Marketing in China: 5 Trends and Tips

What factors are important for successful marketing in China? What are the current trends, and what do advertisers from Germany need to keep in mind? We provide five tips for the Chinese advertising market.

With its 1.4 billion inhabitants, the Chinese market offers enormous potential for German companies. However, for many marketers, the local conditions and marketing opportunities remain a mystery. Despite differences in products and target audiences, there are general trends and tips that can help make marketing in China a success.

1. Regional and local conditions

First, it is important to have a basic understanding of local habits and regulations. Compared to Germany, China does not have rigid data protection rules comparable to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). There, every user can be identified individually, which in turn enables 1:1 targeting.

However, Chinese market leaders like Alibaba and Baidu do not share their user data with demand-side platforms (DSPs). As a result, advertisers remain dependent on purchasing targeting segments. In China, these are very precise and have almost no wastage.

Another important factor when planning marketing activities is that China is a mobile-first society. More than 95 percent of Chinese internet users go online using mobile devices. This, in turn, means that mobile advertising accounts for almost 70 percent of digital ad spend. By 2021, this figure was expected to reach 84 percent. Traditional media, such as print and linear TV, play a secondary role, while digital out-of-home is also a relevant channel.

2. Geo-targeting

In the fourth-largest country in the world, there are numerous regional peculiarities. It is important to consider which regions to include in your geo-targeting. Due to political disparities, there are significant income differences between urban and rural areas, the west and the east, and the coast and the interior.

The metropolises and coastal provinces are highly developed, similar to the US and Europe. Inland cities and rural areas, on the other hand, are still underdeveloped. Depending on your budget, you should therefore be absolutely clear about your goals and target audience. With a larger budget, geo-targeting the top 10 to 20 Chinese cities is the most effective approach.

At the same time, you should ensure the ability to address specific purchase intentions more precisely or in a more targeted manner. With a smaller budget, hyper-local campaigns in the immediate vicinity of shopping centers, for example, make sense.

3. Cultural motifs in creative work

When creating marketing materials, cultural differences in China should also be taken into account. In very few cases can German commercials or other marketing assets be adopted 1:1.

While the Western advertising world (including Germany) has a fact-oriented culture, the Chinese market is emotion-oriented. Furthermore, motifs in Chinese advertising often revolve around tradition, national pride, harmony, and living in balance with nature. Advertising messages in China are often highly symbolic, emotionally charged, and have a playful character.

By comparison, advertising in Germany is designed to be much more factual, sober, and serious. These insights should be considered and implemented when creating advertising materials.

4. Apps in the marketing mix

Apps play a decisive role in successful marketing in China. The entire landscape of app and internet usage in China differs fundamentally from that in America or Europe. For every American app, there is a local equivalent and market leader in China.

The most well-known among these include WeChat (a WhatsApp alternative), Alipay (a PayPal alternative), and Alibaba (an Amazon alternative). Their use in the marketing mix is therefore essential. Within these apps, you can set up company profiles or display native ads and video advertising to generate high levels of attention.

The intensive use of these apps by the Chinese population also yields a wealth of data that can be used for targeted outreach. Communities are particularly crucial for success, as many Chinese people use them to specifically seek opinions on products, which in turn influences their brand preferences and purchasing decisions. Naturally, the use of KOLs ("Key Opinion Leaders" or influencers) is also very successful and effective in China and should play a role, especially in B2C topics.

5. Effort and investment

China is a highly attractive market. However, building or increasing brand awareness among such a large internet-using population not only sounds very expensive, but actually involves significant investment. But there are also much more effective ways to go about it.

As a brand, you should first focus on the regions with the highest purchasing power and evaluate the right target audience. A mix of awareness and performance is essential. As a company, you must ensure that you create relevance for your brand and products in the eyes of the consumer. As is so often the case, long-term campaigns are more effective for this than short-term marketing measures. The goal should be to evoke an emotional resonance with the consumer and ensure that the customer feels understood and engaged in terms of their cultural identity.

Crucial to this is ensuring that the consumers who are a good fit for the brand are addressed and reached with the appropriate (relevant) product. Ideally, brands should set up their own platforms for their target group or groups—while naturally taking regulatory requirements into account—so that the company can get in touch with customers and users can interact with one another.

In particular, the "Made in Germany" label offers great long-term opportunities for a brand to be successful in China, provided that the marketing mix and media strategy are chosen correctly and aligned with the specific characteristics of the market.

This article first appeared onInternet World Business.