Tencent wowed international CMOs at Cannes once again. This year, the Chinese marketing leader shared innovative, ground-breaking ideas with brands and agencies from around the world at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativities.
Representatives from Tencent met with senior executives from L’Oréal at Cannes, engaging in spirited discussions about the latest changes in marketing today. The meeting was attended by Asmita Dubey, Chief Digital Officer for Consumer Products Division, L’Oréal; SY Lau, SEVP of Tencent, Chairman of Tencent Advertising, Chairman of Group Marketing and Global Branding; Sophia Ong, GM of Strategic Partnership and KA at Tencent OMG; and Dan Lu, Strategy Expert, Senior Director of Strategy Development Department, Senior Director of Tencent Social Ads.
The role of the CMO in driving business growth has been a point of particular focus this year, as demonstrated by the creation of the CMO Growth Council. During the meeting with L’Oréal, SY Lau, a member of the Council, shared his views on this issue from his experience in China: “Embrace smart retail and use content to reach and connect with consumers for business growth. But sustainable growth is not just about making money. Society is demanding that brands, both public and private ones, serve a social purpose.”
Elaborating on the topic of driving business growth through marketing, Sophia Ong presented Tencent’s new integrated marketing platform, Tencent WE+, offering CMOs better integration within its ecosystem and more business intelligence through three core capabilities: WEmpower, with a total coverage of internet users and connecting data silos; WEngage, integrating content into consumer scenarios and unleashing the power of IP; and WEmbrace, which assists brands in penetrating consumer touchpoints and driving multi-conversions.
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“Benefiting from Tencent’s ecosystem, Tencent WE+ functions as an enabler for brand marketing until the last mile of the consumer journey, rather than providing one-off media solutions,” said Sophia Ong.
This approach has led Tencent and L’Oréal to design innovative campaigns to engage users with content that drives sales conversions, driven by data insights into user behaviors. In one example, while on the red carpet of Cannes Film Festival, L’Oréal orchestrated livestreaming with talented Chinese singer Li Yuchun on WeChat. This live content allowed Chinese consumers to immerse into the glamorous event. In addition, L’Oréal presented celebrity looks, and together with “see now, buy now” shopping, viewers were able to make purchases instantly through WeChat.
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Also centering around content marketing, Asmita Dubey noted the importance of online content, observing that: “Online long form content is very popular in China. It has the potential to obtain massive reach of target audience and create phenomenal social buzz.”
This raised another question: when multiple brands are riding on the same social buzz generated by such content, how can a brand differentiate itself? L’Oréal’s experience suggests that the key is in emphasizing the brand’s core identity. Tencent representatives added that for long term benefit, brands must also find a relevant angle, with the appropriate scenario and content to reach consumers using the brand’s values, facilitated by sales-driven engagement to best seize the opportunities of social buzz.
As the discussion continued, Dan Lu shared more on how brands can innovate in marketing and retailing by leveraging WeChat, Tencent’s social network of more than 1.04 billion users. Dan Lu noted that WeChat’s latest addition — Mini Program, which is widely known as “an app within an app” — supports brands by connecting users with various services. The existing 580 thousand mini programs serve 170 million active users on a monthly basis. Dan Lu stated: “By building digital touch points at scale, WeChat allows for direct connections with consumers, driving multi-conversions online and offline.”
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