Dior in China: A prime case of luxury fitting into a Digital China

30Jul2020

Dior in China: A prime case of luxury fitting into a Digital China

Christian Dior considers China as a major market

Founded in 1946 by French designer Christian Dior, Dior is one of most famous fashion luxury brands in the world. Since its founding at Avenue Montaigne in Paris, Dior has always been synonymous with magnificence and elegance. The first womenswear collection by Christian Dior in 1947 caused a global sensation while leading the “New look” revolution. Until now, whether in fashion, cosmetics or other, Christian Dior has always been at the top of the fashion luxury industry. As China makes up 40% of the global luxury market, Dior also considers China as a major market. At the same time, Dior in China approaches Chinese luxury customers from both product side and creative side.

Source: Dior.com – The new look of Christian Dior

The fragrance, makeup and skincare products are under Parfums Christian Dior division has more than 300 points of sales at the moment in China.

Parfums Christian Dior

From year 1973 on, Dior has had its own R&D center. Over 200 specialists, biologists, pharmacologists and researchers cooperate with over 20 R&D centers in the world’s top universities and science institutes to develop the best products. Dior has always put tactile impression of products as an important factor. All its products bring a perfect combination of technology and joy.

The beauty division (Parfums Christian Dior division) of Christian Dior maintained strong growth, driven by the success of its classic perfume, makeup and high-end skincare lines. Perfume such as J ‘Adore, Miss Dior and Sauvage are big success in the market. Cosmetics, including Rouge Dior and Ultra Lipstick collection lead a trend among customers. Also, the high-end skincare products are growing well, especially in the Asian market. Dior is the #2 luxury brand in China’s perfume market.

Dior Pink City: Dior in China plays with pop-up stores

Source: Sohu.com – Dior Pink City is coming to Shanghai. A beautiful Pop-Up store in a fashion-savvy Chinese city.

After launching the Dior Pink City pop-up store in Macau, the pop-up store came to Shanghai in July 2019. As the first station in Mainland China, Dior made five themed rooms in the pink city, including Dior pink flower shop, Dior pink library, Dior pink urban spa, Dior pink music hall and Dior pink café.

In the Dior Pink City pop-up store, consumers had the chance to experience personalized fragrance trial services, get bouquets of elegant flowers, and relax and get massages in the spa area, experience High-end skincare Dior Prestige, print exclusive photos and finally get small surprises crafted by Dior.

Dior in China entered E-commerce on Tmall

Tmall, owned by Alibaba group, now offers more than 3,000 beauty brands and the proportion of well-known brands the platform to launch their online stores. The big name brands which have official stores on Tmall rose from 555 in 2015 to 84% in 2018. According to Alibaba, Over 3 million women buy at least five tubes of lipstick on Tmall each year. Additionally, affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, COVID-19 pandemic, luxury and fashion brands are paying more attention to Chinese e-commerce platforms. Just after launching the brand-new Bobby handbag collection, Dior in China had new, strategic moves.

On June 2020, Dior launched its own official Tmall store, right before the Chinese online shopping carnival 6.18. However, only products of skincare, cosmetics and perfumes were available on the Tmall store. So far, Dior has already gained 335k fans within one month.

Dior collaborated with Liu Yuxin

Source: qianlong.com -celebrity live broadcast on Ju Huasuan came to next level

During the Covid-19 quarantine, the Chinese TV show ‘Youth with you II’ has been extremely popular among Chinese, especially among young Chinese consumers. The TV show aimed to select 9 girls to form a girl music band. Liu Yuxin won the first prize for her impressive performance and high popularity. Dior announced collaboration with Liu Yuxin on skincare collection ‘Capture Totale’. The live broadcast on Ju Huasuan (a group buying website) with Jing Tian (Chinese actress, also official ambassador of Capture Totale) helped Dior in China received more than 3k orders and over 2.5 million RMB revenue.

THE9, the girl music group that Liu Yuxin belongs to, was invited to collaborate with Dior for its Bobby bag.

Source: twoeggz.com – Dior invited the new group THE9 to promote BOBBY

Christian Dior Couture

Besides maintaining the brand’s unique style and elegant brand image, Dior fashion division (Christian Dior Couture division) also has launched its official account on popular Chinese social media platforms.

Dior has introduced limited edition Lady Dior bag for Chinese valentine’s day

Luxury brands, such as Burberry, started to use WeChat Mini programs to plug into digital China. For Chinese Valentine’s Day in 2016 (Qixi Festival), Dior launched a WeChat mini program for selling its limited edition Lady Dior China valentine bag. For this bag, Chinese luxury customers choose the decorative embroidery pattern on the strap. The bag was sold out within a few hours on the first day of the WeChat Mini program marketing campaign.

Dior in China made a great effort on doing local Chinese social media campaign and marketing campaign to reach a wider range of customers.

Source: luxexpose.com – Lady Dior Small China Valentine Bag Sold Out Within Few Hours Via WeChat

Dior became the first luxury brand to enter Tiktok and Bilibili

In the past few years, Dior launched its official accounts on popular Chinese social media, such as Weibo, Wechat and Red. On August 2018, Dior launched its official account on Tiktok (known as Douyin in China), making it the first luxury brand to use the platform. So far, Dior has more than 491.1k fans and 3.6m likes with 628 posted videos.

For luxury brands, Bilibili represents a chance to capture young Chinese customers, Gen Z consumers in China and familiarize them with their products and brand ethos. Generation Z accounts for 81% of the platform’s user base according to QuestMobile. The advantages are clear: although they may not have significant buying power now, this generation is expected to account for 55% of total luxury spending by 2025. Dior launched official account on Bilibili on June 2020 with totally more than 7k fans, 22 videos and 132k plays within a month. At the same time, Dior is also the first luxury brand to use Bilibili.

Dior will launch an exhibition in Shanghai

Chanel’s Mademoiselle Privé exhibition in Shanghai in 2019 attracted a large number of Chinese visitors. Dior launched its Miss Dior exhibition after, and invited many of Chinese celebrities. This year, Dior will launch its exhibition in Shanghai ‘Christian Dior Designer of dreams’. Different from Chanel, the exhibition of Dior will showcase more than 70 years of the brand’s artistic creation to Chinese luxury consumers from an unprecedented Chinese perspective.

Source: Dior official WeChat account – The exhibition “Christian Dior, Designer of Dreams”

The exhibition will last about three months. Together with 8 well-known Chinese artists, this exhibition will open a new chapter in the history of Dior in China. A host of masterpieces, including 275 couture gowns, manuscripts and works by artists, are ready in the museum. Next the brand is inviting Chinese luxury consumers to explore Dior’s elegant world and spirit of the pursuit of dreams.

At the same time, the opening ceremony of the exhibition will be broadcast simultaneously on several Chinese social media, including Dior’s official Weibo account, official WeChat mini program and official Tmall flagship store. Additionally, Tencent video and Huawei video will also broadcast the activity.

Author: Qing Zheng