Xiaohongshu (also known as Little Red Book or RED) is a thriving place for Chinese users to share product and brand experiences, provide and obtain recommendations and lifestyle tips, and most importantly, discover new products and brands. As one of the most popular platforms in China, Xiaohongshu currently has over 150 million monthly active users, which represents a 50% growth in traffic compared to January 2020.

The platform is known for its user-generated content, which feels trustworthy and authentic to viewers and can be utilised for word-of-mouth marketing. This feature is further enhanced by the algorithmic feed that shows users a combination of content from accounts they follow, trending content, content based on user interests and location-based content, making the platform perfect for product discovery. Moreover, due to this algorithm, posts on Xiaohongshu, called notes, tend to have a much longer lifespan compared to platforms such as WeChat. Notes will still generate new traffic a month after being published, although the cycle of when and how content boosts occur is hard to predict. On the other hand, the lifespan of content on WeChat usually lasts less than seven days, as it is only pushed to WeChat account followers, making it difficult to obtain organic traffic.

With that said, these are some of the top trends, insights, and strategy suggestions for Xiaohongshu for 2022.

Shift in user demographic

Although the platform demographic remains largely female, the percentage of male users has risen from under 10% a few years ago to almost 30% today. Despite the influx of male users, Xiaohongshu users remain young, with almost 75% under the age of 35 years old. Moreover, users on the platform tend to have higher purchasing power and over 50% come from Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, including Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.

These demographic shifts present new opportunities for brands and categories, with more male-dominated content having a chance to become popular on the platform and reach the relevant audience.

Top categories on Xiaohongshu

As seen in the graphs above, by the end of 2021, the top categories when it came to notes posted on Xiaohongshu included gourmet and food, beauty, entertainment, travel, home furnishings, and education. More typically male-dominated categories such as gaming and auto are showing rapid growth.

A more recent trend from 2022 is the rise of fitness and exercise content, which became popular after the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and the lockdowns in China. As a result, more Chinese consumers have become interested in maintaining their health at home, which has caused a surge in notes on Xiaohongshu related to athleisure clothing, home workout equipment, exercise suggestions, etc.

Notes related to beauty remain very popular on the platform, even as the category’s growth rate drops. Top keywords within this category include efficient skincare, effective skincare, gender-neutral products, functional skincare and make-up, and men’s beauty.

How to increase purchase desire and conversion rates

Consumer behaviour on Xiaohongshu indicates that after product discovery, users will leave the platform to make their purchases on other platforms such as Tmall and JD. As a result, the market share of Xiaohongshu in-app stores is declining. However, word of mouth marketing on Xiaohongshu has still proven to be effective at driving sales for brands through their other online sales channels, generating a positive return on investments and continued improvements in store performance.

Dealing with the increased demand for authenticity

Content on Xiaohongshu should include ‘lifestyle’ photos or videos that appear more natural, less commercial and include people who look Chinese. The content should emphasise the people, the products and the environment to build a sense of authenticity. Working with KOLs and KOCs on the platform is a key strategy for increasing brand awareness and reputation, even though the costs of collaborations are rising and KOLs are becoming more saturated on the platform. Reusing content from KOLs and KOCs after permission has been obtained is also highly suggested.

Testing for success

Xiaohongshu has no daily posting limit, which means that there is a lot of space for testing and optimising. Brands can test different types of posts, including professional photoshoots, more natural at-home photos, product-only pictures and graphic illustrations to determine which types of posts perform better. These same tests can be done for different keywords, although brands should also use trending or top-ranked keywords within the relevant categories where possible. Through the results obtained, brands can continually optimise their content.

As can be seen, despite shifts in user demographics and top categories on Xiaohongshu, it remains a crucial platform for brands to utilise when marketing and expanding their presence in China. When developing a strategy for Xiaohongshu, brands need to keep in mind who their target audience is, how to meet their demands and how to attract their attention on a highly competitive and increasingly saturated platform.

