Influencer Marketing Across the Border

Influencer marketing has become more and more important in the marketing landscape. Recently, I've seen a really interesting case about a Japanese e-commerce brand utilizing the Chinese KOLs to endorse their products and achieving great success. The Japanese e-commerce company Inagora launched an app called "Wandou" in China in 2014, and boasted themselves as the only e-commerce site in China featuring direct suppliers from Japan. Their slogan is "Shop without border". Wandou cooperated with 100+ Chinese influencers, invited them all to Japan to visit the manufacturing sites and flagship stores of the products, then asked them to write down posts and distribute through their own social media channels. These marketing tactics are supplemented with the slowdown of Chinese economy and reduction of tourists flying to Japan. E-commerce already enjoys great reception among the Chinese consumers in the first place - now the only effort needs to be done here is to reinforce the image of "Made in Japan" and make people desire it. That's when a great deal of diverse influencers come in handy.