The GEN Z gathered on Douyin are exactly the core competitiveness of future consumption that luxury brands are looking for. Douyin has reached the next level by letting GEN Z “get into” luxury brands in various ways.
According to the 2024 “Luxury Goods Worldwide Market Study” jointly released by Bain & Company and the Italian luxury goods manufacturers’ industry association, Altagamma, the global luxury market is projected to decline by 1% to 3% in the first quarter of 2024. Most regional markets are experiencing a slowdown in growth, prompting major luxury brands to adjust their business strategies by raising prices, exploring new opportunities, and transforming their approaches. The industry is at a pivotal point of divergent development.
With over 600 million DAU, Douyin has the largest user base, especially the GEN Z generation with strong personal opinions, which is the mainstay of the rapidly growing luxury consumption market, making Douyin a gathering place and birthplace of events with huge traffic. In addition, with its powerful content ecology and online and offline content linkage, Douyin easily captures the attention of young people. Many users, especially GEN Z, gather on Douyin, making it an important marketing platform in the exploration of luxury goods. Last year, the entire luxury industry’s marketing share on Douyin increased by 35% year-on-year.
In 2024, Ocean Engine Yun Tu offered more than 2.3 million audience profiles. Building on the foundation of targeting core, potential, and interest-based luxury users, it enables precise segmentation of audiences in various scenarios, helping luxury brands swiftly target their ideal customer base and achieve efficient communication and conversion.
From the perspective of the brand, Douyin maximizes the efficiency of conventional brand content assets with the help of innovative brand advertising co-creation. The interactive advertising method makes brand content full of vitality and significantly enhances the influence of communication. In addition, Douyin has successfully created an exclusive courtesy node, making it a must-have for luxury brands’ advertising traffic. During the holiday season, when users’ attention to new products reaches a peak, it uses large exposure to attract users’ attention and then converts users into branded crowd assets.
This year, Douyin’s innovative “OPUGC” (Occupationally Generated Content (OGC) – Professional Generated Content (PGC) – User Generated Content (UGC)) interaction model has introduced new opportunities for luxury brands in content marketing. It deepens connections with users and transforms into an impactful marketing scene for luxury brands. Unlike traditional integrated marketing strategies, the “OPUGC” content integration approach focuses on content, enhancing its value through impact, coverage, and authenticity to drive consumer engagement and brand conversion.
具体来说，主要由抖音平台供给IP，打造独创的奢品IP营销方案，以IP势能加持奢品品牌价值，产出具有权威影响力的OGC内容；再联动时尚、艺术、文化、体育等垂类圈层达人，采用话题挑战、AICG等形式和玩法，生产生动有趣的PGC内容，快速拔高奢品品牌的声量曝光、精准触达核心人群、深化品牌认知；最后大量普通受众在受到OGC与PGC内容的触动后，自发地在抖音平台上分享真实且原生的UGC内容，达成奢品品牌影响力、覆盖力、口碑力的三重覆盖。
Specifically, Douyin provides the IP to create unique luxury marketing solutions, enhancing brand value with IP momentum and generating authoritative OGC content. This is then linked with influencers from the fashion, art, culture, and sports sectors, using formats and methods like topic challenges and AICG to produce engaging PGC content. This approach boosts the luxury brand’s exposure, reaches the core audience precisely, and deepens brand recognition. Many users, influenced by the OGC and PGC content, spontaneously share authentic UGC content on Douyin, achieving triple coverage of brand influence, reach, and reputation.
As the annual highlight of luxury brands, the four major international fashion weeks have also become the core focus of users in the industry on Douyin. “Paris Fashion Week” and “Milan Fashion Week” have been hot search topics for 23 years. On Douyin, there is a content creation team with integrated resources covering the world, which produces creative content directly on the scene, so that users can visit the fashion week without leaving home. Powerful show ecological product capabilities, the fashion show ecological environment created for brands and users, search area, Feedlive customized component functions…Douyin provides brands with full-link cooperation opportunities for show live broadcasts. For example, “DOU fashion show” with DIOR 2024 Fall/Winter Ready-to-Wear created a new Douyin show-watching mode.It delivered a fashion show experience that consumers could fully immerse themselves in, from the opening of the show to backstage and guest interviews, all from the comfort of their homes. This format showcased and interpreted the inspiration behind the brand’s new season designs in a diverse manner. The panoramic online and offline show format allowed more consumers to experience the allure of fashion up close, enhancing the brand’s global influence.
