Luxury Brands Looking Into Innovative Branding And Marketing Techniques To Cement Customer Loyalty In Mainland
Tiffany & Co. is employing innovative digital marketing techniques for its China "Tiffany Keys" campaign (Photo: Tiffany & Co.)
As anyone who’s recently been to one of China’s newer luxury malls can attest, middle- and upper-middle class shoppers are constantly inundated with advertising, for everything from jewelry to fashion and on to luxury cars and condos. Despite the massive cost inherent in this blanket advertising, major luxury retailers must still contend with relatively low customer loyalty in Mainland China, as Chinese luxury buyers have quickly developed a reputation for mixing and matching conspicuous brands rather than sticking with one.
Perhaps to combat customer fickleness in China, several high-end brands have entered the digital realm, starting online-only advertising and marketing campaigns designed to directly target key audiences. This year alone, both Cartier and Coach began large-scale Chinese-language online campaigns, and now Tiffany & Co. has joined its rivals in launching a digital campaign to promote its Tiffany Keys collection in Mainland China. To localize this campaign for the China market, Tiffany has incorporated many of the online “characteristics” that appeal to young (primarily female) Chinese netizens: BBS, blogging, and social media.
As Media Asia notes, print to digital shifts (or at least increased digital marketing allocation) is rapidly becoming an important trend among major luxury brands in China, as they jockey for the largest share of China’s fast-growing middle class luxury customer segment:
As more brands look to the digital space to target specific potential buyers in China, it would make sense that exclusive marketing and branding initiatives, carried out through social media, microblogging and BBS could become the rule, rather than the exception. Instead of diluting a brand’s equity in the Chinese market, large-scale online campaigns would probably create brand equity and loyalty in China among a younger group of potential buyers.
Since the wealthiest percentile of potential buyers (who are typically middle aged, anyway) tends to prefer buying their luxury goods on overseas excursions or short jaunts to Hong Kong, homing in on a younger crowd will probably pay dividends for luxury brands looking to cement their position and build their market share in China. As the Media Asia piece concludes, online marketing is likely the future of luxury outreach, not only in China but elsewhere: