Lost in translation - Brands in digital China

As Facebook and Twitter aren't accessible from within China, most western brands aren't reaching people there online, including those using services like FB Connect etc. Even so, language and contextual relevance makes many branded web experiences in the west less useful in China. Solve this and brands have a massive opportunity to connect with this growing market. 

During a trip to Beijing the other week to see friends  (I used to live there) and meet some interesting start-ups I was reminded about the fact that few western brands are active or even exist on the social web in China. I’m sure there are many reasons why but what I find astonishing is the lost opportunity when you look at the numbers. The Chinese online user base is the single biggest, arguably more active and rely more on the internet for purchase decisions than us in the west. These graphs from two studies speak for themselves. 

Source: Digital goods in Asia

 

Source: Digital Influence

 

On top of that you have the luxury market which is exploding, and that’s not just from the rich but upper-middle especially who will account for 22% of the luxury market in China in 2015. In fact 80% of the luxury consumers in China are under 45 years old, whereas that number stands at 30% in the US.  

Source: China Digital IQ

Gone are the days when fakes were the main western products people bought, now authenticity is what people aspire to. Many western brands are capitalising on this by setting up flagship stores in Beijing and Shanghai and investing in PR and marketing. 

Some brands are trying to go local online. Lancome launched its own branded website with a successful BBS forum. Some car companies invest in advertising on Autohome and XCar, the most popular consumer auto websites in China, with millions of user generated comments each month according to a report by McKinsey. 

Just setting up an account on Kaixin or Sina and spam users with brand-centric content risk having limited effect or get lost in the noise. The context in which Chinese social media sites have evolved is different. A recent study comparing Twitter and Weibo showed that Twitter is more for news whereas Weibo is for fun, with the amount of retweeting several magnitudes higher. The news that Facebook may try to re-enter China after it was blocked in 2008 through a partnership with Baidu does not necessarily mean there’s an automatic way in for brands in the west. As one commentator put it “Chinese users will come, they will play, they will yawn, and they will go back to what they were doing.”. I.e. Facebook is too late to the table, local competitors have evolved with more features and “post-foreign China” has moved on. 

Creating a China-specific service with the goal to be truly useful and/or entertaining to users however stands a bigger chance to stick out as there are not as many of these around, not even by big Chinese brands.  Interestingly many Chinese social media platforms and apps (QQ, Weibo) are creating multi-language versions to pull in non-Chinese users and local start-ups like Kwestr use both Facebook and Weibo connect authentication.  So there's an opportunity now to create services that work across the Great Fire Wall of China but more importantly to participate and be relevant to the new digital generation inside the middle kingdom.      

Patrik.