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Created with information provided by cross-border e-commerce company Samarkand Global

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Comparing Chinese platforms to those we are familiar with in the West often provides a helpful analogy for understanding the way they work: WeChat and WhatsApp; Tmall and Amazon; Douyin and TikTok. However, the reality is often quite different from the analogy; most of the Chinese platforms mentioned may have started out conceptually similar to their Western counterparts, but they have evolved to incorporate a much more dynamic and multi-faceted set of functions and utilities. Even Douyin is light years ahead of TikTok in terms of e-commerce, and they are owned by the same company. One of the rising forces in Chinese eCommerce that you may have heard a lot about recently is the ‘Instagram of China’ Xiaohongshu (aka Little Red Book or RED). 

But once again the comparison does not do the Chinese platform justice. RED started off more like Pinterest, a lookbook platform for users to mostly list and share images of their favourite fashion and beauty items with friends. But today, RED is much more than content. Targeting 18-to-35-year-old Chinese urban females, the platform helps users discover and buy luxury, fashion and beauty products from overseas as well as share shopping tips and swap fashion ideas. Over 50% of RED users are under 30 years old, and more than 80% of them are female. 56% live in first and second tier cities. More than 50% belong to the upper-middle and middle classes.

As with most successful social media and content platforms, RED has introduced commerce to the platform, allowing users to either buy directly from a brand-owned RED store, or by linking externally to a Tmall or WeChat store to purchase. But user generated content (UGC) is still the lifeblood of RED, so when it comes to standing out and succeeding on RED, recommendations are everything. To get brand exposure, it is not about how much you pay, but how big is your brand’s tribe of followers. 

The RED ‘tribal commerce’ cycle

Fueling the tribal commerce engine: Trust + proximity + interest

Content may be king on RED, but everything is still geared to push you to buy stuff. From live streaming to image galleries and videos, influencers, independent labels or everyday bloggers use RED to recommend products, services or experiences to their peers.

The platform is designed to push you content that indexes against your preferences and profile. There’s “Follow,” which brings you a feed of the latest posts from accounts you follow; “Explore,” which shows curated posts based on what you’ve browsed; and “Nearby,” which features posts from creators geographically near you. Compared to Instagram, “Xiaohongshu is more open,” said Zoe Lu, project manager at strategic research agency Daxue Consulting. It’s less about subscribing to particular creators. Instead, an AI-powered algorithm shows you videos the app thinks you might be interested in.

To get brand exposure on RED, it is not about how much you pay, but how big your brand’s tribe of followers is.

For any platform that is heavily reliant on UGC, fakes and fraudulent behaviour are constant challenges to credibility, so trust is something that RED takes very seriously. So much so that late last year, nearly 30 brand users on RED woke up to find their accounts being limited by the platform after having been found to “have been severely involved in false marketing.” The brands were caught on suspicion of recruiting a somewhat mysterious group known as the ‘internet water army’ – a group of social media users that pose as fans of brands to post positive content about their products and boost exposure. 

Thanks to its engaging features and crackdown on bad behaviour, RED has successfully reinforced this feeling of trust, safety and belonging to a community of like-minded friends. A sizeable proportion of consumers are opening the app up to seven times a day. Brands’ awareness and reputation can quickly catch on fire as their message spreads through a set of fans who get joy from sharing and talking about their products. 

Finding your brand’s community amongst 1.4 billion people

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic meant that the lion’s share of purchasing behaviours shifted online almost overnight, and e-commerce saw the equivalent of 10 years of growth in just three months. Today we are at the cusp of another fundamental shift in the world of commerce. On the consumer side, the most innovative retailers have realised that they need to deliver a purchasing experience wherever the consumer is — whether that is in a mobile app, social feed, text thread, live video shopping or in-store. It can be so difficult to get a 360 degree view of your customer base in a market the size of China with such a varied digital landscape that brands can waste a lot of money spreading themselves too thin without knowing who their community is and what they think of their products.

