Take a look at some of the successful WeChat campaigns
that blazed through our digital media avenue.

Arbor Memorial

Change the narrative and steer the conversation on a very sensitive topic.

Background

Arbor Memorial wanted to tackle a culturally sensitive issue among the Chinese Canadians. An issue that people generally avoid talking about—death.

The client wanted to promote Ching Ming festival, a day of celebration for the Chinese to honour their loved ones who have passed away. At the same time, they wanted to increase their sales and encourage people to pre-plan and book spaces for their or their loved ones’ funeral.

Prior efforts included advertising the sales event through print and online but the results were not encouraging. What can be done to deliver the desired results?

Task

Digital Avenue East was tasked to reach Chinese Canadians across different regions and drive event traffic and sales during the promotion.

Solution

Find the right narrative

Since death is a sensitive topic, we did a research study to find out what would be the best way to communicate our message. The study showed that Chinese are investment seekers and are good at planning their future, so we generated the content based on this insight.

Rather than talk about death and the sales promotion, we called out the fact that pre-planning is an investment to consider for oneself and for loved ones, so that one doesn’t have to worry about it in the hour of need and grief. This generated a lot of interest among the Chinese online readers.

Be a part of the conversation

The content was actively promoted on a platform the Chinese audience have engaging conversations on—WeChat. 9 different WeChat accounts were selected in order to build campaign awareness and direct traffic to the event in each location. The article was also promoted on Facebook to target the Hong Kong Chinese segment.

Put it on display

Through programmatic buys, banner ads were displayed on popular Chinese websites with Canadian IPS, including new portals. This platform catered to the middle aged and older segments who have the habit of reading news online.

Results

• Sales increased by 53% over the same promo period of 2016
• Chinese reps doubled sales and accounted for 64% of branch revenue during March/April
• Total Promotion ROI: 2,000%
• CTR for all the digital platforms exceeded the industry benchmark
• Generated 5x increase in phone inquiries
• 8,000 unique views online over a x-week campaign period.

Marketing tracking
calls vs last year

Unique online
views

Sales increase
vs last year

Promotion
ROI

Cineplex Movie Promotion

Offer an escape to a world with characters and settings beyond imagination.

Background

Cineplex wanted to address the low attendance of Chinese moviegoers in their Waterloo, ON and Victoria, BC theatres. Prior efforts included advertising for their Chinese movie offerings online and offline, but they underperformed.

What can be done to deliver the desired results?

Task

Digital Avenue East was tasked with a 2-week campaign to reach Chinese Canadians in specific areas and drive them to watch Cineplex’s Chinese movie offering in selected theatres.

Solution

Identify the genre of the audience

Since the League of Gods was a fictional action movie with a heavy dose of CGI, we identified the target audience as young and digitally savvy movie fans. They get updated on movie trailers and reviews online and through social media. We further identified them based on their proximity to selected Cineplex theatres through social groups in WeChat—their preferred social media platform.

Tell a story around the story

The Chinese are voracious readers and content consumers. We produced interesting articles about the various characters, cast, animation, and reviews of the movie. These were posted on WeChat groups of student associations and university organizations to generate audience engagement.

Put it on display

We leveraged the ecosystems of our exclusive media partners to reach an online audience performing entertainment related searches and re-target movie lovers and cinema goers near the targeted locations.

Results

• Campaign reach increased by 287% and clicks by 640%, as compared to the previous campaign
• Total reach through WeChat articles/post was over 123k with close to 9k views & 372 shares - resulting in incremental sales
• Over 30,580 views on WeChat videos through 4 video trailers

WeChat Reach

WeChat videos view rate

BMO Mutual Funds

Pique the interest of an investment-savvy audience on a sound alternative.

Background

BMO wanted to push their Mutual Funds investment product to a specific segment—the investment savvy Chinese Canadians. This audience though, is predisposed to investing in real estate.

What can be done to convince them otherwise?

Task

Digital Avenue East was tasked with a 3-week campaign to reach Chinese Canadians in the GTA, GVA, Montreal and Calgary, and drive them to book an investment appointment online or in-branch.

Solution

Change an investor’s mindset

The Chinese invest in real estate as they consider this to be one of the safer and more profitable options. With our WeChat content, we made them think about the advantages of having multiple investments against relying on just one.

