From Bawang Chaji to Black Myth: Monkey King, China-Chic's journey to the sea is getting wider and wider

Qingbo Observer

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2024-09-06 10:25

100 Ways of China-Chic Going to Sea

The Chinese wind has blown to the whole world.

Going back to August 10th, at the Paris Olympics artistic gymnastics collective all-around final, the performances of "Symbiotic Dance" and "Phoenix Singing in the Sky" not only won the first gold medal in Olympic history for the Chinese artistic gymnastics team, but also presented Chinese style and Eastern charm that are unforgettable.

In these two performances, the dazzling costumes, the theme of Han and Tang national style, the selection of ancient music, and the integration of classical dance fully demonstrate the beauty of Chinese style. The outstanding Chinese style has achieved effective artistic and cultural output in world-class competitions.

Foreign athletes are also interpreting their understanding of Chinese culture in their own way. In the flower game arena, the Australian team performed "Kung Fu Panda", the American team wore Phoenix Bathing Fire on their bodies, and the Greek team cleverly combined Eastern culture with flower games by wearing clothing designed with Eight Trigrams elements, with Tai Chi Yin Yang as the theme.

Chinese brands have not missed this sky high traffic, whether on the Olympic stage or on the streets of Paris. National style elements have been skillfully applied by major brands, complemented by superb marketing strategies. While building brand awareness, overseas friends can fully experience the unique charm of Chinese traditional culture. On the race track to the sea, industries including clothing, cosmetics, tea, games, and hip games are also accelerating their integration with Chinese traditional culture, so that China-Chic can radiate new vitality overseas.

01: The mysterious Eastern power under the Olympic craze

In July, when Chinese brands collided with Olympic hotspots, how to seize this wave of traffic became a new issue. Unexpectedly, they joined the national trend element in their marketing methods.

These operations are carried out simultaneously on the streets of Paris and at the Olympic venues.

Xiaofan has been studying in France for over two years. After seeing the Chinese elements on the streets of Paris during the Olympics, she felt like she had returned to her home country. At the entrance of the Galeries Lafayette shopping mall, she saw some compatriots painting Chinese characteristic paintings, and the business was extremely hot. On the banks of the Seine River, she saw Miniso combining Chinese classical poetry with its brand image and cheering for the Chinese team with a huge red display board.

What impressed Xiaofan the most was that she saw many domestic and foreign friends carrying Chinese red "conspicuous bags" with various slogans such as "P people never make strategies", "Chinese scholars", and "This time I really came to Versailles".

This is a marketing highlight of Xiaohongshu in Paris. The red design of the "conspicuous package" blends with super catchy copywriting, attracting attention from tens of meters away. At the same time, the function of Xiaohongshu is implanted on the big red envelope to guide traffic online.

The implantation of online functions, the promotional power of pedestrian billboards, and the social attributes of Xiaohongshu itself are highly integrated, coupled with the visual impact of Chinese Red, resulting in a definite wave of brand marketing and cultural output.

Bawang Tea Lady opened the pop-up store on the streets of Paris. Just at the bustling Paris Saint Lazare train station, the offline pop-up store of TEA BAR, a tea queen, features the iconic blue color of CHAGEE tea cups, incorporating representative tea culture elements such as tea trees, tea leaves, and the ancient Tea Horse Road, implementing the "only give, not sell" strategy, allowing foreign friends to also enjoy the taste of Boya Juexian. It is reported that TEA BAR's offline pop-up store attracted nearly 2000 customers to check-in on its opening day.

From Bawang Chaji to Black Myth: Wukong, China-Chic's journey to the sea is getting wider and wider

Image source: The official website of Bawang Tea Lady

After watching a video of tea culture, Xiaofan also got to know the surrounding areas. "The activities organized by the flash shop every day are different. The links with Chinese cultural characteristics, such as throwing pots and cuju, have attracted many foreigners to try." She told Hugo Cross border. And these interactive experiences with the audience not only allow more overseas consumers to experience the rich cultural core of China, but also serve as a way to enhance the fun?

