Hong Kong – To effectively engage the influential Mainland Chinese expat demographic in Hong Kong and drive growth, brands must implement culturally attuned strategies, as outlined in a recent whitepaper by EternityX.

With exclusive research from EternityX’s ‘PilotX’ platform and a proprietary survey conducted with MobTech, the whitepaper acts as a strategic blueprint for brands aiming to capitalise on the high-value demographic of Hong Kong’s Mainland Chinese expat community. By gaining insights into the economic influence and cultural preferences of this demographic, brands can craft targeted campaigns that resonate profoundly and foster sustainable growth.

According to the report, Mainland Chinese expats, especially those aged 35–54, are an affluent and highly educated group holding influential positions in technology, marketing, and government sectors. In addition, more than 65% have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 72% earn over HKD 40,000 per month.

The report also reveals that women in middle- and high-income brackets are leading substantial spending growth, with their investments in finance, real estate, and luxury goods far surpassing industry index averages.

This indicates that brands overlooking this key demographic risk missing out on a highly influential consumer segment.

Charlene Ree, CEO of EternityX, emphasised, “Mainland Chinese Expats are fundamentally reshaping Hong Kong’s business landscape. By strategically aligning with this group, brands can bridge business growth with deeper cultural integration, ensuring that their initiatives resonate and drive lasting market impact.”

Additionally, Mainland Chinese expats remain strongly connected to their cultural roots through platforms like WeChat, Douyin (known globally as TikTok), and Xiaohongshu. 

WeChat remains the leading platform, with over 80% of expats using it daily. Its multifunctional features—spanning social interaction, mobile payments, and e-commerce—make it the top channel for consumer engagement.

Meanwhile, Douyin and Xiaohongshu are increasingly being used for entertainment and purchase decisions, particularly by affluent expats seeking lifestyle inspiration. Brands have the opportunity to craft compelling content that engages expats in an organic, relatable way.

These channels are essential for brands aiming to build long-term loyalty and foster authentic engagement. The report highlights that incorporating culturally resonant content on these platforms can deepen connections and cultivate lasting trust.

EternityX’s whitepaper advises brands to analyse the media habits and advertising preferences of Mainland Chinese expats to craft more effective, culturally resonant campaigns.

The report finds that Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) play a crucial role in influencing purchasing decisions, underscoring the need for brands to collaborate with KOLs to build credibility and trust. This is especially important for engaging younger Mainland Chinese expats who actively follow influencers on platforms like Douyin and Weibo.

Additionally, short-form video content, social media feeds, and in-app banners provide highly engaging touchpoints, offering brands direct access to expats’ daily lives. Utilising these channels enables brands to maintain constant visibility and drive higher conversion rates.

“The key to successful engagement lies in brands adopting a culturally attuned strategy. Whether through influencer collaborations or relevant content on trusted platforms, brands need to meet Mainland Chinese Expats where they are most active… while maintaining authenticity and respect for their cultural values,” Ree explained. 

To effectively engage the Mainland Chinese expat market, the whitepaper advises brands to reassess and adapt their strategies continually. They must regularly evaluate their marketing approaches to remain aligned with the evolving preferences of this demographic. By leveraging data-driven insights and the proven effectiveness of digital and influencer marketing, brands can cultivate loyalty and achieve sustainable long-term growth.

Moreover, to maximise ROI, brands should prioritise early adoption and tailored engagement across platforms like WeChat, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu to gain a first-mover advantage in a competitive market.

“This whitepaper is more than a strategy guide—it’s a call to action for brands to adapt, evolve, and harness the full potential of Mainland Chinese Expats. By understanding their unique behaviours and values, brands can create authentic connections that foster growth, loyalty, and long-term success,” Ree concluded. 

Singapore – Yahoo Advertising has partnered with global digital out-of-home (DOOH) supply-side platform VIOOH in a new whitepaper examining the potential outcomes of including programmatic digital out-of-home (prDOOH) within multi-channel campaigns.

By examining a series of case studies, the joint whitepaper outlines how advertisers can maximise multi-channel campaign impact through the inclusion of prDOOH. It includes how to optimise targeting, increase brand awareness, and drive consumer behaviour offline and online by leveraging the strengths of both broadcast and digital channels to deliver ROI.

Analysis findings in the report showed that the inclusion of prDOOH in multi-channel media plans can drive more attention, boost engagement, and improve overall campaign effectiveness.

The report states that the inclusion of prDOOH in a multi-channel media plan adds incremental value to the return on investment (ROI) of the digital media mix due to the priming effect, as DOOH plays an important role in preparing consumers for conversions during re-engagements on other channels.

To support the notion that there is indeed a ‘priming effect’, the report examined a multi-market campaign from Jones Lang LaSalle across Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong and a campaign from Schroders in Singapore, where prDOOH was used alongside digital channels to drive incremental online campaign results.

From this, analysis results emphasised the power of the offline priming effect and positive impact on ROI, as campaigns included significantly increased website visit rates for audiences primed by prDOOH and a +80% overall mobile retargeting click-through rate (CTR) for prDOOH-primed audiences.

Furthermore, the whitepaper revealed that prDOOH as a channel can boost offline outcomes in terms of sales and footfall as a result of its ‘attention-grabbing’ characteristics and flexibility as a programmatic medium.

Looking through various case study results, a 15% incremental increase in sales for Danone Aptamil in the UK is attributable directly to prDOOH, and a 37% increase in sales when combined alongside digital channels. Additionally, a campaign with Tourism Tasmania in Australia showed prDOOH contributed to a 31% lift in website visits, with the overall campaign responsible for a 51% increase in visitation to Tasmania.

These results support the idea that prDOOH’s ‘attention-grabbing’ characteristics have the ability to boost ROI by driving sales and footfall.

