Guide To Achieve Celebrities and Influencers seeding in China

Hi everyone, hope you are having a wonderful day today, welcome back to my channel! ​

I'm Yuri Ou, as in “Oh wow, haven’t you heard of that celebrity and influencer in China?”​

Today I am talking about celebrity and blogger seeding in China and how success in this area can vastly benefit western companies and brands looking to climb onto or up the ladder of household names in China.​

Previously, in another video, I outlined the 6 ways to achieve press exposure in China, covering some of the more traditional forms of media that work particularly well, but that admittedly do share some similarities with PR practices abroad too. ​ But today, we’re focused one of the most powerful way to raise brand awareness and sales performance in the Chinese market, whether that’s through celebrity seeding or endorsements.​

This is not a new practice exactly, as in traditional media like magazines you can or perhaps used to flick through pages of celebrities in certain outfits, holding certain bags and wouldn’t care much of it, not realizing that a lot of what these stars are wearing is gifted to them by the brands.​

While this happens nowadays on Instagram and Snapchat too in western countries, and on WeChat, Weibo and Little Red Book in China.​ In order to work with celebrities and influencers in China, please understand that they come in all forms, indeed in differing tiers almost.

And depending on the tier, the cost but also benefits range greatly.​ It is important to recognize just WHO are the celebrities that consumers follow, love and even idolize in certain cases.

Companies from abroad should not make the assumption that simply because someone is a star in their own country that this will translate to success in China. ​ Again, as a huge country, there is a widely differing population of people that may or may not follow the latest Hollywood gossip and trends as they may well find China’s own celebs far more appealing. ​

Chinese people use different social media APPs compared to the western world, watch different TV shows, and listen to different music. ​ Take Kim Kardashian for example, a global star for the most part, cleverly carried out alive-streamingg campaign with top Chinese key opinion leader Viya Huang, garnering 13 million viewers in the process! ​

It was a savvy move as there was no assumption on her part that absolutely everyone would know who she is in China. Through engaging a domestically well-known KOL, Kim K was able to cover off a large chunk of consumers that didn’t know her, but also make even more in sales thanks to partnering with Viya Huang.​

Of course, not every brand can necessarily afford top, TOP tier celebs in China, as these kind of ‘product placements’ or partnerships, if you will, can be incredibly expensive, for instance globally known stars like Gong Li or Jackie Chan, or domestic superstars like Li Jia Qi. ​ That said, there are a whole host of other KOLs in far more affordable price brackets that will equally propel your brand with the right collaboration.​

While there are more tiers and categories of course, it is very important of knowing the Chinese market before deciding who to try and collaborate with in order to achieve great sales of a product.

Once you have worked out the direction you wish to take, there are two options to consider within this celebrity and influencer seeding strategy, and naturally that depends on the finances involved, as you could either agree on a more formal, and potentially more pricy, endorsement deal, or the more informal and often mutually beneficial path of gifting products to KOLs.​

We are mainly talking about the informal way today and how can you achieve celebrity and influencer seeding exposure in China, because it’s more cost-effective in a PR way, we believe.​ Interestingly, 90% of the editors who work in the press are also working as stylists for celebrities and influencers in China. Whenever they need to borrow clothing, handbags, sunglasses, shoes etc. for the photo shoot for the press, they will reach out to PR like us, who represent lots of brands and see whether we can provide any.​

When the press exposure comes out, whether it is on magazines, newspapers, or social media, you can use the image but just need to refer to the press titles and issue date.​ In this way, you can achieve exposure with a celebrity wearing your brand without paying the celebrity a huge amount of endorsement fee.​

Just like in the west, Chinese celebrities need to attend lots of fancy events every day, and this is a great timing to do seeding as well.​ In some cases, you probably need to pay something to the editors or the stylists to say thank you, apart from gifting the products, if they successfully get the celebrities wear your products, the fee will depend on your relationship with them and also the tiers of the celebrities.​

I appreciate you, if you haven't subscribed yet, take a moment, and click the subscribe button because this channel is all about China, and genuine insights from me and my team, who have all spent time living in both UK and China.

Take care my friends, have a wonderful day, and I will see you soon!​

Yuri O x