While we are already well past one-twelfth of 2021, it’s still not too late to watch out for the top lifestyle and consumption trends in China and plan for 2021 accordingly. In this article, we have translated the top 10 lifestyle trends and keywords in 2021 reported by RED (see the original report in Chinese here). Read along to find out how our ChoZan team interprets these trends and keywords.
There are over 100 million monthly active users on RED, over 70% of them are post-90’s and over 50% are post-95’s. In the year 2020, these young consumers have published close to a total of 300 million notes for the whole year and generated 100 million searches each day. With this massive data, RED has deduced and announced the top 10 lifestyle trend keywords to watch out for on their platform in 2021.
Why RED drives new trends in China
RED is often the origin of new lifestyles and trends as RED users tend to have an eager pursuit of high-quality life. They are also more willing to experiment with new lifestyles and engage in new consumption scenarios. RED has evolved from a platform for product seeding to a conversion catalyst. When users share niche travel spots or restaurants on RED, other users would likely visit these recommendations in real life. They are also likely to post follow-up UGC on the platform, creating amplifying feedback for original content.
Lifestyle trend #1: Sugarless
- No. of “sugarless” notes: increased 145% in 2020
- No. of views on “sugarless” notes: increased 101% in 2020
Consumers are increasingly aware of health-related topics. More and more young consumers that are below age 35 start paying attention to health and working to establish healthy eating habits.
Lifestyle trend #2: Sweet liquor
- No. of “sweet liquor” notes: increased 75% in 2020
- No. of views on “sweet liquor” notes: increased 129% in 2020
This may seem very contradicting when compared with the last keyword, but the struggle is real. Just like how young Chinese consumers are constantly fighting the battle between improving sleeping habits and going to bed earlier, they are also struggling with establishing healthy eating habits. They want to lower their sugar intake on one hand, but also crave sweeter and lighter alcohols on the other hand. Hard liquors are usually associated with work matters as they are typically consumed over business dinners to socialize with business partners or to close deals, whereas the consumption of sweeter and lighter alcohols are more about hanging out with close friends and having a good time.
Lifestyle trend #3: Living alone
- No. of “living alone” notes: increased 372% in 2020
- No. of views on “living alone” notes: increased 362% in 2020
Chinese singles are a prominent consumer group as they are more willing to spend money for themselves and seek higher quality in life. They have higher disposable incomes and can easily afford finer things in life. Along with the patterns of consumption upgrade, the future of the single economy is only going to look more promising.
Lifestyle trend #4: Winter sports
- No. of “winter sports” notes: increased 89% in 2020
The Winter Olympics 2022 will soon be held in Beijing and people have been increasingly passionate about winter sports. Short skiing trips over the weekend are gaining popularity in China. The skiing fields in Guangzhou have the most combined check-ins and shares on RED although snow is quite rare in local winters.
Lifestyle trend #5: Unisex clothing
- No. of “unisex clothing” notes: increased 83% in 2020
- No. of views on “Unisex clothing” notes: increased 182% in 2020
For young consumers, fashion may once be about gaining peer recognition, but it has now transformed into a way of expressing their personality.
Lifestyle trend #6: The explosion of Guochao
- No. of local brands on RED has exceeded 45,000
- No. of discussions about local brands in 2020 were over 2.8 billion, a year-on-year growth of over 100%
Guochao does not simply mean adding Chinese elements to sneakers or doing trendy collaborations with local brands. Chinese consumers have a stronger than ever appreciation and recognition of Chinese culture. They also show a higher preference for local brands after the pandemic.
Lifestyle trend #7: Home workout
- No. of “home workout” notes: increased 363% in 2020
Home workouts experienced explosive growth on RED in 2020. The number of RED notes mentioning “Fitness Rings” and German fitness influencer “Pamela Reif” last year was over 13,000 and 260,000 respectively.
Lifestyle trend #8: Recharging trips
- No. of travel-related notes: increased 88% in 2020
With international travel bans in place, Chinese became more active in domestic travelling as soon as the pandemic went under control. Since May, all types of domestic travel, from local leisure trips, short-haul, long haul to business travel have experienced a significant rebound. RED users posted over 310,000 pictures of the sunset on the platform.
Lifestyle trend #9: Camping
- No. of “Camping” notes: increased 271% in 2020
- No. of views on “Camping” notes: increased 170% in 2020
The picnic trend was especially popular across the nation last Spring. In just one month, the number of notes about picnics on RED grew 13.6 times and boosted the sales of “checkered picnic blankets” on major e-commerce platforms. Camping picked up momentum shortly after picnics as people were searching for more ways to get close to nature.
Lifestyle trend #10: Cooking at home
- Over 1.3 billion searches on food content on RED in 2020
- No. of food-related notes: close to 20 million
- No. of food notes: increased over 300% in November 2020 compared to January 2020
Home cooking has drastically increased after the pandemic. Many Chinese began learning to appreciate cooking at home. They would frequently exchange recipes and cooking tips on social media platforms; they also prefer buying semi-ready food ingredient packs so they didn’t have to prepare homemade dishes from scratch.
RED users’ eagerness to experiment with new trends and share their experiences, which causes other users to experiment, creates feedback loops of fountains of original content.
It is exactly these feedback loops that made RED an irreplaceable platform in influencing young consumers’ spendings and generating trending topics. The above revealed top 10 lifestyle trends on RED in 2021 may very well become the next major consumption scenarios that are pivotal to consumers’ lives soon.
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