What’s up, Chinese Digital Marketing?(2017–2018 Trends & Possibilities)
This article was originally sent to Gary Vaynerchuk…
This research was sent to Gary Vaynerchuk on Jan 31, 2018, as a gift.
Thank you for putting out all the positive content, they help me get out of the rut back in college.
In 2017, I heard Gary talked a lot about China and getting into China/Asia market soon. Meanwhile, Chinese digital marketing became a hit, a lot of great campaigns were launched and attracted massive people. I also found myself interested in it, so I thought:
Do a research on Chinese digital marketing and send it to Gary.
This is probably the best way to say thank you, and get to understand the Chinese marketing trends. And this is what I’ve learned during that 3-month research.
PS: Medium.com is now also blocked in China. RIP.
Introduction
China’s market volume is huge, but for foreign companies, getting into China has always been a problem. No localized features to fit Chinese market, or solving problems the same way as local companies, have all been proved to be deadly.
This research covers China top marketing platforms, agencies, creative campaigns in the past year, as well as 4 main marketing entries within WeChat, and marketing trends in 2018. Supported by a lot of research, reports, and my personal experience with those campaigns and things I noticed from the people around me, finally I’m able to put them together and share with you.
Top Marketing Platforms
1. Tencent Social Platforms
I use platforms, because Tencent is so much more than just WeChat, even though at the end of 2017, Wechat has already covered 94% of Chinese smartphone users. It’s super weird to say, “sorry I don’t have a WeChat”.
What make them the biggest marketing platform, is that in the past 3 years, they has successfully built a marketing ecosystem, which means they have connected different platform within the ecosystem.
For example, Tom starts his day by sending some voice message to his family, on the commute, he consumes news and feeds in WeChat, which are provided by Tencent News and TianTian Feeds. In one particular news, he clicks the video (powered by Tencent Video) to know more. In one popular blog post, he clicks to listen to music and podcast (powered by Tencent Music)…
What’s more, they are more than these entries. Mini program within WeChat is getting more and more popular with some games and tools applications. Everyone can simply see the potential of ads and marketing strategies in them. Meanwhile, WeChat Moments (=facebook friends feeds) has also open the API to post, manage and collect data from the ads or videos they post in particular group of people.
Case: TripAdvisor x WeChat Moments | Video link
Slogan: Ask me questions, and I’ll answer them
Form: Video + Interactive Comments
They selected the mid/high-end smartphone young users in big cities, as well as who speaks English, or has studied abroad. People can like the ads, they can also see the likes and comments their friends have posted, which make them also want to be “existed ” at least.
2. Alimama 阿里妈妈
Alimama is the big data marketing platform of Alibaba. They have over 500 million data and traffic on daily basis, covering 98% of Chinese Internet users through PC, mobile and Smart TV. They just announced they had reached 1 million accounts goal.
Last year, has created a set of tools that aggregates and analyzes that data so brands can better identify, target, reach and retain their customers. Alibaba calls it “Uni Marketing,” based on the unified IDs that make this customized tracking possible.
Case: OPPO R11 x Alimama
OPPO R11 has a very clear market target, specifically millennials and young people (20–29) from second or third tier cities. With the help from Alimama, on the release day, in 40 mins, the product exceeded the sales number over their last product of an entire day. And within 1 hour online, they jumped to the first place of sales volume and amount. In Q3 and Q4 of 2017, OPPO holds the first place of Chinese cellphone market share.
During the campaign, they have one 800 million product exposure, 80% new users covered, 300 thousand new fans and 120% traffic leverage.
3. iQIYI 爱奇艺
In the summer of 2017, there are a big wave of Hip-Hop, and the Internet TV show is called The Rap of China, made by iQIYI. They are one of the largest online video platform in China, with nearly 6 billion hours spent on its service each month, and over 500 million monthly active users.
Besides the show, they also launched the iQIYI public platform, where the content creators can easily get access to user image, traffic data and multi-platform ads income. They also launched “Bai i Program” with Baidu. With AI technology and data analysis powered by Baidu, they have much improvement on distributing content.
