Meng Shi A Capstone Project
Brand Management via China’s Sina Weibo:
Case Studies on Durex and VANCL
Meng Shi
A Capstone Project
Presented to the Faculty of the American University School of Communication in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Arts in
Public Communication
Supervisor: Prof. Caty Borum Chattoo
April 22, 2012
COPYRIGHT©
Meng Shi
2012
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ABSTRACT
Marketing a brand on social media is one of the most popular commercial activities for today’s corporations. In China the adoption of social media branding is also becoming an important research subject for scholars and practitioners from public communication, advertising and marketing areas. This paper seeks to examine the existing trend of brand management on Sina
Weibo, a Chinese social networking and micro blogging service, and to conclude with effective strategies on brand management. The researcher compares the brand management strategies of two brands on Sina Weibo. Evidences suggest that 1) Sina Weibo is equipped with multiple media and functions, enabling branding activities to be more diverse; 2) Online brand communities enable a brand to effectively connect with consumers, and to increase brand loyalty;
3) In China, social media branding is emerging and innovating.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1: DUREX OFFICIAL WEIBO ……………………………………………………………… .26
FIGURE 2 VANCL FAN GROUP WEIBO ....................……………………………………………… 31
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INTRODUCTION
In the current market, brand management is becoming increasingly important but also difficult for a business entity because of the proliferation of media outlets and brands. David
Aaker, one of the most prominent names in brand management field, anticipated this trend in
1996, stating that, “with the new media technologies, brand managers have to disseminate their information through multiple media venues.”
The development of new media technology has ushered in a communication revolution.
Social media, as a category of these new media techniques, is playing a significant role in marketing communications between brands and consumers.
The reason is that social media provides a platform for organizations and individuals to construct interactive dialogues via “ubiquitously scalable communication techniques”
(Kietzmann et.al 2011). A variety of social media platforms, including social networks, wikis, blogs and online forums, enable people to instantly exchange information and to generate conversations by their own. A research conducted by Nielsen from 2007 to 2008 indicated that many people were spending more time on social media networks and blogs, and "the time is growing at over three times the rate of overall Internet growth." Apparently, social media is playing a significant role in collecting information and constructing interactions in the contemporary world (Solis, 2010).
Meanwhile, social media is extending traditional public relations activities. Traditional public relations practices concentrated on making a media buzz through coverage in newspapers, magazines, television or radio to increase brand exposure and raise brand awareness. Companies
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had to compete for the limited placement on mass media since they had to reach to the audience through those third-party inks.
With social media, consumers are obtaining more control over personal brand experience.
They can “like” or re-tweet their favorite products on Facebook or via Twitter. Social media is a shift in power from the companies and mass media to consumers (Hlavac, 2012). Social media facilitates the formation of a connected marketing with performer-to-peer activities and peer-topeer activities (Foxton, 2006). Many brands are taking advantage of this new communication mode to reach and engage their consumers.
In China, brand management and brand campaigns on social media campaigns are emerging and innovating, which provides valuable experiences for public relations research.
There are, however, fewer formal academic studies focusing on this topic.
This paper comprehensively examines how companies interact with consumers via Sina
Weibo, which is one of the most popular micro blogging services in China (CNNIC, 2011).
Questions include how do the branded Weibo accounts engage consumers via daily posts, and how do they raise brand awareness and increase brand loyalty among their followers on Sina
Weibo.
This paper starts with a study of the previous literature about brand management and social media marketing. Next, the paper introduces the development of brand management in
China and the characteristics of Sina Weibo as the background information. Then, it explores branding activities of two brands, VANCL and Durex, on Sina Weibo. Both of the two brands have more than 35 million followers on Sina Weibo, and both are deeply engaged on Sina
Weibo (CIC, 2010).
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LITERATURE REVIEW
Brand and Brand Management
Definition of Brand
The word “brand” has a traditional definition, referring to the mark of the ownership of cattle (Aaker, 2009). In the modern world, “brand” has been introduced into commercial activities, serving as symbol which can enable consumers to identify the products created by one manufacturer (Koehn, 2009). As what American Marketing Association (AMA) defined, brand is the “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers” (American Marketing Association Dictionary,
1960). Admittedly, these brand elements are still crucial in today’s marketing strategies. In contemporary commercial activities, however, the meaning of brand is embodied with a strategic function and is relates to business asset as well as “brand equity” (Aaker and Kapferer, 2009). In this paper, the researcher adopts the marketing definition of “brand equity” because brand management has a far-reaching implication on social media marketing rather than creating some visual materials.
When it comes to brand management, brand contains manager-based and customer-based functions. Brand managers usually stand from the marketers’ and the firm’s perspectives, stressing the perceptions they accrue to a brand to promote products, differentiate companies from their competitors and satisfy short-term commercial goals (Chematony and Riley, 1997).
From the customer’s standpoint, brands not only sign to differentiate products from competing goods but also a semiotic engine producing meaning and values (Heilbrunn, 1996).
Brand equity and brand management
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Sterne (1999) argues that “a brand is not a name. A brand is not a positioning statement.
It is not a marketing message. It is a promise made by a company to its customers and supported by that company…I may have intelligent agents that can go out and assemble pages of reports on every camcorder on the market, but I don’t have time to read them. I’ll buy Sony.”
