How to reach Chinese audience in Australia with WeChat
Are you interested in Marketing to Chinese consumers? Nolan Yu, a former PR ninja in Shanghai, now a media warrior in Sydney, writes this guest post about WeChat, the Chinese social platform that ‘rules them all’.
You might not use the WeChat, but I am sure you’ve heard about this Chinese instant messaging app, which The Economist has labelled the “one app to rule them all”. The 2017 WeChat User Report from Tencent revealed the average time spent in WeChat is now 66 minutes per day, creating little doubt that WeChat is the no.1 platform to reach the Chinese audience today.
Last year, The New York Times posted a video calledHow China is Changing Your Internetwhich perfectly demonstrated the mind-blowing functions WeChat can offer and how this app changed Chinese people’s day to day life. You can even order a meal in a restaurant that has no wait staff or menus.
Today in Australia, users can’t do all of those cool things on WeChat, because some functionality aren’t available outside of China. What functions can we use in Australia? How can we leverage those functions to reach the local Chinese community?
If you want to know the answer, please keep reading…
Why use WeChat?
Even though I have WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and SnapChat on my phone, I rely on WeChat to stay in touch with my Chinese and some non-Chinese friends. In Australia, some Chinese SMB owners use the ‘group chat’ function to reach and directly communicate with customers, and in app functionality allows you to easily share and scan the group’s QR code to spread it among contacts to join the chat group.
As WeChat is called the “one app to rule them all”, it refers to a features that at a minimum, can do whatever Facebook can offer, including ‘Page’ and ‘Timeline’. They call these functions ‘Moments’ in WeChat. This is where I maintain my loose relationships through that news feed and posting pictures, liking and commenting on others’ posts. ‘WeChat Moments Ads’ (sponsored posts) are available for advertisers, unfortunately, this tool hasn’t been rolled out to Australia yet to target Australian users. Advertisers can however, target Chinese users in China with this feature, and potentially those who are tourists.
The good news is the first-ever ‘Moments Ads’ was just launched in North America, so I reckon we don’t have to wait too long for it to arrive in Australia. I reckon it will open a new door for Australian marketers to reach local Chinese.
BMW’s Moments Advertisement
WeChat is also the main source of information for most Chinese, including myself, as I try to catch up with the latest trends in China while living in Sydney. For example, on my way to work, I read articles and reports from LinkedIn and The Business of Fashion (BoF) by simply subscribing to their official accounts (almost all major publishers and brands have their own accounts).
Nolan’s WeChat subscriptions.
I also follow some Chinese influencers such as one of China’s top fashion blogger, ‘gogoboi’. The latest post, sponsored by YSL, has exceeded 100,000+ views (the largest number can be shown in the post).
gogoboi’s post sponsored by YSL
The feature of the official account is not limited to just posting articles, as WeChat has opened their ecosystem to brands and developers. You can actually consider it as a web browser, where brands can plug in their online store, offer 24/7 customer service and enable chatbots to serve their official accounts. It means users don’t need to leave the app to make the transaction, which is powered by WeChat’s online payment platform, WeChat Wallet.
More and more Chinese businesses operating in Australia have started supporting WeChat Wallet (or their biggest rival, Alipay), where users can pay by scanning a QR code. There are three leading payment mPOS and POS systems in Australia that are enabling retailers and advertisers to connect to these Chinese payment systems – PayLinx, Dinpay and Royal Pay.
WeChat Wallet
Australian Brands on WeChat
The recently released June 2017 Census data shows that there are over half a million Chinese-born residents in Australia with NSW being home to about half of this population. So you shouldn’t be surprised that there are publishers curating localised content for those Chinese residents.
Some Australian businesses like Westfield Australia, David Jones, and Qantas have their own official WeChat accounts to build brand awareness and manage customer loyalty.
David Jones’ Official WeChat Account
Local official accounts also mean opportunities for advertisers to target local audiences. Unfortunately, WeChat’s display advertising service is not yet available in Australia (it’s planned for Q4 of 2017). But just like how you work with Australian bloggers, you can directly contact those official account representatives to purchase banners built in their posts, or more easily, through IDENTITY Communications, the intelligent multicultural marketing agency.