Case: NongFu Spring(农夫山泉) x The Rap of China(中国有嘻哈)
As the exclusive sponsor of the show, NongFu Spring wins in any aspects. They have 80 or even 100 marks on sponsors engagement while the industry average is around 50.6; they also knock down the brands income at 110, while the average is 91.3.
Cases: McDonald x The Rap of China
Cases: Alipay x The Rap of China
4. Bytedance Ecosystem (今日头条 Today’s Headlines)
Developed and made by Beijing ByteDance Technology, Toutiao used to be a news and information content platform, now have opened up several product lines focusing on different audience and content forms.
With the heat of short videos in 2017 China, Toutiao created a bunch of good products:
抖音 Douyin for fashion, dance and entertainment, targets on only young people.
西瓜视频 Xigua Videos for second/third tier cities’ users, recently also started live trivia.
火山小视频 Huoshan Videos for second/third tier cities’ users, mostly live streaming and videos.
They are also the one that has acquired Flipagram, music.ly and Faceu in the past couple months. To put every thing they’ve done in one sentence:
they videolize advertisements.
More and more ads are placed in the video feeds, as well as edited in the videos.
Case: Michael Kors x Douyin(抖音)
Fashion brand Michael Kors partnered with Douyin, which also targets at young people who love fashion. They kicked off the campaign with some KOL on Douyin, which attracts more than 5 million views in a very short period of time, following the customized stickers encouraging other users to create and share, as well as online/offline events.
Video examples:
https://v.qq.com/iframe/player.html?vid=k13290krvbi
5. Sina Weibo 微博
Weibo is a Chinese microblogging platform, and one of the most popular social media sites in China. According to Weibo’s official data, by 2017 Q3, they have 37.6 million active users, and 16.5 million active users daily, with 173 million Yuan (25.5 million USD) total revenue, and 59.2 million Yuan (8.7 million USD) total profits. More than 80% are under 30 years old.
In 2017, they mainly focus on 3 things: videos, vertical industry and MCN (Multi-Channel-Network).
For videos, they launched Weibo Stories (Instagram Stories, Snapchat) and Guangyin Xiu (easy quick video editing), encouraging users to create and share their content.
For vertical industry, they tried even harder to build every special group and content of each industry, and monetized them.
For MCN, they helped MCN create a better vertical content ecosystem, expanding weibo content and purchasing service. Until Nov, 2017, they have embedded 1,200 different organizations in 53 vertical areas.
MCN may be different from the west. What they do here, is to help KOLs create content continuously, and monetize faster.
Case: Adidas x Weibo Stories
There is no Adidas’s logo in the 4 series stories. Peng, one of the hottest actor in China, kicked off THE PULSE OF SPORT campaign on his weibo stories debut in Sep. After the campaign, the active users on stories jumped to 40 million, 200% compared with Q2.
6. Zhihu 知乎
Zhihu is a Q&A platform (similar to Quora), and has already reached 17 million users in 2015 with 250 million monthly page views. In 2017, they make a lot of efforts to monetize the platform, not only for them, but users on Zhihu.
They launched Brand Q&A and Brand Live, which are certified by Zhihu. You can pay to ask, or pay to thank them. As for live events, after you pay and enter the live room, you can listen or watch (based on different forms or content), and ask questions in the chat, it’s like a Twitch for knowledge sharing. And you can always go back to watch again and take notes.
Case: Friso x Zhihu Brand Live
https://www.zhihu.com/org/frisomei-su-jia-er-63/activities
Friso is a infant formula (milk powder) company. In China, parents have already lost hope for local milk companies due to some accidents happened years ago, so most of them purchase milk overseas for their children. Friso collaborated with Zhihu, opened an official account. Besides answering infant milk related questions or blogging on daily basis, they also started a live event, teaching parents how to select the right milk for the children, and it’s free.
Most parents who listened their events ended up buying their milk. And because they really pay attention to customers feedback and reviews online, they have created a really positive image on Zhihu, which is essential for a company like them. When parents don’t know what milk they should buy for their kids, they ask their friends, or they go to Zhihu and search for recommendations. And if they are on Zhihu, chances of their buying Friso milk is pretty decent.