Sterne’s statement indicated a phenomenon of how consumers give their passion and loyalty to a brand. Gobe (2012) also explains this phenomenon in a more straightforward way via taking Apple as an example. Gobe believes Apple maintains its consumers by creating a brand connecting with an image of imagination, design and innovation, which is the key to its survival
(Gobe, 2012). Both of the statements put their emphases on consumers’ passion and loyalty for the particular products that wear a brand name. This phenomenon indicates a brand has an additional value that enable marketers to maintain current consumers and attract new consumers.
This value is “brand equity.”
Previous studies perceive brand equity as the additional value from three standpoints,
“company-based,” “financial based,” and “consumer-based.” While the former two perspectives relate the added value to the firm’s benefits, the consumer-based brand equity stresses the differential effect that brand has on consumer choice process to the industry of that brand (Aaker,
1991; Keller, 1993; McQueen, 1991).
Keller (1993) argues that the brand equity is generated when consumers equip with enough brand knowledge. Erdem et al. (1999) believe the brand equity shapes in the consumer learning and choice processes. Aaker (1991), however, generalized brand equity in an affective psychology perspective as a set of emotional assets that are attached to a brand name or symbol.
These emotional assets include brand awareness, brand loyalty, perceived quality, and brand associations.
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Aaker’s brand equity model provides managers the more streamlined and reliable criteria to build up brand and manage brand equity in the marketing area.
Brand awareness refers to how aware current or potential consumers are of a brand. It means the “percentage of potential customers or consumers who recognize – or name – a given brand.” When marketers ask the consumers to recall a brand for a certain product, the top-ofmind awareness is the first brand to come into the consumer’s mind. It represents that the brand is the well-recognized by the consumer. Consumers’ choices start from awareness. Brand awareness is crucial for them to differentiate product from competing goods.
The AMA defines brand loyalty as “the degree to which a consumer consistently purchases the same brand within a product class.” Brand loyalty consists of consumers’ commitment to a brand, which is exhibited via repurchase activities. It is not simply a behavior built on economic benefits. For instance, consumer A appears brand loyalty to X store if he/she commits to buy products from X, while another store can provide similar products with much cheaper prices. Brand loyalty also appears as word-of-mouth advocacy.
Perceived quality refers to the consumers’ perception of the superiority of the product and service. The quality isn’t real performance or tangible features. It is a feeling. It is the one that drives financial performance.
Brand association is the essential value for a brand. It is the images that the consumers attach to the particular product, indicating how target audience perceives the brand. It exists over the functional part of the particular product (Farquhar, 1989). Aaker (1996) argues a series of intangible “associations and attachments” which are critical in brand management can drive the consumers’ choices of brands. To make a brand strong, managers should shape the associations that consumers attach to the brand (Aaker, 1996).
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Under Aaker’s mode, managing brand equity means raising brand awareness, maintaining brand loyalty, building up positive associations about brand, and spread product or service information via word-of-mouth communication. How to achieve these goals via optimizing of brand management resources becomes the challenge for today’s marketers.
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Social Media and Brand Management
Definition of Social Media
According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), social media is “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.” In general, social media provides an interactive platform for users to disseminate information and share creations (Hopkin, 2008).
Forms of social media include “social networks, Internet forums, micro blogging, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, prating and social book marking” (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Weber,
2009; Kania, 2001).
Social Media Marketing
Currently, marketers see an increasing impact that social media has on businesses.
According to a survey conducted by Center for Marketing at the University of Massachusetts at
Dartmouth, 43 percent of Fortune 500 companies recognized the significance of social media in
2009, compared to 29 percent in 2007.
There are several reasons that these companies would embrace social media in their marketing communication.
1) “Social media is cost-efficient.” Registering a social media account costs nothing. But companies can use it to respond to consumers directly, promote products and build up community, which can create tremendous values (the Atlantic, 2011).
2)
“Allows peer-to-peer dialogue.” Social media allows companies interact with consumers in a real-time dialogue, which can increase brand loyalty (the Atlantic, 2011).
3) “Reach a broader user than email.” Social media encourages the information-sharing on the Internet. A report conducted by the University of Massachusetts indicates that 50
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percent of Facebook users log in on a daily basis, which means more than 300 million people use social networks every day (the Atlantic, 2011).
Two-way Communication and Brand Management
Brand building through social media is an integral part of the company’s marketing communication with the consumers. The purposes of brand management on social media include improving brand awareness, maintaining consumers’ commitment to a brand, and creating brand associations (Aaker, 2012).
Social media brand management is different from traditional advertising because the communication forms between consumers and brands changed. Traditional brand promotion uses one-way persuasion, and casts advertising on mass media. Organizations control the brand image and amplify the perceived quality on TV, radio or print media. The controlled messages attempt to persuade consumers to buy or use a particular product or service through the adoption of various strategies and appeals (Defleur and Dennis, 1996).
When it comes to social media branding, traditional advertising modes seem to be ineffective because social media audience is fragmented and requires interactive communication.
Public relations campaigns making brands out of touch with their consumers can be detrimental to the overall brand image (Zirinsky, 2009).
As a technical platform open to instant conversations, social media incorporates two-way symmetric communication with public relations and enables organizations to interact with target audience in the real-time dialogue (Solis, 2008). Therefore, social media opens the gateway between the consumer with a brand, the company and other consumers.