Broaden their options

Highlighting the importance of investments in securing the future of one’s family, we presented BMO Mutual Funds as an ideal investment solution. This perspective appealed to this segment’s family-centric values and made them aware of other another option.

Focus on the target

Through our partnership with one of the biggest Chinese DSP’s, we reached a very targeted online audience—those interested in or searched for financial and investment related products. We also targeted different audience sets in the display and WeChat campaigns that resulted in a deeper reach.

Results

• Over 264,000 WeChat reach
• 445 WeChat content shares
• 2.73% WeChat engagement rate
• Over 5 million impressions through Chinese DSP
• Clicks increased by 720% compared to 2016
• CTR of 1% in 2017 was higher than 0.30% in 2016, across all digital platforms

WeChat reach

WeChat engagement rate

impressions through Chinese DSP

Clinique

Driving traffic and conversions in-store via brand engagement online

Background

Clinique wanted to increase awareness and foot traffic with the launch of their first free-standing store in North America. What can be done to deliver these results?

Task

Digital Avenue East planned and executed a 2-week social media campaign to reach Chinese Canadians in Vancouver, and drive traffic and conversions in store during the promotion.

Solution

Identify the target segment

We identified the target audience as young and digitally savvy beauty lovers. We further narrowed down our targeting to Richmond, where the store is located, with the aid of Weibo and Facebook programmatic ads.

Incentivise the target group

The findings of the WeChat survey show that the Chinese love receiving deals and promos on the app. Therefore, we wrote an exciting WeChat content about the offers during the store launch. Additionally, we pushed a unique coupon to encourage free product sample redemption and drive online traffic to the new Clinique store. As a result, the store ran out of the free products during the campaign.

Spread the word through a contest

On top of it all, we pushed a WeChat contest where participants needed to share the Clinique post on their WeChat Moments. The results were exceptional for a 2-week campaign.

Results

The content created for this campaign had a reach of 366k and obtained over 5k unique online views. The contest received 331 entries which were 200% higher than previous efforts. The coupon redemption exceeded the target by 200%.

Over 200% growth vs previous efforts

reach

Unique online views

Coupon redemption target exceeded

Royal Ontario Museum

Having Chinese influencers use the ROM as the backdrop of their high fashion and luxurious lifestyle.

The challenge

Fact #1: Museum attendance is the lowest for immigrants (47%) vs. Canadians in Ontario. (Source: Kelly Hill, Hill Strategies, NOW Magazine, May 2019).

Fact #2: 48% of high net worth individuals in Canada are 1st and 2nd generation immigrant. (Source: Environics, Wealthscapes), and majority of them are Chinese millennials who have a high net worth of $757,039 vs. $442,979 Canadian average.

Recognizing the opportunity to grow their Chinese segment, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) wanted to target Chinese millennials by promoting their latest exhibition, a newly identified dinosaur species called Zuul. In addition, the museum wanted to appeal to the digital savvy of this segment and transform their business model with the launch of a convenient Chinese payment method called WeChat Pay and AliPay.

The one-line key insight

High net worth Chinese millennials are avid followers of Chinese influencers or KOLS (key opinion leaders). While these influencers are very effective in pushing fashion trends and beauty brands among Chinese millennials, the question is, can these influencers be as effective in promoting ancient history or dinosaurs as well?

The one-line idea

Let beauty meet the beast—have Chinese influencers use the ROM as the backdrop of their high fashion and luxurious lifestyle.

The plan

Eight influencers were tapped to visit the ROM to transform strategic spots around the museum as luxurious backdrops for their photo shoot. The contrast between these millennial fashion posts, and the ancient artifacts and backdrop of the ROM -- made for interesting and engaging content for the target market. In addition, these posts were coupled with a special promo code and call to action to pay easily through their app with WeChat Pay and Alipay.

Results

• Campaign exceeded impressions target delivering over 2.5M impressions during the campaign period.
• Sales target exceeded by 70% during short 4-week campaign period.
• 16.5% of promotion redemptions were completed through WeChat or Alipay platform.
• Influencer strategy resulted in all time high of 12.1% engagement rate across 261,000 Chinese followers.

impressions

exceeded sales target

promotion redemptions

engagement rate

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