This works for other brands and products as well.
7. WeChat
Last but not least, I have to mention WeChat. Since they have more than 100 million active users monthly now, there’re too many opportunities within the app itself, as well as some new features people can play around with.
In late 2016, they launched Mini Programs, which provide a new platform for e-commerce companies or even KOL’s own online shop. During 2017, every month there’re some features released by WeChat team, encouraging more programs to submit, and more people to use them.
Now Mini Programs have enough capabilities to host great content and service, articles, photos, videos, live streaming, shopping, tools, order taxi or share bikes, and now games. The key 2 features that separate Mini Programs with other web apps or native apps, are first its social attribute. You can only share Mini Programs with your friends or groups within WeChat conversations, you cannot even post in the feeds; second, development made easy. Building an app may take you 2–3 weeks, but with Mini Programs, you only need 5 days.
Case: Jump Jump x Mini Program
Early 2018, there’s a game called “Jump Jump” attaining 100 million users in just 11 days after the launch. Developed and published by WeChat itself, this game was born to be a big hit. The rule of game is really simple, press the screen to jump to the next box, the longer you hold on screen, the longer you will jump. Some special boxes have extra points, if you are patient enough to wait until it plays music or sounds.
In the near future, the game could turn into a “money machine”. Every box could be an independent advertisement, and if people are patient enough to wait to listen or watch what this box offers, you gain extra points or even a “red pocket” (money given as a gift).
During Chinese New Year of 2018, which is coming in mid Feb, I’m pretty confident they are definitely going to make something around boxes and red pocket.
Case: Trivia Game x Mini Program
With the idea of HQ Trivia, a lot of Chinese companies are trying to copy and make their own apps. But some made their smart steps of developing it in Mini Programs, with the social attribute as well as short development period, they create more ways of playing and competing. And people love competing for money, and competing for a better level during their friends.
Chinese Marketing Agencies
I mainly focus on studios or independent agencies instead of big firms with reputation. Each firm has their own skills and personality.
1. W
Address: 上海市徐汇区淮海中路1285弄72号1楼W
W was founded in Shanghai by Sanshui Li, now has become one of the best brand marketing full service agencies, focusing on annual full service accounts and brand strategies consulting.
W only has 2 main apartments: planning and creating. With their extremely harsh recruiting standards, training and managing, they merge creative planning, strategy consulting and account management into one, and arts, animations, music and development into the other, which boosts their productivity and enhances the coherence of branding.
Case: Be A Dog
2. KARMA
Address: Shanghai based
KARMA is an independent branding advertising agency. The team work exclusively close and have made huge chemical reaction on many global projects, like LEVI”S, new balance, Skullcandy and Pizza Hut.
Case: Blind Outside, Bright Inside (Anti-Chinese Great Firewall)
http://www.karmais.me/works_101.html
Case: KEEP (Workout App)
3. WhaleDream
Address: 北京市朝阳区朝阳路铭基国际创意公园
Focusing on content branding and broadcasting, WhaleDream is capable of satisfying people’s need for entertainment, as well as solving marketing problems. They have successfully worked with Coco Cola, Thinkpad, IBM, Lexus, and Tencent, Baidu, JD these first class accounts. Besides, they also provide service for IDG and Ministry of Finance.
Case: Whale Island
http://www.whaledream.com/contentbrand.html
Case: Dinner Together
4. FENZ
Address: 北京市朝阳区定福庄西里2号北齿文创园1号楼301
FENZ mainly focus on social media marketing and IP incubation service.
Case: Tencent NBA All-Star
http://www.fen-z.com/case/nba/index.html
700Bike Crowdfunding
5. ElloWorld
Address: 上海市徐汇区徐虹北路20号203室
They provide image design and interactive solutions to brands and companies with visual art performance by HTML5, Web3D/Games and AR technology.