Researchers also argue that social media provides connected communication for current marketing, which means the marketers, consumers and users of products have unprecedented
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access to products and service information, and can communicate directly with each other (Kania,
2001). Moreover, social media, actually provides a connected marketing or community for brands and consumers to “share content, insights, opinions, profiles, experiences, perspectives and media itself.” (Solis, 2007)
Apparently, social media platform connects brands with consumers. But how does this connection happen? Weber (2009) argues that dialogue is the glue that builds up the relationship between brands and consumers. Dialogue can increase the brand affinity and consumer loyalty.
The stronger the dialogue is, the stronger the brand would be. On social media, branding is
“about participating in the networks… where dialogue with consumers and between consumers can flourish.”
Kania (2001), however, believes that online community is the key for brands to create an unbreakable connection with consumers on social media. Participants in the online community can directly exchange their related personal experience to other consumers, the brand, the experts and marketers. It is the community that builds up affinitive relationship between brands and consumers (Kania, 2001). Keller (2001) indicated that on social media, brands provide a community for consumers to develop conversations with brands or other consumers. In this community, content is the important elements because they decided the consumers engagement.
Therefore, these descriptions about social media and brand management can be concluded with a sentence to explain how social media facilitates brand management. Aaker
(2012) defined this. He claims that social media provides companies a platform to build up an online brand community, which can engage consumers (or like-minded Internet users) with attractive contents and affinitive relationships. The cohesion of this community is brand-related conversation. Moreover, he argues that the relationship and the relevance the brand provides in
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this community is the subcategory product that the consumer wants to buy from a brand in contemporary commercial activities.
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BACKGROUND
Overview of Social Media in China
As western social media like Facebook and Twitter are blocked in China, Chinese companies invented Chinese versions of social media services. These Chinese counterparts incorporate original innovations combined with local culture and Internet customs, rather than being complete replicas (Yu, Asur, and Huberman, 2009).
While the social media’s tremendous impact changing the world, Chinese social media is also developing. In China, online social networks are becoming a major platform for the youth to gather information and to make friends with like-minded individuals. (Jin, 2009) According to the
“2010 Chinese Internet Users on Social Media Report” conducted by China Internet
Network Information Center (CNNIC) in 2011, the number of Chinese social media users has reached to 235 million, accounting for 51.4 percent of the entire base of Internet users.
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Weibo is the way people named the Chinese Twitter-equivalent social networks, including Fanfou ( 饭否 ), NetEase Weibo ( 网易微博 ), People's Weibo ( 人民微博 ), Phoenix
Weibo ( 凤凰微博 ), and Sina Weibo ( 新浪微博 ). Fanfou is one of the earliest Chinese Weibo platforms, but it was blocked once because of its users’ aggressive updates (Baud, 2009).
Although some people argue that Weibo is a Twitter clone, the others prefer more the description that “Weibo is a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook.” (Brazll, 2011)
Sina Weibo, launched on August 14, 2009, is a sub-creation by SINA Corporation
According to CNNIC, it was the most popular Weibo platform in China at the end of 2011
(2012). Now, Sina Weibo has already owned 500 million active registers, accounting for 48.7 percent of the whole amount of Internet users in China, claimed by SINA’s CEO Charles Cao by
February, 2012.
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Sina Weibo
As a platform providing information exchange and instant interaction, Sina Weibo allows two-way conversations and word-of-mouth advocacy. Similar to Twitter, Sina Weibo limits the messages into 140-character bites. It provides the register a user profile and contains functions like repost, @usernames, hashtag (#), private instant chat, URL shortening, and direct insertions with graphics. Users can post their own updates, follow their favorite Weibo accounts, create event with hashtags, repost their concerned messages, and interact with others via comments.
Sina Weibo includes several functions that are not included on Twitter.
1) “ Limitation of words.” As 140 characters in Chinese are ideograms, each Weibo post may contain more information than 140 alphanumeric characters on Twitter. Sina Weibo is being used for more complete communications than mere short messages, which made it suitable for a wider range of audiences and purposes (Lenn, 2012).
2) “ Convenient social feedback.” Users on Weibo can comment directly below a post,
“@mention” other people in the comments, or repost the message with their comments (Lenn,
2012).
3) “Rich media.” Rich media is a concept related with the amount of media channels that a media platform has. The more, the richer. Sina Weibo allows users to directly insert media including images, videos, music, game apps and graphic emotions without extra plugins. Other users can view videos without leaving the site. Sina Weibo, has extremely well-developed video and photo sharing functions. It even allows public polls, public comment wall and photo wall
(Fenn, 2012).
4) “Micro topics.” This is a function particularly created by Sina Weibo for its users.
Sina Weibo tracks and collects posts during a certain period, and creates a homepage for a topic
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if it becomes hot. Every day, the most popular topic will ranks on the home page of Sina Weibo.
For instance, when Steve Jobs passed away, Sina employees created a topic wall to memorize him, which gained around 700,000 comments (Lenn, 2012).
5) “Verified account.” Verified accounts are specifically created for famous public figures and organizations. Those who got verified by Sina Weibo will have a blue bold “V” attached to their Weibo names. Users with “V” will be treated as more trustable and powerful information sources. Sina Weibo also categorizes verified celebrities and organizations based on their identities. More specific, each category has more subcategories. For instance, the category
“entertainment figure” includes “actor,” “musician,” and “entertainment executive.” As its annual report indicated, Sina Weibo has more than 60,000 verified accounts consisting of celebrities, sports stars, well-known organizations (both government and commercial) and other.
