Marketing in China: Global Strategies Meet Local Realities
A practical guide to marketing in China for foreign companies: channels, culture, localisation, data realities, and how to build trust that converts.
Besides capital and technology, long-term success in China hinges on understanding the market’s distinct cultural norms, decision-making dynamics, and digital ecosystem.
Plenty of foreign companies arrive with capital, talent, and a global playbook that’s worked everywhere else. This is a common mistake the “copy-paste global” approach. Applying a standardised playbook to a market where both B2C and B2B buyers behave differently oftentimes hamstrings campaigns and partnerships with slow progress, and ultimately, a go-to-market strategy that underperforms. China is a unique market with specific cultural, advertising and marketing needs that Western enterprises often miss.
The barriers you can’t see (until you hit them)
High-context communication means that what’s not said still matters, a lot. Beyond language, high-context versus low-context communication is the first hurdle.
Western business culture tends to be direct and explicit: say the thing, clarify the thing, move forward. Chinese business culture favours indirectness. People test intent and they read between the lines. What might be a polite non-committal answer can be a clear “no,” while a vague “we’ll consider it” may come with genuine interest – if the trust and the relationship are there.
This type of relationship-first dealmaking is known as Guānxì. In China, guanxi is not networking and hospitality (“wining and dining”), it’s trust built over time in a long-term, mutually beneficial network that precedes contracts. Pushing for terms after a few meetings might be common practice in the West, but Chinese partners often prefer to invest time in personal rapport before moving into specifics. It’s not as simple as scratching off line items within internal timelines.
What this means, in practical terms, is that the strongest price or tech spec can still lose to a competitor with deeper guanxi if trust hasn’t been well-established. Contracts formalise and safeguard deals in the West; in China, relationships make the deal possible, and the contract records it.
How discovery works in super-app native China
Chinese consumer behave is not just app native. The customer journey is often end-to-end inside platforms. WeChat, Alipay, Mini Programs and QR-first behaviour enable this journey – from socialising, shopping, paying, booking, ride-hailing, to even accessing public services – all moving fluidly between offline and online and without switching apps. This fundamentally changes how campaigns are built and how experiences are created: you’re designing something that must be discovered, validated and completed all within the ecosystem your audience lives in.
Brand preference is often grown socially, content-led. “Grass planting” (Zhǒngcǎo) is desire inspired through real-use content, recommendations and online chatter – especially on Xiaohongshu (RED), Douyin (Chinese version of TikTok), Weibo, and Bilibili. China’s KOL/KOC ecosystem is mature, verticalised and highly commercial:
In B2C, top creators and niche KOCs shape category perception and taste, and accelerate conversion (often via short video and livestream commerce rather than one-way ads).
In B2B, influence runs through internal expert committees and external authorities: technical seminars, white papers, research partnerships, and credible authorities who can shift procurement preferences.
Companies must focus on budget for content, creators and community (and not just media), because Chinese consumers buy the experience and the social signal. This experiential consumption matters; pop-up “check-in” moments and co-branded cafes act as acquisition mechanics and brand experience hubs. Shareability is the engine that drives credibility and loyalty, even in everyday dining where dishes are photographed and shared on WeChat Moments or RED to earn “likes” on content (social currency).
The HQ-China execution gap
Many international organisations arrive with internal tension. HQ wants consistency, control, approvals and extensive pre-testing with beautifully created assets and longer lead times, whereas Chinese teams need “small steps, fast iteration”, trend responsiveness and formats built for velocity on apps like Douyin, Weibo and RED. Local content is lively and sometimes even exaggerated; memes and buzzwords are intentionally used to ride the trend wave.
Speed often beats perfection in China, but that velocity can fracture the brand and put local teams at odds with global guidelines. Many brands in China face this: move at pace and risk misalignment, or wait for approval and miss the moment. One approach that works in practice is pre-approved “trend kits”: modular templates, brand-safe caption styles, cutdowns, and content components localised for Douyin/RED so that that teams can quickly deploy within days.
Service expectations and the customisation imperative
Other markets sometimes see service as functional: solve the problem. But in China, service is emotional as well as practical. Consumers expect responsiveness, empathy and “make it right” gestures that carry real weight, and social platforms can magnify dissatisfaction fast. Rigid global SOPs can accidentally become fuel in a crisis. These service expectations are critical; if they aren’t met, brand perception can rapidly decline.
Foreign firms often lead with a globally standardised solution. Chinese buyers in B2C and in B2B expect localised options that feel designed for them: features, packaging, delivery models, and even how value is framed. “That’s our global standard” can be seen as inflexibility – or read as “we didn’t come prepared” – while local competitors tailor quickly.
Martech stacks and data ecosystem realities
China’s data and platform realities can break global martech stacks as they won’t work out of the box due to platform restrictions, ICP hosting rules, cross-border data controls and censorship-related limitations. Attribution and dashboards can become distorted, in some cases either underreporting or excluding data relating to China.
Early alignment to the market’s constraints means working within unique legal requirements, including data localisation and consent flows, as well as building the right infrastructure and choosing hosting and services within mainland China (e.g. Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud).
Common questions about marketing in China
We’re often asked general questions about marketing and advertising in China, and how a business might bring their global vision to the Chinese market. These are the questions we hear most, and the straight answers that tend to save teams the most time (and budget).
Is marketing in China different for foreign companies?
Yes. Buyer behaviour, trust-building, platforms, and service expectations operate differently. “Copy-paste global” is the most common failure mode we’ve seen.
What’s the biggest marketing mistake foreign brands make in China?
Treating localisation as translation, instead of rebuilding strategy around China’s cultural norms and digital ecosystem.
Which channels matter most in China?
It depends on category, but discovery is often community-led and platform-native (WeChat ecosystems, Douyin, Xiaohongshu/RED, Weibo, Bilibili).
Combine global vision with local execution
“When in Rome, do as the Romans do” might be a proverb, but it's part of the strategy when operating in China. Relationships precede contracts, communities shape demand, experiences drives sharing, service is emotional, and data runs on a different stack.
The best strategy is to bring a global vision, but execute locally, contextually, decisively, and with respect for the culture that powers the world’s most dynamic and immersive consumer internet.
If you need advice with go-to-market & advertising strategy in China, get in touch.