STREET DANCE CULTURE MAKES MARKET MOVES
Street dancing, beat boys/girls and breakdancing are sub-sets of music that have been expanding quickly in China. In particular, the rise of some street dance reality shows has given more mainstream attention to the street dance niche. As a cultural hotspot for young people, street dance has become a perfect carrier for brands to communicate with authentic, self-contained young consumers right now. Many brands from various industries have launched campaigns relating to the street dance theme, and presented their own brand identity to build a youthful brand image and communicate with Gen Z consumers. More importantly, through the street dance category/culture, brands can narrow their targets and create hot topics so that brands can widely promote into the mainstream market driven by the segmented market.
REACHING CONSUMER SEGMENTS THROUGH SUB-CULTURE
Brands are starting to spend more time selecting KOLs, based on more detailed interest/style groupings (on Chinese social media these grouping are called “Quancengs”). These groups can be mapped out to show how they fit together, how large each group is, and the nuances of each group per social channel.
Brands need to take this detailed process and apply it to the audiences within their CRM (and to followers on social). The alignment – from KOL, to content, to social, to customer/audience – reduces friction and signals to audiences that they are in a place they belong, at each point.
For brands still struggling in China to create distinctiveness, this analysis is also a very useful way of sizing specific audience groups and perhaps, making a commitment to ‘own’ a group/sub-culture.
CHAMPION GETS A WINNING STREET DANCE MAKE-OVER
Champion's consumers are mostly young people from first- and second-tier cities who love street and sport fashion. The brand brought popular competitors from "Street Dance of China" and street dance stylists together to create a new style of streetwear trends, and to inject street dance elements into brand’s identity.
NESTEA ENJOYS A TASTE OF STREET DANCE CULTURE
To strengthen their brand in the minds of post-95 consumers, NESTEA made some bold moves to cater to the charisma of street culture. NESTEA promoted a campaign theme of "Dare to Touch Dare to Taste" on Weibo, and also tapped into the traffic of street dance celebrity and KOLs to create buzz.
