想提高品牌影响力，需要笼络这类消费者

11月11日，中国再次迎来零售盛会“双十一”，去年的“双十一”成绩十分亮眼，销售额达到“黑五”和“网络星期一”之和的两倍之多。

伴随“双十一”活动，中国本土品牌与国际品牌也日益将目光投向了一类新生的消费群体，这群人在市场上影响力巨大，但很难被收买。

“需要与意见领袖建立关系，而且是切实的关系。”电子商务网站WOMANBOSS Inc.的创始人兼香港零售咨询公司冰雪集团（Icicle Group）的首席执行官胡陈德姿表示。

“与其给意见领袖钱，不如直接给产品试用……也别要求发布内容。他们自己会生产真实且能够让消费者接受的内容。”

这些所谓的关键消费者（KOCs）活跃于中国的社交媒体平台，并在各种网络社区中扮演领袖的角色。他们凭借在联系紧密的社区中建立起的信誉和真实性，影响力相当大。

在广州举行的《财富》全球科技论坛上，胡陈德姿向在场观众表示：“关键消费者拥有很大的影响力……他们的目标是以自身为中心打造社区。”

胡陈德姿解释说，在西方，社交媒体平台是为广告商服务的，而在中国社交媒体并不可靠，因为微信在社交媒体领域处于绝对主导地位。外国品牌要想尽办法与关键消费者建立联系。

“ （广告）体系（在中国）的发展与西方有所不同。”市场调研公司Coresight Research的总裁马克斯·卡恩表示。“中国更看重体验，需要通过直播带货，还需要确保媒体流量覆盖。”

卡恩说，随着该模式在中国获得成功，越来越多的美国企业也加入了其中。他还举例说最近Guess就在抖音的国际版TikTok上进行了直播。但是由于TikTok实际上也源自中国，所以该案例更像是中国营销理念的移植而不是模仿。

但是，就像经常有企业发现全球营销策略在中国市场行不通一样，在中国行之有效的策略之所以可行，往往也是由于中国市场的特定特征。例如，微信之类的超级应用几乎能够全方位地收集消费者数据，有了这些数据，广告商自然可以精准地投放广告。

“这些社交平台都是闭环生态系统，” 胡陈德姿说。“所以我们一直在跟[外国品牌]说，中国是个不一样的市场。”

译者：冯丰

审校：夏林

In just a few days on November 11th, China will celebrate Singles Day, the massive retail holiday that last year proved twice as large as Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

As the day approaches, Chinese and international brands will have their eye on a new class of Chinese consumer that wields enormous power over the market but can’t be bought.

“You need to build relationships, real authentic relationships [with these influencers],” says Bonnie Chan Woo, founder of e-commerce site WOMANBOSS Inc. and CEO of Hong Kong-based retail advisory Icicle Group.

“Instead of sending them money, you send them care packages…and you don’t ask them to post. They will generate content that is authentic and that really connects with the consumers.”

These so-called Key Opinion Consumers (KOCs) are leaders of communities on Chinese social media platforms, and they are influential because of the trust and authenticity they inspire in close, tight-knit communities.

“These people are hugely influential…Their objective is to build communities around themselves,” Chan Woo told the audience at Fortune’s Global Tech Forum in Guangzhou, Friday.

In the West, Chan Woo explained, social media platforms have been built to service advertisers but those channels can't be relied upon in China, where WeChat is really the only dominant social-media operator. Foreign brands need to go to different lengths to develop connections with discerning Chinese consumers.

“The [advertising] system has grown up a little bit differently [in China,]” said Max Kahn, President of market research company Coresight Research. “It’s much more sort of about the experience, and about doing a livestream and being within the normal flow of the social medium.”

As this model has seen such success in China, more U.S. brands have been looking to adopt it, Kahn says, pointing to Guess’ recent livestream on TikTok as evidence. TikTok, however, is a Chinese-born app so this example perhaps points more to the migration, rather than imitation, of Chinese marketing concepts.

But, just as brands often find their global strategies don’t necessarily work when entering China, trends that work well in China are often due to specific characteristics of the market. In China, for example, do-it-all apps like WeChat can collect almost infinite data on their consumers, meaning that advertisers have a much stronger ability to target their ads.

“These are closed-loop ecosystems,” Chan Woo says. “We keep telling [foreign brands]: this is a different market.”