The RED homepage, where users can discover algorithm-recommended content or content from accounts they follow

RED has created an environment that allows consumer hype to drive exposure rather than the brands themselves setting the narrative. Fans come to the platform to hear the real story on foreign fashion brands or to get the inside scoop on beauty tips and tricks with the products they use every day from people they can relate to. With the cost of media in China ever-rising, using RED as a sandbox to find your brand’s community in China is a savvy way to test the market. 

Whether it is identifying the right price point for your products or the selection of SKUs you choose to launch with in-market, RED’s community is a vibrant and fruitful place for brands to get real-time feedback from real fans. In a market of 1.4 billion people, selling products isn’t the hard bit, finding the foundation of fans that will define how your brand develops in China is the key to succeeding in the long term, and RED might just be where to find them. 

Call +44 (0)20 7802 2000 or email enquiries@cbbc.org now to find out how CBBC can help you identify the right social media platform for your brand and target market in China. 

Mark Bellamy, General Manager, EMEA, Aiken Digital
Mark has spent a decade working in advertising, eCommerce and digital consulting between both Europe and APAC, spending the last five years working with brands in search of growth to harness the best of what China has to offer. With the help of Aiken Digital’s global strategy team, Mark directs brands to the right models for implementing sustainable growth in the market.

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There are three major components to Singles’ Day (falling on 11 November and also known as 11.11 or Double 11) that brands need to take into consideration: the pre-warm-up, the warm-up and the day itself.

The pre-warm-up period involves trying to build brand awareness, increasing sales within your store and negotiating with the platforms for resources that can be provided to support traffic. Often brands will use social media campaigns to create noise and hype, as well as using live streaming to ramp up sales. This takes place from early September until the first day of pre-sales.

Pre-sales start on 20 October, and the first day usually brings strong sales and headlines from the larger live streamers. During this period, consumers will pay deposits for products that they will later check out if they still feel the same way towards the end of the pre-sale period. Most traffic is produced on the first and last days of the pre-sales period. Brands usually spend most of their time driving as much traffic as possible through in-app display marketing on platforms like Taobao and JD.com. Social media, although still useful in this period, loses its effect as KOLs cannot provide attractive enough VIP discounts since most products are already relatively discounted.

During the 11.11 warm-up period, platforms such as Xiaohongshu should first be used to build up hype and noise (depending on the brand category). Another important note regarding Xiaohongshu is that a lot of the content does not necessarily trend for weeks after it is posted, so it gives more time for that content to grow.

Later, nearer to the day itself, WeChat and Douyin can be used to amplify noise and drive sales as more direct-to-sale platforms. Finally, once the brand enters into the discount stage and sales have started to reach their peak, live streaming can then be turned on. It is crucial to book live steamers far in advance as once the festival nears, many streamers become overpriced. It is suggested that brands focus on non-celebrity streamers (sometimes known as micro-influencers or key opinion creators) who can provide a better ROI. It is important to note that although the top five streamers in any category generally provide the best ROI, live streaming is always a risk and the ROI of streams from the same person can change tremendously.

Finally, the big day, 11 November, arrives. The majority of sales take place on this day and traffic is at its highest by far. All brands listed on e-commerce platforms will see some form of an increase in sales regardless of their discounts as traffic on platforms skyrockets. Most shoppers will log on during the early hours of the morning in order to get the very best deals on offer and many of the larger stores will see stock sell out of their best value items before midday.

In order to have an effective Singles’ Day, brands need to ensure that they take part in all three stages of the journey.

In order to have an effective Singles’ Day, brands need to ensure that they take part in all three stages of the journey. What is clear for many newer brands in the market is that jumping online in time for Singles’ Day will not achieve sales targets, and if they miss out on previous stages or have not built sufficient sales, they may find that they have a disappointing event overall.

Another prerequisite is pricing and profitability. Singles’ Day does not simply function as a time for brands to cash in on the hard work of building brand recognition and loyalty; rather, it is a time to once again invest in increasing the profile of your store, lift sales, welcome first-time consumers, and then prepare for the year ahead. Discounting, live streaming commissions and other costs mean that volume, rather than profitability, is the main goal.

