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From AI to O2O: 7 Key Media Trends in China

June 27, 2025

As the digital media ecosystem in China continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace, understanding emerging trends is crucial for brands looking to thrive in this competitive market. Starcom, the media arm of Publicis Groupe, recently released its latest report, “Increased Integration and Depth in China Media Market”, identifying seven pivotal trends that are redefining consumer behavior, content distribution, and brand strategy across platforms. Here’s a breakdown of the most important insights and how brands can prepare.

1. Cross-Platform Integration: Breaking the Walls Down

China’s once siloed internet ecosystem is transforming into a landscape of collaboration. In 2025, we’re witnessing platforms like Tencent and Alibaba opening up to one another: Tencent Games content appears on Douyin, Taobao accepts WeChat Pay, and JD.com integrates Alipay.

For brands, this “horizontal integration” means smoother customer journeys and opportunities to execute truly omnichannel strategies. Cross-platform compatibility also improves user experience, leading to better engagement and conversion rates.

2. AI-Powered Search and Intelligent Interactions

Search is no longer just about users looking for information. With generative AI entering the scene, proactive content delivery and conversational search are reshaping digital marketing. The search engine market in China is expected to surpass RMB 300 billion by 2029, with mobile-based search playing a major role.

Brands must rethink their search marketing by aligning keywords, content, and SEO strategy with evolving AI-driven behaviors across Baidu, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and other platforms.

3. Online and Offline Synergy: The New O2O Loop

Marketers are rediscovering the power of offline media, especially when amplified by digital interactivity. In 2025, 28.3% of advertisers are increasing their offline ad spend. Campaigns like Xiaohongshu’s user-generated content (UGC) billboards and McDonald’s programmatic subway ads show how to turn physical placements into interactive, trackable experiences.

Successful brands are integrating data capture tools, experience design, and social buzz triggers into their O2O campaigns to drive conversion.

4. Social-Powered Closed-Loop Commerce

Social media platforms are becoming e-commerce ecosystems. Xiaohongshu leads the way with interest-based group chats, offering exclusive promotions, live previews, and direct links to virtual stores. The results are impressive: 2.5x higher repurchase rates and 300x better conversion rates in private domains.

Brands must build community-focused strategies and activate users through content that fuels interaction and loyalty.

5. Value-Driven E-Commerce Over Price Wars

As consumer preferences shift from discounts to experience, platforms like Taobao and JD.com are focusing on enhancing logistics, customer service, and product quality. Features like Taobao’s hourly purchase service and JD.com’s “24-hour delivery in counties and towns” reflect this evolution.

To remain competitive, brands should deliver value through exclusive products, flexible services, and premium experiences instead of relying solely on low prices.

6. Diverse Content Channels: From Podcasts to Micro-Dramas

China’s content landscape is rapidly diversifying. Podcasts now reach over 220 million users, with 71.6% influenced to make purchases. Meanwhile, micro-drama users account for more than half of the internet population, with the market expected to grow 35% year-on-year to reach RMB 50.44 billion.

Brands need to leverage these formats to tell compelling stories, connect with niche audiences, and reinforce product relevance in immersive, culturally attuned ways.

7. AI’s Expanding Role Across the Funnel

AI is no longer a backend tool; it’s front and center. From predictive CRM and personalized content generation to dynamic bidding and campaign automation, AI is transforming the entire marketing stack. China is also exploring frontier technologies like brain-computer interface advertising.

Brands must embrace AI to improve media planning, content production, customer segmentation, and real-time campaign optimization.

Conclusion: Be Adaptive, Be Integrated, Be Smart

In today’s media landscape, success is no longer about mastering one channel or trend. It’s about understanding how technology, platforms, and content work together to shape consumer expectations.

By staying ahead of these seven trends, brands can craft adaptive, AI-enhanced, and experience-driven strategies that resonate in the ever-shifting Chinese digital ecosystem.

Need help navigating China’s evolving media landscape? Contact our team to explore how we can localize your strategy, enhance your platform presence, and drive smarter, performance-driven campaigns tailored to the China market.

This Week’s China Roundup

December 16, 2021

Weibo MAU grew to 573 million in Q3 2021

Monthly active users (“MAUs”) on Weibo totalled 573 million in September 2021, an increase of 62 million people year over year. Mobile MAUs accounted for 94% of all MAUs.

In September 2021, the average daily active users (“DAUs”) were 248 million, an increase of 23 million users year over year.

Weibo’s overall net revenues for the third quarter of 2021 were $607.4 million, up 30% from $465.7 million in the same period the previous year.

Link: https://www.chinainternetwatch.com/31281/weibo-quarterly/

Top 5 Cross-Border Retail Trends to Watch That Are Captivating Chinese Consumers

No. 5 The ‘Fur Baby’ Boom: Pet owners in China are increasingly viewing their animals as family members. This shift in behaviour has spawned a thriving business that includes anything from luxury pet diets and “smart litter boxes” to cat and dog cosmetic products.

