China KOL Marketing 2022
In 2021, some new brands will have close contact with young people in Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Station B, and have achieved good results in sales.
Recently, the “2022 China New Consumer Brand Development Trend Report”, based on 200,000+ data samples, revealed tips for KOL marketing of new consumer brands from the perspective of the current situation of the objective external environment, brand development and trends.
TikTok (77%), XiaoHongshu (63.5%), and Tmall/Taobao (53%) ranked the top three channels for respondents to access new consumer brands. 51.9% and 46.1% of the respondents said they learned about new consumer brands from Weibo and WeChat respectively.
KOL acts as the most important brand agent for new consumer brands, efficiently helping brands connect with consumers. KOL marketing has become a marketing standard for new consumer brands.
Among online advertising channels, social media advertising accounts for the largest share of nearly 60%. New consumer brands generally use Weibo, WeChat, XiaoHongshu, Bilibili, Kuaishou and other social media platforms to rapidly expand their brand voices and quickly build consumers’ brand awareness. Among the brands studied, KOL placement costs account for the largest e-commerce revenue of 15%.
With the characteristics of low cost and strong monetization ability of influencer marketing, more and more advertisers use influencer marketing. In the past three years, the proportion of KOL marketing expenses has increased by 5.01%, but from the perspective of development space, the current KOL marketing market size only accounts for about 13% of the Internet marketing market share, and it is still in the blue ocean market stage. In the future, there is still huge room for the development of celebrity marketing.
Since January 2021, the amount of new consumer brand KOL investment and the number of posts have continued to rise simultaneously. On average, a single brand invests about CNY1.6 million in a month, and the number of posts is 120. In October 2021, the investment amount has climbed to CNY3.31 million, and 260 articles have been published. Overall, the trend of normalization and continuous delivery of KOL marketing for new consumer brands is obvious.
From the perspective of the brand industry, new consumer brands of clothing focus on Xiaohongshu and WeChat, new consumer brands of beauty and cosmetics focus on Weibo and Station B, new consumer brands of mother and baby prefer Xiaohongshu and WeChat platforms, and new consumer brands of daily chemicals focus on Xiaohong Shuhe Station B, new consumer brands of food and beverages value Xiaohongshu and Weibo, and new consumer brands of small household appliances focus on Xiaohongshu WeChat.
New consumer brands have made great efforts in KOL marketing, user operations, and digital management. They are forward-looking and innovative brave challengers in the era of China’s consumption upgrade and digital wave. They have stirred up the Chinese consumer market, rewritten business rules and marketing rules, and brought unprecedented business changes.