Get intimate with Chinese customers

Aim2D: real time, 24/7 #ChinaBusinessMarketing, Tech and Social Media News Portal of The Bicaverse based in sunny Shunyi, North east Beijing. Tuesdays we look at business, marketing, tech or social news in and around China. Friday is image gallery where we examine a place, topic or subject giving you greater insight, background to life in China, and of course, your Chinese consumer. If hard, practical, realistic China consumer marketing support is what you need, do drop into our sister site: Unegager. Finally, in a sign of the times, we can assure you that our content is 100% loving created and hand crafted by a fellow human. No AI chatter bots here.

Are you really engaging with your Chinese consumers? Maybe not, lets look at this.

From as far back as our inception as Wordperfect Marketing Company, China Limited in 2003, we have always taken a customer first approach. Even as we morphed into digital with WPBeijing and China went gaga over Weibo and later, WeChat, we stubbornly refused to jump on the data, data, I want more data train.

Marketers became obsessed with tracking their competitors, jumping into every new shiny marketing toy that came along. Convinced of their own importance, spending every living breathing, working, sleeping moment thinking about their brand whilst naively and arrogantly believing their customers thought the same.

We summed this up back in 2019 with this quote:

The dark abyss of despair
So many brands, like lemmings, chase the ghost of customers through every social media app not knowing why, how, only that everyone else is there~

We doubled down on our belief that really understanding your customers, their lifestyle, environment was more relevant in building close customer relationships when we created Aim2D Media in 2016. We compared it to the good old fashioned corner store keeper who verbally interacted with her customers in the store.

Later, 2018, we underscored our commitment to UX when we launched a new brand focused on user experience and customer engagement – we even built it into our name Uengager.

So we were not so surprised when we read this headline in Caixin Global“

Cosmetics-makers slash Double 11 marketing budgets as consumer spending slumps

Caixin Global

As it’s a subscriber only article (paid) we have copied and pasted the key point here. We do recommend a subscription if you are serious about business in China.

China’s cosmetics companies are just one sector to have cut marketing budgets for this year’s “Double 11” shopping season as retail spending continues to dwindle and logistics services suffer amid Covid-19 outbreaks.

Merchants are focusing on sales growth during the annual e-commerce bonanza instead of spending vast sums on marketing and promotional campaigns, which are failing to generate as many sales as in past years, cosmetics and skin care merchants told Caixin.

Of course, companies and most media are blaming current economic conditions, Ukraine’s war and, like every other ill befallen the world in the past 500 years and likely the next 500; Covid.

Certainly, current economic conditions are weighing on consumer’s minds, but at the end of the day, most of the blame rests with brands and marketers themselves. Too much shallow, emphasis on self glorification, not enough on their customers.

So, probably we have made our point.
But just in case not, we leave you with this article from our friends at Jing Daily based on an interview with Chloé Reuter, CEO of (another of our close friends) The Luxury Conversation.

Are Hard Luxury Brands Doing Enough To Engage China’s Gen Z?

Luxury for this audience is less about history and heritage and more about the entire brand experience, from discovery to purchase to after sales services.

Chloe Reuter –  Gusto Luxe,

To develop an intimate, engaged relationship with your Chinese customers: talk with Fanfan now.