Luxury British brands seeking bloggers for their bandwagons

Makers of high-end products turn to social media influencers to woo Chinese consumers

High-end brands in the UK are starting to work with key influencers on social media to attract more Chinese consumers after seeing similar strategies employed by other companies.

In March, five Chinese bloggers were invited on a four-day "Best of British" tour that included a trip to Harrods, The Ritz, an Aston Martin car plant, and factories making Edward Green shoes and Vertu smartphones.

On the trip were Peter Xu, a fashion writer with more than 2 million followers on Sina Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter; Gu Jiang, who has an online show about watches; travel and lifestyle writer Huang Xiaohui, aka Catwalk; Wang Lan, aka Ms Paris; and Tracy Wang, aka ColorBlocker.

"We picked bloggers we believe would understand and appreciate the values behind the brands," says Aline Moulin-Conus, managing partner of London marketing firm E-Notam, which arranged the trip.

Industry insiders say the activity shows British brands are realizing that just having a social media presence is not enough, with endorsements by key opinion leaders now vital to winning over China's young generation of tech-savvy, well-traveled, affluent consumers.

"The change in consumer habits and the development of social media is shifting the way brands tell their story, both in the Western world and in China," says Gordon Watson, CEO of Vertu.

He says collaborating with Asian - especially Chinese - opinion leaders is high on the marketing agenda after finding success with the model in the West. The company already works with blogger Anish Bhatt on Instagram and says the same content the company puts out can receive 10 times as many likes on her feed.

Major European brands have increasingly been teaming up with web-savvy Chinese celebrities, who share the brand message via social media as well as use or wear its products in public.

Movie star Fan Bingbing, who has 47.9 million followers on Sina Weibo, represents a diverse range of brands, from Louis Vuitton to L'Oreal.

Evidence suggests such tie-ins pay off. According to online marketplace Taobao, Fan's endorsements alone drove 450 million yuan ($69.5 million; 61 million euros) in sales in 2013.

Another good example is the $4.7 million marketing campaign to promote New Zealand in 2010 that featured blogger Hong Huang and filmmaker Lu Chuan. The next year, actress Yao Chen was invited to visit the country and went on to hold her wedding there.

Official data from New Zealand suggest a real impact. In 2010, its tourism office forecast that the country would receive 183,000 Chinese visitors a year by 2015, but the number actually hit 302,128 as of April 2015.

Ben Hui, managing director of Language Brand Communication, a marketing agency in Manchester, believes influencing Chinese opinion leaders is essential for Western brands.

"Chinese consumers trust key opinion leaders as objective, independent, and possessing of qualities they can relate to and admire," he says. "In addition, Chinese social media platforms are sometimes more advanced than Western counterparts in their ability to integrate content with actual sales channels, meaning celebrity endorsement can often be monetized more effectively."

The desire among young, middle-class consumers in China to be individual has also increased the importance of online trendsetters.

"Younger generations are looking for something to call their own," says Doris Ho, managing director for Greater China at brand consultants Landor. "For many Chinese millennials (those born in the 1980s and '90s), Western high-end brands are part of their travel experience, particularly in the case of key destinations like London."

With this in mind, the British tour arranged for the bloggers in March was heavy on experience.

For example, the group enjoyed a dinner at The Ritz with a Downton Abbey theme, the British TV drama, with fellow diners including the show's creator, Julian Fellowes; executive producer Gareth Neame; head of costume design Anna Robbins; and actress Phyllis Logan, who plays Mrs Hughes.

The dining room was decorated in a 1920s style, and guests were given the chance to try on costumes and hold props used in the show.

More than 100 million people in China watched Downton Abbey, according to NBC Universal, which produces the show. It had an estimated 15 million views in the United States.

Online TV host Gu says he was greatly impressed by the trip because it allowed him to learn more about the essence of British brands.

"What I noticed is the great craftsmanship that goes into making luxury British products, with a culture deeply rooted in history," he says. "It highlighted that luxury is about dedication and time, not just about high selling prices."

He makes special mention of Edward Green, which was founded in 1890 and has a manufacturing process so detailed that its shoe factory can only produce 60 pairs a day.

Noticeably, the Chinese bloggers had different approaches to covering the British tour. Gu was the most descriptive with his posts, while the women instead preferred to post selfies in each location, accompanied with short, friendly messages.

Wang's posts under her Ms Paris moniker attracted the most web traffic. She interacted with followers, such as by posting selfies while trying on dresses at Harrods and asking them to guess which one she ended up choosing.

However, what impact the trip had on influencing consumers is hard to judge, says Hui at Language Brand Communication. "Unless the posts lead directly to links where customers can purchase a specific product, it's difficult to quantify."

Even the "likes" for Wang's posts were only in their hundreds, which is small compared with the fact online trendsetters can easily generate 30,000 or even 100,000 views, he adds.

cecily.liu@mail.chinadailyuk.com

(China Daily European Weekly 04/15/2016 page30)