Excerpts from the Jing Daily article: The Fashion Brand China Bankrupted?
By Liza Foreman February 7, 2021
Secrets From The China Launch Playbook
Ron Wardle, head of Yooma, a luxury platform for launching premium CBD products in China, shares some points from his launch playbook. “We create brand and product demand overseas first, and then launch in China because there is already a streamlined image,” he says. “We worked with Lab to Beauty for a year, building brand equity, a winner of Alibaba’s Global Pitch Fest on Tmall and used overseas KOLs to post about [the brand]. We did content writing and product seeding utilizing Red, Weibo and Bilibili. We launched on Tmall’s own brand incubator platform and worked extensively on brand activations and increasing digital touchpoints.”
Wardle also explains that you have to go through influencers in China, but since most smaller brands cannot afford to pay big China influencers in the beginning, they must activate overseas first. Brands “have to put in the work first,” he says. “Some brands are not nimble enough. But if they have the brand equity or heritage behind them, and consumers want cool hard-to-find brands.” He recommends using overseas activation platforms like BorderXLab and Avenue51.
Lab to Beauty Increase Brand Awareness and Sales Channels with KOL’s and Tmall Global
Lab to Beauty, the CBD brand mentioned earlier, was the first to launch in the luxury CBD market in the US in 2018. Partners include Saks Fifth Avenue, Revolve, Fontainebleau Miami Beach, and select luxury independents. CEO Katherine Ragusa says that pain points in China include low brand awareness from Chinese consumers, the newness of the CBD category, and a glut of existing beauty and personal care brands.
Lab to Beauty has chosen to sell through several cross-border platforms like Tmall Global, Kaola, and the Beyond App while relying on Yooma’s know-how to expand into China. “We have been working with many US-based Chinese KOLs to help with unboxing videos, brand awareness, product introductions, and more via their Western and Chinese social channels,” says Ragusa. “We will continue to utilize this strategy and include additional China-based KOLs as we expand.”
Ragusa knows that China is not an instant fix but expects the brand’s focus there to pay off. “In these early days, we will look at China as a step-by-step approach and expect that it will contribute a large percentage of sales shortly.”
Excerpts from the Jing Daily article: The Fashion Brand China Bankrupted?
By Liza Foreman February 7, 2021