Mid-Autumn Festival is arriving soon and is a great opportunity to build a deeper connection with 1.7M Chinese Canadian customers. It falls on September 17 this year. We’ll share advice from our Chinese Marketing experts on how to leverage this day to strengthen relationships with your Chinese Canadian clientele.
What is the Mid-Autumn Festival?
Marking the end of the autumn harvest, this holiday is usually celebrated with family gatherings, lanterns, and mooncakes. It is the second most important festival in China after the Chinese New Year and is observed in many other Asian countries such as Singapore, Vietnam, Korea, and Malaysia.
How to Celebrate with your Chinese clientele:
1. Create a Mid-Autumn Festival-themed video
This time of year focuses heavily on family gatherings. Your brand could create a video that highlights family reunion dinners or small parties among friends. The video below was created by Hennessy as part of their campaign to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival. We understand that you might not have the time or budget to create something like this video campaign, so another simple idea is to post a family-inspired photo on WeChat. This lets your Chinese customers know that you’re thinking about them during this holiday.
2. Send some mooncakes to your Chinese clients with your company logo on them
Mooncakes are a very important part of this celebration. In fact, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also known as the Mooncake Festival! Sending some mooncakes is a wonderful way to maintain your connections with your Chinese customers. Before you send them, take a picture and share it on your social platforms, such as Weibo. You can also ask your clients to do the same once they have received them before they all get eaten!
3. Run a Promotion or Giveaway
Any holiday is a great opportunity for a special promotion or giveaway. Actively engage and reward your Chinese audience during the Mid-Autumn Festival with a special offer. With a simple call to action such as “Follow us on WeChat for your chance to win,” your brand can use this occasion to increase your online following. This is a very joyful holiday, so try to keep your messaging fun and cheerful.
4. Advertise on Chinese social media platforms
Leverage paid advertising on popular Chinese social media platforms like WeChat and RED. WeChat and RED (also known as Xiaohongshu) are highly influential social media platforms among Chinese users. One effective approach is through media buy, which allows you to strategically place your brand’s advertisements on WeChat and RED.
WeChat provides a range of advertising options tailored to suit your goals during the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. Whether it’s Moments Ads, Official Account Ads, or Mini Program Ads, you have the flexibility to customize your advertising strategy and make the most of this festive season.
RED, on the other hand, is a platform that revolves around lifestyle and product recommendations. Advertising on RED enables you to tap into the influence of key opinion leaders (KOLs) who share their experiences and recommendations with their followers. This platform is particularly effective for targeting younger, trend-conscious audiences who are eager to explore festival-related offerings.
5. Collaborate with Chinese Canadian influencers to promote your brand to their followers
Partner with Chinese Canadian influencers or Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) from popular social media platforms like WeChat and RED. They will help spread the word about your products or services to their followers in an authentic way.
Last year, Buick Canada celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival by collaborating with local Chinese-owned businesses and Chinese-Canadian influencers. They encouraged influencers to share their stories about the festival and Chinese heritage with the wider Canadian community. Readers got a chance to win a set of Buick mooncakes and a premium dining experience.
6. Engage users with festive gaming experiences
The Mid-Autumn Festival is a perfect opportunity to bring some fun and excitement to your website or app. Incorporate gaming elements, competition, and special perks to captivate your audience and enhance their experience. Chinese consumers have a great affinity for digital trends, games, and interactive features, making it an ideal time to gamify your platform.
Kate Spade used WeChat to launch a flight game during the festival. In this game, users could design a virtual lantern and release it in the app, to spread delightful festival lanterns filled with greetings on their screens.
7. Create lasting impressions with branded gift packages
Branded gift packages are a festive way to showcase your brand identity. You can develop unique, limited-edition products specifically for the Mid-Autumn Festival, such as mooncake gift sets featuring innovative flavours or merchandise combining cultural elements from both China and Canada. Limited availability and exclusivity can generate excitement and encourage Chinese Canadian customers to engage with your brand.
Branded gift boxes remind customers of the positive experiences they had with your brand. Plus, when people receive these beautiful boxes, they often can’t resist sharing their excitement on social media, giving your brand even more exposure!
Our valued client, Mission Hill Winery, went all out to connect with their Chinese Canadian customers! We supported them to live stream, team up with influencers, and even send out awesome festival-themed gift boxes.
Get the details in our case study: Mission Hill Celebrates Mid-Autumn Moon Festival with the Chinese Community
8. Explore sponsorship opportunities for the festival
Many cities across Canada organize public Mid-Autumn Festival events, including cultural performances, lantern parades, and mooncake tastings. Sponsoring these events can provide excellent visibility and engagement opportunities. Do a little research to choose the sponsorship package that best aligns with your brand objectives and benefits the festival attendees.
You can also organize Mid-Autumn Festival-themed events yourself on college and university campuses, specifically targeting Chinese international students. There are plenty of options to sponsor student organizations or host cultural performances and workshops as well.
9. Set up Mid-Autumn Festival-themed photo booths
Set up photo booths in your stores or at community events, featuring Mid-Autumn Festival-themed backdrops, props, and costumes. Encourage customers to take photos and share them on social media using a specific hashtag or by tagging your brand. This not only creates user-generated content but also cultivates a fun and festive atmosphere.
We hope that this article has inspired some strategies surrounding the Mid-Autumn Festival. As always, it’s important to remember that marketing efforts focused on cultural holidays should be treated with care. Really understanding the history and nuances of these celebrations is the key to success. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Contact us and our Chinese marketing team would be thrilled to help you come up with specific ideas based on your business’s goals.
