Looking back at the past six months, we can observe a shift towards more rational consumption on one side and a year-on-year growth of 8.2 percent in total social retail sales on the other. It’s clear that consumers are increasingly pursuing a higher quality of life and are willing to pay more for happiness.
As consumption reflects people’s desire to improve their life quality and spend more on happiness, “how to buy” and “what to buy” have become questions of interest for many fashion and luxury enthusiasts. In response to this trend, various brands have shifted their focus to “content seeding.”
There are countless quality products with potential to succeed, but to become hit items that capture and retain the market’s interest, they need appropriate strategic support.
Based on the tracking of brand marketing in the main categories of luxury goods (watches, jewelry, shoes, bags), we have observed that many luxury brands, represented by Longines, Roger Vivier, Tod’s and others, are leveraging Xiaohongshu to create their “big hit products” with the platform’s thriving content ecosystem and high-potential luxury consumer groups. Xiaohongshu currently has over 260 million monthly active users and has become a vital platform for luxury brands in the “content seeding” link. Why are luxury brands investing more in Xiaohongshu? How can brands accurately target customer groups and highlight product strengths on this platform? What kind of content communication strategy should be adopted to win consumers’ hearts? In an exchange with WWD, several luxury brands provided answers.
1. Online hub for high-potential luxury consumer groups
As a platform where millions of users share real experiences, Xiaohongshu is further evolving. Searching on Xiaohongshu has become an essential step for consumers when making purchasing decisions. Consequently, Xiaohongshu has become an indispensable guide for many people to consult before they make a purchase.
Among Xiaohongshu’s user base, 70 percent are from the post-90s generation, and half of them reside in tier one and tier two cities. These statistics paint a clear picture of Xiaohongshu’s user profile: well-educated, high-income young individuals living in urban areas. With a solid educational background and refined taste, they have a higher level of interest and engagement in fashion, beauty, and lifestyle topics. As one of the groups most eager to pursue a high quality of life and display high purchasing potential, this younger generation strongly aligns with the potential customer profile of luxury brands.
During the 2023 autumn/winter series release period of the four major fashion weeks, the search trends for “fashion week” on Xiaohongshu increased by 352%. Among them, there were as many as 1.31 million themed notes related to watching fashion shows, and related terms such as #learnstylingtipsfromtherunway received much attention. Users created more than 130,000 notes to interpret and imitate fashion show outfits. Currently, many luxury brands recognize that their core user group is quality-conscious consumers, and the characteristics of this group naturally resonate with Xiaohongshu users who enjoy consumption and value quality.
To communicate more accurately with target audiences, WWD has observed that many luxury brands have regarded Xiaohongshu as a core social media platform for new product promotion and have developed a set of widely recognized strategies. They begin with new product key promotion days, displaying splash screen ads on Xiaohongshu to reach a large number of high-net-worth users on the site, increasing exposure and influence and setting the stage for online communication. They then use themed content as the strategy to target potential user groups and sustain user engagement. Finally, related content in both the “explore” and “search” pages is further recommended to increase user penetration.
2. A thriving content ecology fosters new trends
The popularity of urban camping from last year has not subsided. This year, a large number of urban young people have started sharing their urban travel routes and spring casual outfits with the #Citywalk tag.
This group of urban young people loves fashion, socializing, and sharing. They are willing to explore diverse styles and pay attention to the quality and details of their outfits. Users have created a rich range of original notes, and new topics and trends quickly emerge and grow on Xiaohongshu, which has become a lifestyle trendsetter for younger generations. According to data on Xiaohongshu, Citywalk-related notes increased by 270 percent from January to April, driving the sharing of urban travel outfit content.
Many brands have participated in the Citywalk trend, including Longines. In a communication with WWD, Longines stated that it interprets different wearing styles in various life scenarios, breaking the boundaries of watch products, and incorporating the popular Citywalk trend on Xiaohongshu. As a brand with a history of 191 years, Longines is willing to collaborate closely with the latest and trendiest content community to engage the new generation. As a go-to destination for young people to gather lifestyle inspirations, Xiaohongshu enables brands to predict and leverage trends and achieve high engagement content seeding.
In the “Spring Leisure Guide” jointly launched by Longines and Xiaohongshu, both parties strengthened user awareness in five cities including Guangzhou and Shanghai through the “Brand Spring Map” and encouraged users to create leisure content such as “Chinese-style afternoon tea with Longines watches” to showcase a relaxed interpretation of this watch series. During the campaign, spring travel notes in various scenarios and styles were directly linked to the Longines Primaluna series. With so many “Longines Primaluna Girls” sharing their delightful spring encounters, the “Longines Primaluna Watch” has risen to the top of the Longines brand search rankings.
It’s worth mentioning that Xiaohongshu’s “reverse funnel model” strategy was adopted in the product seeding process. It accurately positioned Longines brand audience and female watch category audience as the core target audience. Then, they combined the “spring travel” scenario with fashion-related life scenarios such as Citywalk and spring dates to create user demand for “traveling with watches”. Then, high-quality notes were redistributed to more users’ feeds to reach a wider range of general luxury goods audiences, achieving the dual effect of “style expansion” and “scenario expansion.”
