Danone, the international dairy giant, is gaining useful consumer insights in China and the wider Asia region from using social media listening to inform its market localisation efforts.
In an exclusive report for Warc, Benjamin Duvall of social media intelligence company Linkfluence explained how their client, Danone, is using social listening to glean consumer insights in the highly competitive China market where international dairy products are in high demand.
Mapping key customer communities is crucial for conducting large-scale research across markets in the Asia-Pacific region, argued Duvall, and complements traditional marketing research.
Brands must also understand that in Asia’s social media landscape, social listening is even more important, just as extending a global brand approach in the region is largely futile.
“In China, we have Weibo, we have QQ, and in Southeast Asia, Facebook is very important. For a brand, how do we make sense? We can’t use the same template. This is about listening to people,” said Duvall.
The brand found that, in China, discussion around allergy symptoms was very different to Western European markets – an insight which helped inform marketing tactics.
It was a lesson in the importance of localisation for Asian markets. “We have to be specific to these markets and we have to be consistent. This is extremely different to do across Asia Pacific and especially across the world. It takes a lot of sophistication,” he concluded.
(Source: WARC.com)