October 13, 2022

CHINA LUXURY INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 2022

【Posted on: 2022 April】

The luxury industry report made by Miaozhen System and Mininglamp Technology observes and analyses the traffic and strategies of luxury goods on social media, brand communication, crowd observation, hot topics and market trends, and publishes six luxury goods industry reports. Brand product categories included are clothing, bags, jewellery, perfumes, watches and other categories. We list down some of the key insights below –

Insight 1: Celebrity Traffic

Celebrities have always been an important source of voice for luxury brands, however recently many celebrity crisis events have not only aroused social concern but there has also been a series of actions on policy, which has led to a significant reduction in discussion on social media.

Many brands have reduced their cooperation with viral stars in the short term, on the contrary, can increase traffic by increasing overseas celebrity materials or reducing the posting of viral stars to reduce interactions with fans. Luxury brands can consider liberating from traffic involution and using different marketing ideas like bringing life scenes into products.

Example: CHANEL, which has caused heated discussions by integrating daily and brand elements into products and launching 17 daily product items, and conducting offline events to reproduce the production site by inviting the public to experience it in person.

Insight 2: Brand Core Values

In order to strengthen the communication of brand culture, many luxury brands hold offline exhibitions, bookstore pop-ups, cooperation with artists and films, etc., and use brand art to penetrate literary life, return to the core value of the brand, and at the same time, it helps greatly increase the brand’s voice. With the development of science and technology, brands are following the art hotspots by launching metaverse products such as NFT (non-fungible currency) and virtual products.

In 2021, DIOR combines fashion classics with art, telling the rich artistic heritage of the brand through different styles paying tribute to DIOR’s infinite passion for artistic life, in terms of strategy, not only celebrities and KOLs are invited to attend the event and share after the exhibition, but the exhibition documentary was also screened at the event to allow attendees to have an in-depth “dialogue” with the designer. The volume of DIOR’s activity reached 12.6 million, and the number of Weibo topic views reached 630M.

Insight 3: Platform Strategy

The growth rate of KOL posts on Douyin and Xiaohongshu is an important platform for luxury brands to increase their influence. Xiaohongshu is mainly used as a platform for TA communication and product longing, and KOL and KOC continuously growing, and their driving role deserves brand attention. But compared with top brands, mid and lower-tier luxury brands need to further strengthen their platform influence. Douyin is growing rapidly for level 2 KOLs and KOCs, they are actively involved in luxury topics and publish a lot of fashion-related content, therefore, as a new social media marketing track, Douyin is an important position for luxury brands to “break the circle”.

Insight 4: Crowd Insights

According to the report, Gen Z is the password for future brand growth, so brands need to understand and learn how to communicate with them. 78% of Gen Z female users discuss luxury goods; 49% of Gen Z are from first-tier cities and 33% from second-tier cities; topics they are interested in include freedom, beauty and romance, literary and artistic niches, fashion, books, games, animation, and more. Generation Z yearns for art and quality life, they pay attention to the sense of ritual, and there has been a change in the trend of promoting aesthetics, especially it can be seen that trendy fashion has penetrated into high-class boutiques, greatly influencing generation Z’s desire to own trendy fashion. With the development of the internet, social networks are an important means for luxury brands to influence Gen Z:

Weibo: The main platform for young fans to support idols, which can promote the fan economy
Xiaohongshu: Fashion content is sought after, and the main product longing platform for Gen Z
Douyin: The popularity of short videos has grown, attracting a large number of young users, and it is easier to reach the Gen Z group
Bilibili: Young users are the most active, and its rich and diverse community can reach community penetration in different circles

Insight 5: Trending Hotspots

It can be said that outdoor activities have set off a boom in the post-epidemic era, such as skiing, surfing, camping, etc., which has increased the social media volume of luxury brands related to outdoor activities by 117%, for example, PRADA launched the outdoor-themed “Prada Outdoor”, which is a limited-time camping garden that creates “interesting gardens” offline and attracts a lot of camping enthusiasts. In addition, due to the influence of the Beijing Winter Olympics, many luxury brands have successively launched a series of products inspired by the Winter Olympics, making skiing a more luxurious outdoor activity.

Insight 6: Product Trends

According to the industry category observation, fashionable and practical watches ranked first in the category volume, followed by the popular sports and leisure shoes and bags in 2021 ranked second and third.

From the survey point of view, brand creation needs to be achieved through brand recognition + practicality + fashion sense.

Brand recognition: Displaying iconic elements on logos, fabrics, and printing patterns can make consumers associate with brands and increase uniqueness and recognition, especially for entry-level popular products
Practicality: Entering consumer life scenarios, such as commuting, shopping, outdoor sports, etc., consumers pay more attention to the practicality of products after the epidemic
Fashion sense: As creators and leaders of fashion trends, luxury brands need to concretize the fashion concept of product design to help consumers increase their overall aesthetics and fashion.

The above insights are based on the analysis of the survey conducted by the luxury brand industry in 2021. Brand development can still keep pace with the times according to current events, and focus on social media hotspots to increase the brand’s voice.

Contact us to get the full report in Chinese!