(Lenn, 2012)
8) “Self-censorship.” The Chinese central government censors the Internet and requires every website to adhere to legal regulations. Sina Weibo is subject to the censorship regulations and practices self-censorship, which means they would delete or blind messages if they were proved to be political or cultural progressive. Such censors, however, concentrate on political issues more than commercial activities, allowing the flourish of commercial activities on Sina
Weibo (CNN, 2011).
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Sina Weibo and Chinese Social Media Marketing
“When in the middle 2000s many international brands like Volkswagen or Honda started leveraging Chinese online forums to talk about their nameplates, the world of Chinese social media was muddy ground for doing business”(Fenn, 2012). But now social media is becoming
“the core platform for brands to spread messages to their audience and to build supporters’ communities” (Fenn, 2012).
Chinese is a social-media-connected country (Crampton, 2012). Chinese Internet citizens trust “strangers with experience” (Fenn, 2012). Internet in China is the reliable source, sometimes even more reliable than mass media. According to a research conducted by Global
Web Index in 2010, “Chinese Internet users trust reviews and insights on social media three times more than a recommendation from an acquaintance in a bar.”
Chinese consumers learn knowledge and make decisions about brands through social media. 69 percent of Chinese consumers purchase or consider the products after seeing them online (Global Web Index, 2010).
Another trend on Chinese social media is that many international brands are joining the conversation with their target audience in Chinese market. “International brands are entering full force the Chinese social media space. Today, most brands have a branded page in social networking sites like Kaixin or Renren (Facebook’s counterpart in China)” (Fenn, 2012).
Early in 2008, cross-cultural companies like KFC or Coca-Cola have been active on social media and now they have hundreds of communities on Chinese SNS, with their “huge retail footprints” in China (Fenn, 2012)
“However, it is also true for brands that have been slow in penetrating the Chinese market or that have lagged behind in terms of brand definition in China. Sportswear brand Reebok has
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suffered from unclear brand positioning and poor sales in the past few years, and is now straightening its status in the Chinese market by aggressively building communities and buzz on social media.” (Kania, 2001) Now Chinese brands are developing their own approach to take use of social media, and they are entering the field very quickly.
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METHODOLOGY
The literature review explored previous research on brand management and brand building on social media. The research hopes to compare the trends on Chinese social media marketing and to assess how social media helps managers build and manage brand equity in
China.
Taking China’s most popular social media Sina Weibo as the research platform, this thesis explores how marketers adopt Sina Weibo to engage Chinese consumers, increase their awareness, and build up relationships with them in the interactive online community. The thesis answers the following questions:
1.
How do marketers engage users on Sina Weibo?
2.
How do brands construct conversations with users on Sina Weibo?
3.
How do these efforts affect the relationship between brands and consumers?
To answer these questions, the researchers takes qualitative methodology based on the research questions and purposes, existing literature about the research topic, and the time resources.
In this paper, the researcher conducts two case studies to explore the specific brand management strategies and consumers engagement on Sina Weibo. The researcher compared two most socially engaged brands on Sina Weibo via textual analysis. They are the U.S.-based condom brand, Durex, and the China-based clothing retailer brand, VANCL.
The researcher conducted the two-week textual analyses to examine the content of each branded Weibo account. The researcher manually coded each update based on the self-defined classifications. Categories include Providing information (news and knowledge) , Providing entertainment , Promoting product/service , Offering tangible incentive/ discount , Providing
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interaction , Expressing human solicitude expressing opinions on public affairs (refer to
Appendix 1 - code sheet).
Meanwhile, the researcher calculated the popularity of each update based on the rate it was reposted and commented on. The researcher randomly studied 20 comments posted under each update to understand the audience’s perceptions and attitudes. The purpose is to figure out what circumstances motivate the followers to interact with brands.
To learn the popularity and influence of the branded Weibo accounts, the researcher also used a Weibo analyzing app, Weibo Feng Yun , to track the demographic information of the brand followers, and the popularity degree of the branded messages.
The researcher believes the two case studies could specifically answer the following questions.
1. How do the brands express their brand personality in the placement and daily interaction on Sina Weibo?
2. How do the two brands construct daily conversations to engage consumers on Sina
Weibo?
3. How do the two brands maintain the consumers’ passion and loyalty to keep an interactive community?
4. How do the two brands use two-way communication for brand management?
5. Under what circumstances do fans want to follow and interact with the brands?
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CASE PROFILE
Durex
Durex, produced by the London-based company Seton Scholl Healthcare, is the bestselling condom brand in the world. The brand plays as a market leader in more than 40 countries all over the world.
This brand was introduced into the Chinese market by 2007. The subsidiary company is located in Qingdao Province. After Durex entered in the Chinese market, it became the top condom brand in less than two years. Now Durex accounts for 10 percent of the market in China, followed by Jissbon, which is produced by the Australia’s Ansell. The result was seen as a desire for branding amongst Chinese consumers ( CBN Weekly , 2008).
According to SSL’s CEO Garry Watts, the company is planning to expand its brand promotion plan in China and expects to make Durex the most popular brand in this marketplace with an expected £2 million investment ( Wall Street Journal , 2010).
Now Durex’s brand identity is “sexy, fun and very, very interactive” and the brand targets an audience who is “Pleasuratis,” which was created from Durex’s tagline “That’s My
Pleasure” and now refers to those who have a “mature yet adventure outlook on a healthy sex life” (Jim and Joseph, 2010). Originally, Durex defined its brand identity as “Durability,
Reliability and Excellence.” Early in 2007, SSL incorporated a “better sex” theme to Durex’s previous “safe sex” brand identity and turned the brand logo from “masculine” into “softer” one.
