel, and their children’s education. More than 50 percent of rich parents are sending their children to schools in the US and Britain. Canada is ranked third, followed by Switzerland. Chinese Elite love luxury products, imported French handbags, Italian sports cars and even more, they love to show off their bling.

More than 50 percent of the Chinese elite, who each have assets of more than 10 million yuan ($1.57 million), spend between one million yuan ($157,000) and three million yuan every year and own more than three cars. These cars the white BMW 7-Series, the black Audi A6 models with extended wheelbases and the Porsche Cayenne SUV throng China’s fabulous new network of motorways.

The Chinese Luxury Society

Luxury concierge clubs that deal with extravagant requests for their clients, including such things as the hiring of a private island in the Maldives and bidding for a $2-million sports car at a London auction, are quickly becoming indispensable among the Chinese elite.

British luxury club Quintessentially was founded in 2000 and serves 250,000 clients around the world, making it one of the oldest and largest luxury lifestyle management services in the world. However, 10 years ago, it had no clients on the Chinese mainland.

However, their different consuming behaviors toward digital applications will definitely lead to a group of fresh marketing strategies in the industry of China. Every detail of the plan must apply digitally.

How to create Engagement among Chinese Elite Society?

Among the Chinese Millennial luxurious shoppers, 71% of the whole is female, and over half of the respondents live outside of China’s top 15 big cities. Since millennials are deeply impacted by the internet, people use 87 minutes on social media to chat on average and 75 minutes on browsing news feeds, videos or listening to music on average every day.

The Chinese elite journey becomes more fragmented and complicated, to experience the offline and online delicate service and buy directly, the millennial consumer journey is way more diversified. They will absorb lots of product and brand information online from several channels first, and how to trigger incentives for searching is complex. Moreover, purchasing approach is not limited to the offline store but a bunch of ways, such as social media, personal shopping, e-commerce, the brand’s official website and so forth.

Chinese Elite Consumer Strategy Development

China has the greatest network user coverage compared to other nations in the world, Chinese Elite consumers put their attention half on the digital world.

A change in ultra-rich Chinese consumer groups and behaviors occurred that 4 there are 6 trends are happening.

• Mobile super apps catch half of the attention of netizens.
• Influencers or KOLs are the main force to affect luxurious
• Wechat official account and mini-program become the basic tool for communications with customers
• Research Online Purchase Offline(ROPO) is the popular way of purchasing luxuries nowadays.
• Digital marketing covers all provinces of China, a chance to stimulate lower-tier cities’ conversion rate on luxury purchasing.
• E-commerce takes up a great proportion of online sales, but social media shopping rises abruptly.

Go Digital in China

To elaborate, China’s exclusive digital environment is different from other digital-savvy countries. China builds its own network and the mobile application market is full of products from the three biggest China companies. Super apps, such as Wechat, occupy over half of the time people spend on the mobile phone, compared to Facebook owns 22 percent of US users. That is why the top 40 biggest luxury companies launched their own official account on Wechat, as noted by Bain & Co. And what draws the most attention from the audience is KOLs whether Wechat or brand official account.

The Right Digital Strategy for China

GMA works closely with brands to develop successful digital strategies with maximum ROI. We oversee the rollout and monitor the execution all the way to the finish line. The important part of the GMA experience is our ease in developing innovative digital assets for clients, including Chinese websites, WeChat mini-programs, WeChat Games, and HTML5 pages/activations.

KOLs help target your target easily

The Luxury Influencers

In China, the power of KOLs cannot be ignored. People trust them, and follow them or even imitate them. Based on the BCG report, the three leading KOLs on Wechat in the lifestyle and fashion sections have more than 10% of followers are the luxury target audience. And the daily page review is 20 thousand on average, but such leading KOLs, have hundreds of thousands of reviews per day on Wechat. Creating interesting content with KOLs to draw a much more audience not only brings more traffic but also presents a specific exquisite brand image.

Cooperating with iconic fashion KOLs or influencers will be an effective way to market your brand by raising awareness and building quite an image. It also gains a reputation for your brand under influencer endorsement. In China, people like to follow what their idol dress, act or have, in seeking star style, the way can generate considerable traffic for new brands.

We preserve the brand history: We localize the Story

The Luxury Division

GMA has huge respect for each brand. Each brand or project is completely different and it’s essential to capture the project’s unique spirit. The important thread running through all of our work is respect, excellence, and expertise. Having worked for luxury companies, we have the awareness of when and what to say and don’t overstretch the brand, but rather breathe new concepts. GMA projects all have the same obsessions: luxury, storytelling, and perfection.

Luxury brands are targeted at a highly sophisticated audience. At GMA, we know the real difference between a functional brand and a truly memorable one that will respond to the wishes and desires of the world’s most distinguished audience.

Our brand development expertise starts by establishing a clear understanding of your brand and your aspirations. In the beginning, we will walk you through the process of branding: a compelling story, a prestigious website, and unique visual brand identity, and the raw materials required to establish and maintain a luxury brand.

If you think our innovative agency may be a good fit for your next branding project, please email us.

Reputation is your Legacy

Building a reputable brand image is the key to success. As a majority of Chinese consumers tend to search for abundant related information or comments before making the final decision, a well-constructed brand reputation and image without negative comments stand out. People may search for information on online publications, forums, or even Q&A platforms about quality, recommendations,s or if some celebrities use the same kind.

Search Engine Optimization is powerful

Another thing is being visible. So, getting a good organic search result is important as the keyword set. China has its own dominating search engine except for Google which is called Baidu. Baidu as the biggest search engine in China occupies about 80% market share in the field. With an incredible number of 60 million visitors per day, it can precisely target your audience and increase visibility, thus helping with brand awareness.

