Brand Collaborations in China - Match Made in Heaven?

Moutai: An Example of Spectacular Collabs Eyeing Gen Z

October 18, 2023

Today, we delve into the world of Moutai, a traditional luxury Chinese liquor brand that has gained spectacular virality in the recent weeks. Let us examine its essence, the factors underpinning its lofty status, and recent strategic moves. Moreover, we will look into the latest marketing campaigns and collaborations.

Unveiling Moutai: A Testament to Tradition and Mastery

Moutai, also known as Maotai, is a distinguished name in the domain of Chinese liquor. Originating from the town of Maotai in Guizhou province, it stands as a symbol of China’s rich heritage of distilled spirits. Its meticulous craftsmanship, utilizing sorghum and wheat, bears testament to centuries of perfected techniques. The result is a globally acclaimed elixir embodying the essence of Chinese culture. Its steadfast dedication to time-honored techniques, while remaining open to contemporary trends, has been pivotal in captivating connoisseurs worldwide. One bottle of Moutai typically costs from 1,499 yuan ($223), to over 16,000 yuan ($2,390) for rare vintages. As it continues to evolve and redefine luxury, Moutai remains a pioneering force in the world of distilled beverages. Not only in China but eyeing global expansion as well.

Moutai: Trendy Collaborations

First Moutai-inspired products started to appear last year with the first ever Moutai Ice Cream shop opened in the lobby of the brand’s headquarter in Guizhou province. After country-wide release, the product has quickly become an internet sensation. The flagship store had sold more than 5,000 Moutai ice-creams in 7 hours, achieving the sales of over RMB 200,000; while via the “iMoutai” APP 40,000 pieces were sold out in 51 minutes, generating a sales record of about 2.5 million yuan.

Moutai Ice Cream

It didn’t take long for another exciting collaboration to hit the market. This time Moutai joined forces with Luckin, another beverage giant famous for its coffees and other beverages. Together, they co-created a new flavor of latte, Moutai Latte which was an instant hit. Hashtags related to Luckin Coffee Real Moutai topped Weibo’s Hot List with hundred millions of views and users’ feed with full of pictures of the product itself or queues to Luckin stores across China. On the launch day, Luckin sold 5.4 million Moutai alcohol-infused lattes in one day topping 100 million yuan ($13.72 million).

A few days later, Moutai consolidated its modern and more approachable image with yet another one collaboration. This time, the brand collaborated with Dove on Moutai-infused chocolate. Again, the hashtag about the collaboration had immediately topped all social platforms’ trending topic lists.

Moutai Luckin Coffee

Successful Pivot Towards Gen Z

The creation of Moutai-inspired products is a strategic move to tap into the young consumer market, who normally have a oldish image towards the strong liquor. At the same time, many foodies including the youngest one might not be able to afford a bottle of spirit. Now, they can literally get a taste of it thanks to these different collaborations. For many of them, it will be their first encounter of the famous alcohol.

Within the last 3 months, Moutai gained more than 25 billions impressions on Chinese social media platforms.

Moutai Impressions 2023

Insights into Moutai: Captivating in its Simplicity

What are the intriguing facets of Moutai that contribute to its allure:

Craftsmanship in Every Bottle: Each bottle is a product of meticulous production processes, reflecting the dedication and artistry of its craftsmen.
Collectible Value: Beyond its function as a beverage, Moutai holds significant collectible value. Rare and limited editions attract attention from collectors and investors, adding a unique dimension to their appeal.
Strategic Collaborations and Limited Editions: The collaboration between Moutai and Luckin Coffee, resulting in alcohol-flavored coffee beverages, ice-creams and chocolates showcases the brand’s adaptability and willingness to explore new avenues.

Diversification and Expansion: A Strategic Trajectory

Moutai’s growth extends beyond the realm of distilled liquor. Recent ventures into diversified consumer products like chocolates and ice cream demonstrate strategic diversification, aligning with evolving consumer preferences and expanding its influence. Here’s to Moutai – a brand that epitomizes excellence and continues to enthrall the world with its sophistication and innovation. A toast to the legacy of perfection and the journey of innovation!

What is Whitelisting and How It Can Help Brands Boost Collaborations on WeChat?

December 5, 2022

All WeChat content creators and marketing managers will agree that getting organic views under their articles is getting tougher year by year. In the highly-saturated space as WeChat is, ads are of great help but do you want to know how to reach new audiences through organic content? That is possible by collaborating with so-called hot accounts (industry accounts with a big reach and strong reputation) and influencer accounts on WeChat.