Meanwhile, Durex positioned itself as health sexual initiatives expert and conducted lots of campaigns to promote the relationship between sexual and general wellbeing, and educates consumers as well as retailers about “sexual wellbeing” in an acceptable way.
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VANCL
VANCL is a leading Chinese clothing retailer operating e-commerce; the store was launched in 2007 without any tangible store until now. VANCL, stressing “fast fashion” and
“cheap-chic duds,” offers products that are less fashion-forward but with an affordable price for the young group from a low-to-middle socioeconomic status. Compared to its competitors H&M and Uniqlo, VANCL drives a big draw for the following of young urbanites in China because of its price.
VANCL became the largest apparel retailer in China's online B2C clothing industry only two years after its founding. According to "Research Report (2009-2010) on Online Clothes
Shopping in China," released by iResearch (2010), a Chinese authoritative organization specialized in Internet research and consulting, VANCL’s online commercial website ranks first with 28.4 of market share among all Chinese self-operating B2C clothing websites. VANCL owns four million mobile clients in 2011, and its mobile site had more than ten million views
(iResearch, 2010).
The brand identity highlights sincerity and honesty, which is reflected from its Chinese brand name “ 凡客诚品 .”
VANCL’s consumer is seen as having a resourceful living style and sticking to fast fashion clothes. Since this group was born under the one-child policy, they show more preference to individualism and creativity than other generations. This group is mainly from the generation born in the 1980s and served as the main creator of contemporary popular culture
(CNNGo, 2010).VANCL spent great advertising expenses tracking the consumers’ culture and winning over them. More importantly, VANCL encourages its consumers to create their own clothes style and popular culture. To some extent, VANCL’s brand wins over this group’s heart not only by its reasonable price but also by representing the lifestyle for this group. (CNNGo,
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2010) Professionals believe VANCL is turning consumers’ love of fashion and photography into a word-of-mouth marketing tool. In September 2009, VANCL opened its Sina Weibo site, providing consumers with a social media platform to express themselves and interact with the brand.
VANCL invited Han Han, the most famous blogger in China, and Chinese popular actress Wang Luodan, as its spoke persons. These two celebrities were born in 1980s, belonging to the Chinese “post-80s” generation. Their key characteristics are striving to success and being real, which matches with VANCL’s target consumers, “post-80s,” and aligns with VANCL’s brand identity. In 2010, VANCL created two ads starring them and featured with the succinct and humor advertising text. The ads went viral on Sina Weibo in one week (CNNGo, 2010).
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FINDINGS
Durex
Webpage
Durex has a Weibo page named “Durex Official Weibo” with 380,449 fans as of April 20,
2012 (pictured in Figure 1 below). The page features include verified information, a wall with recently updated posts, photo wall, a list of sub-brands, a list of tags. The photo wall is a newest ad featuring Durex’s brand.
Durex’s labels: Infinitive creativity, Affinity Distance, World’s No.1, Be brave to love.
(Figure 1: Durex Official Weibo Page)
Data
Based on a one-year report from Weibo Feng Yun ended at April 19, 2012, 1.2 million followers of Durex are active users (means accounts have more than 30 followers and tweets at least once a week). Among them, 67.8 percent are males and 32.2 percent are females. The majority of followers are from age group 18 to 34.
During the two-week period, Durex account posted 139 updates. 60 updates (46.7%) provided entertainment messages, graphics or videos to the followers. 16 updates (12.1%)
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provided health information or knowledge related to the brand and its products, 4 posts (2.2%) product function promotion and new product introduction. Thirty-five updates (25.1%) requested direct interactions with followers, like answering questions, or inviting people take part in themed discussions. Fourteen updates (10.1%) provide incentives or coupons, and 8 updates
(5.7 %) expressed human solicitudes like emotional supports or comforts (refer to Table 1).
Based on the data, the researcher found that the two brands’ Weibo accounts adopted four same strategies to engage their customers in the brand community on Weibo.
Firstly, the researcher found that Durex official Weibo has a high update frequency, reached to an average of 10 updates for each day. These updates stick to schedule. For instance, interactive conversations are always posted at midnight and information updates are usually posted during daytime.
Secondly, the brand posts engage people with brand-related entertainment including jokes, graphics and videos. The researcher found the brand likes to provide entertainment messages and activities to increase customer engagement. The updates are mainly entertainment information, a small portion of them are news and knowledge.
Third, Durex’s updates are also closely related to its brand position. Durex combines brand image into its updates and strives to differentiate it from other brands. Sixty percent of these posts stress health sex initiatives, free and funny life, the search for love and happiness, and responsibility in relationships. Even though the brand account adopted more than 60 percent of online contents, which they tagged as “Revised from the online content,” it doesn’t simply copy these contents for their updates, but related them with brand personality, branded emotion appeals, and product promotion.
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The updates adopt an informal conversational tone. The brand account uses the nickname
“littile Dudu” or “Dudu,” which was shortened from its Chinese name “Du Lei Si” (“ 杜蕾斯 ”), and acts as a “playful boy who is funny and humorous, he knows how to make life comfortable and interesting” (Jin, 2011). Weibo accounts also focus on providing interactive, entertaining, and informative conversations to match with this personality.