The idea behind the whitepaper comes from the State of the Nation for programmatic DOOH report released by VIOOH earlier this year. The report outlined the key request from advertisers, which is to understand how prDOOH fits within multi-channel campaigns and how to best measure its impact.

Helen Miall, CMO at VIOOH, said, “This whitepaper has been prompted by a significant increase in demand for prDOOH from advertisers, and a desire to understand how it can best be used alongside and within multi-channel campaigns. This report highlights its potential for delivering effective campaigns across upper and lower funnel tactics, and how prDOOH can be successfully combined with individual media to drive campaign effectiveness.” 

Also speaking on the whitepaper, Andrew Gilbert, director of platforms for AUSEA at Yahoo, shared, “In today’s landscape, adopting a multi-channel approach to campaign planning and buying has become standard practice for many advertisers who seek to understand how they can best combine different channels to maximum effect. Programmatic is enabling DOOH to be planned, activated, and optimised alongside other channels, with display, audio, and social emerging as the most popular channels for pairing.”

Asia Pacific – Social media app TikTok and international advertising agency TBWA have announced the release of a new joint whitepaper titled “Storytelling in the Next Creative Renaissance”, which encourages businesses to embrace the role of creativity and innovation in contemporary marketing. 

This key initiative by TikTok and TBWA aims to elevate industry standards and deliver insights that enable businesses to thrive amidst rapid changes in the digital landscape. 

The whitepaper highlights the significance and potency of everyday creativity by leveraging the power of the cultural zeitgeist (spirit of the time) through storytelling while exploring its various applications on and off TikTok. It provides an in-depth look at the crucial role creativity and innovation play in contemporary marketing strategies. 

The whitepaper also shared how brands that have broken away from ‘best practises’ are being rewarded by having discovered the possibilities on newer platforms. These brands are disrupting category conventions, capturing attention, creating on-going value, and gaining recognition.

Another thing highlighted in the whitepaper is the enormous potential for brands to influence across subcultures, as many of these subcultures already have global reach. As the brand’s relevance expands, so will the brands already connected to it.

Therefore, while there may be temptation for brands to hitch themselves to whichever niche has the greatest potential for growth, they should instead engage with subcultures that share their worldview. By joining these conversations authentically, brands now have a shortcut to word-of-mouth promotion. 

Furthermore, brands should harness the tech-enabled tools available to supercharge creative minds and tell stories at scale so executions can be upgraded quickly, giving assets new value or streamlining the creation of bespoke content. 

In line with this, TikTok has also developed and deployed a ‘Recut, Remix, Reimagine’, framework to foster creativity amongst brands and marketers on its platform. Under this framework, TikTok aims to encourage them to go beyond conventional marketing paradigms that will increase their creative output with the help of technology and also fine-tune it to align with targeted audiences and distinct subcultures. 

As the whitepaper emphasises, marketers who study digital platforms not only acquire valuable cultural insights but also position themselves to effectively benefit from marketing innovation.

As outlined by TikTok and TBWA in the whitepaper, we’re entering the era of the new creative Renaissance, where fostering meaningful connections is paramount. Rather than diminishing creative ideation due to budget constraints, brands and marketers should consider optimising other operational processes to reap the most from their marketing strategies.

Tessa Conrad, head of innovation at TBWA Asia, said, “What your brand stands for, what it offers people, and what it makes people feel, results in a community to connect and create with rather than just an audience to speak to.”

Meanwhile, Ng Chew Wee, head of business marketing for Asia Pacific at TikTok, said, “81% of our users take actions such as purchasing a product or seeking more information after watching a TikTok video. This suggests that brands creating relevant, engaging content have a genuine chance to directly influence consumer behaviour.” 

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – As the COVID-19 pandemic pushed people into lockdown restrictions, making way for prolonged work-from-home setups and social distancing protocols, media consumption in Malaysians have seen some significant change, statistics from a recent study from marketing consultancy Entropia shows.

The report stated that radio, streaming media which includes audio and video, reading online news, watching television and checking social media are the ‘gainers’ from this newly-found media consumption, while out-of-home (OOH) media, cinemas, newspapers and physical events have downplayed to become the ‘losers’.

Spending more time on Facebook and Instagram ranked first in media activities to which respondents engaged in during the country’s movement control order (MCO) with 58.6% followed by listening to radio while at home and working (34.6%), watching YouTube while exercising (34.2%), and spending more time streaming on Netflix and watching with friends and family (26.7%). 

In terms of age profiles and media behavior, the study noted that there has been an overall marked increase across age segments for Facebook and Instagram, with over 25% of all segments between 21 to 55 years indicating increased time spent on these platforms. A higher increase in radio consumption has been also among those over 45 years, while young adults under 24 years showed higher consumption of YouTube and Netflix. Meanwhile, those over 55 years showed the greatest increase in time spent on news channels.

The report said that increase of media consumption across all age groups can be attributed to increased need for news where viewers turn to channels they perceive as credible. 

“As people around the world sought to remain updated on the rapidly changing crisis, consumers’ reliance on media also increased, resulting in a more captive audience. Here’s where media companies and advertisers can benefit most – the opportunity to leverage this enhanced engagement, grow their subscriber base, and expand their reach,” said Syahar Khalid, partner for integrated media at Entropia.

“Our clients’ universal objective is to make an impression on audiences and break through the clutter. Going forward, media strategy will require retaining consumers’ attention where they’re most likely to spend their time – be it for leisure, career, education or wellness,” added Khalid.

“The Malaysian government has just announced MCO 2.0 and with it, brands in some categories will again face challenges owing to adverse market forces. Some have already made significant moves towards continued investment in advertising, and we hope this study will provide some clarity on the media channels appealing to their specific target audiences,” Syahar concluded.