“文化+直播”凝视美好日常，“国潮消费”弯道超车 - 2020-06-10

Guochao, or the current fashion for Chinese brands and culture, is embarking on the overtaking track: On the first day of the Quality Life Week, part of the ongoing Double Five Shopping Festival, local bicycle brand Forever made some enterprising judgement on future consumption trend.
On the same day, livestreaming showrooms scattered across the city seemed to serve as testimonies for this bold statement. During a livestreaming session on e-commerce site Xiaohongshu, Shanghai-based qipao maker Manloulan attracted some 240,000 online viewers, who avidly loaded messages asking for online purchase links and store locations. A livestreaming session held by Eastday.com featured marketplaces in Qibao ancient town, which sell traditional handcrafts that are manifestations of intangible cultural heritage. The tryout on ancient Chinese clothing became the most attention-grabbing part throughout the show. A retrospect on a series of warm-up events would walk us through initiatives like the tie-up between retro sneaker brand Warrior and Shanghai Animation Film Studio on the avatars “Calabash Brothers,” wherein the latest “Ruyi” crossover series has raked in over 3 million-yuan sales. The Quality Life Week, which boasts itself as a key activity promoting the livestreaming practice, will see traditional local brands like White Rabbit and Bee & Flower jump on the livestreaming bandwagon through platforms like Pinduoduo and Meituan.
When people talk about Guochao, what are they referring to? Chen Qiu, vice president of Pinduoduo, shared his insights: “In a narrow sense, any new product designs incorporating the Chinese culture and elements, especially the traditional ones, count as Guochao. It precisely captures people’s understanding of oriental aesthetics, and this has grown to become an indicator of a better life in the context of consumption, amid the duo upgrade of consumption and aesthetic. In the broader sense, China has maintained a robust development momentum, with total retail sales of consumer goods hitting 41 trillion yuan. Those that claim to design indigenously from China and can meet the higher ‘made-in-China’ standard all fall into the Guochao category.”
In his view, Shanghai culture, Shanghai-based time-honored brands, and local intangible cultural heritages can all serve as sources of inspiration for Guochao products, while Shanghai boasts the reputation of a “City of Livestreaming.” The establishment of the “culture+livestreaming” model helps amplify the “beautiful life” notion, meanwhile setting the stage for a “fast-track lane” for the Guochao consumption wave to take shape in Shanghai.
Behind the 80,000 notes: Cultural elements in consumption receive increasing attention
Pearl, Panjin embroidery, paeonia lactiflora, hand embroidery qipao — a list of terms on materials and techniques kept popping up in the comment section of virtual livestreaming rooms. Users left messages in the form of danmu, or live comments, saying they want to “closely follow the hosts’ notes,” while others echoed by saying “I’ve never imagined Shanghai-style qipao to be so beautiful.” A “note” is the common thread for socializing purposes on Xiaohongshu, with users uploading notes in the form of text and pictures, or videos, in order to spread and share their understanding of a beautiful life. Once people “follow” the notes, it means the content curator has succeeded in popularizing his or her posts.
During the one-hour show yesterday afternoon, anchor Chen Yihui virtually walked online spectators through Manloulan’s Shanghai-style qipao portfolio. The dazzling array of selections, from everyday choices, the co-branded styles with Swarovski, and to the most treasured piece of the shop, the variety has won widespread appraisal from online users, who touted the selection as “good-looking for each single piece” and can be reserved as “candidate dresses for the wedding ceremony.” As the host tried out the dresses, the brand’s designer took over the showroom, introducing the brand and sharing stories behind the elaborate designs of each dress to prospective customers. The “Ink Bamboo Rhyme” series integrates Western materials with the Chinese bamboo culture, whereas the “Glorious Feather and Fantasy Jade” series features the combination of Chinese aesthetic lines and innovative materials. Shanghai-style qipao itself is an embodiment of the cosmopolitan culture. Shuffling from “listening to lectures” and “watching change of clothes,” Internet users would find an hour quickly fly by as they immersed themselves in an experience-driven scenario.
Zeng Xiulian, a partner of Xiaohongshu, told reporters that many people may be more draw to the cultural concept of embedded in consumption than they themselves have imagined.
“There are over 80,000 qipao-themed notes on Xiaohongshu. The dress itself is highly representative of the unique Shanghai culture. That serves as a reminder for us to give full play Xiaohongshu’s advantages of long-term cultivation in the lifestyle realm and the differentiating characteristics of conducting interactive livestreaming. In this way, we are able to promote Shanghai’s concepts on quality lifestyle and recommend the city’s rich cultural and creativity consumption resources to users who have high pursuits in life quality.”
In other words, users’ demand for the Shanghai culture has always been there. The positive responses to the platform’s livestreaming endeavors have reaffirmed the increasing proportion of cultural ideas in stimulating consumption desire.
New faces for old brands, cultural identity can serve as a new growth point of consumption.
Pinduoduo has prepared five themes to welcome the Quality Life Week. Focusing on the five major consumer demands, including Shanghai time-honored brands, classical cultural creativity products and fashion and lifestyle, the platform will devote no less than 150 million yuan worth of subsidies in the form of cash and coupons. It will also employ marketing resources worth over 300 million yuan to host the Quality Life online session in tandem with 1,000 physical stores, in an effort to contribute to the beautiful life of Shanghai residents. Among them, time-honored brands like Hui Li, Bee & Flower, Pechoin and Bright Food’s White Rabbit have all taken on new looks.
According to Chen Qiu, Pinduoduo has rolled out a dedicated new e-commerce plan for Shanghai time-honored brands since May 2019. Take the Bee & Flower’s hair conditioner as an example. One silicone-free, cost-effective product has seen sales more than quadruple on the platform after it rolled out a Pinduoduo-customized version. More importantly, Pinduoduo brings in valuable data tracking customer demands, guiding the direction for product line upgrade — Since silicone-free has emerged as a common demand from consumers, why don’t time-honored brands take a slice of the market?
“With the same product functionalities, cultural proximity and recognition are the key thrusts for time-honored brands to capture new growth points,” said Shao Yuting, an expert engaged in developing Shanghai-style souvenirs in recent years. According to him, turning products into a “readable” carrier of the Shanghai culture is an important way of stimulating the new Guochao consumption trend.
Coincidentally, in an upcoming livestreaming session, the tie-up between Bright Food and Meituan, which is set to feature the White Rabbit ice-creams, has garnered a high level of attention even prior to its kickoff. What stories will the Phoenix bicycle share on Eastday.com? What new aesthetic chapters will Shanghai Jahwa usher in on Douyin? And what co-branded new products in the realm of milk tea, fragrance, lip balms, apparels and bags would we be expecting? Those are no means simple redesigns of product images — they also represent the use of cultural vitality and cohesion to stimulate domestic demand and release consumption potential. Such plots are actively unfolding in Shanghai this week.
 

出处：文汇