Marketers in the beauty, fashion and watches and jewelry categories are leading on China’s digital playing field with brands including Estée Lauder, Lancôme, Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Chanel rounding out the top 20 most-savvy, according to a new report from L2 Think Tank.
Marketers in new categories are standing their ground in the third annual Digital IQ Index: China that was previously dominated by automakers. Indeed, Audi, BMW, Land Rover and Jaguar made the list of top 20 digital marketers in China, but approximately two-thirds of these spots were taken by beauty, fashion and jewelry marketers.
“Digital campaigns in China are very different,” said Emma Li, research lead at L2 Think Tank, New York. “Social media marketing is less about fan growth, and more about increasing interactivity and driving user-generated content.
“Genius-ranked brands share the ability to simultaneously launch multichannel, multi-platform digital campaigns, maintain a strong social presence and foster a natural symbiosis between online and offline activities,” she said.
The Digital IQ Index: China ranks the digital competence of 100 prestige brands in China on more than 800 data points.
Rankings are determined 20 percent on mobile, 30 percent on site, 30 percent on social media and 20 percent on digital marketing. The China IQ includes evaluation of country-specific search engines and social media properties
Marketers are given rankings of Genius, Gifted, Average, Challenged or Feeble.
Marketing geniuses
Estée Lauder received the report’s highest digital IQ score of 156, giving it a Genius ranking.
The beauty marketer expanded its social presence from three to six platforms since last year’s report, per L2. It continues to maintain a strong presence across each platform.
Estée Lauder along with Lancôme were also lauded for their digital savvy in the beauty sector as the only two brands to receive a genius ranking on the recent L2 Think Tank Digital IQ Index: Beauty.
Estée Lauder partnered with blog Cupcakes and Cashmere so that the brand could connect with more savvy, younger fans.
The vlogging culture has made an impact on the promotion of beauty brands since 98 percent of the top off-channel videos are produced by beauty vloggers, according to the previous study (see story).
Cupcakes and Cashmere blogger on Estée Lauder
Furthermore, Audi, Hong Kong-based jeweler Chow Tai Fook and Lancôme also received the Genius ranking in the latest Digital IQ Index: China.
Audi has been strong across quite a few digital platforms, per L2. Efforts this year include a multichannel campaign that promoted its all-wheel-drive technology through mediums such as online, mobile and television (see story).
Audi also received a Genius ranking in the previous China IQ report in which automakers accounted for nine of the top 20 brands (see story).
Audi all-wheel-drive campaign
Beauty marketer Lancôme fared well in the study due to its Doll Eye Bar Bus Tour that drove fans to cities for mobile demonstrations and back to Sina Weibo for contests, per Ms. Li.
“It is a great example of creating online and offline synergy through multiple channels,” Ms. Li said.
“Often complex contest rules and multiple steps and different levels of participation to win do not intimidate Chinese consumers,” she said.
Also, marketers such as BMW, Land Rover, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Jaguar and Cartier were ranked as Gifted.
Brands with an Average ranking include Mercedes-Benz, Swarovski, Ferrari, Tiffany & Co, Gucci, Porsche, Jaeger-LeCoultre and InterContinental.
Room for improvement
Digital IQ Index: China also found areas in which luxury marketers can improve to reach Chinese consumers via digital.
For instance, the Chinese sites for the brands studied had an average load time of 24.1 seconds, which is four-times as long as their global sites.
More than half of Chinese sites are not ICP-certified, or licensed by the government. This can prevent these sites from appearing in search results.
In addition, 23 percent of brands studied offer a mobile-optimized version of their Chinese Web site. One third-of these sites are commerce-enabled.
Investments in mobile efforts that target Chinese consumers have been on the rise among marketers studied, but they should keep in mind that Android controls 90 percent of the smartphone market in China.
Currently 35 percent of these marketers offer an Android application. Twenty-two of these apps are available in Chinese and one is commerce enabled.
However, the biggest surprise revealed from the report is that ecommerce adoption rates by brands studied increased little year-on-year in China despite a forecasted 33 percent increase in the Chinese luxury ecommerce market in 2012, per Ms. Li.
“International e-tailers continue to move quickly into the market to fill the void,” Ms. Li said.
Final Take
Tricia Carr, editorial assistant on Luxury Daily, New York