Chinese Digital Marketing 2020 | WeChat Luxury Brand Content Trends

Content creation best practices have continually evolved as the mega-platform known as WeChat has grown over the years. 

It began with official accounts where people would register using their personal ID to start a blog (aka Official Subscription Account) on WeChat, and has evolved to what it is today, where companies and brands are all looking to establish a presence. 

At first, brands used static product images, then they started integrating the use of GIFs and videos, then WeChat articles became more designed with each article looking like a sophisticated one-page scrolling landing page. 

What we have been seeing more of in the past few months are landscape orientation WeChat articles from luxury brands. For example, brands like Rolex, GRAFF Diamonds, and Van Cleef and Arpels have published WeChat articles in the past month that were designed to be viewed in landscape.

Rolex WeChat Article

Van Cleef & Arpels WeChat Article

You may think, why would I want to turn my phone and do this? However, if we consider the amount of time that users in Mainland China spend with their phones turned in landscape orientation, you will begin to understand why this isn't a turn-off. 

While most of us watch TV on 'TV', because the networks producing the shows, the majority of them anyway, are still broadcasting on television networks. We also watch shows on our iPad (Netflix, Amazon Prime), but in China, most of the 'production companies' produce online shows and all of them have their own phone apps, which have been designed as a mobile-first experience. Amongst these video apps would be Tencent Video, MangoTV, Bili Bili, and many more mobile apps. This means users in China, are used to watching hours and hours of 'TV shows' on their phones, and you guessed it, in landscape orientation.

Graff WeChat Article

In addition to watching shows on their phones, online mobile games are also extremely popular, a Statistica report published October 25, 2019, showed that 41% of respondents said that they spent between 30 minutes to 1-hour playing games on their phone per day.

So while we may at first think that it's weird to have WeChat articles presented in landscape orientation, it could create a richer brand experience that scrolls like a premium digital brochure. 

Knowing this growing trend with luxury WeChat content design in 2020, what do you think? Will you adopt this design for your brand's WeChat Official Account?