Qixi Festival, or China’s Valentine’s Day, is the first grand festival since the pandemic started waning in China, and brands have racked their brains for innovative ways to do marketing on this day.
The controversial promo of Balenciaga attracted 210 million Weibo discussions in two days, and the topic skyrocketed 316% day-on-day on WeChat.
Indeed, after losing marketing opportunities like the Spring Festival and Valentine’s Day, the Qixi Festival, with its cultural significance, bears high expectations from marketers.
Those international brands that have been tested in the western Valentine’s Days, can easily navigate the Qixi Festival by modifying their brand images to fit China’s cultural context. And they have been trying hard, which is conspicuous form the legion of Moments ads they have been posting.
Now, let us look at what brands have done for this special holiday.
The luxury industry
According to Tencent Ads, from 2016 to 2019, the number of ads the luxury industry put up on WeChat went up by 90%. Nearly 90% of the leading luxury brands have created their own Mini Programs.The Qixi Festival is in fact a digital test field for the brands.
In 2016, Dior was the first brand to sell purses on WeChat. The product called Lady Dior Small was specially designed for Qixi, and this limited purse was for sale only between August 1st and 4th.
Dior leveraged all its resources to promote the purse. First, it posted an article on its official account, making this purse known to the public.Then, it added the link to buy the purse in its welcome message sent to new subscribers. It also added the entry to its Mini Program in the menu below the interface of its official account.
In addition to its own resources, it also put up advertorials in numerous fashion official accounts, including famous ones like cosmochina, Miss_shippoing_li, and love16po. Dior also made its ads seen in Moments.
Its actions earned itself tremendous exposure. On the Qixi Festival, 240 relevant articles were viewed over 1.67 million times. The next year, brands like Loewe, Chloe, and Valentino followed suit and released their own limited purses half a month before the Qixi Festival.
Burberry put up its ads for Qixi in Moments. After user clicked the ad, an H5 page that contained recordings of celebrities’ confession of love appears. Burberry leveraged the star power, thereby attracting fans of the celebrities and boosting its exposure.
By posting ads during the holiday, brands can familiarize themselves with the public and create sales peaks. Coupled with Mini Program stores and official accounts, such methods give a leg-up to conversion.
This year, the Moments ads became more interactive and fun. The long-pressing ads rolled out around May 20 are also used to bring in more scenarios.
The jewelry industry
The brands have devised many diverse ways to interact with its customers. Forevermark, a subsidiary of De Beers, utilized the WeChat eco-system, especially H5 pages, Mini Programs, official accounts, and Moments, to create value.
Before it kicked off its Qixi campaign, it had already released three Mini Programs that serves respectively as an online store, a VIP management platform, and an information center of its products and physical stores.
▲ Scan the Mini Program code
During the holiday, it rolled out a limited Mini Program store for Qixi.
The store is the destination of traffic from many entries, including the menu of its official account, articles from other official accounts, its other Mini Programs, the Moments ads, and articles of KOLs like MrBags.
▲ The Qixi limited Mini Program store
Therefore, the brand has formed its own set of Mini Programs that consists of three permanent Mini Programs and one that is temporary.
These Mini Programs are linked with its own official account, and users can easily be redirected between the two. Thus, users can have a seamless shopping and reading experience, which boosts user stickiness.
▲ Moments ads of Forevermark
Now that luxury brands have made Mini Programs the frontline of their Qixi marketing, taking preemptive actions have become the key to winning.Last year, the marketing battle started one month before the holiday. Bvlgari was one of the first to start the trend.
On July 1st, Bvlgari launched its limited necklace and shoulder bag of the Diva’s Dream collection on Mini Programs.
Thanks to the massive amount of traffic that Mini Programs brought, the Qixi limited accessories that cost RMB 28,000 sold out in 3 days.
Last year, Bulgari took advantage of the synergy of Tencent Video, WeChat Mini Programs, and Moments ads and built its own private traffic pool. It thought of ingenious ways to interact with its fans and brought traffic and sales conversion in an all-round manner. Its brand image was also enhanced along with its boosted sales.
Food and drink：Budweiser
This year, Budweiser collaborated with Gun Karlsson and rolled out its Qixi limited bottles where male and female images in a ready-to-kiss posture are presented.
On its official account, it launched its Qixi campaign, which left a deep impression on its audience. Then, relevant advertorials were posted on articles of multiple KOLs, where links to its Taobao store were added. The move directly promoted the sales.
▲ Budweiser ads on official accounts
The seamless experience and the offline-online integrated operations enabled the customers to make purchases right when their interest was piqued.
The articles on the official accounts raised the desire for customers to buy its product, and the buying procedure is shortened due to the links to the shop. The simple experience prevented customers from going away in the process.
Electronics:Dell
In the Qixi marketing race, Dell took out ads of its Inspiron 7000 model on Moments. Dell placed the ads with a clear target in mind, that is, female users, and successfully drew their attention with the pink color.
It also added the sales promotion page on JD in the ad, forming a super-short marketing link. The ad resulted in a Return on Investment (ROI) rate of 647%.
There is a new functionality in Moments ads this year. By pointing the camera at your hand in a heart-like gesture, users are rewarded with gifts. This participatory method marked by the zero-distance interaction greatly enhanced the brand image.
The scanning function enables brands to send out gifts like red packet covers and coupons. This could also bring enhancement of brand image and sales at the same time. Compared with major shopping festivals on e-commerce platforms, a brand may not do as well on the Qixi Festival, for it is hard to utilize traffic to maintain customers’ interest.
In the WeChat eco-system, however, the Moments ads can expose the brand to a large audience; the official accounts can raise readers’ desire to buy its products; buyers can directly make purchase on Mini Programs, after which they would share the products in other private scenarios on WeChat.
A company may miss out on a lot of opportunities to gain traffic if it doesn’t do WeChat marketing during festivals like this.
W-axis Technology is here to help. We can assist brands to do WeChat marketing in a one-stop manner. Working on WeChat ads, we can help companies to boost sales online and offline.If you have any questions about WeChat marketing, feel free to scan the QR code below to contact us. W-axis Technology will offer customized plans.
WeChat is without question the best launchpad for Singapore companies that want to enter the Chinese market.
