How do brands localize campaigns for the Chinese New Year
In China, the Spring Festival is the most important and longest festival of the year, making it the ultimate occasion for people to buy new clothes, host New Year parties, and give each other gifts. It is also a key time for major brands to launch festive red products, annual packages and limited edition New Year ranges, and hold zodiac themed Chinese New Year seasonal promotions.
TABLE OF CONTENTS :
1- H5/video/activities with traditional Chinese elements
2- New Year Zodiac Animals Series
3- Spring Festival Red Suit
4- KOL New Year Recommendation
5- Sharing New Year Food
6- Chinese Christmas
According to a survey of more than 3,000 global consumers from 10 non-English speaking countries in Europe, Asia and South America (CSA,2017), 75% prefer to purchase products in their native language. 86% of localized advertisements exceed their English version in terms of click-through rate and conversion rate (Xploree,2015). [i] There is no doubt that localization is the most important element of the “customer-oriented” success of multinational brands in the international market.
With the rapid development of the economy, China has gradually become the world’s most dynamic consumer market, and also one of the core markets for major multinational brands. At the same time, in this ever-changing digital era, both merchants and consumers have been fully immersed into the “Internet world.” Using “localized” and “down to earth” language and content to deliver product and service information to users is a surefire way to shorten the distance between international brands and local consumers.
As China becomes more and more modernized, festivals and holidays are gradually becoming a time of consumerism, and therefore a perfect opportunity for brands to create localized cultural content, and stimulate the consumers’ desire to shop. In China, the Spring Festival is the most important and longest festival of the year, making it the ultimate occasion for people to buy new clothes, host New Year parties, and give each other gifts. It is also a key time for major brands to launch festive red products, annual packages and limited edition New Year ranges, and hold zodiac themed Chinese New Year seasonal promotions.
H5/video/activities with traditional Chinese elements
Keywords for digital marketing: Fortune Label, Lucky Bag, New Year Wishes, Spring Festival couplets, Lucky Money, Chinese New Year Cards, Family Reunion, H5 video
LOEWE’s lucky spring promotion has combined Chinese traditions and idioms with popular products, promoting its products in a localized way which has attracted approximately 2,000 viewers.[ii]
In its New Year Spelling series, Wequan encourages customers to send their blessings with healthy juices. The concept has proven to be very attractive; it even became Flavor of the New Year spelling series and garnered great interest on Wechat moments.
In accordance with some major companies’ products and concepts, using the Chinese New Year as the theme, different brands have built a creative New Year H5 through the use of couplets, red envelopes and New Year wishes to attract the attention of consumers.
New Year Zodiac Animals Series
Keywords for digital marketing: Zodiac Animals, Pig, New Products, Spring Limited Edition
Louis Vuitton launched the [Pink Pig] New Year accessories, while Tokyo Disney released a new product for 2019 – featuring the great “Pumbaa” as the main character. Nongfu Spring launched the “Zodiac Bottle” in 2019 which perfectly conveys the concept of “Bring the golden pig home, drink water and usher in wealth”.
Spring Festival Red Suit
Keywords for digital marketing: Red, New Clothes for New Year, Suit Package, New Year Presents
In Chinese culture, red not only represents excitement, warmth, joy and good luck, but is also the essential color for people who were born in this year in order to avoid evil spirits and bring prosperity. In order to adapt to China’s cultural characteristics, major fashion and luxury brands have also launched red festive products and gift box sets for their New Year promotions.
KOL New Year Recommendation
Keywords for digital marketing: Spring Festival Joint Limited Edition, Cyber Celebrity/KOL Recommendation
Edinburgh’s Leatherwear brand Strathberry teamed up with China’s top fashion KOL Liang Tao (Mr. Bags) to design two “Sweet Pink Fantasy” Chinese New Year Joint limited edition handbags. During the 2017 Spring Festival these handbags sold out within one minute on WeChat.
Sharing New Year Food
Keywords for digital marketing: Sharing, New Year Reunion, Special Products for Spring Festival
“Warmth” and “reunion” are the eternal themes of the Chinese New Year. Therefore, major businesses have designed a variety of sharing packages to meet the needs of consumer’s giving and sharing of gifts.
Chinese Christmas
On Christmas Day, beautiful Christmas trees decorated with colored lights will appear on the streets of China, along with pictures of Santa Claus and the words “Merry Christmas!”. Christmas is very popular among the younger generation in China, but it is quite different from traditional Christmases in the West. The theme is no longer a family reunion, but a gathering of couples and friends, full of Chinese flavor and “self-reward”. As a result, many brands launch special Christmas ranges according to these characteristics.
Christmas consumer groups in China tend to be younger, so marketing gimmicks that attract younger generations, like “alternative”, “quadratic element” and “Divine Comedy” have become the main marketing themes of major businesses. For example, KFC teamed up with NetEase Animation to launch the Christmas theme party with virtual idol IP Luniang as the core character.
Translation and Localization expert HI-COM works with native translators and interpreters from more than 50 countries around the world, all of whom have excellent language skills, understand the exclusive cultural characteristics of the target market, and provide high quality web localization services for multinational brands looking to enter the global market. Providing webpage Localization services is not simply about providing standard translation; it’s more about using language that conforms to local cultural practices and current user habits, to accurately convey brand information, resulting in excellent advertisement localization results.
To learn more about brand content localization, please contact us! We are happy to provide a free consultation for you!
Happy year of pig!
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