Like Bawang Chaji, White Elephant opened a flash shop - White Elephant Soup Noodles at No. 8 St. Martin Street, a prime location in downtown Paris. Just because the food culture is different from place to place, can a bowl of Chinese noodles attract more foreigners to try?

In the White Elephant Soup Noodle House, the design of the links around the wish blessing free tasting and playing the game collar is the same as that of Bawang Chaji. The presence of sports celebrities such as Lang Ping, Zhang Weili, Zou Shiming, Ni Xialian and so on has made the White Elephant Soup Noodle House more exposed. In addition, Baixiang also collaborates with bloggers from different fields to output content, strengthen Chinese noodle IP, and vertically output content from multiple dimensions. The strong interaction between offline and online allows Baixiang to attract more traffic smoothly.

Turning our attention to the Olympics itself, multiple domestic brands have become sponsors of the Chinese delegation, sparing no effort to cleverly integrate traditional Chinese cultural elements with modern design. Clothing with different styles but the same origin is extremely eye-catching on the field and podium.

From the nicknames of clothing, it can be seen that various brands have ambitions to showcase their Eastern style on the Olympic stage, such as ANTA's "Champion Linglong" award gown, Jiumuwang's "Dream Chasing" dress, Li Ning's "Dragon Dress", Biyinlefen's "Five Star Battle Robe III", and so on.

Among them, Bi Yin Le Fen incorporated the national flag and Chinese palace architectural features into the design of the "Five Star Battle Robe III", while the "Pursuing Dreams" dress of the Nine Shepherd King reflects more Chinese charm. Bamboo, one of the Four Gentlemen of China, is the main pattern of the dress design. The women's mid sleeved cheongsam is decorated with Chinese style buckles, and the I-shaped pattern extracted from Great Wall bricks and tiles also appears on the suit jacket, showcasing ethnic characteristics.

From Bawang Chaji to Black Myth: Monkey King, China-Chic's journey to the sea is getting wider and wider

Image: Jiumuwang's "Dream Chasing" Dress Image Source: Jiumuwang Men's Pants Expert

As is well known, in hot events like the Olympics, from athletes' hair accessories and drinks to clothing and endorsement brands, they can all be quickly sought after and become traffic codes. So we can see that, in addition to inviting athletes to act as brand endorsers to take over fan sentiment, Chinese brands are committed to expanding the influence of Chinese traditional culture and making China-Chic go out to sea with a single spark.

02: How to reshape tradition to attract the younger generation?

China-Chic is both inheritance and innovation. Nowadays, more and more Chinese brands are constantly integrating Chinese traditional cultural elements into the sea, making China-Chic become a butterfly in the external communication.

Tea, as an important symbol of Chinese culture, was spread overseas through the Silk Road and maritime trade as early as the Tang Dynasty. With the passage of time, some overseas regions have gained a certain understanding of Chinese tea. It was not until recent years that Ba Wang Cha Ji opened up a new path for the dissemination of Chinese tea drinks in offline stores in Southeast Asia.

In fact, during the overseas expansion, Zhang Junjie, the founder of Bawang Tea Ji, once thought about the difference between drinking tea and coffee among young people nowadays? How can tea be accepted by more young people? How to make drinking tea a part of young people's lives?

In the past few years, we have seen that Bawang Tea Lady has rooted itself in the "national style" in both packaging and logo design. When entering the Southeast Asian market, she did not cater to the "high sweetness" taste of local consumers, but instead focused on the "healthy milk tea" label combined with Eastern culture.

Until 2023, Bawang Tea Ji will improve its product formula by removing artificial flavors from the tea base, removing creamer from milk, and ensuring that it does not contain trans fatty acids, making the low sugar concept deeply rooted in people's hearts again. Just like a cup of Boya Juexian tea with 85ml fresh milk, 25ml base milk, 30g syrup, and 250ml jasmine snow bud tea soup, it focuses on the original flavor of tea and milk, bringing consumers a refreshing taste and the "tea flavor" of milk tea, rather than a sweet milk flavor. Zhang Junjie said that what we want to sell is this cup of tea.

