Background

In 2020 both brands and their customers had to shift their lives online and adjust their shopping experience to being purely remote. From this change, the phenomenon of Live Streaming Commerce was catapulted to the front of every brand’s growth strategy in China. Leader, the millennial driven white goods brand from within the Haier Group, saw the shift of their customers’ behavior towards home-based shopping as an opportunity to connect with their audience directly in the perfect environment for their products: the home. However, every brand in China pivoted towards Live Commerce in 2020 and although the sales figures were big, repeat purchase and returns rate were notoriously poor. The challenge was to leverage Live as a medium to tell an emotive brand story while still driving sustainable sales through Leader eCommerce channels.

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

The Creative team identified traditional theatre as the most intimate form of live entertainment, known for bringing together like-minded people to discuss cultural topics. Live Streaming seemed like the perfect format to upgrade a theater performance to a digital platform and connect with a large audience without losing the intimate experience. “Li-De Cohabitation” White goods are the backdrop to many of the conversations and situations that cause emotional and social strains on young people in China today. Whether it is returning home from work late to an empty fridge or the endless washing cycles taking up your last moments of free time on a Sunday evening. Through live theatre we told the different stories of 10 young Shanghainese, revolving around the physical props of Leader products, showing the young housemates bringing to life some of the serious undertones of Chinese Youth Culture through moving, funny and sometimes musical conversations.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Our central insight took on a new meaning in 2020 when young workers spent more time in the home than ever and had more time to reflect on their work life balance. The strategic challenge quickly developed into ‘How can we elevate the role of white goods in the lives of young Chinese workers to convince them to not just buy the cheapest options, but consider quality and longevity when buying for their home?’ Furthermore we felt the core missing piece of Live Streaming Commerce for many brands was their connection to the customer, Live Streaming felt like a cold sales channel just focused on deals and discounts. By leveraging theatre as a medium we made a deal with our viewers: if you come to visit out stream you will be both entertained and given best in market offers removing the obligation to buy. Nothing to lose right?

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

Under creative direction of Gao Shengyun, the team built a 2-hour long screen play around the lives of 10 young Shanghai residents. Each different story was punctuated by the actors explaining the key features of Leader products and offering viewers exclusive deals and discounts that fitted into the story arc of each character. Concurrently the tech team took on the challenge of tracking, analyzing, and leveraging the online conversation of viewers during and post campaign. Through extensive experience working with the eCommerce marketplaces in China, the team adapted a proprietary Live Commerce Analytics tool called Kaibo (www.Kaibo.ai) to enable real-time analysis of the live theatre performance. Kaibo tracks sales and engagement metrics across platforms (Tmall/WeChat/DouYin) and aggregates them in real-time to identify insights that can help to improve the effectiveness of the hosts pitch during the stream.

List the results (30% of vote)

This unique watching experience crossed the boundaries of e-commerce and art, allowing Leader to convey the brand’s goal of caring for the youth and bringing its products and consumers closer. The results in sales and engagement both topped a 5x improvement from Leader’s previous Live Streaming efforts: $11.4m worth of products were sold and average viewership increased from 3000 to 228,000! But most importantly, the integration of Kaibo allowed the actors to identify questions from the audience in real-time e.g. “How long does delivery take?”. These questions were clustered and played back to the actors during the stream allowing them to address the questions live and turn the performance into not just a brand awareness activation but a live customer service channel. This innovation reduced the return rate on Leader’s product by 15% compared to previous major eCommerce campaigns and enabled them to build a playbook for best practice.