WeChat Sponsored Posts
In addition, if you have a higher budget, you can also develop native content, or organise a brand sponsored event with those publishers. The challenge here is that there are not many local publishers with a strong subscriber base. Two major Sydney publishers are WeSydney and SydneyToday.
Sydney Today’s WeChat Display Banners
QR Codes & HTML5 on WeChat
The last thing I want to mention are QR codes and HTML 5 campaigns. To be honest, I am surprised that I still haven’t seen any QR Code Outdoor campaigns or HTML 5 WeChat campaigns yet in Sydney, which I think could be an opportunity for Australian advertisers.
JD.com WeChat html5 campaign
There is a code scanner embedded in ‘WeChat’, which is commonly used in Chinese OOH campaigns that include the QR code in their creative assets and message tag line as a call to action to drive a direct response. By scanning the Code, users can be directed to the campaign web page, or the brand’s WeChat official account. More importantly, Chinese audiences are familiar with this format, since they have formed this behaviour in China. So when you include the QR code in your campaign, your brand will create the opportunity for a direct communication channel with them.
Kindle OOH QR Code Campaign
QR Code WeChat Campaign at Metro Station in China
But it doesn’t mean you should simply include the QR code in every campaign and expect Chinese people scan it. Your content and the way you incorporate a QR code definitely needs to be interesting, engaging. It should offer a value exchange to give potential customers enough incentive to pull out their phones and scan the code.
Hope it helps, please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions.
Credit: Main image from Business Insider all other images provided by Nolan Yu.
The main Australian Census data is scheduled to be released on 27 June. We couldn’t wait that long. Here’s our prediction…
This month the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released a teaser to last year’s Census – the ‘typical’ Australian at a national and state/territory level. That has only whet Australia’s appetite for more information. If you can’t wait until the major release in June, we’ve gotten together with sister agency, Cadreon to forecast some key population figures.
Last week, we released our forecast of the Top 10 Languages Spoken in Australia. Lots of great reactions from the community. Thanks for your feedback on social and LinkedIn.
You wanted more.
So we collaborated once more with sister agency, Cadreon to forecast the top 10 countries of birth as at the 2016 Census. Cadreon is a leading data and analytics agency with the expertise to build forecast models. IDENTITY Communications, as a leading multicultural marketing agency, brings community expertise. We’ve combined our forecasts of the top 10 languages spoken in Australia and the top 10 countries of birth in a new infographic, below.
The key takeouts?
While the total Australian population is forecast to increase by 11% since the 2011 Census, Mandarin speakers have increased by 77%, Filipino/Tagalog by 97%, people born in China by 90%, India born by 81%, USA by 103%
70% of Australia’s population growth since the 2011 Census come from migration compared to natural growth contribution of 30%
The Philippines is forecast to be the fifth largest migrant country of birth
The maps say it all, migration from China and India are major contributors to our population growth
About our forecast model
We started with the 2011 Census and added net monthly long term arrival figures from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection for the months between the 2011 and 2016 Censuses. Monthly data provides a richer data set and also reflects seasonality. We also factored in the birth and death rates. It might sound easy, but I’ve seen Cadreon’s forecast model, lift up the hood and it’s mighty complicated!
How close we’ll get, we’ll find out as 2016 Census data is progressively released.
I’m proud to say that the forecast team is as multicultural as the data set; the model was built by clever Cadreon peeps from Italian and Greek backgrounds, the data came from our team made up of Australians from Chinese, Chinese-Indonesian and Vietnamese backgrounds. You couldn’t get more multicultural and collaborative than that!
Find out more…
Got questions? Want to know more about this model and other intelligent IDENTITY tools? Interested in communicating with Australia’s growing diverse consumers? Contact us.
Ahead of Tuesday’s 2016 Census stage one release, Cadreon and IDENTITY Communications have collaborated to predict Australia’s total population and the top 10 languages, other than English, spoken in the country. How close will we get to #Census2016 figures?
