Homegrown Cashmere Powerhouse Erdos Leads On Sustainability Initiatives

The Social Edition is our weekly series which deep dives into luxury initiatives in China’s social media landscape. Every week, we highlight brand campaigns distributed on Chinese digital platforms — WeChat, Weibo, Tmall, Douyin, and beyond. Our coverage spotlights global luxury brands, global beauty brands, and local Chinese brands. The latter gives insight into some of China’s most successful campaigns, which often come from local players, and are outside of the beauty and fashion space. In this week’s roundup, we look at three campaigns: from Homegrown cashmere powerhouse Erdos' new face and Peacebird's 2020 launch event. Tmall Teams With Top Livestreamer To Launch New Marketing Tool BRAND Tmall CATEGORY E-commerce PLATFORMS Tmall MEDIUM Livestream FEATURED TALENTS Viya (12M Weibo Followers) | Liu Wen (25M) OVERVIEW On September 28, Tmall Little Black Box teamed up with top livestreamer Viya to announce the Super Product Launch Live Room, where they officially unveiled a new product marketing tool called Monday Debut. On the night of the broadcast, Viya was in the futuristic spacecraft setting of the new livestream room. The new marketing tool will also offer permanent access to Tmall’s Little Black Box and will go live on Mondays to provide consumers with a wealth of new products, experience, and early access to new products on Tmall. NETIZEN REACTION On the evening of the announcement, new products were unpacked, and multiple rounds of lucky draws were used to heat up the Tmall Little Black Box launch event, which ultimately attracted over 18.7 million viewers to the livestream channel. They closely followed Viya's engaging product releases and enjoyed buying new products in the Super Product Launch Live Room with premium and complimentary benefits. VERDICT Tmall has looked to leverage this collaboration by enriching branded product launches and driving multi-channel attention for new products, which gives brands more efficient ways to reach consumers besides traditional launch events. The Super Product Launch Live Room owns the official endorsement of the new Tmall platform, which complements the top anchor and strengthens consumer recognition and trust of new livestreamed products. Homegrown Cashmere Powerhouse Erdos Bets Big On Sustainability BRAND Erdos CATEGORY Fashion PLATFORMS WeChat, Weibo, Tmall MEDIUM Short Film, Imagery FEATURED TALENTS Hua Chenyu (37M Weibo Followers) OVERVIEW On October 9, Erdos announced singer-songwriter Hua Chenyu as the brand's first SHÀN spokesperson, a move advocating the concept of sustainable fashion. SHÀN is the brand’s diffusion line dedicated to sustainability. Using the company’s own supply and manufacturing chain, the collection focuses on combining the delicate beauty of recycled cashmere, yak wool, and other materials with modern technology. In addition to online initiatives and announcements, the brand hosted a livestream offline event featuring Hua Chenyu in Shanghai on October 15. NETIZEN REACTION The hashtag “Hua Chenyu ERDOS SHAN Ambassador” hosted by Hua’s fan group on Weibo has received over 74.42 million views in only five days, while the campaign hashtag “Hua Chenyu ERDOS Treat the World Well” has hit over 82.68 million views. The 25 second campaign video, featuring multi-channel virtual video calls, has garnered over 5 million views on Hua’s Weibo account. The partnership between Erdos and Hua has been well-recognized by the singer’s 37 million social followers, both in terms of product design and the brand's social responsibility. VERDICT Though the exposure of fashion sustainability has been progressively elevated in China’s fashion landscape, Erdos has taken the lead in putting the discussion into practice by creating a specialized diffusion line committed to sustainability. However, as the discourse involves the complexity of supply chains and manufacturing, the brand has opted to collaborate with a celebrity that owns huge social followings among younger consumers to help educate local shoppers — beyond simply the social buzz. Peacebird Takes The Lead of Indigenous Youth Cultural Revolution BRAND Peacebird CATEGORY Fashion PLATFORMS WeChat, Weibo MEDIUM Short Video, Imagery, Runway, Livestream FEATURED TALENTS Ouyang Nana (20M Weibo Followers) OVERVIEW On September 29, the homegrown fashion powerhouse PEACEBIRD hosted the brand’s 2020 launch event in the company’s headquarters, Ningbo. Under the theme of “Super China,” the event featured an immersive runway show and was attended by brand ambassador Ouyang Nana and a host of rappers, models, and fashion KOLs. The campaign teaser spotlighted five cities — Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an, Wuhan, and Chongqing — through the lens of landmarks and animals that are relevant to their indigenous cultures. NETIZEN REACTION The campaign teaser, an inviting combination of realism and fantasy, resonated greatly with Gen Z viewers. The campaign hashtag “PEACEBIRD is so magic” has received over 190 million views and the 2-minute campaign video has garnered 2.5 million views on Weibo. In addition to brand ambassador Ouyang Nana’s endorsement on her social channels, highlights from the fashion media outlet Vogue China’s Weibo account @VogueMe and fashion KOLs such as @Regardez contributed to drive the social buzz of the event. VERDICT As cyberpunk has become one of the most hyped codes in China’s youth culture, fashion players have scrambled to tap into this trend in order to connect with younger consumers. Given China’s post-pandemic situation, PEACEBIRD has tapped into China’s booming patriotism and cultural confidence among younger generations. Through narrowing the topics down to “future,” “power,” “young,” and “Super China,” the brand leveraged pop culture with a twist of indigenous culture. As international brands still struggle with understanding local shoppers’ cultural values and aesthetics, local plays have brought localization to a new high.

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Homegrown Cashmere Powerhouse Erdos Leads On Sustainability Initiatives