AI is driving Chinese brands towards globalization

In 2024, generative AI will remain as popular as ever , and new AI tools have become increasingly common in marketing. Whether it is to achieve more efficient and accurate delivery or to create rich and colorful advertising materials, generative AI has brought more opportunities to brands and businesses, and promoted the globalization of Chinese brands .

Cross-border e-commerce is transforming from "selling products" to "building brands"

According to data released by Statista, the global retail e-commerce industry is expected to maintain an average annual growth rate of 9.5% in the next five years. South America has the greatest development potential and the fastest growth rate, followed by Southeast Asia and other countries. In addition, there are still some growth opportunities in North America and Europe.

The overseas e-commerce market is developing rapidly, with strong demand and great growth potential. At the same time, overseas consumers' recognition of Chinese products and brands is also continuously increasing. These factors are driving China's cross-border e-commerce to maintain rapid growth.

At present, a very important trend is emerging in China's cross-border e-commerce - it is moving towards brand globalization and transforming from "selling products" to "building brands" . The "Top 50 Chinese Global Brands 2024" released by Kantar shows that at least 70% of consumers are willing to consider Chinese brands, and 75% of consumers choose Chinese brands for factors other than price.

Correspondingly, the DTC direct sales model has gained favor with more and more cross-border merchants and brands. Under this model, merchants sell directly to consumers, have greater autonomy and control, and are more conducive to mid- and long-term brand building, achieving both business and profit growth.

Three major trends in overseas consumption

How can Chinese brands capture overseas consumers? First, we need to understand the trends on the consumer side. Currently, there are three major trends on the overseas consumer side.

First, social e-commerce is just the right time . A survey released by HubSpot in 2024 also shows that social media has become the first channel for some consumers to "discover" and "buy", and social media is gaining attention as a sales channel and growing rapidly.

Meta's latest holiday consumer research commissioned by YouGov also found that 53% of big sale shoppers discovered new products/brands on social media (a higher proportion than search engines and e-commerce platforms); 53% of consumers searched for products they wanted to buy on social platforms, and 30% of big sale shoppers ultimately purchased the products through social media.

Second, creator marketing . Creators are increasingly influencing people’s consumption decisions. An online survey conducted by Ipsos shows that 71% of consumers place an order within a few days after seeing creator content on Meta; 64% of respondents consider changing brands because a creator they follow recommends a product.

The scale of creator marketing overseas is expanding rapidly. According to Statista data, the global creator marketing market size will reach US$21.1 billion in 2023, an increase of 118% from US$9.7 billion in 2020. It is estimated that by the end of 2024, the creator marketing market size will reach US$24 billion.

Third, personalized customization . Customization is popular because each consumer has different preferences. According to Twilio Segment data, 89% of company decision makers believe that providing personalized customization experience is crucial to their business growth in the next three years; 73% of company executives believe that the application of AI technology will have a significant impact on their personalized customization experience and marketing promotion strategies.

AI marketing brings new opportunities for brands and businesses

For cross-border e-commerce, in an era of accelerated development of artificial intelligence technology, it is imperative to actively embrace automation. AI can help merchants and brands understand customer behavior and use this information to make informed decisions and predictions, identifying the audience most likely to take action.

AI has always been the pillar of Meta's growth and innovation. Since 2022, Meta has launched a number of AI-enabled marketing solutions and generative AI tools to help cross-border merchants and brands maximize advertising performance.

According to Zhou Yanbing, general manager of Meta's e-commerce industry in Greater China, with the help of Meta's AI and automation technology, cross-border brands and merchants can predict user behavior trends; with the help of generative AI, they can automatically generate multiple pieces of content that may resonate with the audience; and make millions of iterative adjustments in audience targeting, bidding, and creativity until the most suitable solution is found.

Meta's advanced enabling products (Advantage+) use AI in all aspects of marketing activities, which can realize the automation of the entire process from crowd positioning, bidding, creative material production to advertising delivery and optimization. Among them, Meta's advanced enabling smart shopping ads (A+SC) is an end-to-end automated combination solution designed for performance marketers, especially for e-commerce and retail brand direct sales advertisers.

As a new and highly anticipated pet-raising DTC brand in the cross-border e-commerce track, FUNNYFUZZY has been relying on the huge number of active users, rich layouts and material forms of the Meta social platform to drive traffic to the brand's independent website and operate the brand since its establishment.

Chen Shuo, founder and CEO of FUNNYFUZZY , said: "In the seed stage of the brand, FUNNYFUZZY cleverly used Meta's generative AI advertising creative tools to generate a large amount of marketing materials at a low cost, and used Meta's most mature discovery AI advertising algorithm to accurately reach a large number of users. In the subsequent brand growth stage, we established brand social media accounts and refined operations, interacted with customers through social media, collected user feedback, and even provided after-sales services, etc., to feed back product innovation and corporate growth. At the same time, we advanced the use of new advertising tools such as A+SC to achieve faster growth with the help of AI."

AI marketing solutions are driving Chinese brands such as FUNNYFUZZY to go global. Meta's enabling tools provide a variety of solutions that can more efficiently use AI solutions to help small and medium-sized enterprises reach users, thereby maximizing growth and results throughout the marketing channel. Zhou Yanbing said, "Today, almost all advertisers on the Meta platform use at least one tool in the Advantage series to improve their advertising effectiveness."

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