Product differentiation and brand differentiation are direct manifestations of BaWang Tea Ji's unique approach. In addition to the taste of a cup of milk tea, Bawang Tea Lady is also considering how to make a Southeast Asian consumer feel the strong flavor of new tea drinks when they enter the store.

On August 2nd, Bawang Tea Lady officially opened its first store in Orchard Gate, Singapore with a coffee shop style tea bar concept, marking the first time Bawang Tea Lady has showcased modern tea bar aesthetics in its global stores.

Singapore international student Xiao Lu chose to visit this store in mid August to avoid being discouraged by the crowd on the opening day. The interior decoration of the store is mainly in a low-key and soothing tea color scheme. If I hadn't seen the familiar Beijing Opera Huadan face mask logo, I would have thought this was a caf é, "Xiao Lu joked. Unlike the usual mode of buying and leaving, this store has a comfortable dining area. When taking photos and checking in at the dining area, you can also see Chinese elements such as sailboats, caravans, shoulder poles, teapots, etc. in the murals that tell the story of the spread of Chinese tea culture.

In fact, since August 2019, when Bawang Tea Ji opened its first overseas store in Malaysia, it has brought Chinese traditional tea culture closer to the modern pace of life with a freshly made milk tea, improved the international market's understanding of the tea drinking experience, and also answered the questions raised by Zhang Junjie himself.

Southeast Asia is not only the blessed land of Bawang Chaji, but also the leader of Chinese fashion game, Paopao Mart, has achieved several times of growth here. In its mid-term report for 2024, Pop Mart disclosed for the first time its performance and proportion in various regions. Among them, the Southeast Asian market achieved revenue of 560 million yuan, accounting for 41.1%, a year-on-year increase of 478.3%, with astonishing growth rate.

In fact, "cultural affinity" is an important criterion for Pop Mart's choice of overseas destinations, followed by hard conditions such as economic size, income, urbanization rate, and distance from China.

After considering the multiple factors mentioned above, Bubble Mart first knocked on the door to the Southeast Asian market, which is closer to China. In 2021, Pop Mart opened its first store at FUNAN Mall in Singapore. In the following years, it gradually expanded into Malaysia and Thailand, and then continued to expand into the more culturally diverse regions of Europe and America.

From Bawang Chaji to Black Myth: Wukong, China-Chic's journey to the sea is getting wider and wider

Image: Pop Mart Audience Area Image Source: Nox Juxing

Overall, the overseas circle of Bubble Mart is now very clear. From the data analysis of Nox Juxing, it can be seen that audience regions are divided based on factors such as the distribution of influencers and fan subscription characteristics. Currently, the main audience region of Pop Mart is Thailand, accounting for 30.8%, followed by Indonesia (27.2%) and the United States (13.6%).

Trendy play is different from tea drinks, just like collecting hobbies and cravings are completely different. As the primary productive force, Pop Mart constantly interprets traditional culture from the perspective of trendy toys and designs more trendy toy images, including MOLLY's "Palace Beast" series, "Journey to the West" series, etc., which are popular among many consumers abroad.

In the process of going out, Bubble Mart did not carry out one-way cultural output, but was familiar with the concept of localization. It co branded with Marvel, Disney, DC and other IPs, and cooperated with artists around the world to create original localization IPs that conform to local cultural habits. For example, it launched a fortune cat manual in Japan, a maple leaf manual in Canada, and a French navy blue LABUBU in Paris, France, so as to make Chinese fashion play IP popular in the world.

03: Take off from the shoulders of social media

In addition to Chaoplay and tea drinks, Hanfu and beauty makeup with strong oriental colors are gradually known by overseas consumers with the rise of China-Chic.

As for the Hanfu category, the horse faced skirt has become popular overseas, driving the export transaction volume of the Hanfu industry belt in Cao County, Shandong. Later, the brand NewMoonDance has targeted the niche Hanfu market, selling men's and women's Hanfu styles from different dynasties through independent websites. Open the NewMoonDance official website homepage, in addition to various Hanfu styles, you can also see a variety of accessories such as hairpins, shoes, hats, wrist guards, etc. It is reported that NewMoonDance's independent website once achieved a record of $60000 in revenue per hour.

