The ongoing Beijing Winter Olympics has definitely brought a lot of attention and enthusiasm in China around winter sportsand what is more broadly referred to as the “ice and snow industry” or the “winter economy”, which includes also infrastructure, tourism and education.
This growing trend is the result of a decade-long plan at the national level, namely the Ice and Snow Sports Development Program (2016-2025), that has set China’s ice and snow industry to reach 100 billion yuan (USD 157 billion) by 2025, thus accounting for 20 percent of the global sports industry’s gross output.
In an effort to bring more people and especially younger generations to familiarize themselves with winter sports, local governments across the country, have started introducing several policies, including public ski classes and the integration of winter sports into the physical education curriculum of almost 3,000 primary and secondary schools. The result thus far is that, since winning the 2015 bid to hold the Winter Olympics, 346 million people have already taken part in winter sports in China, surpassing the initial goal of 300 million people, according to a report released last month by the State Sports Administration.
❅ Women and Gen Z drive consumption 女性和 Z 世代的消费正在上升
It is clear that the more people participate in winter sports, the more consumption related to the whole ice and snow industry will grow.
显然，随着越来越多的人参与冰雪运动，整体冰雪产业的相关消费也会随之增加。 As for winter tourism, the trend is young and female! Women account for about 68 percent of the total tourists in the winter season, while "generation Z" (post-00s and post-90s) represent 60% of total winter tourists, with an increase of 2 percentage points compared with 2020-2021.至于冰雪旅游，年轻人和女性是未来的趋势！冰雪游客总量中女性约占68%，而“Z世代”（00后、90后）占冰雪游客总量的60%，较2020-2021年增长2个百分点。 Looking at recent consumption stats, during last month’s regular press conference, the Ministry of Commerce announced that in 2021, sales of skiing equipment increased 57 percent year-on-year.从近期消费数据看，在上个月的例行发布会上，商务部宣布：2021年滑雪装备销量同比增长57%。Source: CGTN
E-commerce platforms are enjoying the benefits of this booming sector, too. In its report released just after the Spring Festival, the e-commerce giant JD.com registered a remarkable growth in consumption during the Spring Festival period with ski equipment turnover increasing by 107 percent compared to last year and winter sportswear rising by 99 percent.
电子商务平台也正在享受这个蓬勃发展的行业带来的红利。春节过后刚发布的报告中显示，电商巨头京东在春节期间消费增长显著，滑雪装备成交量同去年增长107%，冬季运动服装同比增长99%。 ❅ Plan ahead for your ice and snow marketing strategy! 提前制定您的冰雪营销策略！
Although the Beijing Winter Olympics are a great marketing opportunity for companies, the potential of China’s ice and snow industry goes far beyond that. Companies should adopt a more forward-looking attitude if they want to position themselves in China’s fast-growing but also highly competitive ice and snow industry.
虽然北京冬奥会对企业来说是一个很好的营销机会，但中国冰雪产业的潜力远不止于此。如果企业要想在快速发展、竞争激烈的中国冰雪行业中定位自己，就应该采取更加前瞻的态度。 Below are three easy tips to start your winning ice and snow marketing in China!以下是三个简单的技巧，让你在中国成功的开始冰雪营销！
1 – Watch Your Words!
注意你的用词！
Let’s start from the basics. A key element in marketing is communication and communication occurs through language. A proper ice and snow marketing campaign then can’t be missing the Chinese characters 冰 bīng (ice) and 雪 xuě (snow). A precursor of this trend was BMW, launching its ice and snow campaign way back in 2018.
The Olympic freestyle skier and model Eileen Gu has become China’s national idol after winning her first gold medal in freestyle skiing. She arrived at the Winter Games sponsored by more than 20 international and domestic brands, covering a wide span of industries ranging from fashion to automotive, food & beverage and furniture.
Eileen is one example of how brands in China are increasingly preferring to be represented by athletes rather than entertainment celebrities. The shift is due not only to the sports fever brought along by the recent success of the Tokyo and Beijing Olympics, but also mainly in response to the frequent scandals faced by entertainment celebrities in recent years. Athletes enjoy enormous exposure and favour by the public as they are celebrated by Chinese media as national heroes and role models. In addition, they embody positive values such as success, high performance, discipline, a healthy and high-quality lifestyle, which perfectly match with what most brands want to communicate about themselves.
3 – Launch Your Ice and Snow Contest on Social Media
在社交媒体上发起您的冰雪活动
Besides the most famous (and expensive) sports celebrities, China’s social media are an incredible pool of outbreak stars. The enthusiasm around the Winter Olympics is spurring the rise of winter sports KOLs and industry-related content.
In fact, according to Little Red Book, one of the “Top 10 Life Trends in 2022”is skiing tutorials. Search volumes for the term more than doubled over the course of 2021. The platform also launched a campaign calling on users to share skiing tutorial content for the opportunity to win a 500,000 yuan reward.
Companies could also launch their own ice and snow contest on social media, as a way to encourage users to share their products and increase brand awareness.
公司还可以在社交媒体上发起自己的冰雪活动，以此鼓励用户分享他们的产品并提高品牌知名度。
❅ Conclusion ❅
❅ 结论 ❅
China’s winter economy is definitely worthy of attention. Considering the potential of this sector in the following years, it’s important to start working on your brand awareness with a successful marketing strategy to be ahead of your competitors. Speed and farsightedness are the key words to be a winner in the Chinese market!