Doing PR In China And How To Do It Right!
Hi everyone, hope you are having a wonderful day today, welcome back to my channel!
I'm Yuri O, as in “O noooo, that isn’t the right way doing PR in China”
Topic Today: Doing PR in China, and How to Do It Right!
Misguided attempts at humour and advertisement campaigns have often led to angry netizen backlash and setbacks for even the biggest household names.
As I alluded to there, one of the key pitfalls brands fall into when trying to penetrate the potentially lucrative Chinese market is not fully understanding consumers or the market in general, so it is best to do your research in full or better still engage a PR firm that can help familiarize and educate a company or brand before making a big splash in a bad way.
Something to remember too about the Chinese market is that it moves very quickly. Consumers, suppliers and companies all like things concluded swiftly whether that’s a transaction or finalizing an agreement. With competition so fierce, any lapse in communication and you may lose out to a competitor or find that the opportunity has now passed completely.
Talking about lapses in communication, just as significant as speed is the way in which companies and brands communicate with its Chinese counterparts. It’s hugely important for new entrants to the Chinese market to fully embrace the range of social media platforms that China uses in massive numbers, whether that’s actual discussions and messaging, or advertising and promotion of goods and services.
With APPs like Youtube, Instagram and more banned, it is vital that brands to be open to utilizing hugely popular Apps like WeChat, Little Red Book, Weibo and Douyin (the Chinese version of Tiktok).
In addition to communication, establishing or creating a connection or ‘guanxi’ in China is a valuable way to ensure success when entering the market.
This includes leveraging celebrities and influencers, soft advertisements, events, editorials, hard-sell ads and gifts with subscriptions, with arguably the majority of PR experts in agreement that engaging celebs and influencers the most effective method.
Understanding how to work with the press is key overall, and many brands have fallen foul of this too when it comes to knowing how to effectively navigate and understand levels of media influence in China.
Remember though that the celebrities of today are not always A-list, globally recognized names, and that companies may miss a trick by turning down a chance to work with for example a top live streamer in China simply because he or she isn’t known outside of China, yet!
Lastly, and perhaps the most mundane error given the size of China, is insufficient product information coupled with inadequate numbers of product samples.
Vital to success is the understanding that firstly you’re promoting or advertising to China, so Chinese language should be used as not everyone can or will read a big chunk of English descriptions, and of course the number of product samples should reflect the size of the population of your target market!
Let me know in the comments if you have seen examples of PR blunders in China, or anywhere else in the world too where a little bit of research would’ve gone a long way
Setting up showrooms is one way to solve this if producing vast quantities of samples is simply not doable. The bottom line is that blindly assuming an ad, promotion or product will work in China without doing your due diligence will only lead to either incredible smash hit successes, or more likely a PR nightmare that will send you back to square one.
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Take care my friends, have a wonderful day, and I will see you soon!
Yuri O x