Why Bilibili Is the New Beauty Battlefield for Chinese Gen Zers

Key Takeaways:Young ACG followers proceed to realize in magnificence and beauty buying energy, and ACG content material can be crucial for manufacturers to dive into this digital period.Bilibili is favored by millennials and Gen Zers, who collectively account for 81 % of the platform’s person base.According to Bilibili’s annual efficiency report, the quantity of beauty-related content material surged throughout 2020 as vlogger fanbases grew by 120 % in that sector.During the COVID-19 pandemic, the beauty trade in China proved its resilience but once more. Major abroad magnificence manufacturers wager large on the China market this 12 months and rode a rising wave of e-commerce and social media gross sales, due to the low value factors and excessive consumption frequency of magnificence merchandise.While most manufacturers had already launched Douyin or WeChat channels, there’s now one other platform they can’t ignore: Bilibili.com, the video web site well-known for sharing ACG (Anime, Comic, and Games). The website is favored by millennials and Gen Zers, who collectively account for 81 % of the platform’s person base. In current years, Bilibili.com has morphed into certainly one of the largest mainstream magnificence advertising platforms by that includes vloggers’ make-up tutorials, cosmetics testing, unboxing movies, every day make-up suggestions, well-liked make-up copies, and extra. By June 2021, the variety of magnificence manufacturers on the website had topped the checklist of all official account classes on Bilibili.com, up 2,050 %, year-on-year.Unlike Douyin and Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), Bilibili.com is deeply rooted in youth tradition formed by the real-life experiences of Gen-Z bloggers and vloggers. Here, content material model and sharing are each creator-centric. Beauty vloggers can lead developments via livestreams and paid-content technology, and followers love to soak up this content material. In truth, the movies are sometimes not more than entertaining commercials.According to Bilibili’s annual efficiency report, the quantity of beauty-related content material surged throughout 2020 as vlogger fanbases grew by 120 % in that sector. The Bilibili branding supervisor states that “1.2 million magnificence content material posts [mainly videos] have been created, and viewership grew by over 8.5 billion final 12 months. We are blissful to see these followers give attention to extra than simply magnificence content material. Influenced by these vloggers, the platform’s crossover branding ecosystem has developed.”Big names like Estée Lauder, Chanel Beauty, and Shiseido are already serving their campaigns on this group. Shiseido strengthened its clout by launching a livestreaming session that engaged with celebrities whereas recurrently inviting Gen-Z influencers and stars to create product-related content material to realize on-line visitors. French magnificence home Lancôme additionally collectively produced content material with Bilibili KOLs to advertise its iconic merchandise via campaigns and on-line engagement.Shiseido invitations Gen-Z influencers from iQiyi’s Youth With You 3 for a livestreaming session. Photo: WeiboMeanwhile, diversified content material (ACG-featured vlogs on this case) can strongly drive magnificence manufacturers on the high-energy video platform. Young ACG followers proceed to realize in magnificence and beauty buying energy, and ACG content material can be crucial for manufacturers to dive into this digital period. Yet, magnificence manufacturers have additionally discovered it tough to maximise earnings amongst Gen Zers by solely leveraging ACG sources. After all, magnificence merchandise fall into the class the place person expertise is main.The only content material codecs on Bilibili.com embrace magnificence product testing, product seeding, and make-up tutorials. Over time, manufacturers have tailored their content material types to suit with these and different well-liked codecs on the website. In the manner “tutorials” and “unboxings” largely get thumbs-ups on magnificence blogger YouTube channels, Bilibili.com goals to ascertain an actual group with pure, humorous, and pleasant promotions.A Bilibili person evaluations setting sprays from completely different manufacturers and reveals apply them. Photo: Screenshot“It is a really thrilling start line to channel Chinese millennials and Gen Zers via Bilibili.com,” stated Amanda Lee, director of the magnificence and beauty branding crew at Weber Shandwick. “It is at all times sensible to control the developments there. As on-line visitors and KOLs have gotten luxurious manufacturers’ good buddies, Bilibili’s content material advertising prepares manufacturers with mature, in-video commercialization alternatives.”According to Bilibili’s 2020 Q1 monetary outcomes, revenues from promoting have been $32 million (210 million RMB). Meanwhile, the variety of paying customers jumped 130 % to 13.4 million final 12 months. Now the video web site is vowing to construct built-in and customised magnificence advertising options in the future, which ought to assist it understand sustainable development and set a brand new commonplace.