Love is Money: The 10 Best WeChat Marketing Campaigns for Chinese Valentine’s Day

With China’s traditional Valentine’s Day, aka “Qixi (七夕)” Festival, just a few days away, many luxury brands have rolled out a variety of digital marketing campaigns to cash in on the gift-giving demand. This year, the holiday falls on Friday, August 17, and a record number of luxury players have taken to the country’s most popular social messaging app, WeChat, to offer limited edition sales.

The “DiorAmour” handbag. Courtesy photo

Dior

For the third consecutive year, French luxury brand Christian Dior is harnessing WeChat’s e-commerce capabilities in celebration of Chinese Valentine’s Day. Since July 24, the brand has published 16 posts to promote its “DiorAmour” handbag collection, which was specially designed for Chinese female consumers. Popular Chinese celebrities including Angelababy (杨颖), Wang Ziwen (王子文), and Jing Tian (景甜) have all made appearances in the brand’s recent campaign videos.

The “DiorAmour” handbag, priced at $5,007 (34,500 yuan), debuted exclusively via WeChat mini-program on July 31. The limited edition offering sold out in seconds. Dior then released more “DiorAmour” themed apparel and accessories, opening a pop-up store at Beijing’s SKP shopping mall (from August 5-19) to further capitalize on the hype consumer demand.

Burberry

The British luxury powerhouse has designed a love-themed quiz for its WeChat readers, to ignite their interest in Burberry’s special edition Chinese Valentine’s Day items. Readers answer seven questions that help them define their roles in a relationship and determine the desired qualities of their ideal partners. At the end of the quiz, users are given access to shop Burberry’s latest collection, including two new Qixi bags exclusive to China. For Chinese Valentine’s Day, Burberry released its red “Belt Bag” ($2617) and red “Pin Clutch” ($1637), which are only available in China on social platforms WeChat and Weibo, burberry.cn and in mainland China stores.

Michael Kors

This year, American label Michael Kors invited its global brand ambassador Yang Mi (杨幂) to design handbags for Chinese Valentine’s Day, betting on Yang’s influence to attract consumers. The Whitney handbag collection, priced at $856, first debuted on WeChat on August 1, for readers to buy via mini-program. Like Dior, Michael Kors also opened an offline pop-up store in Shanghai’s Kering Center to convert online interest into offline purchases. On Aug. 7, the brand published a new WeChat campaign encouraging interaction with users – by leaving a comment on the post, followers have the chance to win a free Whitney handbag.

Bottega Veneta

The Italian luxury brand Bottega Veneta launched its Chinese Valentine’s Day campaign on July 31 via WeChat mini-program. A limited number of special items are available on the platform, from Catena City Knot handbag ($7,233) to Intrecciato Maze wallet ($654), much to the delight of Bottega Venetta’s Chinese fans. Meanwhile, Chinese consumers can design personalized greeting cards via an embedded HTML5 page for their partners and send out under the name of Bottega Veneta.

Gucci

Kering’s star brand Gucci launched its Chinese Valentine’s Day campaign on August 6 with the release of a WeChat mini-program. The brand’s special “GG Marmont” collection, which is exclusively designed for the Chinese market, offers a wide range of products, including handbags, shoes, and accessories.

Givenchy

This year, Givenchy is celebrating Chinese Valentine’s Day with a special GV3 handbag collection designed by creative director Clare Waight Keller. Givenchy tapped into the influence of the Chinese actress Tang Yan for the campaign, where Tang appeared in the advertising video. The brand’s official WeChat mini-program store went online on August 5, and the GV3 handbag is priced at $2,542.

Courtesy photo

Prada

On July 31, Prada posted an article on WeChat to promote its special edition collection for Chinese Valentine’s Day. Unlike many other brands listed here, Prada chose not to use WeChat’s mini-program function as its sales channel, instead of linking customers to the brand’s own Chinese e-commerce site.

Stella McCartney

Stella McCartney’s Valentine’s Day offering this year consists of a pink Falabella handbag ($1,190) along with four other exclusive items including signature Elyse sneakers ($748), Falabella wallets ($407), and lingerie set. The brand launched its mini-program on August 3, enabling readers to place orders directly.

Montblanc

The German luxury brand Montblanc collaborated with Chinese fashion influencer Mr.Bags for this year’s Valentine’s Day offering. The capsule collection co-designed by the brand and Mr.Bags has been available on the blogger’s personal WeChat mini-program store from July 26. Mr.Bags wrote a post on July 25 to promote this collection to encourage his followers to purchase Montblanc’s products, garnering over 100,000 page views.

Valentino

Like Michael Kors, Italian luxury brand Valentino worked with its Chinese brand ambassador Zhang Yixing to design special products for fans this Chinese Valentine’s Day. The campaign, with the theme, “Be My VLTN,” went live on July 25, with a collection of items including hoodies, t-shirts, sneakers, and handbags now available on the brand’s mini-program store.