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Conor Murray, IP attaché from the British Embassy Beijing, delivered opening remarks for the IP roundtable online. Around 25 representatives from the food and drink, pharmaceuticals, publishing and luxury sectors attended the meeting and shared their IP concerns with Douyin’s brand protection and legal departments.

Douyin’s (the Chinese arm of TikTok) e-commerce department was established in June 2020, and its e-commerce business has since seen rapid growth, reaching RMB 20.8 billion (£2.3 billion)  in gross merchandise volume (GMV) during its new year shopping festival in January 2021. Douyin also exceeded 600 million daily active users (DAUs), according to data in August 2020. Douyin’s e-commerce business has adopted a combination of short video and live streaming, inviting influencers (达人) that range from level 0 to level 6 based on their sales promotion capacity, power of content, influence towards followers, and service ability, as well as sellers to promote and distribute products to interested Douyin users.

Douyin’s brand protection team took this opportunity to introduce its proactive monitoring measures to rights owners. Rights owners raised concerns about whether Douyin could proactively intercept users that misused their trademarks in Douyin IDs and nicknames. Douyin also provided a detailed introduction to rights owners on collaboration around test purchases and offline enforcement.

For the next step, CBBC will cooperate with Douyin to develop proactive monitoring and test purchase programmes, inviting interested rights owners to join these IP initiatives. If you are interested in learning more about Douyin’s IP protection measures, please feel free to contact us.

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When it comes to fashion and beauty in China, there is one platform that savvy shoppers know to turn to: Xiaohongshu. Sometimes compared to Instagram, Xiaohongshu is more akin to a blend of Pinterest, Amazon and TripAdvisor, but is also totally unique. Also known as Red in English, it started out life in 2013 as an online overseas travel guide for Chinese shoppers. Founders Miranda Qu and Charlwin Mao later discovered that the platform was also popular with people in China with no plans to travel, and it expanded to become a comprehensive user-generated review and experience platform. It launched a cross-border e-commerce platform in 2014.

Today, Xiaohongshu incorporates a range of functions, including text and image posts, videos, live streaming, and an e-commerce store. As of 2020, it had around 300 million registered users and 100 million monthly active users, making it one of China’s smaller social platforms but one with a highly engaged user base. The majority of Xiaohongshu users are young (most born post-1990), middle-class women living in first and second-tier cities. The most popular topics are cosmetics and skincare, fashion, and travel and food.

This makes Xiaohongshu the ideal platform for British fashion and beauty brands targeting trend-conscious, affluent consumers. Chinese consumers are very review conscious and prefer to do research online before they make a purchase, particularly from a brand they haven’t purchased from before. Xiaohongshu’s user-generated review content has a reputation for authenticity, and the word of mouth generated can have a strong effect on brand awareness and even sales. Xiaohongshu’s conversion rate is as high as 8%, compared to 2-3% on other e-commerce platforms. 

This makes Xiaohongshu the ideal platform for British fashion and beauty brands targeting trend-conscious, affluent consumers.

Korean brand Innisfree’s home page on Xiaohongshu

There are three ways that brands can use Xiaohongshu: set up an official account, open a branded e-commerce store or work with influencers to promote their products. Official brand accounts can create posts and videos just like regular accounts, and interact with other users via likes and comments. Informative, detailed posts with plenty of images (each post contains up to nine images) generally perform well, as do images with a more organic, “raw” style as opposed to slick, heavily branded content. A brand’s account home page also displays posts that other users have tagged them in (via the “Engage” tab in the above screenshot), closing the gap between branded content and user-generated content.

Brands can open e-commerce stores directly with Xiaohongshu, which also link directly to their home page (the “Goods” tab shown in the above screenshot). Linking to an in-platform store directly from a post helps to alleviate concerns about counterfeit goods, which are prevalent in China’s e-commerce industry. The platform offers support in terms of logistics, customer service and data insights.  Xiaohongshu also operates its own stores, such as Fulishe, which are authorised to sell products from third-party brands.

