Insights on the cultures of the post 90s and business practices targeting this group

Zafka Zhang, Helen Yu

China Youthology focuses on youth, including post 85s and post 90s (from 15 yrs to 25 yrs). In addition to long-term offline contact, we also constantly immerse with the youth community by online ethnographies through QQ zone, QQ group, Baidu Space, Baidu Post and some local micro-blogging platforms, such as Fanfou.com and Taotao.com

At the end of last year, China Youthology noticed 360quan.com, an important local SNS website for post 85s and post 90s. Till August 2007, it accumulated 11.5 million page visits, this is only half a year since 360quan.com officially launched. It was awarded by Iresearch.cn as ‘Netizen’s Favorite Leisure SNS Website in 2007’. Now there are around 15 million registered users.

What interested China Youthology most is that, unlike other casual youth SNS communities constructed mainly on the basis of instant messengers and blogs, such as QQ and Baidu, 360quan.com made great efforts to cater to and empower the self-expression of the post 90s by providing applications such as ‘Martian Language (Huoxingwen)’, ‘360 Family’, ‘360 PK’ and ‘Love at First Sight’ etc. At the same time, 360quan.com helps brands on campaigns to post 90s.

With the introduction of our friend Daniel Touff, Chief Business Director of 360quan.com, we were very honored to interview the chief editor, Hui Wang. We had a good chat with her about 360quan users, their cultures and the their marketing practice (both for 360quan itself and for clients). Hui is also an expert and celebrity of youth music and fashion community. In her own words, she is ‘a seasoned realistic Utopian female, RAP SINGER of DH & CHINESE HELLCATS Band, vintage SWING DANCER and a lover of scientific programs, supernatural literatures of all cultures and various pseudoscience, such as astrology, CCTV Schoolroom(Baijia Jiangtan百家讲坛), fashion history and National Geography’ （blog link）

Hui, with her multi-identities, definitely is gifted to understand various youth subcultures and communities. Through this interview, we get a better understanding of following:

•   Users and their communities of 360quan.com
•   Interpretation of the cultures of post 90s
•   Implication of marketing practice on urban post 90s

I)    360quan.com: a window to the world of urban post 90s

‘Most of our current users are quite different with those of other SNS websites. Most of them are between 15 and 20 years old, mainly senior high school students or freshman, the so-called post 90s.’

China Youthology: Can you give us a brief introduction of yourself？What is your daily work?

Hui：Before joining 360quan.com, I had been working in the field of marketing, especially responsible for media cooperation. 360quan.com is the first Internet company I have worked for. At the beginning, I was in charge of marketing for 360quan, when we made a video series named 360Nuts(辣刺儿), which is similar with Jackass. Afterwards, as the demand of website content increased, I became an editor.

Now my work generally contains two parts. One is to maintain the group of core users, mainly by organizing some online activities and drawing out high quality content from what they have uploaded. The other is to build and maintain the columns on different topic/ content. We editors guide our users with high quality and real-time content and are in charge of advertising.

China Youthology: Can you give us a brief introduction about 360quan.com then？

Hui: 360quan.com is founded in 2007 as an interactive SNS websites designed for youth. Along with those SNS functions, it also contains columns in the topics of love, gossip, fashion trend, music and etc. Our users come from all over China, most of them are between 15 and 20 years old, mainly senior high school students or freshman…the so-called post 90s. Now the number of registered users is about 15 million.

China Youthology: Compared with other websites, especially other SNS sites, what’s special about 360quan.com users?

Hui: There are a lot of differences existing. Facebook’s users are the early adopters of Internet who are well-educated, and they mainly use the platform to make international friends. Kaixin.com is for white-collar workers to communicate with their real-life friends, such as colleagues, classmates and etc. Tianya is quite popular, especially among the post 70s working adults; the discussions there are usually about society, lifestyle, love and etc…a little bit gossip. Douban users are mainly the post 80s and they discuss about those topics loved by ‘literature youth’, such as books and movies. Our users are relatively younger, who are interested in stars and always long for romantic love…those are the hottest topics on our websites.

II)    Self-expression of post 90s: ‘adolescent’s Jiang Hu’

‘Both ‘Non-mainstream’ and ‘Martian Language’ are typical ways for the post 90s to express themselves, through which they are trying to demonstrate their personality and distinctiveness.’

China Youthology: Please describe a typical 360quan.com user to us. How would he/she use 360quan.com?