The industry has been hanging out for the release of the 2016 Census. The last one was in 2011 and multicultural marketing agencies have been relying on data that is five years old.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the 2016 Census will be released in three stages:
April 11: A preview of results and giving insight into what makes the ‘typical’ Australian at the national and state/territory level.
June 27: This comprehensive dataset will include national, state/territory and capital city data for selected key person, family and dwelling characteristics, including age, sex, religion, language and income.
October: Detailed Census data on employment, qualifications and population mobility (journey to work and previous address).
We know Australia’s diversity has changed dramatically between the last two Censuses. Rather than waiting, we partnered with IPG Mediabrands sister agency, Cadreon to forecast the total Australian population and the top 10 languages, other than English, spoken in Australia. Cadreon is a leading data and analytics agency with the expertise to build forecast models. IDENTITY brings multicultural community expertise.
The result is shown in the infographic below, which illustrates the changing face of Australia.
The 2016 Forecast
Rank
Language
2001
2006
2011
2016
1
Mandarin
139286
220604
336410
594597
2
Cantonese
225307
244560
263673
383307
3
Arabic
209372
243662
287174
375639
4
Italian
353605
316894
299833
325985
5
Vietnamese
174236
194854
233390
301460
6
Greek
263717
252227
252217
262587
7
Hindi
47817
70007
111351
174939
8
Tagalog
78878
92328
81457
160388
9
Spanish
93593
98002
117499
140408
10
Korean
39529
54624
79787
95084
The key takeouts?
Over 1 million people in Australia speak Chinese, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Wu, Min Nan and others.
Mandarin and Cantonese are the top 2 languages, other than English spoken in Australia.
Italian drops from 2nd to 4th most spoken language, Greek from 5th to 6th, reflecting the ageing population of post war European migrants and the relative decline in migration from this region.
Filipino/Tagalog is the fastest growing of the top 10 language groups in Australia, growing by 97%.
Korea comes into the top 10 for the first time
We’ve used the new forecast to update our recent infographic about the Chinese community in Australia below.
About our forecast model
We started with the 2011 Census and added net monthly long term arrival figures from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection for the months between the 2011 and 2016 Censuses. Monthly data provides a richer data set and also reflects seasonality. We also factored in the birth and death rates. It might sound easy, but I’ve seen Cadreon’s forecast model, lift up the hood and it’s mighty complicated!
How close we’ll get, we’ll find out as 2016 Census data is progressively released.
But I’ve gotta say, we had a lot of fun and the forecast team is as multicultural as the data set; the model was built by clever Cadreon peeps from Italian and Greek backgrounds, the data came from our team made up of Australians from Chinese, Chinese-Indonesian and Vietnamese backgrounds. You couldn’t get more multicultural and collaborative than that!
Find out more…
Got questions? Want to know more about this model and other intelligent IDENTITY tools? Interested in communicating with Australia’s growing diverse consumers? Contact us.
NB: Updated forecasts with revised figures on 19 April 2017.
This is one of the most common questions that clients ask us at IDENTITY Communications. We’ve put together a quick guide.
China is already a major driver of world economic growth. Domestically, it’s important too. Around 650,000 people in Australia speak a Chinese language and Mandarin is now Australia’s most spoken language other than English (2011 Census), over 1m Chinese tourists visit Australia each year and China is our top source of international students.
IDENTITY is a leading multicultural agency in Australia. Just about every campaign we do from NSW Government through to commercial clients like Toys”R”Us, Johnson & Johnson, Meat & Lifestock Australia (MLA) include Chinese as a target community. And yes, we get asked these questions a lot:
What’s the difference between Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese?
What’s the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese?
When do we use what?
The year of the Rooster falls on Saturday 28 January, 2017. With the Lunar New Year almost upon us, we thought it’s timely for a post that answers these common questions.
What’s the difference between Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese?
It’s the writing system.
Traditional Chinese writing characters date back 2,200 years ago to the Han Dynasty.
During the 1950s the government in China implemented the First Chinese Character Simplification Scheme, with reduced number of strokes in many characters – this is what is now more commonly referred to as Simplified Chinese.
