WeChat positions itself as a ‘clean’ and trusted social network with a potential global reach. With 800 million active users, it generated $579 billion in sales in 2015 alone. How you can make WeChat marketing strategy work for you when entering China? Reputation is everything, and brands with an official account are vouched for by WeChat staff conferring the kind of authenticity that every brand with an eye on the Chinese market craves. WeChat has elements of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat and Moments and Subscriptions allow brands to build intensely personal relationships with their followers and target campaigns.

Mont Blanc ‘Mystic Moon Phase’ campaign

Luxury goods brand Mont Blanc chose WeChat to promote their Meisterstück Heritage Perpetual Calendar and Bohème Perpetual Calendar watches, both of which track the phases of the moon. When WeChat users typed their name and gender into Mont Blanc’s Mystic Moon Phase WeChat app, they received information on their birth moon phase and its effects on their personality, love life and career alongside information on high profile celebrities.

Other moon phase campaigns have been attempted on WeChat, but Mont Blanc leveraged the interest of the Chinese audience in astrology by employing famous astrologer Wang Xiaoya, giving the WeChat app immediate authenticity. They also designed a dynamic QR code that featured the transitioning phases of the moon moving away from QR code’s traditionally unappealing aesthetic.

By capturing interest through a relevant and interactive topic, they found a new way to communicate with a younger audience. WeChat gave Mont Blanc the platform to tap directly into something of profound cultural resonance on a very personal level, building a direct relationship based on a clear communication strategy. By fully integrating the mobile and desktop versions of the app with WeChat functionality, Mont Blanc ensured a multidimensional user experience, while understanding that the intense privacy of WeChat made it the appropriate platform to share personal moon phase data.

Nike ‘Better For It’ campaign

Nike took a campaign that had been successful internationally and used it to focus on the growing fitness boom in China by targeting women. The campaign aimed to break down barriers to exercise by focusing on the community aspects of fitness through subscribing to Nike on WeChat and sharing fitness stories. Nike identified WeChat as the ideal mobile platform for deepening their connection with consumers from ‘one to many’ to ‘one to one’. Nike used QR codes to encourage users to join WeChat and subscribe to Nike, then shoot pictures of anything they liked which were used to instantly customise a pair of Nike Free running shoes which customers could click and buy using WeChat’s built in e-commerce capability.

For its Chinese campaign, Nike leveraged WeChat functionality by producing relevant content featuring Chinese celebrities and influencers to create a fitness campaign that resonated with their local audience. By localising a global campaign, they drove downloads of fitness apps on the WeChat platform by focusing on sharing activities through the Moments feed.

If you’re interested in leveraging the power of WeChat marketing strategy to build your brand in China, please contact us and we can help you build a powerful, relevant and truly unique campaign.

(Image source: www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/wechat)