2024 March Industry Insights & Best Practices
In March, luxury brands are investing more than ever on brand storytelling in China, maximizing offline experiences accompany by digital amplification.
Overview
Curio Eye™ Brand Index: Top 10 best performing brands
*Powered by Curio Eye data, our Curio Eye™ Brand Index provides a comprehensive overview to quickly understand the brands' overall performance (fanbase growth, number of posts, and engagements) across major China social channels: WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, and RED.
If you are interested in our Curio Eye™ Brand Index , please feel free to contact us to request a demo.
The Top 3 best-performing brands in January were GUCCI, LOUIS VUITTON, and PRADA.
#GUCCIANCORA created huge social buzz overall, standing out from the luxury brands social performances. The buzz came from the offline brand popups, #AncoraRed going viral, top celebrities and influencers endorsement, the film of “Who is Sabato De Sarno?” etc.
LOUIS VUITTON Women’s Fall-Winter 24 show in Paris received great attention with brand ambassador Liu Yifei and Song Qian’s participation.
PRADA ambassador Tan Jianci was featured by PRADA SS24 Man’s collection that received significant feedback.
LOEWE “Crafted World” brand exhibition in Shanghai contributed to the most volume in March, together with brand ambassador Yang Mi’s visit with Jonathan Anderson.
Dior’s March social traffic was mostly contributed by its brand ambassador’s Liu Yuxin’s appearance and participation in its Villa Dior high jewelry and watch launches.
Luxury Industry Trends
1. VOGUE BUSINESS x XIAOHONGSHU (RED) IN PARIS FASHION WEEK
Continuing from February's collaboration in Shanghai, Vogue Business in partnership with Xiaohognshu held the “China Digital Excellence Summit” earlier this month during Paris Fashion Week. The event, which welcomed over a hundred esteemed guests from across Europe and China, was held at the opulent Shangri-La Paris and featured guest speakers from Mugler, Moët Hennessy, ba&sh, Launchmetrics and Ogilvy.
2. XIAOHONGSHU (RED) FASHION WEEK
The 3rd Xiaohongshu Fashion Week took place on 23rd to 24th of March in Shanghai. The official fashion accounts livestreamed the runway show, featuring professional explanation by fashion KOLs, the platform also offered a ”see now by now ” service, displaying purchase links for 180 items during the runway livestreaming.
All the brands participated the show this years are REDlable brands authrized by the RED ecom channels.The total amount of participations has increased fourfolds campared with last year.
Image Source: Songhua Lake Resort Official WeChat and DESCENT RED
3. International Women’s Day Highlight - Aesop Women’s Library
From March 2nd to 17th, Aesop launched the "Tale of Two Cities" women-themed pop-up library in Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Aesop removed all products displays from their stores and replaced them with a tasteful selection of books by female authors or related to women’s themes. The Library aimed to create a unique platform for highlighting the talents of female. Visitors were allowed to take home a without purchasing.
By adopting this branding approach, Aesop again, won their main target female consumer by hearts. At the same time, the brand inspired new paths for the integration of retail spaces with cultural education.
Image Source: Aesop WeChat
Curiosity Spotlight
Xiaohongshu Building Luxury Fashion Voice
Continuing from last month’s action in the industry, Xiaohongshu further developed its impact overseas in Paris Fashion Week in March
As luxury/fashion brands increase their investments on Xiaohongshu, it is definitely going to be the “battlefield“ platform for brand communication
International Women’s Day
Women’s Day is the first key moment after brand Chinese New Year campaigns, and it plays increasingly important role in brand’s communication calendar. However, it’s getting hard to build outstanding story angles around the women’s topic. Aesop this year has definitely shown an inspiring approach of doing it.
Campaign Best Practices
Overview
Gucci launched the Gucci Ancora collection in China. The integrated campaign featured four offline popups (Beijing/Shanghai/Shenzhen/Chengdu), Creative Director Sabato De Sarno’s visit, accompany with artists collaborations, blue-bottle coffee co-branding, celebrities and influencers PR events, and significant digital/social amplification. It was a bold move for brand to launch offline popup on this scale level in multiple metropolitan cities simultaneously, but it was an obviously a success one.
“TheAncoraRed” made onto the most viral fashion topics of the month. People are discussing how hard to get into the popup due to its forever-long lineup.
Curiosity Spotlight
Luxury Brand Marketing
China, especially Shanghai, is becoming one of the most important brand marketing metropolitan in the world. The city is saturated with commercial events, it will take extra to stand out.
•Brand campaigns are no longer one-off events, consumers are looking for more sustained story-telling, immersive and holistic brand experiences.
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