Despite the constantly changing social media landscape and digital revolution in China, WeChat programs remain the leading channels for brands to promote their messages to the Chinese audience. As users are inundated with content on a daily basis and can get easily overwhelmed with too much information, companies are being more creative than ever with their promotions and underlying messages to stand out from others.
English teaching schools have been particularly successful using WeChat mini programs to promote their courses during the current holiday season, taking advantage of family reunions and travel experiences to boost social buzz and increase traffic to their website. With Chinese Spring Festival, the grandest and the most important annual event, most Chinese employees have at least seven days off work, while students take a month absence from school. As one of the traditional festivals, it is a time to celebrate, travel, and enjoy.
So, how are English teaching schools successfully incorporating Chinese holidays into their promotional campaigns? They are making the most of understanding important factors of the Chinese culture to build their brand’s success in China. As more and more Chinese are paying attention to their well-being and their desire to travel as they get older, outbound tourism is booming. Additionally, Chinese rely heavily on social opinions. For those in the middle class, many are struggling with their everyday life, facing the financial stress of taking care of their family, and have little time for travel. Seeing their friends show off their upscale lifestyles and alluring travel pictures on social networks makes them jealous. As a result, the demand for learning English, having access to Western information, and knowing the Western way of life has become trendy for popular cities.
While many people travel during Chinese Spring Festival, whether home or abroad to tropical islands like Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand, others cannot afford these trips. This need to change their lifestyle can become a burden to them.
English teaching schools, which have a superb understanding of the Chinese social revolution, have created a clever and amusing campaign using WeChat mini programs to accommodate this audience’s desire for travel. Through WeChat moments, users can share a link imagining they are traveling abroad with celebrities or pretending presidents are welcoming them to their country. The link includes comments to their friends to welcome them. At the bottom of the moments is a QR code that directs users to download an English study program WeChat account.
The campaign has been very popular and successful. For Chinese users, these promotional messages about pretending to travel abroad are engaging and fun. They can imagine they are visiting a variety of places across Europe, America, and Asia, satisfying their desire to travel outside of China and be part of a fancier lifestyle, especially during the holidays. For English teaching schools, this campaign has captivated an audience that is continuously promoting their program to friends, driving social buzz that endorses the brand, and increasing online traffic to their site. Moreover, they are gaining a network of new, potential consumers.
