It’s no secret that WeChat is becoming a prominent channel for luxury brands to reach out to the Chinese population by creating online campaigns. For this year’s Qixi Festival—China’s version of Valentine’s Day—brands have a new trick up their sleeves for online marketing: WeChat mini programs.
As Chinese Valentine’s Day approaches, over twenty brands, including names like Dior, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, and Gucci launched their mini programs for limited-time and special-edition sales during the festival, according to local media. On July 25, Dior led the race by offering a special Qixi edition of Dioramour handbag on its official WeChat account. It then offered a limited number of Lady Dior handbags through its mini program on July 31. The campaign gained popularity among Dior fans with the handbag currently sold out.
The Qixi or Double Seventh Festival, which falls this year on 17th August, is celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month as China’s Valentine Day by the younger generation. Unsurprisingly, the gift-giving tradition turns the Festival into a retail extravaganza where luxury brands thrive.
For last year’s Qixi Festival, Dior and Bulgari both became early adopters of WeChat mini program marketing. One year later, more brands are now eager to join the club on this special day. Burberry launched a gamified mini program last week, where the couples have to answer seven questions about each other before being shown the Burberry’s Qixi handbag.
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WeChat-based marketing is part of the brands’ efforts to localize and tap into China, the world’s largest market for luxury products. Moving towards mini program grants them a more robust channel for accessing customers.
WeChat now has more than one million mini programs, serving over 600 million users as of June this year, according to data released by mini program maker Jisu App.