We saw a lot of our clients partnering with other accounts to promote their brand but despite sometimes high fees, these sponsored articles didn’t generate any additional traffic or new followers for the client’s account. Did it happen to you too? Learn how to avoid these mishaps in our article and which methods will work towards your particular goals.

What is Whitelisting?

So what is exactly whitelisting and how to share content on Wechat using this method?

Whitelisting is the method of allowing access to resources created and posted by your account to only authorized parties. When it comes to WeChat as a social platform, whitelisting can be very beneficial for users and businesses alike. By leveraging whitelisting your brand can reach new audiences who are already curious about your industry and potential customers.

Shortly, you can allow other accounts to reshare or as WeChat call it, reprint, your articles on their accounts.

Content that can be redistributed in this way must have the ‘original content’ mark meaning that you’re the owner of the content.

Content producers can click the “original content declaration” button in the backend when publishing to claim full ownership of the content. In order to do so the articles must be at least 300 characters long. Note that articles without this designation can be easily copied and redistributed without your knowledge. It’s always good to tick the ‘original content’ box! Find requirements for accounts that post mostly visual-based content and can’t read 300 characters on the official WeChat / Weixin website.

Types of sharing content in WeChat

By default, all accounts can reshare articles from other accounts on WeChat. However, this function is not very popular. It doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing or attractive. You can see it below.

There are two main types of authorization for third-party partners to reprint your content.

First of all, the authorization can be granted for individual articles or for all content posted on your account (global reprint permission 全局可转载帐号). The second option means that the whitelisted partner will be able to share all our articles at any time.

In both cases, you will have additional options to consider when allowing other accounts to reshare your content. You can:

Require a partner account to display a link to the original official account: You can require always have a link to the original article visible. This will enable the readers to visit the original article and potentially
Give permission to edit: You can grant the resharing account permission to edit the article; otherwise, the article will be forwarded in its entirety.

Whitelisting

As you can see you can choose different options depending if the relationship with the partner is to be a one-off or a long-term one.

Secondly, keep in mind that if you don’t require the partner to show the link to the original article you’re losing the chance to redirect the fans to your account. Having a contact card tile with the link to your account or a QR code is a must if your goal is to drive traffic to your account.

Reprinting – how is it displayed on WeChat?

Sharing WeChat B2B

As you can see in the 3rd option, users will see right away the original source of the article and they can click to follow your account. Your partner on the other hand can add a short note about why they are reposting this article or any other comment or introduction.

New option!

Just recently, we spotted a new feature in the WeChat backend. This new option, ‘quick repost’, means all accounts can repost your new article. This option comes with some limitations but it’s a good way to get your content spread. It gives you less control on who can share the article but on the other hand, accounts won’t be able to remove the source or modify it.

According to WeChat:

When quick repost is on, the source will always be displayed when this article is reposted, and cannot be modified.
Quick repost does not affect the repost authorization of whitelisted accounts. The format is as follows.

Interesting thing:

Reprinted articles cannot contain internal WeChat links.

Collaboration and mutual distribution

WeChat’s official accounts can work with other accounts in a variety of ways to spread their content among a chosen target audience. This can be done either by providing a ready-to-use article to partners that will be shared via a whitelisting process. You can also opt to create a new, original article.

It is critical that sponsored content maximizes efforts and truly directs readers from the partner account to the original content on your account. For example, a QR code or contact card at the end of the article will help users to reach the original source.

Similarly, if your brand has several official accounts, the most effective way to cross-promote would be to mutually whitelist each other and regularly reshare key content across.

Collaborations with KOLs in WeChat

Collaboration with KOLs (key opinion leaders), your industry experts, or hot accounts from your industry can be very beneficial. After that, publication brands can work with KOLs to direct traffic from these accounts to your account.

Brands that cannot advertise on WeChat

Accounts belonging to restricted industries can also greatly benefit from whitelisting as a key method of promotion on WeChat. Since there are stringent regulations for certain sectors it’s often impossible for these brands to advertise on WeChat.

But brands in these sectors can only grow organically on WeChat and actually thrive. This is where a carefully planned collaboration strategy helps. Because of that collaborations can help reach new audiences, and with whitelisting facilities, organic content from these brands can get better visibility.