Many brands choose to work with Xiaohongshu due to its large number of popular, trusted KOLs. Xiaohongshu has strict rules for promotional content, so in the eyes of many users, the posts KOLs and celebrities share are considered to be genuine recommendations rather than “fake” co-branding. An example of a popular Xiaohongshu KOL is Austin Li, more widely known as Kouhongge (Lipstick Brother), who has more than 3 million followers on the platform.

Brands can also consider seeding their products to Xiaohongshu’s many micro-influencers or key opinion creators. Similar to micro-influencers on Western social media platforms like Instagram, these users may have fewer followers, but they often boast higher engagement rates and the content they create is more organic. The lower cost of investment in these kinds of influencers can also be beneficial for smaller brands or companies looking to first test the market in China.

Whether companies choose to use it for branding, e-commerce or both, Xiaohongshu can be a useful tool for UK companies as part of a wider online marketing strategy. Spending time reviewing the content on the “explore” page can offer key insights into consumer preferences and the latest trends.

The post What is Xiaohongshu and how can it help your brand in China? appeared first on Focus - China Britain Business Council.

What are the challenges that UK brands face when entering the China market?

UK brands need to realise that brand competition is going to be fierce in China, which makes getting the right positioning and communication absolutely crucial. Using an omnichannel approach will allow brands to engage with potential customers through a number of touchpoints and platforms. However, this also means that brands must be consistent throughout so that a strong brand impression can be created and reinforced at each interaction with a consumer.

How can UK brands keep up in such a fast-paced market environment?

New trends are constantly being introduced and dying out, so brands need to be flexible and innovative, reacting quickly to a new trend that appeals to the customers before it becomes irrelevant. A brand strategy needs to be reassessed and renewed every year or so in China, as opposed to every five years elsewhere.

When it comes to Chinese consumers, how can brands understand who their target audience is, and what their target audience wants?

To position themselves appropriately, brands need to understand their target audience, so knowing demographics, interests, income level, profession, consumption behaviour, and purchasing behaviour. In order to do this, brands can use a number of methods such as social listing, which is when brands look on social media to see what consumers are saying and how competitors are marketing themselves. Brands can also hold focus groups to receive direct feedback and consumer perception of both the brand and the products. Another method brands can use is A/B testing to see which marketing campaign receives more engagement.

Once brands are familiar with their potential customers, how can they leverage this information to the greatest effect?

After gaining an understanding of their target audience, brands can conduct a brand audit to understand what they are able to offer, how it can fit into the Chinese lifestyle and whether they need to localise. Before beginning their marketing efforts, brands should also look into how their products, services or the brand itself is currently perceived in the China market. Brands should then choose the unique selling points that best appeal to potential customers, which could include country of origin, effects, functions, features, benefits, or any other points of difference that the brand or product has.

How should brands approach localisation and branding for the China e-commerce market?

The reasons for localisation depend on the brand and its category, and can include cultural differences, differences in values and marketing differences. However, localisation is usually about finding the parts that need to be changed, rather than trying to change everything. On the other hand, brand education is more important. This is especially true as Chinese consumers oftentimes investigate brands before purchase, and information on these brands must be readily available in Chinese.

What are some challenges that come with branding and localisation?

Some challenges that brands may face include the fact that the brand might be unknown in the China market, even if it is well known back in the UK. Moreover, there is likely already a number of competitor brands in the same category that have established a digital presence in China, which will make standing out difficult. Another challenge for smaller brands is that local or larger international competitors will likely have larger budgets and are competing on the same platforms for similar target audiences.

What can brands do to encourage brand loyalty and repeat purchases?

Building a community has become important for the Chinese market as it will allow brands to develop a connection with their customers, building up brand loyalty, word of mouth marketing, engaging their emotions and ultimately encouraging repeat purchases.

