A whole new world: companies are learning how to reach Chinese consumers cost-effectively via social media tools.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

There is a popular saying that all politics is local. In China, the same can be said about the Internet. Local players, in tune to the specific needs of the country's "netizens," rule the digital space, and the numbers are staggering. According to the China Network Information Center, China has some 338 million Internet users, or 25.5 percent of the population, including 320 million broadband subscribers, who are online for an average of 16 hours per week, the same amount of time they spend watching television. There are 111 million people managing a social network profile, and that number is growing daily. The power of the Internet in China has never been stronger and has not even begun to be realized.

It is no secret that the Internet has been an agent for reform in China, and it is serving as a valuable tool for people to explore a world often beyond their reach. The Internet is not just serving Chinas growing set of netizens, though. It is quickly replacing traditional media, as brands and companies seek to connect with consumers in new ways. With the exception of Google, international platforms that offer a cut-and-paste version of their American or European sites typically either fail or get banned. International phenomena like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have fallen victim to the Great Firewall of China. While young, innovative Chinese netizens can find a way to get to these sites, why would they want to? Chinese social media tools are simply way cooler.

Long-running multi-service portals like Sina, QQ and Sohu were offering social networking, discussion forums, blogs, instant messaging and other "socialized media" long before the international sensations of the past few years. As the nationally adored form of social media, bulletin board systems are available on every imaginable topic, and in these forums netizens can be extremely vocal and subversive.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

However, most people are simply seeking entertainment and escape. This state of mind is exemplified by one of the hottest online games, Parking Wars, played on the social networking site Kaixin. Players earn virtual money for parking in their friends' spaces and issuing parking infringements if they catch their friends parking on their own home turf, with more money earning you shinier wheels. It is addictive and unrivaled by anything on Facebook.

Netizens love the collective and escapist nature of the Internet, where avatars have become a nationwide obsession and are carefully designed as a form of self-expression and an extension of the user's personality. QQ offers avatar clothing and hairstyles for between 14 and 17 U.S. cents apiece. Many a friendship has been made in avatar form, with many Net friends never actually meeting face-to-face.

With no hesitation about inundating friends with requests to play this game, read that blog, join in this conversation or watch that viral video, the Internet is something of a national addiction. The question everyone is asking now is how companies and brands can start using it as a communication channel.

The first companies and brands to leverage the Internet to reach their customers knew that a true digital brand experience requires creativity, authenticity and originality.

Case study: ProChile

The government of Chile, in promoting Chilean wine in China, understood this. With a modest budget of less than US$75,000 and an ambitious agenda, ProChile, the government body responsible for the promotion of Chile and Chilean wine, found gold with its online campaign.

China's wine-import industry is filled with both opportunity and challenge. The opportunity lies with Chinas rapidly growing number of wine connoisseurs, who seek new and different types of wine. The challenge is that Chinese consumers often default to high-priced French wine, focusing on the status associated with French wine, rather than quality or affordability.

What few Chinese consumers knew was that Chile exports affordable, high-quality wines. Wine is one of the fastest-growing alcoholic beverages in China among young (25-35 years old) urban professionals. Yet research indicated that these individuals were sometimes embarrassed to order or purchase wine because they didn't know enough about the product. This group also fell in the demographic of heavy Internet users; they are the foundation of Chinas flourishing social media scene, and often look to bloggers for advice. They view the Internet as an instrument for learning and a place to share knowledge and recommendations.

The Chilean government wanted to reach out to these consumers and help them understand that there is more to choosing wine than just comparing price tags. In addition to increasing sales of Chilean wines, ProChile wanted to promote Chile to create a stronger brand presence for its products. It was obvious that online education and social media engagement should serve as the cornerstone of a campaign to build awareness of, and preference for, Chilean wine. Using a multi-phased digital campaign, ProChile saw sales of Chilean wine in China rise considerably in just three months.

ProChile's strategy

Seeking to empower consumers with knowledge and confidence, the "I Love Chilean Wine" campaign focused on arming people with the tools to buy or order wine. To create a bigger brand presence, information about and images of Chile were disseminated as a constant backdrop.

A three-phase campaign rollout was launched at the end of October 2008:

* Phase 1: "I love wine." During this phase, every netizen was invited to learn about wine appreciation, appealing to current and would-be wine drinkers.

* Phase 2: "I love Chilean wine." Focusing on the specific advantages of wine from Chile, the second phase encouraged people to taste Chilean wines. Here, the campaign highlighted the affordability, taste quality and sustainability practices that set Chilean wine apart from the wines of other countries. In the process, it introduced people to the different regions of Chile, furthering education.

* Phase 3: "I love Chile." Having built a solid understanding of Chile through its wines, ProChile sought to introduce Chinese consumers to other goods produced by Chile, namely fruit, salmon and hair products, as well as tourism.

The first effort was to leverage the blogosphere and make the campaign viral. The Chilean organizers collaborated with four influential bloggers. Each week for four weeks, the bloggers were sent a bottle of Chilean wine, along with information and facts about Chile. The bloggers were then asked to write about the wine on their blogs in their own personal style. The posts were aggregated at a web site developed for the campaign. During the course of the campaign, more than 75,000 people read the articles online. Individual blog posts caught the attention of editors from the major portals, which featured the campaign on their front pages. It was important to reach out to editors of the more traditional online media so that the campaign reached people who do not use social media heavily, but who regularly visit major Chinese web sites such as Sina and Sohu.

A broad social media footprint is important for every brand, and marketers need to take their message to the places where netizens are already investing their time and trust. To extend the campaign message, relevant social media sites were regularly furnished with new content to continually encourage conversations and to establish a community where people were able to discuss wine. Sites included:

* Kaixin, a Chinese social network where wine fans could come together and share wine-drinking tips.

* Youku, a Chinese video-sharing site (similar to YouTube), where content was produced specifically about Chilean wine.

* Flickr, which furnished numerous photos of Chilean wine, landscapes and other activities by ProChile in China.

* BBS forums: Information was seeded in more than 50 relevant bulletin board system forums to encourage interest.

ProChile's efforts even extended to so-called touch media, the little advertising screens on the back of taxi headrests, with an interactive game that took commuters on a journey from Chile's mountainous north to its Antarctic south.

The campaign empowered consumers to drink wine with confidence, and to impress their friends and business associates, through "webisodes" (web videos) created specifically for online video-sharing networks. The webisodes covered such topics as how to open a bottle of wine, how to taste wine and how to pair wine with Chinese food.

In addition to the online outreach, a comprehensive interactive e-book was created in cooperation with Chilean wine companies doing business in China. The wine companies provided content and incorporated the e-book into their own marketing strategies as well.

As a result of the campaign, Chile moved from the fifth-largest bottled wine exporter to China in 2008 to the fourth-largest in 2009, according to Ernesto Lagos, commercial consul of ProChile Shanghai.

Like the country itself, social media in China are fast-paced, constantly changing and growing faster than anywhere else in the world. For brands looking to get on Chinas digital highway, seatbelts, a GPS and a little sense of adventure are a necessity. There is no more rewarding place to participate in social media.

Michael Darragh is digital strategic planner at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide/Shanghai. He blogs at www.worldexpoblog.com and www.asiadigitalmap.com.