Perfect Dairy's KOL Marketing - A Power We Cannot Resist

In 2020, I bought my first eyeshadow - Perfect Dairy. 

Yes, my first...

"What drove you to buy,? You never look at makeups!", my friend was surprised about that.

Its shining glitter, its attractive color matching, its fancy packaging... Actually, maybe two videos on Bilibili (a video platform). 

A video uploader with high view uploaded a video, in which she was painting with her Perfect Dairy eyeshadow.

(Watch the video! 👇👇👇)

Asenimo, the uploader of the video, has 796 thousand followers on Bilibili, and 2030 thousand followers on Xinlang Weibo. She was famous for her painting videos, and became very influential on social media. 

You may have a question, why did she using eyeshadow to paint? Didn't she feel reluctant? I can tell you that she was willing to paint with makeups because she was sponsored by makeup brands. And it was her duty to doing that - take part in the marketing and recommendation of these brands by attracting people with her excellent videos and her fascinating pictures. Inthe video, we can see a lot of small details of showing us how fancy the eyeshadow was, such as focusing on details of the picture and showing us her glittering hands.

At the end of the video, she began to introduce the fantastic eyeshadow from Perfect Dairy. To recommend, Asenimo painted all the color on her arm, when the lens was zoomed in, we can see more details of the colors.

I was persuaded to purchase after watching the process of painting and the colors in the eyeshadow case. Asenimo is an uploader I have followed for a long time, therefore, she has credibility in my mind. And I believe there were hundreds of consumers in the same condition as me. Actually, it is a marketing method called KOL marketing.

KOL is a person who has great influence in a field. And brands find KOLs on social media to cooperate with them. Brands pay KOLs some money and provide KOL with their products or invite KOLs to experience their services, and KOLs should give feedback and use their power to influence potential consumers to spend on the brand.

On social media, KOL can be a main power to lead the groundswell. Also, they can talk with the groundswell and are more easily to be accepted by the groundswell because of their credibility.

As a new brand in makeup market, Perfect Dairy gained its popularity rapidly during recent years through KOL marketing, especially 2020, when COVID-19 broke out and people use social media more to communicate. And KOL marketing has been a main marketing strategy of Perfect Dairy.

Every time I searched makeup videos, I can see some recommendation, measurement of the products, Make-up tutorial for Perfect Dairy. And the uploaders are all famous people in makeup field. Because of the influence of KOL, Perfect Dairy attracted a large number of followers, almost every one knows that Perfect Dairy is an affordable makeup brand for students.

However, it is not a strategy to rely on KOL forever. In 2020, increasing number of brands saw the benefit of KOL marketing, and started their KOL strategy. KOLs recommended Perfect Dairy yesterday began to show other brands like 3CE to consumers today. The cost of KOL raised a lot. The marketing strategy expense of Perfect Dairy raised from 1.25 billion in 2019 to 3.41 billion in 2020. The company got 5.2 billion of net profit but faced a loss of 2.7 billion. The competitors made KOL strategy a disaster for Perfect Dairy. In the war of KOL battle, Perfect Dairy is lack of loyal customers as the followers change their minds with their favorite KOL. At the same time, brands like Joydoll is also affordable for students. Perfect dairy has no advantages in the market if it so not change the marketing strategy.

As consumers, KOL marketing can be a big and permanent power to attract us, as long as KOL still holds its charm. However, for brands, it is not a permanent strategy.

Would you like to share your experiences of being persuaded by KOL? Tell me in the comment place!