Case: McDonald x WeChat Ads
6. LxU
Address: Beijing based
LxU studio is an innovative company of content marketing and design. They provide packages of content marketing solution including creation and production including short movies, graphic design, infographic, motion graphic and interactive design.
Case: Adobe/Make It
7. Anomaly Shanghai
Address: 上海市徐汇区乌鲁木齐南路205号
You must be familiar with Anomaly since it’s from NYC. Anomaly Shanghai was taken charge by Eric Lee and Elvis Chau, both of the profiles could be found here: http://anomaly.com/en/people.
Cases/Chinese Intro Video:
Top Creative Campaigns
1. 10 “Diao” Short Films — 雕牌
Video: https://v.qq.com/iframe/player.html?vid=w0379aawhim&tiny=0&auto=0
In order to get in the market of young people, they created a big red chicken ip, and started a Weibo account for him. With the humor and puns, the chicken grew 500 thousand followers in couple days. Then they created 10 short video ads around their “Diao’s Home Rule” hot topic, which revealing a lot of Chinese family culture, as well as getting more young customers.
2. Love Letter of Fumes — Fonte 方太
Video: https://v.qq.com/iframe/player.html?vid=w0562u4dir1&tiny=0&auto=0
Fonte interviewed and collected a couple’s love letter in the past 50 years, and made them into a short film. In our traditional mind, the cooking fumes is bad for our health, but Fonte brought out a new concept: Fumes documents our love.
At the end of the film, Fonte said, “we collect the fumes from Fonte’s range hood, and print out these love letters. Fumes represents love, and love, shall be remembered.” By the way, the book Love Letter of Fumes did publish last October.
3. Originals Never Die — Adidas Originals
Video: https://v.qq.com/iframe/player.html?vid=f0538ycjrsk&tiny=0&auto=0
Singer Eason Chen, photographer Man Chen, Dancer Jia Meng and some western stars, have really create an international atmosphere and feel. With many western concepts and Chinese culture, the video articulate perfectly about its theme, “originals never die.”
4. When Masterpiece Meets Douyin — 抖音 Douyin
Video: https://v.qq.com/iframe/player.html?vid=e0524hlb3m8&tiny=0&auto=0
Based on Douyin most popular music, they created a series with some western masterpiece paintings. Every move and expression is just like how Douyin’s KOLs did it. This is an Html5 campaign, which means people can share it in their WeChat moments feeds. It helps the company get more active users, as well as more downloads and brand exposure.
5. Despicable Me x ofo (Bike Sharing)
Every quarter, there are many new bikes which will be put in the market. And this time, ofo uses their brand color, bright yellow, to create a “Despicable Me” version right before the premiere of Despicable Me 3, which draws huge amount of public attention. The bikes are super cute.
6. FlashMob — 丧茶 Sad Tea
In south China, tea has always been a daily product. And for young people and their special need, there comes a brand called “Sad Tea”, which goes the completely the opposite way of what traditional shop could offer. “Drink the sad tea, and be a loser.” This is what you will normally see on the tea bottle, but it’s also a way of relieving pressure.
During the flash mob in Shanghai, the shop traveled from Guangzhou and only stayed for 4 days. They collaborated with Delivery company 饿了么ele, and made this 4-day flash mob tea event a great success.
7. Oreo Music Box/AR — Oreo
Video: https://v.qq.com/iframe/player.html?vid=h0502mtnevk&tiny=0&auto=0
On May 16th, Oreo kicked off their Super Brand Festival on Tmall (Alibaba) with a special music box. The light sensor allows the music box to change music along with the every bite people have. Besides, people can also play around with AR sticker if they scan the QR code on the box.
The music box was sold out shortly after the launch, even second-handed box is really hard to get one.
8. Nongfu Spring x AR — Netease Music
Netease Music just reached their 400 million active users last November, and what separate it from other music app like QQ Music or Spotify is that, they have a strong social attribute. People can comment under specific music, and are able to see other people’s story about this song, support them or even reply them.
And because of that, there’re so many music stories that people can resonate with under each song, which makes this community better and stronger. So every branding/advertising event should start from there.