Finally, the branded account provides three entertaining online activities to interact with their followers during the two weeks. These activities include daily themed discussion, photography competition and product placement design competition. The most frequent activity is the themed discussion session. Every midnight Durex posted a discussion topic and invited followers to contribute their relevant personal experience. Topics ranged from family responsibility to sexual health. Durex makes the discussion as a regular interactive activity and tagged it as “#Night Discussion” (transferred from Chinese “# 夜福利 ”). Durex chooses one favorite comment and awarded the comment creator with Durex products.
During the 14-day textual analysis, each update with “#Night Discussion” attracted more than a large amount of comments and reposts. The maximum amount reached to 1720.
Responses included not only answers to Durex but also interactions with other users. Some comments even showed the followers’ long-term dedication to this activity. Some comments even asked for the topic in advance.
Followers
The researcher believes the feedback from each post can reflect the preference of followers to a certain extent. Seventy posts have more than 100 comments. 85 posts have been reposted more than 500 times. Among these comments, most users showed favor and passion
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toward the brand’s posts. Among these tweets, around 14 updates had been reposted more than
500 times, including entertainment (12), daily information (4) and messages offering incentives
(1). The three most socially-engaged posts that have been tweeted more than 1,000 times are entertainment messages.
Thirty percent of followers prefer to use nickname “Little Du Du” or “Du Du” in their comments. Followers also expressed their favor to the contents and the brand. Some users expressed that they read Durex posts almost every day. Some followers showed strong preference for Durex brand because of this Weibo account. Some even connected the Durex brand image with their online advertising and compare it with its competitors.
Examples:
“DuDu, I’m coming. I guess I am the first person. I think I am one of the persons who likes Du Du best. The content here is very eye-catching.” (Xiezi)
“This is the most interesting weibo I’ve seen.”(RenRen81)
“DuDu, what are you going to talk about tonight?”(MR_Tonice)
“Sleep after 3 a.m. every day. Today I’m planning to sleep before 1 a.m., but I will read
DuDu’s updates before going to sleep.”(Love2010)
“I know this weibo from Bo Sheng Yun Feng (Durex social media PR agency).Not bad. I will change to use Durex in the future.” (You’re my Cocaine)
“(I think) Durex is well educated than Jissbon.” (Tracy-Is me)
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VANCL
VANCL opened seven Weibo accounts to serve to different purposes. The most social engaged account with more than 4.5 million fans is the VANCL Fans Group (translated from
Chinese “ 凡客粉丝团 ”). This is not an official platform. VANCL used it to interact with followers, provide service or product information, send incentives, and distribute entertainment messages. Other accounts include VANCL Official Weibo, which is used to release official commercial information; VANCL Star, which is used to engage followers to participate in
VANCL Model Competition, and the other four accounts used to promote different products or service.
In addition to the organizational accounts, VANCL’s 13 high-ranking executives, including
VANCL’s founder, Chen Nian, also opened their personal accounts on Sina Weibo. VANCL also encouraged its employees to use Sina Weibo. More than 100 employees have registered on
Sina Weibo to promote this brand. In this paper, the researcher studies the updates of VANCL
Fans Group to explore VANCL’s interaction strategy because of its popularity.
Web Page
VANCL’s Weibo page is named “VANCL Fans Group,” and it has 453,633 fans as of 20,
April 2012 (pictured in Fig. 2 below). The page features include verified information, a wall with recently updated posts, photo wall, a list of leadership, and a list of tags. The photo wall is a newest ad featuring VANCL’s spokesperson, Han Han
VANCL’s labels: I am VANCL, Han Han, Xiao Ming Huang, Chen Nian, Wang Luo Dan,
Li Yu Chun, Corn (indicated the fans of Li Yu Chun), VANCL (Chinese and English brand),
Fast-fashion.
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(Figure 2: VANCL Fans Group Weibo Page)
Data
Based on the statistics by Weibo Feng Yun at April, 19, 2012, VANCL Fans Group has
50,000 active followers.
During the two-week time frame, VANCL Fans Group updated 189 posts. Among the
189 updates, 72 updates (38.1%) provided entertainment messages, graphic or videos to the followers. 46 (24.3%) updates requested for direct interactions with followers, celebrities, and leaderships. Thirty-eight updates (20.1%) provides product function promotion and new product introduction. Fourteen updates (0.7%) provide incentives or coupons, 11 updates (0.3%) provided information (news or knowledge), 7 updates (0.4%) expresses opinions to public affairs including criticism on government, and 2 updates (0.1 %) expressed human solicitudes like emotional supports or comforts (refer to Appendix 2).
During the two-week time frame, the researcher found that VANCL’s updates have the following characteristics.
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VANCL interacts with the followers positively. During the fourteen days, VANCL Fans
Group account posted more than 13.5 updates per day. Similar to Durex, VANCL Fans Group provided a large amount of entertainment messages combined with videos graphics. Most of the updates are gossip with a relaxed and personalized conversational tone. VANCL also developed dialogues with fans, celebrities and even its leaderships. In addition, VANCL posted a bunch of messages, combined with multimedia, to promote its products. These updates don’t stick to a strict schedule. Updates are used to provide service and product information, and develop entertaining interactions based on the needs of followers.
Most of posts by VANCL Fans Group are online video, interaction, and promotion information. Most of them are not originally created by VANCL except for interaction and promotion. The entertainment messages didn’t go viral on Sina Weibo. During the two weeks, those messages that had been reposted more than 1,000 times were discount/incentive information; these occupied 50 percent of the top ten most-socially-engaged updates of VANCL.