⛔️ Learn who can’t absolutely advertise on WeChat. Does your brand fall within one of these categories?

Case study on magazine collaboration

Let’s observe the advantages of collaboration with one of our clients.

Client: AkzoNobel International Marine Coatings

Industry: B2B Marine & Protective Coatings for the shipping industry

Target Audience: Major shipping companies

Objectives: build brand awareness and brand equity

Solution: Collaborate with expert magazines from the industry to publish content from the brand on their WeChat account.

Results: Magazine articles surpassed by 80% and 125% the brand’s best-performing owned article of the whole year among the relevant target audience

Whitelisting Sharing WeChat B2B case study

These PR-style collaborations also serve as backlinks for WeChat SEO, boosting the brand’s ranking in the WeChat search results. These collaborations produce results both in the short term (by providing brand visibility to magazine followers). In addition, in the long term, it improves the WeChat search index ranking.

🚢You can see the full case study here: Case Study: AkzoNobel (B2B Management)

Conclusion

Collaborations, be they with KOLs or partner brands, are crucial to expanding customer bases by reaching new audiences. In conclusion with whitelisting, you can reach high-quality followers with organic content. This is especially helpful for brands that cannot advertise on WeChat and solely rely on organic content to reach their potential customers.

If you want to know more about collaborations and content sharing on WeChat, please contact our team. We use our knowledge and expertise to help businesses build meaningful partnerships and develop their networks among Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact us at contact@thewechatagency.com.

Unusual Brand Collaborations In China

November 15, 2021

Whether your business is selling lipsticks, chicken wings, or museum tours, the topic of how to reach more new people – more customers – comes up in every marketing meeting, across every sector imaginable. So here’s a suggestion for you all – Why not tap into the audience of someone else?

A collaboration with a competitor is obviously not going to work, but what about one with a brand that sells something completely different?

To get noticed among China’s millennial consumers, businesses must take advantage of unusual collaborations. It may sound bizarre, but it has the potential to attract a new audience that was previously unaware of your existence.

Here are a few examples of unusual brand collaborations in China

Perfect Diary – Cosmetics
Disney – Kids entertainment
Collaboration – Limited-edition line of amino acid-based facial cleaning products inspired

The C-beauty brand routinely leverages brand collaborations as part of its overall goal to appeal to China’s millennial and Gen Z audiences. In a recent collaboration with Disney, the company released a limited-edition line of amino acid-based facial cleansing products inspired by the Baymax character from the 2014 animated film “Big Hero 6”. Two of the makeup remover bottles are sealed with a Baymax head, while other goods include images of the character on the packaging, appealing to young buyers’ love of cuteness and blind-box style toys.

KFC – Fast food restaurant chain
Karl Lagerfeld’s – German fashion designer and photographer
Collaboration – Limited Edition Chicken Bags

KFC China recently resorted to the luxury business to mark the company’s 80th anniversary. Karl Lagerfeld, the fashion mogul, was the chosen brand, and he created two limited-edition bags. The centre Karl Lagerfeld logo was replaced with Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Paris was replaced with Kentucky in the funny new rendition of the original Karl Lagerfeld design. The bags contain three red stripes, which are KFC’s signature colours.

Ikea – Furniture retail company
ROG – Gaming retail
Collaboration – Gaming Furniture and Accessories

Ikea presented an eagerly anticipated collaboration with the Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) on a new collection of affordable gaming furniture and accessories, taking a “China-first” approach to product innovation. A sleek high-backed gaming chair, an adjustable table that can be used as a standing workstation, and a wall-mounted pegboard to keep gaming equipment organised are all part of the black-and-red collection.

Conclusion

Younger consumers, particularly Generation Z, are perceived as having a larger proclivity for purchasing from ‘collaboration’ collections than older consumers. According to Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Chinese Generation Z customers have the largest desire for cross-brand collaborations among this generation’s quest for newness from the brands they like.

These out-of-the-box collaborations demonstrate that the opportunities for co-branding in China are limitless. Why limit yourself to usual collaborations when you can have so much fun? Collaboration with other well-known brands across all industries may help businesses grow their audiences, increase sales, and establish a reputation as a creative and fun brand among Chinese customers.

While unique collaborations have a lot of promise for your company, getting started can be challenging. If you require further support, please contact our team. We apply our expertise and experience to assist firms in forming meaningful partnerships and developing a digital marketing strategy that better targets and connects with Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact us by phone or email.