No. 4 Healthy Snacking: From edible cosmetic items to gummy vitamins and individualised dietary-supplement kits, young consumers are driving the growth of a new breed of health-and-wellness consumables.

No. 3 Haircare is the New Skincare: China is the second-largest market globally for the hair care industry after the United States. It will likely grow at a CAGR of 4.9% up to 2025, faster than the U.S. at 3.4%, according to market research company Euromonitor.

No. 2 Ingredient-based Beauty: China’s increasing community of skincare ingredient aficionados, or “skintellectuals,” has opened doors for developing beauty companies like Murad, Obagi, Kate Somerville, and The Ordinary, which focus on effective, high-performance ingredients.

No. 1 Vintage in Vogue: As homebound customers tidy and adopt sustainability, the pandemic has boosted the resale of luxury objects. If the 11.11 shopping festival and Black Friday are any clue, China’s shopping habit is picking up momentum. Since last year, Tmall Global has attracted a number of well-known Japanese luxury resale stores, including Brand Off, Reclo, Daikokuya, and Brandear.

Link: https://www.alizila.com/top-5-cross-border-retail-trends-to-watch-that-are-captivating-chinese-consumers/

KAWO 2022 Ultimate Guide to China Social Media

China’s internet penetration is still only 71.6%, compared to nearly 90% in Europe and North America, indicating that there is still room for improvement. The fastest-growing segments were rural users, who saw a 48% increase in internet penetration, and over-50-year-olds, who saw a 5.2% increase in internet prevalence since 2020, with 22 million joining in the last six months.

The targeting choices on Chinese social media platforms are limited, and with China’s new privacy rules, you know even less about your audience. As a result, you may need to make sure that your content strategy includes a variety of information that is tailored to different types of users. Messages that appeal to a middle-class, college-educated city dweller are likely to differ significantly from those aimed to younger consumers in China’s rural areas. Consider building distinct social channels for each of your target audiences.

Virtual Property Tours – 35x increase in VR house tours between agents and prospective buyers on platform Beike VR. The U.S.-centric model of Boomer, Gen X and Gen Y are meaningless in China’s context. Instead, distinct generational groupings are defined with 后 (hòu). The character ‘后’ means “after”. So instead of “Baby Boomers” or “Millennials”, in China we typically talk about generations in decades e.g. “after 90’s”. You’ll even hear people discussing 95后 — or post 1995 — so rapid are the changes!

When you maintain your customers on one platform, their trip will always be easier. However, Taobao links may now be viewed within the WeChat environment, and Taobao has launched a Taobao Feed that can be synced with WeChat contacts to share purchases.

Neither platform has yet added the ability to accept payment methods from their competitors. Brands in a hurry to avoid being left behind by ‘China Speed’ should remember that China has been a market for thousands of years, and while the channels may have changed, the fundamentals haven’t changed.

Link: https://kawo.com/en/ultimate-guide-to-china-social-media-marketing-2022/pdf-view

Opinion: The Digital Revolution, The Metaverse and The Quest For A Whole New Luxury

Online channels influence nearly 75% of all luxury purchases and big and small brands make announcements about diving into the metaverse on a daily basis. There is nothing more exciting to an industry willing to shape every single creative detail that follows a specific aesthetic vision than to be fully immersed into a wonderland of a virtual project, where democratic luxury can develop and expand and there are no limits posed by the rarity of raw materials and human savoir-faire.

The virtual environment offers the impression that every detail of an event can be managed and altered in accordance with the brand’s aims, and that everything can be designed exactly as planned and expected.

The term “Web3” refers to the third wave of internet innovation, which will undoubtedly have an impact on how people live, how brands work on brand awareness and appeal, and, last but not least, how consumers approach the purchasing process.

Link: https://www.luxurysociety.com/en/articles/2021/12/opinion-digital-revolution-metaverse-and-quest-whole-new-luxury?ueid=3a844b2001

Brands are pursuing sustainability

According to Mckinsey research, over 80% of Chinese interviewees would pay for environmentally friendly packaging. Green buying is popular among Chinese shoppers. As the government promotes the concept of sustainable consumption, brands are paying more attention to it.

In fast fashion, the brands start from the fabric, using degradable materials:

Blue skylab (belong to car brand NIO): Used the remaining materials after the car production to make shoes.
Timberland: Built a pop-up shop by using the Sugar cane. The pop shop itself and the decorations in the shop were made by sugar cane. They use sustainable and recycled materials to create goods.
Adidas: Leveraged the recreation of the old clothes. They invited hundreds of designers and students from art college to join the campaign.

In the food and beverage industry:

Starbucks: Opened the world’s first environmental protection experimental store in September, the furniture was made by recyclable materials; in the shop, you can see the artworks created by the coffee grounds
Jindian (a Chinese famous milk brand): Did a 3 month live stream in bilibili and invited people to watch the grassland,
Budweiser: Collaborated with the bilibili’s KOLs and made artworks by grain waste

Link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/L1K7OHmCQ4vErU9k29mGnA

McDonald’s sells cat nests, pet economy has become a new traffic password

To receive a limited cat box, go to the McDonald’s app /elemev app and buy the specified set. Officials stated an hour after the event that many seats had been sold out.