Followers
The researcher collected and analyzed the feedback from each post. Most posts had fewer comments and reposts than 100. Twelve posts have been reposted over 500 times. Among these comments, most users showed favor and passion toward the VANCL’s products.The 12 updates that had been reposted more than 500 times include entertainment (2), information (2) and promotion (8). Compared to Durex, VANCL got less feedback for its comments and reposts. But
VANCL’s brand account often replies the posts, which is embraced by the followers.
Feedback on VANCL’s post wall mainly expresses the followers’ expectation and favor of VANCL’s products.
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Examples:
“Love VANCL, Love VANCLE’s style!” (from Angle1077)
“I like VANCL style because they match with me.” (form Moli)
“Thank you VANCL, I love VANCL style, I wish to buy!” (from Kakasolarwing)
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DISCUSSION
In this section, the researcher uses comparison method to analyze the two cases and sum up a series of tactics and development trends of brand management on Sina Weibo. The researcher concluded them into two perspectives: 1) the techniques on brand management of the two brands; and 2) the challenges for future brand managers and marketers.
Social Media Techniques of Brand Management
The two brands adopted several similar techniques on Sina Weibo to engage consumers, and maintain brand loyalty. These tactics contain building interactive brand community, providing attractive content with multiple media, maintaining frequent interaction, using an informal conversational tone, showing brand personality, sticking to business goals, and sending incentives.
Online Brand Community Weibo provides brands a platform to build online communities in order to engage followers and maintain loyalty. Both VANCL and Durex build up online communities revolving the brands. To maintain the engagement of the community, the two brands provided attractive content, positive interaction and extraordinary updates for their followers. VANCL even uses multiple communities to serve different audience groups.
Feedback from followers indicated consumers on Weibo favor the connections with brands in community. The online brand community is crucial to brand management and social media marketing (Kania, 2001; Aaker, 2012).
Conversational Tone Both branded accounts interact with consumers in an informal conversational tone instead of serious attitudes to interact with followers. Durex even infused the tone with its own brand personality. Using a relaxed and personalized tone to communicate
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with consumers can express brand personality, and increase brand affinity. Feedback reflects that consumers prefer the personalized expressions of brands.
Business Goals Social media strategy should serve to macro-level business goals. Both brands came up with different interactive forms to maintain their consumer engagement and passion for the brands. VANCL uses its Weibo account to process e-commerce transition and promote its products. Durex’s brand management on Weibo is to communicate with consumers and increase its brand exposure. Hence, Durex’s brand community is much well-organized but
VANCL is more diverse, flexible and having more elements.
Entertainment Durex’s contents are closely related to its brand. Entertainment, safe sexual initiatives, living your life, sense of responsibility all related to Durex products and the brand identity. VANCL appears multiple in interacting consumers. VANCL operates with other brands on Sina Weibo, combines online and offline activities together. The “VANCL Star” activity attracted VANCL great attention every day. Its celebrity effects also greatly increased its brand exposure.
Social Currency Social currency or social trend is crucial to social media marketing.
Brand community on social media consists of many like-minded people or groups. Marketers should monitor these target individuals or groups to understand their popular culture, preferences and conversation spots. Understanding your target audience cannot only increase material benefits but also reduce the economic risks brought by cultural difference. International brands
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should be even more careful on these social currencies appeared among social media communities. The failure campaign of Durex in South African is a good case in point.
Entertainment Elements Durex and VANCL all combines messages with multimedia and providing many entertainment information on their brand page. From the two-week observation, it can be concluded that brand-related entertainment and promotion activities are the main favorable for Durex and VANCL. Even if there is not an accurate quantitative research to prove the causal relationship between content categories and audience preference, this research still suggests a possibility that entertainment and incentives are the most attractive information for brand followers of Durex and VANCL.
Multiple Media Multiple media on Sina Weibo contain video, music, graphics, and facial expression. Sina Weibo enables people to directly insert and view videos and graphics.
Users can adopted multiple media when disseminating information or interacting with others on
Sina Weibo. And also, Weibo is a high traffic information channel. On Sina Weibo, the information traffic is busy. People’s attention can easily switch from one topic to another.
Continuous updates and dialogues in the social media brand community can increase touch points with the brand’s audience.
Challenges for Future Brand Managers
Early in 2000, Chinese marketing might not be suitable to talk about businesses. At that time, rules were unclear, governmental control was tight, and many websites like Facebook,
Twitter and Fanfou had been blocked. And Chinese Internet audience seemed have more interests in online games rather than brand and product information (Fenn, 2012).
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Now, Chinese social media communities and brand management are developing and innovating. Admittedly, the brand communities on social media are not the professional and well-organized online service communities like Dell and Starbucks. But Chinese consumers are becoming sensitive to brands, especially those young Internet users. Brands who take more time on social media to interact with consumers would raise brand awareness among this generation.
There are, however, still a series of challenges facing future marketers and brand managers. Communication via Sina Weibo is very flexible and fast paced. There is a huge traffic on Sina Weibo every day. Hence, on Weibo frequent interactions between brands and followers can maintain brand loyalty, increase long-term engagement and cultivate followers to receive information via a regular schedule.
In addition, it is difficult for Sina Weibo to reach as broad an audience as traditional ads because the majority of Chinese citizens are still exposed to traditional media like TV, radio or billboards. Moreover, the proliferation of information and products makes it difficult to build up product awareness among segmented audiences than ever before. Therefore, adopting multiple media channels can be more effective in media planning for brand managers.
