Week In Review: December 16-20, 2013

In case you missed them the first time around, here are some of Jing Daily’s top posts for the week of December 16-20, 2013. From WeChat To Peng Liyuan: The Top 10 China Luxury Stories Of 2013 With slowing growth, more competition, rapid technological advancements, and changing tastes, this past year was a whirlwind for China’s luxury industry. As GDP growth slowed and more brands moved in on the market, competition increased, creating winners and losers in the growth game. Just as brands were gaining command over their Sina Weibo strategies, WeChat emerged as a major force in social media marketing, and businesses are still coming up with ways to make luxury a bigger part of China’s massive e-commerce market. China’s Luxury Shoppers ‘More Emotional’ In First-Tier Cities (Shutterstock) According to a new report by GroupM, emotional drivers are an increasingly important influence on Chinese luxury consumers from tier 1 all the way down to tier 4 cities, but tier 1 leads the pack. In an extensive consumer behavior market research survey, the agency studied 22 product categories, including automobiles, beverages, cosmetics, skincare, and luxury, finding that emotional factors were the number one reason to buy for more than half the categories. How Brands Can Adjust To ‘New Era’ Of China’s Luxury Cooldown (Shutterstock) On the heels of Bain & Company’s October global luxury goods report stating that China’s luxury growth has slowed to 2.5 percent in 2013, the consultancy has released a study outlining the slowdown’s major causes and impacts, as well as advice for what brands can do about it. The study found, as Jing Daily has previously noted, that the government’s ongoing corruption crackdown is only one factor in China’s luxury slowdown: changing consumer tastes and shifting purchase channels also play a major part. The report confirms Jing Daily’s previous assertion that the crackdown has also not had a uniform effect on the industry, taking its toll on more heavily gifted items such as luxury watches, which saw an 11 percent decline in sales over the past year. ‘China City’ CEO Hits Back At ‘Xenophobic’ Critics A proposed China-themed development project to be constructed in the Catskills has come under fire from a range of critics in recent weeks, and its CEO is fighting back with a new press release. Named the “China City of America”, the proposed project in the rural Sullivan County, NY aims to hold commercial, residential, business, education, amusement and entertainment components when it’s done, including a college, casino, “ethnic pavilion”, and a mall modeled after the Forbidden City. The main purpose of the project is to attract wealthy Chinese investors by complying with requirements of the U.S. EB-5 visa program, which allows foreign nationals to receive a green card if they invest US$500,000 in a rural “Regional Center” and create 10 jobs for U.S. citizens. Selfies, Puzzles, And Quizzes: The Top 5 WeChat Luxury Campaigns Of 2013 Yesterday, Jing Daily revealed the list of our top five Sina Weibo luxury campaigns for 2013, but there’s another major social media force that can’t be forgotten: WeChat. This year, the mobile app emerged as a vitally important platform for digital marketing in China, and we’ve been keeping track of what brands have been up to on it all year. As 2013 progressed, the number of campaigns and new brands on WeChat grew, as did the number of new marketing innovations used on it. Look below for our list of the top five WeChat campaigns. Let us know your own favorites in the comments or on Twitter, and check out all of our year-end coverage here.

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Week In Review: December 16-20, 2013