Internet celebrity rules the world?

1. Have you ever paid a visit to those shops, which were endorsed by an Internet celebrity or purchased a beauty product recommended by micro KOLs? 

Social marketing or referral marketing plays an important role in today’s business world, as recent research has been showing that the major factors of consumers’ buying decisions have been dominated by referral and social marketing from traditional advertising since rapid growth of mobile app and social networks, especially in China.

2. As a business owner, do you think it is crucial to have KOLs on your side to products go viral?

The answer depends highly on what category your product belongs to and your goals. The overall marketing strategy, which includes whether partnership with Internet celebrities should be varied according to different goals. Each channel has its pros and cons as well target audience. If you want the conversion from visitors to real customers, traditional marketing may be a better option, particularly when you target older generation. In general, as of today, television, newspaper and radio are deemed by the public more trustworthy. However, occasionally you may want to create noise or brand recognition instead of actual sales. Brand awareness can be achieved more easily over the Internet within the same budget, particularly when you target middle- to young-aged audience.

(Source: anello official website)

anello popped off within short period. In 2015, the sales revenue of this new Japanese bag brand was 4.4 billion yen and the number soared two fold next year, over 80 billion yen. In 2017, it has sold bags which are worthy of more than 12 billion yen already. Within three years, anello sold 5 million bags. In other words, more than 4500 bags were sold every day. The new brand became a big hit in Asia and it is most likely that you can see passengers carrying anello bags when you walk on any street in Asia. 

The huge success of anello communicate an important message. First, when nowadays everyone thinks that endorsement by celebrities or internet celebrities is a must to penetrate the consumer market, there are still many successful cases that have been maintaining a low profile and the demand for the products keeps skyrocketing. At this age of information overload, effective advertising is important but how to make the advertisements even more high-yielding highly depends on the product per se, which lays a strong foundation for all.

Second, it is well perceived that developed countries define the trend of fashion and technology, which are strictly followed (despite a bit localization) by developing countries. This scenario has gradually been reversed, resulting from internet globalization. Viral videos and prevalence of fashion can now be originated from developing countries, where teenagers dominate the local Internet consumption. It is easy for a business to detect the local hype by looking up the hot keywords searched by local internet users. Nonetheless, the social interactions and analytics of the social platforms offer abundant insights into how many possible sales can be made if the business decides to enter the market. It is all up to the business to evaluate the profitability against all associated costs. 

anello adopts the concept of fast fashion and becomes the H&M for bags. The brand was established in 2005 and its first bag was made to be a schoolbag, priced at less than $30 each. Its affordable simplicity brought word of mouth to the brand among students. Teenagers tend to be more impatient because they were born in an era of light speed telecommunication, when everything comes in handily. anello, thereafter, kept on innovating its bags and introduced to the buyers across the globe more than 160 newly designed bags each year. The founder does not hope to see the same bag on the selling booths for 2 months maximum. 

The fast pace of innovation forced the business to abandon perceived Japanese culture, which is renowned for its cautiousness and perfectionism. anello has apparently been doing a great job in striking balance between timeframe and quality, given shortening product life cycle. With only 40 employees in 2014, the flat hierarchy enabled prompt decision making to tackle the challenges of ever-changing consumer market.