Censorship is another aspect of China’s media system – including branding – that’s worthy of attention. Although the current censorship regulations concentrate on political issues, instead of commercial messages, it is still unclear if the government will bring new rules to censor information on this social network platform. Reports indicate that the Chinese central government is trying to control Sina Weibo with real-name registration, which means that users have to register Sina Weibo with real identity information ( Wall Street Journal , 2012). The
Marketers can hardly expect for tomorrow of this developing online platform. Companies,
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especially international firms, should prepare for the unexpected future and complete a series of government public relations plans.
CONCLUSION
The objectives of this paper were to explore how brand management works on the
Chinese micro blogging service, Sina Weibo. In this paper, the researcher figures that creating social media subcategory products is crucial to a brand positioning on social media (Aaker,
2012). The researcher also finds that brand communities aimed to provide a venue for followers to exchange information and interact with each other; information exchange focuses on providing attractive content and providing opportunities of self-expression (Keller, 2001); interaction calls for personal experience related the brand and maintains customer’s loyalty
(Kania, 2011).
Social media branding and marketing is about listening and talking to consumers. In the online brand community, consumers will participate in shaping the brand image on their own.
The best strategy is leaving space but also monitoring the online discussions, knowing what consumers are thinking, and being positive as well as sincere.
Brands on Weibo should be dedicated to providing values. Good content provides value, useful information provides value, and supportive interaction provides value. These values connect the consumers and brands together. They are the glue of the community.
Study Limitations
The limitation of this study is the size of research sample. Durex and VANCL belong to the supplies industry, which needs a fierce competition and extremely high brand differentiation.
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Even though they are socially engaged on Sina Weibo, their experiences may not be able to represent every type of brand, such as luxury brands or automobile brands, for example.
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Recommendations for Future Study
Chinese social media branding deserves more studies. Topics can contain Chinese consumers’ psychological traits and motivations, the functions of Chinese social media, and the entire public relations environment in China.
Previous research studies introduced the core value of the social media branding. The core components include building up online community (Reller, 2007), providing subcategories like information and connections (Aaker, 2012) and distributing viral social media campaigns
(Kirby, 2006).
The two case studies proved the former studies and generated several different perspectives on social media branding and the development of public relations in China. Future research should be concerned with the effects that the specific social and political environment brings to brand management and public relations activities. Passive Internet users’ behavior and perception can be another area that deserves more studies.
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APPENDIX 1
Code sheet of text analysis
The researcher studied updates posted from March 12 to March 25 in 2012. Every post has been manually coded according to five different categories, including Providing Information,
Providing entertainment, Providing interaction, Expressing support (including human solicitude), and Offering incentives or discounts.
Providing information refers to messages provided the readers daily news, science knowledge or experts’ advices. For Durex, this information revolved about health knowledge and safe sexual initiatives. These messages were translated or revised from media reports or science research articles. For VANCL, the information refers to new product promotion or environment protection knowledge.
Providing entertainment refers to messages containing entertaining elements, mostly combined with graphics or videos. These messages are funny jokes or interesting stories which can amuse readers. Those messages are originally created or cited from online information related closely to hotspots on Sina Weibo.
Providing interaction means brand directly starts a conversation and request for comments, reposts or other actions. They related to commercial activities. But most of them are used to construct conversations, display brand personality and build up relationship with followers. Questions can be “Tell me about the most interesting thing during your trip!” (Durex), or “Do you have any friends who like VANCL’s clothes? @them and let me know!” (VANCL).
Offering tangible incentive/discount means that brand provides material gifts or discounts to their followers. For instance, Durex often sends out gift to one of its followers and this activity
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has been hashtaged as the “Most Fan”. VANCL cooperates with other brands on Sina Weibo to send their products as presents.
Expressing human solicitude means messages express compassions, respects, or encouragements. These messages show kindness to animals, express respects to parents, or encourage people to live positively. For instance, VANCL and Durex often provide tips teaching people how to be environment-friendly.
Promoting product/service refers to companies update messages to promote products or service. A case in point is VANCL Fans Group posts clothes on Weibo and encourage followers to buy it on the official website.
Expressing opinions on public affairs means that the account criticizes or ridicules political or social problems. For instance, VANCL Fans Group reposted a news about official corruption and it mocked the in the update.
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APPENDIX 2
Table 1 Text Analysis of Durex Weibo
Content Amount Percent%
Providing information ( knowledge, news)
Providing entertainment
16
62
12.1
46.7
Providing interaction (reply, repost, request for actions)
Offering tangible incentive/discount
Expressing human solicitudes (support)
Promoting product/service
Expressing opinions on public affairs
Total
(March 12, 2012 to March 25, 2012)
35
14
25.1
10.1
8 5.7
4 2.2
0 0
139
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APPENDIX 3
Table 2 Text Analysis of VANCL Weibo
Content Amount Percent%
Providing information ( knowledge, news)
Providing entertainment
11
72
0.3
38.1
Providing interaction (reply, repost, request for actions)
Offering tangible incentive/discount
Expressing human solicitudes (support/encouragement)
Promoting product/service
Expressing opinions on public affairs
Total
(March 12, 2012 to March 25, 2012)
46 24.3
14 0.7
2
38
7
189
0.1
20.1
0.4
47