Key difference between Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese:
Simplified Chinese has less stokes, for example the Traditional Chinese character for million 萬, in Simplified Chinese is written as 万.
Because the characters are simplified, one Simplified character could have the meaning of several Traditional characters (polysemy) for example the Simplified character of 复 could subtitle a range of Traditional characters including 複, 復 and 覆. Context is given when they are read in conjunction with other characters.
However, not all characters have been simplified so readers may understand parts of a sentence, however, there is always a risk of misunderstanding.
Q: What’s the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese?
It’s spoken Chinese.
They refer to the two most spoken form of Chinese (there are in fact another 20 spoken dialects in China). Cantonese has nine tones while Mandarin only has four, which leads some to argue it’s easier for a Cantonese speaker to learn Mandarin. Cantonese is more commonly spoken in southern China, Hong Kong and the more established Chinese diaspora.
Cantonese speakers and Mandarin speakers would have a hard time understanding each other given the huge difference in tones. That’s why when producing communication involving the spoken language, you should cater for the relevant language preference.
Q: So Mandarin speakers use Simplified Chinese and Cantonese speakers use Traditional Chinese?
Wrong.
That’s a major misconception. Those from Southern China use Cantonese but write Simplified. Those from Taiwan speak Mandarin but write in Traditional Chinese. The only thing you can be sure of is that people from China use Simplified Chinese characters.
In Australia, Chinese language media are a mix of all of these, depending on their audience. So your communications material should match the language used. The Australian Chinese Daily uses Traditional Chinese characters, so your advertising should match that. Radio 2AC broadcasts in Mandarin. The majority of Australia’s local online publishers use Simplified Chinese.
As a general rule, when it comes to ethnic media in Australia, Chinese print media are mostly in Traditional characters, for online it’s Simplified and for radio it’s an even 50/50.
Q: Traditional, Simplified, Cantonese and Mandarin – when should we use what?
Here’s a list of spoken and written Chinese for key Asian countries with a large Chinese population.
China: Simplified / Mandarin
Hong Kong: Traditional / Cantonese
Macau: Traditional / Cantonese
Taiwan: Traditional / Mandarin
Singapore: Simplified / Mandarin
Malaysia: Traditional / Mandarin
Did you find this guide useful? Please share with your network.
For more resources on how to target Australia’s diverse communities, visit IDENTITY.
The winners of the 2016 Australian Multicultural Marketing Awards (AMMAs) were revealed at the Sydney Opera House last night, with the latest lamb campaign by Meat & Livestock Australia and independent agency The Monkeys receiving a double dose of recognition with two gongs.
The ‘Bringing EVERYONE together over lamb’ campaign, which also had contributions from UM, One Green Bean and Identity, won the Communications category as well as the People’s Choice Award.
SBS Radio and Access Community Services were the other big winners on the night, both receiving two awards.
SBS Radio took out the Communities category for its SBS Arabic24 station and the Youth category for its National Languages Competition, while Access Community Services won the Business Diversity award for its ‘#OurStories campaign’ and the Arts and Culture award for its Brisbane Multicultural Arts Centre.
Telstra denied Access Community Services a third award win with its ‘A place to belong’ indigenous recruitment campaign in the Big Business category, while Why Documentaries won the Small Business award for its film From Foe to Friends.
Western Sydney University’s popular ‘Unlimited’ campaign featuring Sudanese refugee Deng Adut claimed the Education category, while Cricket Australia won the Sport category.
The Public Sector award went to the NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service and the NSW Organ and Tissue Donation Service for their multi-platform campaign which aimed to raise awareness of organ tissue donation among the state’s different cultures.
NSW Minister for Multiculturalism, John Ajaka, said the outstanding quality of this year’s winners is a testament to all the creativity and imagination of marketing and advertising professionals who are breaking barriers and promoting diversity on screens and across society.
“The large spike in nominations this year is a testament to marketers increasingly exploring the Australian identity in new and innovative ways,” he said.
“I congratulate all the winners and finalists for their vision, passion and commitment to their field.”
IDENTITY is a specialist multicultural marketing agency that is part of IPG Mediabrands.