There are more brands like McDonald’s that use cat and dog features in their marketing activities: Starbucks cat claw cups, perfect journal, and Li Jiaqi’s dog Never’s animal eye shadow, for example. Pet marketing has given the business a lot of attention.

Why do so many young people adore pets? “Meng” is the answer! According to the 3B concept, brand advertising uses beauty, beast, animal, and baby as methods of expression, which is in keeping with human nature of paying attention to life, making it simpler to attract consumers’ attention and love.

According to iResearch consulting’s white paper on China’s pet consumption trend in 2021, the pet industry’s market will be close to 300 billion yuan in 2020 and will continue to develop gradually over the next three years.

One of the new features of this years double 11 is the pet economy. The turnover of tmall dog/cat staple food, cat treats, beauty and cleaning items, and other categories exceeded 100 million yuan, according to tmall pet. In this regard, the pet economy has progressively evolved into the mainstream.

Link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/DCz8ryKj3HAiuVgOXocaHA

Top 10 online phrases of 2021

China’s language resources monitoring centre has announced the top 10 online phrases of the year 2021.

YYDS, the pinyin abbreviation of Chinese “永远滴神”
破防 Something that has breached my defenses, or “this really got me!”
元宇宙 Metaverse
躺平 Lie flat
觉醒年代 The Age of Awakening
双减 Double reduction
绝绝子 Awesome, marvelous, amazing, brilliant
伤害性不高,侮辱性极强 Not harmful, but utterly embarrassing
我看不懂,但我大受震撼 “I don’t understand it, but I was shocked.”
强国有我 Young people are committed to building a stronger China

Link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/bDFGlXuy–lJklXU–RUog

Podcasts in China

November 2, 2021

Despite the fact that podcasting has been around for almost two decades in the United States, with more than 41% of adults aged 18 and above listening to a podcast at least once a month in 2021, it is still a relatively new industry in China. Listeners in China are more familiar with government-controlled broadcasting and state-owned public radio than with on-demand audio content from private creators.

Ear Economy in China

However, in recent years, the internet audio business, also known as the “ear economy,” has grown rapidly. Podcast listening has become a regular fad in many young Chinese consumers’ lives.

As a result of the expansion of commuter culture and easy access to different media content. Given the pervasiveness of smartphones in Chinese culture, all audio-visual content is now mobile-friendly. This is one of the factors that can be used to explain why podcasts are becoming more popular.

Chinese podcast listeners are estimated to reach 85.6 million by the end of 2021, second only to the United States. Nonetheless, given China’s massive population, this only accounts for 6.1% of the country’s population, indicating that there is plenty of room for the market to expand.

The Growing Popularity of Podcasts in China

China’s low adoption isn’t due to a lack of interest in digital audio. In this sense, Chinese consumers have a wide range of options, including ebooks, audio live streaming, social audio, and karaoke, all of which fight for ear time.

Regardless, China’s desire for podcasts—which is defined as any audio-first serialised episodes that can be accessed via digital streams or downloaded, as well as heard as podcasts via video platforms—is apparent.

Chinese tech companies, including some of the country’s most well-known digital giants, are jumping into the booming audio category, establishing dedicated “podcast” sections. Tencent Music and Entertainment, for example, has recently been promoting “long-form content.”

Chinese Podcast Listeners’ Demographics

The root of China’s developing podcast market is a growing demand for tailored, personalized, and individualised media tastes as a result of economic liberalisation and urbanisation. The thriving sector includes a wide range of themes, from travel to hobbies — and everything in between.

In terms of audience, over 68.2% of respondents live in top-tier or coastal cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, according to the PodFest China 2020 Chinese Podcasting Listeners and Consumption Survey. The majority of podcast listeners are under the age of 35, with more than 88.5% being under the age of 35.

Podcasting is also popular among the well-educated, with 86.4% of listeners having a bachelor’s degree or more, but only 28.6% of short-video users had attended college.

Conclusion

China’s podcast sector appears to have a bright future. In 2019, China’s podcast sector generated US$193 million in revenue, making it the world’s fastest-growing podcast market. The market is expected to grow at a 37.3% CAGR before 2024, reaching a total value of US$689 million in 2024, owing to increased listener numbers, making China the world’s second-largest market if the revenue target is met.

However, the market expansion will need to be closely monitored in the future. With only 6% of the population reporting that they listen to podcasts, there is a lot of room for expansion. As a result, starting a podcast for your company could be a wise decision for the future of your business.

Do you think starting a podcast is simple? Well, think again. You do need considerable support and guidance. Hit us up to get the ins and outs sorted professionally and launch a cohesive campaign.