Here is Louis Vuitton’s new cruise-shipped business in Shanghai, China, on June 28, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty pictures
Beijing – China’s economic slowdown does not discourage us and European brands from revising their strategies to achieve Chinese buyers.
Instead, the right to the world’s second largest consumer market forces companies to adapt to local brands in view of the growing competition.
In the case of Kraft HeinzIf more people bought ketchup this year, the setting of a local agency also meant to create catchy campaigns. The decoration of subway station pillars for imitation of ketchup bottles and the promotion of the spice as a fresh turn in a popular dish: fried eggs and tomatoes.
It is a difficult market to tackle even for the marketing company Good Idea Growth Network (GGN) based in Shanghai. In its 14-year history, the agency observed at least five different waves of consumer trends, said founder Stephy Liu in Mandarin, translated by CNBC. “The gameplay always changes.”
But GGN succeeded even after rejection of an acquisition offer by the British advertising giant WPP, Liu said and found that about half of its customers are foreign brands.
While Kraft Heinz has not yet been carried out with his China Ketchup campaign, the company reported net sales in emerging countries in the second quarter of the previous year by 4.2%, which contributed to comparing the decline in North America.
WPP examined a potential acquisition of GGN, but, according to a person familiar with the discussions, did not go far.
Kraft Heinz did not immediately respond to inquiries about comments.
Localized social media
From Starbucks’ fighting to Lululemons in China it is clear that the right localization mix is of essential importance.
“Among the international brands in China, the winners often devote more than 40% of sales for marketing, in particular the content and platform first marketing, and itotiate on site based on market data,” said Jacob Cooke, co-founder and CEO of WPIC Marketing + Technologies, who can sell in China.
This year Cooke said that Under armor Created products below 100 yuan (14 US dollars) to attract a mass of buyers online, while using live streams with special users, in order to then build up fitness communities and sell more premium products offline.
Douyin’s bytedance ownership has become an e-commerce force in recent years since celebrities and companies have been using the app for live streaming sales during the pandemic. And after the numbers there is hardly the question that it is worth jumping for companies to the world of Xiaohongshu and Douyin.
Adaptation to the new social commerce ecosystem has become the biggest challenge for brands in the past two years, said Liu from GGN. “Foreign brands will think: ‘Isn’t that Tikok?'”
She warned that success requires a complex strategy that requires everything that a team is structured for the products sold. But the payment is considerable.
“In half a year it can help you sell more than you have sold [Alibaba‘s] Tmall in two years, “said Liu.
Data is power
In addition to social media, a decisive factor for the strategies of many companies is accessing hordes of data about what consumers buy in China.
Chinese e-commerce platforms, including alibabas TMall, share far more data about what is popular than Amazon.com does, said Cooke from WPIC. In China, “people in general know what their competitors sell and what they sell for.”
With this detailed data, the Perfect diary in the Chinese Make -up brand was successful by identifying a market pain point and creating a lipstick that aims at this segment with a lower price, said Coke. He noted that this was put under pressure to create a great shift in the past five years.
E-commerce platforms in China often also show rough numbers about how many orders per product have been abandoned, while third-party providers such as Syntun offer considerable amounts of product rankings and other online sales data free of charge.
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In the case of Apple‘S iPhone 17 Start On September 19th it was Chinese e-commerce company JD.com that published sales data for the Chinese mainland. The electronics-oriented platform announced that the first minute of the iPhone 17 series exceeded the pre-order volume of the first day of the iPhone 16 series of the past year.
Apple’s story also underlines how it is possible to repeat local interest, although it has lost the market share through domestic competition. Some customers in Beijing announced CNBC that they liked the new cosmic orange color of the iPhone and that more locals wanted to buy their first iPhone this year since they had heard from new attractive functions such as larger internal memory.
China’s factories quickly spoke on the trend and left iPhone covers with a similar orange color before the 17 model was triggered.
“Winning brands are those who have set up local local F&E centers and product teams on site,” said Ashley Dudarenok, founder of Chozan, a China marketing advice. “This enables you to recognize trends at an early stage, to develop products that are tailored to local needs, and bring them onto the market in months and not in years. This is a significant deviation from the past, in which global products were often simply introduced on the Chinese market.”
Cultural connection
Even with the right data and social media platforms, cultural integration is becoming increasingly important, especially when Chinese brands are successful in using the country’s own craftsmanship.
“Brands move beyond superficial nods into Chinese culture,” said Dudarenok. She pointed out that Loewe worked with Jade Carving Masters, while Burberry teamed up with artists with bamboo weavers.
And despite falling sales on the Chinese luxury market, LVMH This summer, a striking Shiped business opened in Shanghai and immediately generated a lot of local sums.
In contrast to LVMH’s luggage transaction in Manhattan, the Shanghai location took the history of the Chinese city as an entry port for international travelers to Asia about a century ago.
The new business also catches the roots of the European brand in handmade travel burnings in contrast to the same emotional attraction, in contrast to McKinsey, in contrast to McKinsey, in contrast to McKinsey.
“When Chinese customers grow in their trust and their desire for local elements,” he said, “one of the unique opportunities for multinational companies in China is one of the unique opportunities for multinational companies.”
– Eunice Yoon from CNBC contributed to this report.
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