For Nongfu Spring & AR event, they selected 30 hot comments, and printed out on the bottle with a different QR code. If people use Netease Music app to scan the QR code, they would see a AR world with that specific story and music. This turns the pure spring into a story.
The Power of Music (Offline) — Netease Music
For The Power of Music event, they printed out 85 hot comments on giant posters and got them on subway stations and trains in Hangzhou. The data traffic from WeChat also shows the power of Netease Music.
9. The Looooooongest Ads — Zhima Credit
Zhima Credit was owned by Alibaba’s Alipay, and over the past years, they have already built a credit platform with the people’s data from Alipay and purchased products. They are building a world based off Alipay and credit points.
On Jun 6th, they started the offline campaign in Shanghai subway stations, with a super long writings, which encourage people to think about what our life will look like in 10 years with a credit system.
White, black and bright yellow, the colors make the posters very impressing, and every writing is a real case scenario which bother people a lot. With a better credit system, they can solve the problem.
4 Main Entries of WeChat
With 100 million active users each month, there’s no way not to talk about how to start a marketing or branding campaign in WeChat. China’s online social activities is opposite from American market.
In America, people are using different apps or platform to send messages, for example, some are on iMessage, some are on WhatsApp or facebook messenger, it’s pretty dispersing. But people consume content at one place, like Instagram or Snapchat.
In China, people are all on one big platform, WeChat. Before WeChat, it’s QQ, also Tencent’s product, it’s hard for other small platforms to get enough traffic and active users. But people are consuming content on hundreds of different social apps. Take live streaming as an example, there’re at least 10 different platforms that have over million users traffic, what make them different is that, each platform has their own superstar hosts, which can instantly carry thousands of die-hard fans, from one platform to another.
I believe in China it’s better to start marketing from big social messaging apps, then transfer to content platform for a specific group of people. This is the most effective to way.
1. Mini Program
This is the hottest way to start a campaign or event that it could last and attract active users. With the strong push from WeChat team, Mini Program has already been just as capable as a native app, plus it’s simple and easy to develop.
The initial launch of Mini Program, from WeChat team, is to diversify the payment methods or scenes within WeChat, and want every offline shop has a online shop that is easy to develop and spread with their network in WeChat. They want to also build a shopping platform in WeChat, as a way to compete with Alibaba’s Taobao.
Although this turned out not working so well, but people find Mini Program as a great way to help solve low-frequency problems, so they started building more and more handy tools in mini programs. For example, unlocking a sharing bike, or order a taxi and food delivery. You only are going to use these app once a day or weeks, and you don’t have to install the native apps in your cellphone by using mini programs.
Then as WeChat opened more and more APIs for developers, now people are able to stream videos or live content, as well as competing in games with their close friends. They can get Mini Program through conversations, WeChat searching, QR code, Mini Program page or even simply scrolling down in WeChat main page.
Notice: Can be shared and spread only in conversations or groups, as well as connected with Wechat official account. But you cannot share it in one’s Moments feeds.
Case: Starbucks Gift Card
Based on WeChat strong social attribute, Starbucks took advantage of it and launched their gift card mini program. People can pick different beautifully designed gift cards, and send to friends with their best wishes. Besides, they also created a set of Starbucks stickers for people to use when chatting with friends.
Case: KOL — Fashion Blogger 黎贝卡 x Mini Program
黎贝卡 is a fashion blogger, early in July, 2017, she sold 100 blue limited edition of Mini Coopers in just 5 minutes. These are real cars that each values 50 thousand dollars. So that will be 5 million dollars in 5 minutes.
Later in December, she connected her WeChat official account with her Mini Program, and started selling her own fashion brand clothes. In 2 minutes, they sold 1,000 clothes; in 7 minutes, the volume reached 1 million RMB (160 thousand USD); in 2 hours, all sold out.
This has already showed the potential and possibilities in Mini Program, and a track that many people will follow in 2018.
2. Html5
Before Mini Program came out, Html5 is the most common form of marketing campaign in WeChat. Now they still hold up a place, but people should be more wise about the user usage and scenario.
