Safe to say it’s not as easy as setting up a profile on Instagram, TikTok or Snapchat. Not only are these apps not accessible in China, but the apps that are available in China are not accessible to the Western world.
Meet East Goes Global, the team with offices in Los Angeles, Austin, New York, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing, who works with more than 200 clients, including influencers, celebrities, athletes, brands and music artists.
The company aims to get Western talent in front of Chinese audiences on Chinese apps, including WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu (RED), Bilibili, NetEase Music, QQ Music and Kugou Music. As a team, they’re a one-stop-shop for talent support across social media management, DSP management for music, localization, influencer and ad campaigns, sponsorships, social and e-commerce. Costs are on a project-by-project, client by client basis.
Digiday caught up with Andrew Spalter, founder of East Goes Global, to find out exactly how they do it.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
How did East Goes Global come about?
I was studying entertainment management at Syracuse University because I wanted to be a music manager. Throughout those years, people would talk about international or global campaigns, but no one spoke about China, only really Korea because of KPop. It didn’t make sense to me, given that more than half of the world’s population is in Asia, and a fifth are in China alone.
During 2017 / 2018, I was managing U.K. singer-songwriter Jessie J, who was on a TV singing competition show Singer in China, for four-and-a-half months. On day two the producers said Jessie had to be on Weibo, WeChat and other Chinese platforms because that’s how they were marketing the show. So I called the label to ask who can I speak to that handles this sort of thing for other stars, but they said there was no one.
I couldn’t find anyone doing this, especially not with my industry background. So I decided to run Jessie’s Chinese app channels myself initially. Within the first two weeks, her followers skyrocketed on one platform alone. The show’s producers then started bringing brand executives to Jessie’s dressing room because after seeing her, they wanted to do deals with her on Chinese apps in China only.
After we flew home, I wanted to pursue this opportunity. Because of the LA bubble I was living in, I drew up a business plan on how to help Western music artists get in front of Chinese consumers and brands through social media growth.
Within the first three months we worked with music artists, then during the next three we added models, influencers, esports organizations, teams, athletes and actors across so many verticals. Fast forward seven years to today, we’ve got 20 team members and manage 700 Chinese channels for Westerners and generating billions of impressions across multiple platforms.
Why had no one tried to bridge this gap before?
Since China is quite closed off, not a lot of people are willing to try to break through those walls.
For those that did, there’s a lack of knowledge that Western people have about the East. There’s also the communication factor — with the time difference, you’re likely only able to speak to Chinese-based teams once a day at best. And the culture is different. For example, a lot of the people I’ve worked with over the past seven years don’t email. They communicate via WeChat. So our job has been to find the synergies and figure out how we can work together.
So how do you go about getting your clients on these apps?
Initially, we talk through which apps we recommend they build a presence on and why. The channel management itself though is similar to how teams would manage channels on Western apps like Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok. And each employee handles specific projects/clients across the apps.
But it’s not as easy as Western channels to get verified, for example. On Chinese apps, we have to submit passwords, imagery, phone numbers, white listings, signed documents that say we’ll be mindful that we’re using these platforms as Westerners and various miscellaneous onboarding minutia. But as a result of being in this space for so long, we’ve built up a really great reputation with the Chinese platforms and have partnerships with every single one that we work with.
Can they monetize on Chinese apps, just as they do on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, etc.? How difficult is that?
They absolutely can, but it really does require a team that has the proper licenses and know-how. China is a communist territory, so anything you want to sell in that market, you have to go by the book. Especially for Western imported products or anything you have manufactured there that you’re trying to sell.
Before East Goes Global existed, the only real options to go into China included licensing out your entire business to a licensee firm in China, which means they own it, run it and give you a guarantee every year. Or spend an exuberant amount of money to develop a team in China and get a business license, trademarks, bank account, a business manager, legal team, all on the ground. Or get people to wholesale distribute, hopefully find someone who’s willing to buy 10,000 units of something. There was never the option of working with a distribution team just as you would in Latin America, for example, which already has all the different divisions built out to facilitate the sale of a product, where you’d still own your business, your manufacturing products, you’re simply allocating to that market.
Given you’ve got great relationships with Chinese apps, how does it compare to the support provided by apps in the Western world?
The Chinese apps currently give us direct support, verification support, marketing and promotion support, free promotion, just little bits and bobs that make our lives easier because we’re taking so many clients to them.
The relationships that we have with the platforms in China are comparatively, very strong. But that’s because we are very particular about who we work with to build their brand in China. They look at us as being the only team that’s taking Western talent, brands and sports teams to their platforms.
Since the U.S. government has voiced concerns about TikTok and its ties to China, has that impacted your work or created any nervousness around what you do?
We vet everyone we work with, and we do a deep dive into whether they’ve said anything or been vocal on socials that would negatively affect their builds in China and on Chinese platforms. Ninety-nine times out of 100 the answer is no. They’re cool, calm, collected and kosher. We’ve been doing this for seven years and so far we haven’t had one person who we’ve attempted to launch on the platforms where we thought no, that’s a bad idea.
Regarding nervousness, at the end of the day, we’re running marketing channels, selling T-shirts, makeup, beauty products and things like that. We’re not developing microchips or running FinTech, we’re just building the world’s largest agency for activating Chinese consumers for the Western world.