The full series:

Session 1 – Why and how to sell to China

Session 2 – Building Brand Credibility Online in China

Session 4 – China’s New Normal: Transforming Commerce
Wednesday 2nd December, 2:30-3:30pm (GMT) Register here

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RED started off as a platform for sharing product reviews and recommendations among young Chinese consumers, after which the platform began to implement e-commerce features that allowed individual merchants or brands to open up stores and sell products. However, despite the e-commerce options and the ability to purchase directly on RED, the platform is still mainly used to research products and find reviews, before the buyers head over to other e-commerce platforms such as Tmall or JD, to purchase the product.

Considered one of the biggest online lifestyle communities in China, last year, the platform reached over 85 million monthly active users on average and had a total of over 250 million users. RED’s user base is predominantly female, with the majority still under 30 years old, which makes the platform popular for categories that include travel, beauty, fashion, luxury goods, and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG). Although beauty is the largest category on RED, travel is currently the fastest growing.

These changes will have a large impact on smaller brands who require a lower commission rate in order to consider opening a store on the platform.

RED has its own user base, but compared to larger e-commerce platforms, user numbers are still relatively small. It’s therefore no surprise that the platform is better known for grassroots promotions and product seeding. The reviewers on the platform are Key Opinion Consumers (KOCs), a type of influencer that’s smaller in scale than a Key Opinion Leader (KOL), and which focuses on product testing and reviews. KOCs are generally considered more trustworthy and authentic due to their image of being ‘just another consumer’, making them a powerful influencing factor on the purchase decision making journey of consumers. Therefore, RED is a powerful tool for building brand awareness, especially if the target audience matches with RED’s already established user base. Many brands invest in building up a presence on RED to increase their credibility and reputation among consumers, even if the brands do not have a store on the platform.

Xiaohongshu reduces commission rate to just 5%

Reduction in commission rate

In early July, RED sent a notice to sellers, informing them of a reduction in the base commission rate that the platform would be charging. Before the reduction, RED’s commission rate was between 15 and 20%, depending on the merchant and the category of goods, which makes the drop a significant change.

Here’s an overview of what the company outlined in their notice to users:

• As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and the slow recovery of the Chinese market during the latter half of the year, RED announced that it is willing to work with the merchants on the platform to build an ecosystem.
• Starting from July 1^st, 2020, RED will be reducing the base commission rate to 5%.
• The reduction in the base commission rate is applicable to merchants that have signed a store service agreement with RED and whose agreement is still in effect. An exception to this includes instances in which the merchant and RED have other agreements stipulated.
• For sales that are directed from RED’s product recommendation features, the commission rate charged by the platform is reduced to 3%.

With the reduction in commission rates, more brands and merchants will be encouraged to focus their e-commerce efforts on RED, by increasing investments, opening up a store, collaborating with KOLs, conducting product seeding, or by utilising the advertising tools that the platform has available. These changes will likely have a large impact on smaller brands that have lower sales volumes and require a lower commission rate in order to consider opening a store on the platform.

Since RED’s main source of revenue comes from advertisements, dropping the commission rates could be an attempt to increase the merchants on the platform, and therefore the revenue from sales commissions.

The lowered rates will also make RED more competitive for brands when compared to larger e-commerce platforms such as Tmall, which has a commission rate of 0.5 – 5%, and JD, which has a commission rate of between 2 and 8%. The exact commission rates for both Tmall and JD are dependent on the category. Moreover, RED prohibits diversions to other platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Weibo and Taobao, which further limits the loss in traffic to competitors.

The increased attention on RED from brands and sellers will also impact its customers since after opening stores on the platform, brands will begin to drive customer traffic to RED. RED is likely to therefore become more accepted among users as a platform for not only reviewing and recommending products, but also for purchasing products. This shift in perception among consumers should also increase future e-commerce activity on the platform and could be an attempt to create a closed-loop system where users can go to RED both for product research and product purchase.

Sandra Weiss works for RedFern – a China-specific, full-service agency that helps brands navigate the digital ecosystem, increase their brand awareness and convert that awareness into sales. Learn more here.

