Creating an effective marketing strategy in line with a brand’s positioning and purpose has become more and more essential for companies in China, ours included in the past years. We believe that marketing and retail design cannot be separated, but rather complement each other to serve the strategic objectives of the brand. There has been a growing demand for our marketing consultancy services in recent years so we have launched the 5SP Marketing sub-brand for easier identification. Today, we want to showcase two recent projects we worked on with our client PROCOLOMBIA, both highly branded and which achieved a powerful media impact.
What is 5SP Marketing?
5SP Marketing is a team within 5 Star Plus Retail Design offering marketing strategy, content & social media management, and storytelling; among other services to our existing clients. With our 10 years of experience in the Chinese market, we know what consumers want and how brands need to act. Our strong competency in building brands over the long term is rooted in our strategy, brand management, storytelling, and design capability. We are experts in cross-marketing projects involving online and offline channels and strategic partners.
PROCOLOMBIA's Marketing Projects
At the end of last year, PROCOLOMBIA, the Colombian country brand that supports tourism, export, and investment launched two campaigns with our support: the Colombian Coffee Festival and Colombian Brands Week. The campaigns were designed to raise awareness of Colombia’s high-quality products and to increase sales.
Colombian Coffee Festival
The first campaign, the Colombian Coffee Festival, focused on premium quality Colombian coffee. Selected cafes and restaurants received free coffee beans for one week and agreed to promote the event in return with online and offline marketing materials. The design used for the promotion was tailored to the Chinese market by the 5 Star Plus team.
The festival started with a launch event at one of the participating venues where media representatives, VIP guests, and a Chinese KOL, Mei Li Shi Zu (妹莉十足) were invited. The event’s main speakers were Luis Diego Monsalve, Ambassador of Colombia to China, and Natalia Tobón Tobón, Commercial Counsellor at the Embassy of Colombia and Director of ProColombia China.
The festival’s press release appeared in various Chinese and International magazines (printed and online) as well as on the KOL’s social media platform; resulting in more than 76 million reaches.
Colombian Brands Week
The one-week-long e-commerce festival featured Colombian brands and promoted their products on TMall, JD, Taobao, and WeChat mini-program. The ultimate objective was to promote the high-quality Colombian products in China, increase brand recognition of the 19 participating brands, and build customer loyalty resulting in increased sales.
The majority of the festival took place online, starting with live streaming on the festival’s first day. During almost 2 hours of live streaming, the brands presented their products to the audience of the well-known Chinese KOL COCO 蔻 蔻.
Another KOL GAOYANG 高阳-朝阳 created a short video about the event and the Colombian products. The festival received great media coverage on various Chinese websites and KOL social media platforms with almost 4 million reaches.
As these examples show, marketing in China requires a unique approach tailored to the mobile-first consumer who looks for unique content and brands they can connect with. Involving KOLs, creating shareable, viral content, and being present on dominant media platforms are the key. In addition, the impact of powerful, well-designed visual content cannot be underestimated. It is a fast, ever-changing scenery but that’s exactly why we love to work on projects like these.
