China Business

Doing Business in China

Our Vegan Media Agency

We are a full service media marketing agency and offer consulting on all aspects of vegan business.

Our international team know China; the language, the culture and the technology. Project management including branding, campaigning, engineering, web site creation, social media management, SEO and analytics. Create the right image with content that looks and sounds professional; language and style are important. Ensure you are reaching the right people and turning leads into sales.

Veganism is Booming

The vegan market is growing fast in China, with an estimated 50 million vegetarian/vegans. Remember that with close to 1.5 billion people, small percentages equate to big number. The trend is real and growing fast for several reasons. The trend is easy to predict because it is largely driven by millenials; so each year as people reach 18, they are turning to a greener, healthier lifestyle choices compared with their parents. Another reason is that people in generally are getting fed up of the pollution especially when they see the harmful affects on small children.

China has become more open, with more people travelling abroad, they are seeing the global situation. It has become trendy to be vegan. More and more, vegan restaurants are opening in cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu. Plant based products are becoming more easy to find in supermarkets.

Digital Connections

The tech market in China has grown exponentially in the last decade. Indeed, of the 20 world’s largest tech companies China has nine of them. Companies like Alibaba are worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

China is the country with the most connected users in the world. The largest social network is WeChat which alone boasts over one billion Chinese users. From outside China, you do not see the full power of this network. In China it can be used for everything including online payment, ticket booking and takeaway ordering etc. Companies can open official accounts (WeChat OA), which allows them to interact directly with their followers by sending direct messages, news, and promotions.

Baidu is the search engine that has replaced Google and is used for 80% of searches. It provides tools for search engine optimisation and marketing.

Influencers

What we call influencers China knows as KOLs; that is Key Opinion Leaders. It is a multi billion dollar industry. Brands extensively use bloggers and influencers to spread their message, much more so than in the rest of the world. There are two main reasons for this

  • Cost per click advertising used less in China. The style of adverting used by Google and Facebook has no direct equivalent in China, and so brands will direct their budget towards influencer campaigns
  • Influencer trust. Because of the personal nature of sharing content, there is a high trust of influencers. Live streaming shows are popular where products being directly recommended. Whereas sponsored posts tend to create a backlash in the West (accusing influencers of “selling out”), Chinese followers tend to embrace and encourage collaboration between influencers and brand they love or are interested in discovering.
  • Own Brands. A common business model is for influencers to establish their own brands. Sometimes they are collaborating with retailers to release co branded products
  • Media Matrix . There is higher cooperation between rising media stars, creating a self sustainable ecosystem, which broadens the scope of followers and allows more targeted campaigns.

Use sites like parklu to get insider access to China's top influencers. They provide performance analytics so you can monitor your brand performance and also keep track of the engagement rates of the influencers.