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During the Covid-19 outbreak in China, live streaming was a market saviour for many brands and stores that were forced to shut down their offline channels due to the lockdown. As consumers were also isolated in their homes and spent more time online, the period became an opportunity for brands to focus on their online sales channels, a big part of which included live streaming.

Livestreaming was a market saviour for many brands and stores that were forced to shut down their offline channels due to the lockdown

In terms of percentages, Taobao Live saw a 719% month-on-month increase in new merchants in February, while the number of live streaming sessions on Pinduoduo increased by over 500% from February to March of this year.

The importance of live streaming in China was also demonstrated during the 6.18 festival, which was the first nationwide shopping holiday this year since the Covid-19 outbreak. Over the course of the 18-day event, JD hosted over 300,000 live streaming sessions, with live stream hosts ranging from KOLs to CEOs. In addition, more than a dozen live streams were hosted through Alibaba on 16^th June, which, combined, saw a total of more than 100 million RMB in sales.

New rules and regulations

Livestreaming is therefore extremely prominent in e-commerce and has helped drive sales for a vast number of different brands and industries. However, with the increased use of live streaming, there has also been an increase in concern for the misuse of the new format, especially due to the fact that live streams are not a permanent form of content. Examples of these concerns include vulgar or illegal content, fraudulent activity, and misrepresentation of products or services sold through live streaming, which could include false promotions and poor quality of products.

In order to tackle these concerns, several departments in China, including the State Administration for Market Regulation, have begun to work on developing standards for – and increasing supervision of – live streaming activity. National standards for e-commerce through live streaming are being developed by the China General Chamber of Commerce and, provincially, by authorities in the Zhejiang province, where Alibaba is headquartered. These standards are expected to be officially released and implemented in July, and will cover live streaming platforms, hosts, networks and all entities involved in the e-commerce live streaming industry.

The China Advertising Association (CAA), a non-profit organization that represents the Chinese advertising industry and promotes best practice, released its Code of Conduct for Online Live Marketing, which took effect on 1^st July. The report stipulates the rights, obligations and responsibilities of businesses, brands, or other participants of e-commerce activity through live streams. A summary of the main points outlined is provided below:

• Livestreaming hosts must have their real names authenticated on the platform before any live streaming activity can be conducted. During the front-end live streams, hosts may still use screen names, as long as they are in line with the requirements of the laws and regulations.
• During the live stream, all information provided to viewers must be complete and accurate. Livestream hosts cannot misrepresent, exaggerate, or spread false information on the products or services they promote, and cannot mislead viewers.
• Illegal or vulgar content cannot be spread through live streams.
• Any marketing data from the live stream that is provided by the host, for example to the live streaming platform or to the merchants, must be accurate. This includes live stream viewership numbers and sales numbers.
• Livestreaming platforms must provide marketing data as requested by the relevant authorities and must operate under their supervision.
• If breaches of the code of conduct are found, the CAA will report these instances to the relevant authorities for investigation.

Livestreaming hosts must have their real names authenticated and provide accurate information

In terms of recognising and regulating the profession of the livestreaming host, several steps have also been taken:

• Earlier this year, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in China released a report that recognised 10 new professions, one of which was livestreaming salesperson, listed under internet marketing specialist.
• Authorities in Zhejiang province released ‘Specifications for Training and Evaluating E-commerce Livestreaming Talent’ on June 26^th. In this report, the first standards in China are provided for livestreaming hosts and include areas such as skill level, professional knowledge, training, talent evaluation and certification. These regulations set three skill levels – junior, intermediate and advanced – which are determined through independent assessments.

Finally, led by the Cyberspace Administration of China, crackdowns on illegal livestreaming activities have already begun, with a large number of livestreaming platforms already being warned or terminated due to their spread of vulgar or illegal content.

With new regulations and scrutiny on livestreaming activity in China, e-commerce through livestreaming is likely to become even more popular due to the additional trust that viewers will have for the information about the products and services they are being sold.

Sandra Weiss works for RedFern, a China-specific, full-service agency that helps brands navigate the digital ecosystem, increase their brand awareness and convert that awareness into sales. Learn more here.

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