SINGAPORE: Chinese consumers are generally far more accepting of online advertising compared to other markets – in fact, being targeted with ads can be seen as indicative of their status, especially for luxury products.

According to Darren Jacobs, Head of Global Digital Media at the online marketing technology platform iClick Interactive Asia, Chinese consumers like to be advertised to and see it as a sign of quality. BMW, the luxury car brand, has discovered this.

“[China is] their biggest market. [BMW] actually hid the advert from a lot of people to a point where consumers were complaining to Tencent and WeChat that they weren’t in the right ‘caste’ to get that advert. There were all these quotes, like, ‘My soul is destroyed’. It’s crazy,” Jacobs said at the recent Mumbrella360 Asia event.

“This really does tell you quite a big picture of how that generation wants to be advertised to and they want to be in the seat to these luxury brands,” he added.

For more, including Chinese consumer attitudes about advertising, read WARC’s report: Six surprising facts about online advertising in China.

Half of all Chinese millennials check their phones every 15 minutes, Jacobs pointed out, and online video has become hugely popular – especially during the morning commute.

There are, however, challenges for marketers looking to target this lucrative audience, such as government regulations forbidding the public dissemination of user-generated video content on social media platforms.

“The telcos in China are really aware of this [online video] trend, and the big three telcos actually offer really attractive data packages to try and entice people into their networks, because they know people really want to consume this content as they are on the go,” Jacobs said.

Sourced from WARC