From Bawang Chaji to Black Myth: Monkey King, China-Chic's journey to the sea is getting wider and wider

Image source: NewMoonDance official website

The concept of "Chinese makeup" is gradually becoming clearer among overseas consumers. As early as 2019, beauty brand Huaxizi rose to the 7th spot on Japanese Twitter due to its unique Eastern design. After a long period of preparation, Huaxizi officially entered the Japanese market in 2021 and sold out multiple products on the first day of its launch. Subsequently, Huaxizi expanded into Southeast Asia's Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and entered the United States and Europe in the following two years. From 2021 to 2023, Huaxizi achieved revenues of 480 million, 670 million, and 654 million overseas respectively.

As a beauty brand that tells the story of Chinese culture, Huaxizi first brings some aesthetic shock to overseas consumers in product design, such as using Chinese ancient locks, Miao silver jewelry, Ding kiln ceramics, wood carving, relief and other intangible cultural heritage technologies.

From Bawang Chaji to Black Myth: Monkey King, China-Chic's journey to the sea is getting wider and wider

Image: Huaxizi Phoenix Charm Mysterious Set Image source: Huaxizi official website

Considering that overseas consumers may not understand the cultural symbols from the East, Huaxizi launched marketing activities on Chinese traditional festivals such as the Spring Festival, Qixi Festival and Mid Autumn Festival to deepen the recognition and recognition of overseas consumers. At the same time, like Bubble Mart, it respected the cultural differences and consumption preference differences in different regions, implanted localization concepts in Chinese cosmetics, and launched different types of beauty products in overseas markets.

Brands with strong cultural attributes such as NewMoonDance and Huaxizi are able to dominate overseas markets largely due to the influence of social media in brand marketing. TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are their main platforms for marketing.

NewMoonDance collaborates with fashion bloggers to release videos on social media platforms showcasing Hanfu try on experiences and ancient makeup teaching, completing a closed loop of science popularization, teaching, ordering, experience, sharing, and dissemination; In the early stages of going global, Huaxizi collaborated with KOLs in the beauty industry with higher fan stickiness, attracting consumers through product reviews, planting grass, graphics, and videos; Bubble Mart collaborated with TikTok influencers to produce creative videos showcasing new blind boxes, which not only attracted a large number of Generation Z users' attention but also sparked their desire to purchase.

After the recent popularity of "Black Myth: Wukong" worldwide, it has also attracted overseas players to actively explore the cultural background behind the game, and even led to the continuous increase in the playback of the bilingual 86 version of "Journey to the West" on YouTube, which is closely related to its earlier social media marketing.

According to Nox Juxing data analysis, on August 22nd, there were a total of 5024 internet celebrities associated with "Black Myth: Wukong" on YouTube, 16800 associated advertising videos, and a total viewing volume of 267 million. The total viewing volume of videos on TikTok and Instagram also reached 142 million and 26.417 million, respectively.

From Bawang Chaji to Black Myth: Wukong, China-Chic's journey to the sea is getting wider and wider

Image source: Nox Cluster

Obviously, this cannot be achieved in just a few days. In fact, the game team of "Black Myth: Wukong" has also placed a large number of English advertisements in the first tier markets of Europe and America, and opened official accounts on multiple social media platforms to attract global players' attention by publishing game related content.

However, the most acclaimed aspect of "Black Myth: Wukong" is the highly realistic portrayal of ancient Chinese architecture in the game graphics, and the integration of Chinese mythological stories and storytelling from northern Shaanxi has elevated it from a game to a cultural level.

China's five thousand years of civilization inheritance has provided a rich source of creativity for sailors. The cultural confidence and cultural output of Chinese brands in Paris during the Olympic Games, as well as the successful sailing cases such as Farewell My Concubine and Huaxizi, all show that we are trying to play the China-Chic IP card well.

In the future, there may be more industries and more brands to tap into the rich mine of Chinese traditional culture and join the ranks of national tide.

(Cover image source: Tu Chong Creative)

(Source: Qingbo)

从霸王茶姬到《黑神话：悟空》，国潮出海之路越走越宽

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2024-09-06 10:25