Hui: A typical user would login almost every day. He would update his photos, write a short blogpost, and then, go to PK, leave a message on other’s space, visit his ‘360 family’ if he joined one. Some of them would use 360quan as an online storage disk, especially for photos; though this group of users may seldom take part in the ‘360 family activities’, they are very active in activities initiated by us and also make excellent contribute.

Generally speaking, ‘360 PK’ and ‘360 Family’ are the most popular applications. These youth are extremely confident and the game of PK is very easy to participate with little demand on creativity: they only need to ask their friends and ‘Family members’ to vote for them. Family is also quite hot. The largest families have more than 10 thousand members. These youth like virtual life and they have respective identities in the Family, such as Family Head, Director, Chairman, Secretary-general, Spokesperson and etc.

China Youthology: This is the ‘adolescent’s Jiang Hu’ in which they play their respective roles.

Hui: Yes, but the structure of Family is still loose and they mostly just rely on family members to vote for each other. And most users are also online game players with a deep-rooted concept of upgrading, so the supreme levels are very attractive to them and they begin to refresh blogs frequently.

China Youthology: Youth’s behaviors on Internet are also their ways to express themselves. What’s the difference of self-expression between different age groups of youth, as far as you are concerned?

Hui: Generally, the post 70s, like us, are relatively realistic and would like to talk more about cosmetics, bags, restaurants and etc. The post 80s like to talk about life, music, book and movie, which are the hottest topics on Douban. The post 90s, such as our users, like to photoshop their photos so as to look Non-mainstream and they use Martian Language, which adults can’t understand.

China Youthology: Non-mainstream has become a mainstream trend for the post 90s. It’s very interesting. How do you think about this culture?

Hui: In my opinion, their Non-mainstream is another way to express themselves and to demonstrate their personality so as to impress others, similarly as what we used to do: to impress people with suprising remarks in chat rooms.

Non-mainstream is a kind of popular culture. Like Non-mainstream, many kinds of popular culture were originated from western countries; after being reshaped in Japan and/or Korean, it spreaded to Hongkong; and after another round of reshaping, finally it reached China mainland, where we could see the current format of Non-mainstream culture.

However, this Non-mainstream culture is pseudo/ copied version. When it first appeared in western countries, it was expressed in music. The appearance is just a way to express their thoughts. As Japanese are very good at hyping cultures, when this Non-mainstream culture spreaded to Japan, it is reshaped by well-know brands. When it came to China, Chinese youth, with a limited consumption ability, didn’t bother to really understand what exactly Non-mainstream means. They just get some superficial idea or simply copy their peers. They probably have no idea of Punk and Goth elements in their appearance, not to mention the cultural concepts in this culture. They probably never listen to Punk or Goth music, just stay with pop music, such as those from Jay Zhou and S.H.E.

China Youthology: From your point of view, how did the Non-mainstream culture get popularized in China?

Hui: I think the elements of Non-stream are just the right style for the post 90s. They love the distinctiveness, decadence, loss and vulnerable, themes often seen in their signature, blog and photos.

The popularizing of this culture falls in the pyramid, too. In the top, there’re the trend leaders who had the first intimate touch of this culture and they got its soul. Few as they are, they spend great time and effort to understand its cultural meaning. They are followed by the others who would rather replicate what the trend leaders did other than study the culture; this saves them much effort.

China Youthology: When we visit 360quan.com, we came across so much Martian Language. It’s very interesting. How do you think about this?

Hui: It’s like speaking their own language in their own world. I think the prevalence of both Non-mainstream and Martian Language reflects their self-expression and their need to be different.

China Youthology: Through these popular cultures, how do you think about the characteristic of the post 90s?

Hui: First of all, they are very confident. Secondly, they have strong desires to show themselves and even dream to become stars. Talent Shows such as Super Girl makes them feel it’s very easy to be a star. Thirdly, they want to be different.

We can also see this trend of self-expression in the post 70s and 80s. They set very high standards for themselves. If they find something interesting, they will spend a lot of time on it so as to be an expert/ geek in this field. The post 90s, unlike the post 70s and 80s, are still very young. They are usually more interested in fun-seeking and entertainment.

III)    Successful marketing practice: easy + creative + self-expression

‘The activity must be easy to participate. We would not expect the mass youth to do what’s beyond their abilities. For example, in photographing activities, allowing them to take pictures by mobile phone would also result in some cool work… just be themselves, this is enough.’

China Youthology: What are the 360quan.com marketing practices according to their characteristics? Could you give us some successful examples, including those initiated by 360quan and by brands?

