What is China’s Queen’s Day?
Women have gradually become the backbone consumption force in the Chinese market. As another International Women's Day (Mar 8) draws near, the annual event that marks the awareness of female issues takes on another meaning in China. This day has instead been marked as "Queen's Day" or "Goddess Day," which is an emerging shopping festival. It is also a perfect opportunity for brands to raise their brand awareness and shorten the emotional distance with their target audience.
Why is Queen’s Day one of the most important shopping festivals in China?
In 2021, the overall gender pay gap of China's urban employment population was narrower than that in 2020. The average salary of female workers has increased by 2.5% over 2020. A higher employment rate means that women have an independent source of income, corresponding to a stronger purchasing power. Douyin’s e-commerce report shows that from February 27, 2021 to March 8, 2021, the total volume of transactions during the Queen's Day shopping festival has reached $2.16 billion. On February 27, 2022, the first day of the pre-sale activities of Tmall Queen's Day, the well-known live-streaming host Li Jiaqi achieved sales of $447 million on his live-streaming channel.
What do brands traditionally do on Queen's Day?
More and more young Chinese women are no longer satisfied to relegate themselves to just being a wife or a mother. Therefore, feminism has become an obvious marketing trend during this shopping festival. Previously, brands often utilized the following three kinds of marketing strategies:
1. Queen's day price promotion / seasonal products.
2. Emphasize on female empowerment via a series of slogans calling for women to be independent, to live their own life and not to be labeled.
3. Show brand humanistic care by engaging in trending female-related social topics.
Go beyond Sales and Promotion
Some might argue that Queen's Day is not an ideal time for sales and promotion. After just going through a period of high spending flanked by the Singles Day in November and Lunar New Year in February (where gifting is expected), Chinese consumers’ spending power is considerably weakened in March. Bombarded by aggressive promotional tactics launched by brands, they might need a period of recovery and recharge.
Instead of turning Queen’s Day into another sales driven shopping holiday, brands should seize this opportunity to show their care for women and establish an emotional bond with consumers. Such a bond will lay a foundation for their marketing strategies in the future.
Chinese women face different sets of challenges than their Western counterparts. Rather than copy and paste female empowerment slogans that typically resonate with Western consumers, brands should localize their messages to demonstrate their sensibilities to the issues that are most pressing for Chinese women.
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