How Emerging Beauty Players Tap Into China's Digital Market

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 C-beauty brand Perfect Diary's Mid-Autumn Festival exclusive launch to Japanese beauty brand Ocean Glam's collaboration with Tmall. Labelhood Teamed Up With Homegrown Labels Uma Wang and Märchen BRAND Labelhood CATEGORY Fashion PLATFORMS WeChat, Weibo MEDIUM Short Film, Imagery FEATURED TALENTS Xiao Wen Ju (3M Weibo Followers) OVERVIEW The homegrown independent showcasing platform LABELHOOD unveiled its tenth season of fashion during Shanghai Fashion Week on September 27. The platform not only acts as a fashion incubator for young Asian designers and emerging independent designers, but it also runs both online and offline multi-brand boutiques. Under the theme Labelhood Yellow River, the Spring-Summer 2020 show draws inspiration from the Chinese river of the same name, which is a substantial symbol of Chinese cultural origins. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the platform’s seasonal presentations, LABELHOOD collaborated with two of the most recognized Chinese designer labels, Uma Wang and Märchen, to launch exclusive collections. NETIZEN REACTION The 11-second trailer for the campaign video, which was filmed by Leslie Zhang and assembled a strong visual representation of indigenous culture, received positive feedback from both Labelhood and Xiao Wen Ju’s social followers. The platform’s use of the Yellow River as a metaphor for diversity and conversion also aligns with its vision and goals of growing conversations for designers and consumers. VERDICT The growing cultural confidence and patriotic sentiments among local shoppers that came out of the COVID-19 disruptions have created many opportunities for homegrown designers looking to expand their China markets. As Labelhood continues to become a significant retail channel for established and emerging homegrown independent designers, many of them have developed close partnerships with the platform as a way to better tap into the domestic market. These exclusive collections will help both the platform and its brands to optimize customer value as well as improve brand awareness and credibility. Perfect Diary Launched Mid-Autumn Festival Inspired Eyeshadow Palette BRAND Perfect Diary CATEGORY Beauty PLATFORMS WeChat, Weibo, Tmall MEDIUM Short Film, Imagery FEATURED TALENTS Luo Yunxi (25M Weibo Followers) OVERVIEW C-beauty giant Perfect Diary, in collaboration with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and Tmall Guochao (the company’s new incubation center focusing on nationalistic products), launched an eyeshadow palette to celebrate this year’s upcoming Mid-Autumn festival. Inspired by the "Jade Rabbit" of the Chinese myth Chang'e Flying to the Moon, Perfect Diary reimagined ancient mythology through modern technology with the second iteration of the brand’s Animal Eye Shadow series. The campaign stars the Perfect Diary's “color ambassador,” Luo Yunxi, and the brand also partnered with beauty KOLs such as @XiaozhuJieJie (小猪姐姐), who released makeup tutorials featuring the palette. NETIZEN REACTION The Weibo hashtag #PerfectDiaryRabbitPalette has already hit over 110 million views. The campaign video, which was presented by the pioneering contemporary visual art team InterCreative-United, created a surrealist computer-generated blockbuster that drove over 1 million views. The space elements and the futuristic visuals align perfectly with local Gen-Z beauty shoppers. VERDICT The idea of “guochao” has been thoroughly hyped across China’s social arena. But when it comes to this popular aesthetic, guochao marketing is now facing the challenge of consumer fatigue. Unlike the typical "retro" routine of Guochao marketing, this collaboration incorporates beauty, fashion, and aerospace in a way that melds technology with Chinese culture as a way to innovate on this already well-known trend. With the support of Tmall Guochao, Perfect Diary has continued to strengthen its brand identity and image, as the company further extends the definition of “guochao” beyond simple patriotism or nostalgia. How Japanese Beauty Brand Ocean Glam Made Its Foray In China’s Market BRAND Ocean Glam CATEGORY Beauty PLATFORMS WeChat, Weibo, Tmall, Ulike Camera, Korean TV MEDIUM Short Film, Imagery FEATURED TALENTS Reng Hao (8M Weibo Followers) OVERVIEW Japanese beauty brand Ocean Glam officially launched in China this September, announcing idol Reng Hao as its brand ambassador. To build up brand awareness in China’s vast beauty playground, Ocean Glam teamed up Tmall Super New Star, a marketing tool tailored for brands that are under the radar of local digital consumers. Unlike mainstream beauty marketing trends that focus on anti-aging and lightening, Ocean Glam taps face-narrowing to target younger beauty shoppers. As well as leveraging hashtag marketing on Weibo, the brand launched open-page ads the selfie app Ulike Camera and tv show platform Korean TV. NETIZEN REACTION The campaign hashtags featuring key words like “narrow faces” and “wearing face-narrowing filters” have garnered over 600 million views on Weibo, while their one-minute campaign video has received over 8.5 million views. In addition to Weibo accounts of the brand and on Tmall, ten beauty KOLs with over 1 million followers have engaged in creating tutorial skincare social content featuring the brand’s products. VERDICT “Small face” is an Asian-specific aesthetic that is yet an unsaturated selling point in the Chinese skincare market, and Ocean Glam is directly aiming at local beauty shoppers interested in a narrower, well-defined jawline. Tmall backed up the brand to kick off the brand positioning of “shaping V-line faces,” consolidating consumers’ impressions on the emerging brand. Meanwhile, the userbases of social marketing channels like Ulike Camera and Korean TV offer consumer profiles of this segmented market that predominantly consist of Gen Z females who are interested in this trend.

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How Emerging Beauty Players Tap Into China's Digital Market