The html5 form can be shared in Moments feeds, conversations or even sharing to the platforms. However, the overall experience could only be placed at second behind Mini Program.
Html5 is also really easy to develop, with a lot of online tools, one can simply develop without any coding background, just simply drag and type. It could be a flash or simple “powerpoint”, or a little complicated with more animation and videos.
Case: Voice Input x — Sogou Keyboard
Video: https://v.qq.com/iframe/player.html?vid=x0524grmbvx&tiny=0&auto=0
Long voice message in WeChat has always been a pain point for people, it’s hard to track, manage and go back to the exact message you want. Sogou made a story around parkour and being widely spread in Moments.
Apart from video format, there’re also personal data-driven annual report from Netease Music, QQ Music or even Alipay. Every year, they will push you a html5 page, with what do you listen in the past year, how many hours you spend in app, or how much you’ve spent online/offline. And Chinese people love sharing these private information with other in their moments.
3. Moments Feeds
There was no ads in Moments feeds, but in 2017, WeChat opened API for public to show ads for specific group of people based on data and user behaviors. People are able to like or comment under the feed, as well as replying other friends’ comments, which ads sociable and a topic to talk about in WeChat feeds.
If you are not interested, you can always selected to unsubscribe to this kind of ads, but won’t be able to cancel ads completely. If you click the ads, it will direct you to a immersive Html5 page, with more photos and videos about the product. You would also be able to share it with other friends.
Case: TripAdvisor x WeChat Moments
See in Top Marketing Platforms — Tencent Case
4. WeChat Official Account
WeChat official account is the oldest way of marketing, but as official account traffic keeps declining since 2016, it’s hard to start a new account and only spread through some daily push articles, even you have the best content.
The traffic is owed by a bunch of big accounts that started at the very beginning, and they are able to keep making profits and marketing impact in their accounts.
However, in the latest WeChat conference, the father of WeChat, Zhang Xiaolong mentioned that in 2018, there will be many changes on official accounts, to make all the content accessible to people, as well as more income for creators.
I’m also running a personal official account in WeChat, it’s like my diary and blog. I barely see followers growth in the past year, even I wrote a hot article and hit more than 3,000 views. There’re just too many official accounts out there.
5. Bonus: Chinese New Year | Feb, 15th
Chinese New Year is coming in February. I’m pretty sure WeChat and some other companies are going to do some creative marketing campaign during holidays, and it should be related to New Year’s greetings and “red pocket”.
But it could be more than the 4 approaches I mentioned above. For example, in 2017 WeChat also redesigned their searching tool, people now are able to see results from chat history, mini programs, official accounts, moments feeds or even sites outside of WeChat, like Baidu. During New Year, there might be “red pocket” possibilities when searching certain words or phrases, which will definitely help WeChat cultivate users behaviors.
Trends and Conclusions
1. Materialize Your Campaign
A good product should not only be easy to use, but fun to play with. In the past few years, there’re more and more limited edition products coming to the market, which creates a scarce environment for customers.
Millennials are extremely looking for difference and their own personality, so the style and brand really tells who they are as individuals, which matters to them a lot.
Oreo Music Box and Nike Badge for kids, these things all show that a customized product with limited edition on special days, making people who get them want to share on social platforms even more.
2. Make It Native
Ads are always annoying, because it is so different from the content people intend to consume. In 2017, there’re more and more native ads. As I mentioned in Starbucks case, when you send a Starbucks gift card to your friend, it looks like a transfer or red pocket, but with Starbucks’s color and theme.
TripAdivsor in Moments feeds share the common traits. It looks like one of your friends’s post, and you can comment and like them, and sometimes, they will reply your comments as well.
When people start enjoying your content, they doesn’t feel like reading an ad, instead, they remember the information for that glimpse of time, which is insanely effective.
3. Short Videos/Editing (5–15 seconds)
The rise of Douyin 抖音 perfectly shows us how short videos are capable of. Stickers, super slow motion or fast motion, has equipped young people much space to create and express themselves.
