Outbound travel from China has been rising steadily, a report by Goldman Sachs estimates the number of tourists from China will reach 220 million in 2025 due to its growing middle class. Combined with the post-referendum devaluation of the pound and the simplified visa process for Chinese citizens, the UK is now a key destination for Chinese tourists. Individual purchasing power for these holidaymakers is estimated at £2,700 pounds per person and Chinese tourism to the UK is valued at more than £500 million each year.

Naturally, department stores and luxury shops on High Street are looking to capitalise on Chinese tourism dollars beyond introducing new products to cater to Chinese tastes or equipping sales staff with mandarin phrase books. Advertisers are turning to mobile data to transform digital advertising. How can advertisers target and reach tourists that are visiting the country for an average of just 10 days?

The answer is through their mobile. Each mobile device provides anonymised user data for advertisers. These data include device language settings, network carriers, operating systems, and the make and model of the smartphone. Combining these data with available third-party anonymised data such as browser and app histories, advertisers can create precise user profiles. For example, to profile a Chinese luxury consumer travelling to the UK, advertisers can look for certain indicators.

First, the most obvious are device language settings and network carrier. Next, advertisers can zoom-in on specific make and model of the smartphone, a user with the brand new iPhone 7 definitely checks the box for high purchasing power. To target user that will be or is travelling to the UK, marketers can analyse search history in mobile devices. It’s even possible to see past user searches of upcoming weather forecasts for the UK.

Advertisers can target specific mobile profiles at the departure airports in Beijing or Shanghai before their target customers have even embarked on their holidays. By geo-fencing a selected combination of indicators and sending a tailored branded message to these users, advertisers can reinforce the brand recall once these tourists have arrived in London. Next, in London, the advertisers can simply target the vicinities or international airport terminals or shopping centres to re-engage with these customers. However, with the second exposure, this time in the UK, the user will see a Mandarin language ad that displays a store-locator nearest to the user’s location with the opening hours of the store.

This is a revolutionary type of mobile advertising because not only is the ad curated for each individual user, it becomes more than just a digital billboard. Advertisers are now seeing the need and the possibilities to transform mobile advertising into a service or informative content. This game changer is slowly becoming the new norm on smartphones as it’s the most intimate and individual media today. Chinese tourists flocking into the UK are now greeted with messages from British department stores and their favourite luxury brands to offer personalised discounts and informing them of opening hours.

Brands that are not taking this approach in mobile advertising stand to lose out and miss a golden opportunity to capture the attention and dollars of these highly sought after Chinese tourists. For the advertising industry, this is revolutionary as marketers can employ anonymised data to profile specific users and delivery desired content instead of just one-sided self-promotions.

  

By Christophe Collet, CEO of S4M

 

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