Hui: We once organized a voting activity, winners of which could get the chance to model for magazine. Our users were very enthusiastic about it, as it’s still very attractive to stage on traditional media, such as magazines or TV programs.

Late last year, we also organized an activity called ‘360Qstar’. A lot of users, about 10 thousand, took part in it. In this activity, we made calendars from user’s photos and then printed them out for users for free. It’s popular because it provided the users a real thing, similar as a magazine, to express themselves.

China Youthology: How could an activity be attractive to the post 90s?

Hui: Those activities are successful because it’s very easy to participate. Our users are limited in affordability and creativity. They don’t use lomo or those professional cameras, and they don’t have the photo polishing skills like some users of Douban do. They probably could only take pictures with cell phone or web camera. Most pictures uploaded by our users are self-shooting. In a word, only a simple activity could attract a lot of participants.

Another trick is to provide them with a platform to express themselves. As mentioned previously, they need a stage very much to build self-identity. Last year, we organized an activity named ‘City Star’, during which we did offline promotion in some cities and interviewed them with a professional digital camera and a microphone with our logo attached…we also dressed the top ten candidates up to take a set of photos which were then published in <1626>. These elements are important criteria to judge an activity for our users.

China Youthology: We skimmed through the discussions on 360quan.com. Topics about brands are hardly seen, is it true?

Hui: They don’t talk about brands much. The youth may mention the clothes on certain stars, but they focus only on style rather than brand. This is mainly because they can’t afford brands and they are relative young. In our Fashion section, hot topics are such like “Mix and match in spring” and “How to style with candy-color socks”.

Unlike our website, Yoho’s users would naturally pay attention to brands, especially street style brands; MCC, with no more than 200 thousand users, are very hi-fashion and their users like to talk about top brands and fashion shows, mostly from western countries like European or American countries.

China Youthology: However, trendsetters stay at the top of the pyramid and the brand still has to face mass youth. According to our long-term observation and basic research, if a brand wants to connect with youth, it has to spend a lot of time and effort. One activation could not accomplish the goal, but consolidated, long-term programs could. Besides, if simply ‘use’ the creative youth, neither creative youth nor mass youth would buy in. Do you think there are some successful branding activities targeting mass youth?

Hui: I think Pepsi’s campaign ‘Be on the can（我要上罐）’ is quite successful as it is very easy to participate. We also planned an activity for Pepsi, in which the particiapants are required to hiccup in front of the camera after drinking pepsi cola. It’s creative and funny, while still very easy. Pepsi liked it much too.

China Youthology: 360quan.com is a great platform to bridge brand and urban post 90s. What could brand do to better connect with mass youth through this platform?

Hui: I think many brands could cooperate with us, such as FMCG, online game(MMORPG) and etc. Those brands/ products are not too expensive and they are naturally part of youth’s lives, like Pepsi.

When planning a campaign, the most important thing is to understand users/ consumers, including both their functional and emotional needs, and their affordability. On one hand, it should be easy to participate, not requiring the consumers to do something difficult. One good example, China Unicom asks the participants to take pictures of them gesturing a ‘V’ and a ‘1’, which is easy for everybody. On the other hand, the brand has to be part of their lives.

There is another example. When we were cooperating with Kappa, the initial thought was to ask the participants to make a back-to-back pose and take photos of it. However, it’s too difficult, as the third person needs to be there to help them take pictures and at least you need to use a camera. Since it’s a little bit difficult, people were not so interested. I think a successful activity should allow self-shooting or shooting with mobile phones, which would also bring out some cool work. Our current activity (click here for more) is associated with spring. We ask our users to take picture of themselves with flowers, grasslands, vegetables and fruits. It’s quite successful. Haha.

China Youthology: This is quite challenging for brand, because on one hand a brand should be cool enough to attract the trendsetters who are the most influential; meanwhile, brand needs to fight for its market share in mass consumers. Under this situation, how to interact with youth would be an important question.

Hui: Yes, because trendsetters are, after all, a small group of people. Most Chinese youth of today are just like our users. As the only child in family, spoiled by parents and society, they are used to take it for granted to pay less and get more. So in youth-brand interactions, we should not expect them to make much effort. Let them be themselves…that’s enough.

Filed under: Great Minds Think Alike Or Not, So What?, Technology, 1626, 360quan.com, brand insight, China youth culture, Helen Yu, interview, post 90s, Zafka Zhang