Blue Moon: How not to connect with your target audience in China

Blue Moon. What were they thinking?

To their credit, the 32 year-old home cleaning company has evolved from just marketing the ingredients and efficacy of their products to tapping into Chinese consumers’ increasingly emotional connection with brands. But they illustrate how even Chinese brands can be out of touch, particularly those who make all of their decisions just using big data.

In what would have been a costly campaign, Blue Moon brought in top Douyin KOL, Mr. Dong, and plastered him all over office buildings and apartment elevators to celebrate Mother’s Day. The campaign aimed to use the sacred occasion to connect with one of its key target audiences, China’s mums. It did the opposite.

Blue Moon’s out of home advertising translated to this: "In the past, mum used a big bottle of laundry detergent to wash our clothes, which was heavy and tiring. Now, with extraordinary future laundry technology, mum's laundry is easier, lighter, and more effortless." In addition, on a Mother’s Day gift box, they printed the slogan “妈妈，您先用 (Mum, you use it first).”

It's likely in the halls of Blue Moon HQ in Guangdong, execs were back slapping and high fiving about how much better mums’ lives were as a result of their product innovations. Mums weren’t feeling it.

Many Chinese consumers have moved on from beliefs around traditional gender-stereotypes, such as the role of laundry being exclusively a mother’s duty.

Chinese expressed how they felt all over social media, with many writing notes and sticking them to Blue Moon’s billboards and elevator ads, and sharing them on social media. Blue Moon swiftly recognised they had an issue and responded with a PR blitz.

If the first round wasn’t bad enough, Blue Moon’s PR response continued to show how removed they are from modern Chinese consumers’ psyche. Blue Moon's customer service was told to state "the intention was to express gratitude to mothers" and "regardless of who does the laundry for whom, it is all full of love." On top of that, Blue Moon's official account shared survey data, stating, "According to relevant surveys, women spend an average of 120 minutes on household chores every day, with most mothers being the main force in household chores, often spending a lot of time on family cleanliness." Seriously?

After those attempts failed to calm online posters, Blue Moon doubled down with a ¥1 million ($140K) to solicit new advertising copy from netizens, offering ¥100K for each of the top-10 taglines. The example Blue Moon gave to inspire taglines was: "I did the laundry for Mum, making life easier and more enjoyable", failing to break away from the ‘laundry = mum’s work’ message. Of the final 10 taglines they selected, six included 'mum', making consumer sentiment worse still!

Whilst Blue Moon has become a clear case study in how not to market in China, much like we saw on Women’s Day in March, Mother’s Day also brought some shining examples of how brands can capture the current societal mood and connect at an emotional level with their target audience. L'Oréal, Babycare and lingerie brand AIMER’s messaging was all bang on about freeing mums from those traditional societal roles and looking out for themselves on Mother’s Day.

There are oft-quoted figures around Chinese women being the Financial Controllers of the household accounting for three out of four purchases in China. They are particularly relevant for foreign brands, accounting for 70% of active shoppers on cross border platform, Tmall Global. Yet to reach them, you need to understand them a little better than Blue Moon.

Defining your target audience and understanding what makes them tick is absolutely essential in a market where they are now bombarded with messaging from all sides everywhere they go. That’s what China Skinny does best, providing the ability to distil those insights into actionable initiatives which connect with them at an emotional and functional level, and won’t have them thinking you’re a caveman-brand from another era. Contact China Skinny to learn about how we can help your brand connect.

And for our readers in Switzerland, China Skinny's Andrew Atkinson will be speaking on trends and developments in cosmetics in Lausanne on 3rd June. You can register through the link here or let Andrew know if you'd like to say hello.