Luxury brands boost in Douyin
Why Dior, Chanel and Louis Vuitton look to Douyin, China’s hot video app, to boost profiles
Since August, Dior has gained 282,000 followers to its posts on the platform, which attracts 250 million active daily users – 60 per cent of them women
Douyin, a hip short video app that is popular among China’s young social media users, has hit the radar of luxury marketers.
Despite some critics’ concerns that the app’s mass-facing content could diminish the prestigious image of luxury brands, that hasn’t stopped leading players such as Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Chanel from placing advertisements on the platform.
Christian Dior, one of the earliest adopters from the luxury sector, is highly bullish about using Douyin.
“Douyin has the user base, who are young, female-oriented with high-spending power,” a spokesperson for the French luxury brand’s China division said.
“They are the right people who luxury brands must acquire and retain in the longer term.”
The latest statistics released by Zhang Nan (张楠), Douyin’s CEO, on January 15 showed the number of daily active users (DAU) of the app had reached 250 million, and the number of monthly active users exceeding 500 million.
Previous data also showed about 60 per cent of Douyin users are female and about 70 per cent of them live in China’s top-tier cities.
The user volume and demographic composition is certainly alluring to digital marketers. And, for an app that was launched only in September 2016, it signals great growth potential.
Beyond placing advertisements, Christian Dior has an official account on Douyin, where the posting schedule is in sync with the brand’s movements in China.
Since its launch last August, the French luxury powerhouse has attracted about 282,700 followers and received more 1.3 million “hearts” on its posts, after posting 114 videos with 10 hashtags.
The performance of Christian Dior videos is quite uneven though.
Its best-performing video, featuring Chinese actresses including Angelababy, Wang Ziwen and Wang Luodan posing with Dior Saddle bags, was liked 183,500 times and commented on by 4,100 users.
Videos introducing the brand’s “Lady Dior” bags in collaboration with artists last December also, on average, reached 100,000 likes. But it is quite common to see the engagement level of many posts fall below 1,000 or even 100.
The video format on Douyin is vertical, so the right content and format is the key in determining if a video can go viral on Douyin,” said Jason Yu, general manager of Kantar Worldpanel China, a consumer research company.
“[A good video should] motivate followers to regenerate secondary content for secondary communication.”
Other luxury brands’ approach to Douyin has been much more cautious.
A few weeks ago, French luxury giant Louis Vuitton tested the water. The brand launched a Christmas campaign that lasted for two days from December 18 to 19.
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