Website Luxury Experience

Luxury brands are denoted by a highly sophisticated and refined design style. GMA understands how important it is to translate these qualities into a consistent, beautiful, and powerful presence online. Every website is carefully crafted and we will work closely with you to determine your specific needs and develop them into an exceptional-looking site that is aesthetically pleasing, easy to navigate, and intuitive to the user.

Social Media for Luxury Brands

Chinese has their tight circles and is deeply immersed in the environment. So, to get a close connection with them, intense and effective communication is needed on social media.

Though there are plenty of social media in the market, the top 3 popular ones listed as Wechat, Weibo, and Little Red Book. An added value to luxury communication is these three applications have a majority of millennial users. It is those millennials who devoted maximum time to online social networking.

We collaborate with clients to create and place advertisements on WeChat, including new geo-targeting products. GMA has a team of front-end designers and back-end developers that create custom WeChat content including menu functions, HTML5, offline activations, and WeChat front-end design and content creation. We also offer Guidance on how brands can reach outbound Chinese travelers while they’re using WeChat abroad.

Wechat：

According to the report, the top 40 luxury brand has opened their Wechat official account to communicate with customers. Over 60 proportion of Wechat players aged from 15-29, spend over 2 hours on this media. There are 20 thousand average page reviews every day, a highly active social media in China.

Besides that, Wechat is equipped with a big database of Chinese users, rather than a communication tool, it gradually acts as an SCRM system for lots of brands. By evaluating the information at the back office, it is easier to know your customers and how to attract them.

Little Red Book

Many younger apps soon strike in the social media market, with a specialty in fashion, popularize among Chinese young urban females. The application is famous for its KOLs in fashion, with half of the users can afford mid-high price commodities. Shoppers search or compare interesting products on RED to a see recommendations or get KOL endorsement to buy popular products. In a way, it is a tool for luxury brands targeting young women.

Design a Luxury Boutique on a Social Media Store

Though mainstream buying online is still an e-commerce platform, takes the biggest part of online shopping. A trend of buying online through social media apps arises. More and more people would like to try to shop on the Wechat store or Little Red Book store unless they don’t need to spend time searching other channels to buy. Another advantage of establishing a social media store is because of the lower costs compared to one on the e-commerce platform. According to BCG & Tencent luxury study report, there is 11% of online shoppers enjoyed shopping on social media and the figure is not about to fall but rise.

Wechat, with its official account reputation, can work with a brand mini program to generate sales on social media. As a mini-program doesn’t take time to download and has no memory, an increasing favor is in the program.

A successful example of luxury brand GUCCI set up their official mini-program which was widely spread by a lot of luxury lovers, They create a fun and interesting H5 game to stimulate social engagement in the circle and achieve 34% popularity in a short period, kind of a buzzing event on the wechat thus increase traffic to their mini program.

Little Red Book, focusing on its strength in fashion and lifestyle, easily wins urban women’s trust and drives sales in an incredible way. Since all comments on the platform are real notes from users, people feel the user experience is more real. The power of Little Red Book cannot be underestimated, a short period from the foundation but gathered a lot of active users shortly. Review, share and buy create a special online shopping eco-system on it. Based on the word-of-mouth operation, Little Red Book users usually buy impulsively through the buying threads from inspiration to order all on the Little Red Book social media. With many more young fashion influencers creating their account on this, people get a close connection with them, and a feel of a friend’s recommendation comes up. This year, Red has about 100 million users and the monthly active user is 30 million, a high concentration in fashion and high-end lifestyle groups.

CREATIVE EVENTS GO VIRAL

Create a buzzing event with a big idea and support of influencers, forums, and consumers spreading increase the awareness of your brand. Also, it differentiates you from other brands with unique idea designs. A go-viral event arouses discussion spontaneously among people about your brand and becomes a “HEAT” issue, somehow devoted to brand exposure.

E-Commerce platform for Luxury Brands

E-Commerce platforms for Premium Brands

Setting up an official e-store on a big e-commerce platform, such as JD and T-mall is good for the premium brand but not for luxury brands. Followed by the change in Chinese elite behaviors, it is more convenient for most people to buy Online. An E-commerce official store is still a choice for a majority of people since it is authentic and reliable comments to trace. With the action of defeating counterfeit on each platform, it is no hesitation to buy online right now.

Digital is the future for Luxury in China

Much research shows that the Millennial to Z generation will be on the behavior of half of China’s wealth in the near future. According to Tencent and Secoo consumers, the average age of luxury buying is 28 years old. And there are 75% of luxury buyers under 30 years old search for information online or even buy online. Inevitably, increasing online presence, creating a positive reputation, and devoting to social engagement whether by open an account, mini-program or an H5 interactive game that gives rise to a heated discussion can be useful approaches to marketing your brand in China. Further, a diverse sales channel should be considered, except offline stores like the previous one, an e-commerce platform or new emerging social media store will surely generate sales as well. In some areas, maybe perform better than offline stores since this is a trend in China. Overall, applying an integrated digital marketing plan for your high-end fashion brand is the only way to win in China market.

Gentlemen Marketing Agency

Gentlemen Marketing Agency is an agency’s success. We believe in brands; we love them. We collaborate closely with International Luxury brands to understand their roots and offer everlasting digital vision through Concept, Branding, User experience, Website Design, Communications & Advertising.

The Experts at GMA  combine experience and know-how, fueled by passion. Our agency is flexible and open to international markets, with a reasonable number of clients, which allows us to remain available for close cooperation and a tailored approach.

Read also:

• Luxury Market Guide China
• Top Mistakes made by Luxury Brands in China