In practice, the value of content relies on collaboration with the platform’s ecosystem. Douyin’s “DOU Content Lab” enhances content originality, with a dedicated production team familiar with the platform’s users, offering customized on-site content ideas for global luxury events, and leveraging the platform’s IP to maximize brand content value.
今年3月，GUCCI联合抖音，让「Rosso Ancora 安可拉红」走出屏幕，掀起一股意式美学色彩风暴。在这场标志性的奢侈品牌全球性活动中，抖音为品牌线下活动打造线上线下全链路内容营销。预热期打通端内资源，在品牌活动前多点位预埋关键词前置种草，让2024第一抹流行色进入用户视野。Big Day携手DOU来看秀直击活动现场，通过独家创意内容的全网首发放大品牌活动曝光度，由明星达人共同演绎引爆趋势热点，成功让「安可拉红」热搜出圈。GUCCI在北京、上海、成都、深圳四城联动打造的体验空间，在抖音KOL矩阵的助力下全网造风，将新趋势概念转化为优质种草内容。全网8亿+的总曝光、超24H的热点在榜时长，证明了抖音平台在搭建奢侈品行业趋势消费上的多元势能。
In March this year, GUCCI and Douyin jointly let “Rosso Ancora” go off the screen, setting off a storm of Italian aesthetic colors. In this iconic global event for luxury brands, Douyin created full-link content marketing for the brand’s offline activities online and offline. In the preheating period, the end resources were connected, and keywords were pre-buried at multiple points before the brand event to promote the first popular color of 2024. Big Day and DOU came to the show to directly hit the event site and amplified the exposure of the brand event through the first release of exclusive creative content on the entire network. The joint interpretation by celebrities and experts detonated the trend hotspot, successfully making “Ancora Red” a hot search. GUCCI’s experience space created in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Shenzhen, with the help of the Douyin KOL matrix, created a trend across the entire network, transforming the new trend concept into high-quality content. The total exposure of more than 800 million on the entire network and the duration of the hot spot on the list for more than 24 hours prove the diverse potential of the Douyin platform in building trend consumption in the luxury industry.
The content marketing ecosystem for luxury brands is continuously evolving, shifting from a focus on direct visual presentation and sensory impact to a more integrated approach that incorporates social scenarios and enhances the perceived value of luxury goods.
With CRM integration, brands can drive fresh traffic by attracting new offline members through online channels. Seamless integration of the product pipeline allows the brand to achieve a full cycle from user targeting and precise guided interactions to driving store traffic. This creates a comprehensive luxury shopping experience for consumers, offering everything from new product delivery and physical displays to appointment services, while exploring more business opportunities across both online and offline.
This year, to help brands achieve more efficient omnichannel business growth, Ocean Engine Yun Tu has upgraded its “rational” verification capabilities to encompass the entire marketing ecosystem. It includes comprehensive metrics for brand performance and SPU5A, offering holistic audience analysis and integrating measurement indicators across all content, touchpoints, data, and channels to support strategic marketing decisions.
From an “emotional” perspective, the platform has developed a metrics framework to evaluate brand image, extending to the alignment between brand positioning and consumer perception. Brands can gain a multi-dimensional, in-depth understanding of their brand image through metrics such as brand association, mention volume, reputation, and preference, guiding the accumulation of long-term brand equity.
By leveraging the synergy between online and offline capabilities, along with Ocean Engine Yun Tu’s brand image metrics framework and integrating brand-specific audience data with efficiency tracking from third-party platforms, luxury brands on Douyin can achieve precise front-end marketing and reduce acquisition costs. They can also validate comprehensive business results across the entire chain, continuously refining marketing strategies and exploring additional omnichannel business opportunities both online and offline.
In the future, with the help of Douyin, how will luxury goods connect more closely with GEN Z consumers and achieve business growth? We believe that there are still new opportunities in the story of Douyin and GEN Z.
