Social commerce – selling through social media – is becoming the norm in China. Simply advertising through Tmall is not enough to attract young Chinese consumers. Every month, Dao Insights selects the brand that has used Chinese social media in an exemplary way to gain attention.
Month#
: March 2021
Brand#
: Mercedes-Benz
Campaign#
: “She’s Mercedes”
Social Platforms#
: Xiaohongshu, WeChat, Weibo
About the Campaign#
Who says cars are mainly for men? They are absolutely not, and Mercedes-Benz has been doing what they can to drive out (excuse the pun) this stereotype.
The campaign we’re about to introduce — “She’s Mercedes” — is not a new one, in fact, it’s already in its fifth year. Every year since 2017, the luxury automaker has invited influential Chinese women to share their success stories and achievements within society. This year, for many brands alike, International Women’s Day was the perfect opportunity to truly empower the women of China. Indeed, Mercedes-Benz is not the only car brand in China to try and gain women’s backing — last year Audi’s leftover women campaign attempted to push through social prejudices.
“The aim with ‘She’s Mercedes’ is to set women in motion, to facilitate networking between them and to enable them to develop their full potential.” — Mercedes-Benz official website
How the Campaign Topped Chinese Social Media#
Xiaohongshu#
: The fashion and lifestyle-oriented social review platform Xiaohongshu, aka Little Red Book, has grown immensely in popularity — especially amongst young women — over the past couple of years, presenting huge potential for brands to inspire user-generated content. Hence, Mercedes-Benz decided to host their International Women’s Day edition of “She’s Mercedes” on the platform.
The UGC campaign — their first-ever on Xiaohongshu — was fairly straightforward:
- Follow Benz’s new Xiaohongshu account @ She’s Mercedes.
- Use the campaign’s hashtag (#奔驰的她们) and @ She’s Mercedes to share a story of how users pursue their dreams.
- The top 100 users based on the number of likes from March 5 to March 21 would win a free Benz handbag as endorsed by young actress/musician/influencer Ouyang Nana.
And it worked: the hashtag for “She’s Mercedes” (#奔驰的她们) hit 4.15 million views with 300+ posts on Xiaohongshu thus far.
Most prominently, key opinion leader (KOL) 詹小猪Coco, one of the top influencers on Xiaohongshu, shared how Benz helps her to reach her potential every day. She discussed how the vehicles (mentioning the Benz C63s, Gt63s and AMG series) give her the freedom to go wherever she wants to be, for work, family, holidays, and so on. Apart from enabling comfortable and convenient travel, the brand has become her silent companion. It inspired thousands of people to share their goals and personal stories of Benz in the comments.
WeChat#
: Mercedes-Benz posted an article about the campaign on their official account that gained 100K+ views. It was a means to drive traffic to the Xiaohongshu campaign as well as providing links to their official website.
Weibo#
: Last year in December, Mercedes-Benz posted about “She’s Mercedes” on Weibo, sharing stories of inspiring and successful female celebrities, similar to Dior’s Women’s Day campaign. It was the chosen platform for the brand to encourage engagement with this campaign as well as to explain how to be a part of the main upcoming campaign on Xiaohongshu.
Empowering Women to Share Their Unique Success Stories Pays Off#
Mercedes-Benz’s female-focused campaign connected and empowered women in the right place at the right time, resulting in increasing both brand awareness and building a positive brand image among female consumers. The car brand cleverly used all of its social media accounts to drive traffic to the main UGC campaign on Xiaohongshu. They can now use this platform to launch more campaigns, and possibly even a store, in the future.