Traditional video companies, micro blog or new feeds platforms, they all publish their short video products. While the brands like Michael Kors, Adidas and OPPO also make their product launch or debut on short videos. Now business/marketing content has already taken 10% of overall content share, and the monthly average number of advertising short videos has increased from 20 to 60.
In 2018, there’s no doubt the number will keep growing, but the way to shoot or edit short videos might be slightly changed.
4. “Flash Mob” Shopping Campaign
Offline marketing campaigns become a big deal in 2017. It no longer represents posters, brochures or boring games, but “flash mob” campaigns, or super long and creative writings as I mentioned in the cases above.
Sad Tea shop, Channel Coco Coffee shop, QQ Music Box, selling products has never been the main purpose of this campaigns, but showing off beautiful concepts, design and being fun. It has to be full of engagement and easy to spread. Young people are extremely passionate about cool experience, not just cool products any more.
5. AdTech + MarTech = ?
According to Forrester’s Prediction 2018, as more brands are working on improving consumer’s experience technology to attract potential users, the budget of marketing and branding will score a double-digit growth.
AdTech enables the programmer buying and selling of ads, meets website traffic need and reaches accurate users. MarTech is from advertiser perspective, how to solve problems and expand users with sales and marketing management within the company.
According to Gartner’s research, it is an open relationship. And in China, there’s a MarTech event held by SocialBeta, specifically focusing on marketing technology and data, here’s a landscape:
6. Bonus: Podcast and Audio
I decided to include audio marketing, because I know Gary you are always passionate about audio platforms, like Anchor, Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant. But what about China, when there’s no Google service, nobody has heard about Anchor, and Alexa is not quite there yet…
According to Tencent’s data, there’re 75.5% of Internet users has consumed at least one time audio content, and the tops are news, entertainment, relationship and audio books, with the percentage of 41.4%, 36.3%, 32.5% and 31.1%. However, around 45.4% people mentioned the audio only takes one tenth of their overall consuming.
According to CC-Smart’s new research on Chinese Internet Audio Report 2017, they forecast the user volume could reach 242 million, with monthly 20 million active users on average, and 40% year-on-year growth.
Audio has 4 clear business paths, including advertisement, paywall (similar to Medium’s Paywall, copied from WeChat official account), smart home devices and audio book publications. They are positive about audio market and believe in 2019, there will be more mature business models with creative approaches.
Currently the audio market was mainly dominated by 3 platforms, Himalaya (喜马拉雅), QingTing FM (蜻蜓FM) and Lizhi FM (荔枝FM), which together hold 70% of Chinese Internet audio market.
Back in 2016, there’s an app called Dedao 得到 coming out of nowhere (actually from WeChat official account), and push business model “pay for knowledge” to a higher level. According to Dedao CEO’s tweet in Feb, 2017, they reached 5.3 million users, with 420 thousand daily active users. Dedao invites one of the best in certain field and covers as many topics as they can, economics, psychology and philosophy, you can pay and join the class for less than a dollar; they also pull out the key insights from good books, and make a 10–15 min book summary with audio version (similar to what Blinkist is doing).
I asked many friends around me, how do they use their Dedao app, they are studying or working on big cities with a lot of pressure, but the motivation to learn is incredibly tremendous. Yet not many people manage to consume all the content they’ve purchased. The ones who do only purchased one or two courses they are really passionate about, and it’s easy to keep engaged and learning.
I also notice some friends of mine in Shanghai or Shenzhen start creating their own audio content on their WeChat official accounts and the platforms above, but normally as a new distribution of their content, not all in audio.
There’s no doubt audio is going to be huge in China as well, and we’re excited to witness more creative business models and applications of audio getting into people’s lives.
Outro
Although Gary haven’t responded to my email, but I’ve sent message to him via email and Instagram couple times, and I’ve seen he’s opened the email now.
During this research, I also realize that I’m most interested in content creation and creative ideas, not distribution. And being a full-time product manager doesn’t stop me from producing great content like videos and blogs, so I will keep creating and sharing.
Hope this will also help you understand what’s happening with Chinese digital marketing. Let me know if you have any questions.