3. Scenario design and value communication under style trends
Nowadays, style trends are becoming increasingly prevalent, from “quiet luxury” to “dopamine style,” from “intellectual style” to “Maillard color pallet.” When consumers are faced with a choice, they often prefer products whose brand tone and value expression are more in line with their own. Brands need to communicate their values in specific scenarios.
For example, Italian brand Tod’s promoted its classic T Case bag on Xiaohongshu, while communicating its brand values. They attracted attention through the popularity of stars Liu Shishi and Xiao Zhan and keywords related to handbags. They combined the presentation of high-quality product-related notes to spread the Italian aesthetic style from core audiences with needs such as “commuting” to broader audiences with scenarios such as “style for the workplace”.
In WWD’s conversation with Tod’s, we learned that their content seeding strategy achieved a fusion of product characteristics and brand core essence. Starting with the Italian aesthetic of “softness and strength,” it matched the product features and brand spirit. By leveraging branded content, combined with influencer notes and splash screen exposure on Xiaohongshu, Tod’s achieved multi-dimensional content seeding. In addition, it targeted the “workplace” sector, cultivated scenarios, collaborated with independent women in the workplace and fashion bloggers to create T Case Bag related content, and utilized keyword placement to increase brand awareness and reach in the professional workplace sector. This strategy effectively captured the attention of target customers and achieved brand image building and value communication in the process.
In addition to “the workplace”, Xiaohongshu users also focus on sentimental scenarios related to “important life events”. According to Xiaohongshu data, “wedding shoe recommendations” is a hot topic for brides-to-be, maintaining a stable and high search frequency. Take Roger Vivier, a brand renowned for its luxurious and aesthetic style, as an example. Its classic product, Flower Strass, holds a significantly high emotional value on Xiaohongshu. Roger Vivier presented significant life events such as weddings on Xiaohongshu, narrating memorable stories around the heels, infusing them with an exclusive sense of ritual for essential moments. At the same time, this product gained substantial attention through celebrity events and endorsements, driving commercial exposure and establishing a strong association between Flower Strass Heels and “life’s important moments.”
Roger Vivier revealed to WWD that its user profile aligns well with Xiaohongshu users. These users are women who lead exquisite lives, possess excellent taste, and excel in diverse fields. On Xiaohongshu, Roger Vivier’s target audience is female users aged 26 and above residing in high-tier cities. These women are luxury goods consumers with a demand for dressing for different occasions. They also tend to share stories about their Roger Vivier high heels on Xiaohongshu. These shares often relate to major life events such as weddings, allowing the brand vision of “wearing Roger Vivier brings forth highlight moments” to resonate with individuals.
4. Achieving scientific content seeding across all scenarios and channels
Thanks to Xiaohongshu’s “content seeding” ecosystem, luxury brands are increasingly embracing the platform.
The key driving force behind their success is Xiaohongshu’s thriving content ecosystem and high-potential luxury consumer groups, which enable brands to precisely reach their target audience. The platform is mainly based on user-generated content, forming a socialized knowledge-sharing and consumer experience-sharing platform. It attracts numerous affluent young users, who are also the target customers of luxury brands.
The platform completes dual-domain coverage through “feed distribution” and “search page landing,” combined with diverse circle-breaking tactics such as the “reverse funnel model,” penetrating users’ entire journey on the platform and enabling brands to locate core customers.
During content seeding, quality notes are amplified through commercial traffic to achieve word-of-mouth content accumulation. This process enables brands to communicate product information, engage with users, and drive brand image building. The brand tone and value are also successfully conveyed.
From a market demand perspective, young consumers pay more attention to authentic experience sharing and choose brands they identify with. Xiaohongshu provides a platform for both sharers and brands, facilitating deep connections between them.
In addition, brands discover new trends and hot topics through Xiaohongshu, promoting the most promising variations among multiple products and creating “star products.” Meanwhile, brands further understand which products or trends have more topicality through data analysis of user interactions. They accurately anchor consumer sentiments with eye-catching “star products” and continue the seeding process in Xiaohongshu’s ecosystem. This sparks consumer interest and completes a closed loop of “Xiaohongshu seeding, full-channel conversion.”
In the rational consumption era, our aspirations for a better lifestyle keep growing. However, people seek “crush moments” but pay more attention to authentic experience sharing and brand identification. Therefore, Xiaohongshu has become a vital platform for luxury brands to interact with consumers, establish resonance, and build trust.
In addition, luxury brands collaborate with Xiaohongshu to create a new marketing approach – Xiaohongshu as a field for communicating brand tone and reaching high-potential consumers. This approach establishes deeper connections between products and users and realizes full-scenario, omni-channel “product seeding”. It also helps brands better interact with consumers and convey the brand image, tone, and value proposition.
This art of “seeding” is both the spreading of brand content and the creation of star products. Meanwhile, each product is a gateway to the brand’s unique universe, where Xiaohongshu’s life-loving followers are guided by their curiosity and desire for beauty.
