---
title: "The Decade of Digital Marketing Evolution in China and Future Trends"
description: "This article reviews the rapid development of digital marketing in China over the past decade, driven by factors such as user base, behavior, media tools, technology, policies, advertiser awareness, and marketing ecosystem. It outlines the evolution stages from social and video marketing to mobile, programmatic, AI, live streaming, and short video, and highlights seven major trends reshaping the industry, concluding with future directions including 5G, data assetization, and organizational restructuring."
author: "肖明超"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2019-06-18"
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# The Decade of Digital Marketing Evolution in China and Future Trends

> This article reviews the rapid development of digital marketing in China over the past decade, driven by factors such as user base, behavior, media tools, technology, policies, advertiser awareness, and marketing ecosystem. It outlines the evolution stages from social and video marketing to mobile, programmatic, AI, live streaming, and short video, and highlights seven major trends reshaping the industry, concluding with future directions including 5G, data assetization, and organizational restructuring.

Click to read the original article for details.
**"Data" Talks: The Golden Decade of Digital Marketing**
Why has digital marketing developed so rapidly? **If we summarize the driving factors, they can be attributed to seven dimensions: user base, user behavior, media tools and applications, technology forms, policies and regulations, advertiser awareness, and marketing ecosystem.** Over the past decade, these seven drivers have advanced in parallel, creating a healthy and favorable environment for digital marketing.
From the user perspective, we see that ten years ago in 2009, the number of mobile internet users in China surpassed PC users for the first time, marking the entry of the internet into the mobile era, enabling people to connect anytime, anywhere. Looking at the growth of internet users over the past decade, from 298 million to 829 million, nearly a fourfold increase, and whether in terms of user behavior or the media tools and applications developed on mobile internet, it is clear that the internet has transformed from a new medium into a platform covering all aspects of people's lives. Technological iterations have also driven continuous evolution in the internet and digital marketing, with changes in media forms, content formats, and communication tools.
The digital marketing ecosystem has been continuously improving. Over the past decade, the overall scale of China's advertising market has grown nearly fourfold, but internet advertising has grown 17.6 times. According to data from the State Administration for Market Regulation, in 2008, the market size of China's advertising industry was 204.1 billion yuan, and by 2018 it reached 799.148 billion yuan, of which internet advertising revenue reached 369.4 billion yuan, accounting for 46.2% of total advertising revenue.
It is particularly noteworthy that since 2013, the growth rate of internet advertising has exceeded that of the overall advertising market. By 2018, internet advertising had become one of the main advertising methods for advertisers, and China had become the world's second-largest internet advertising market after the United States.
The development of digital marketing not only affects the marketing process but also reversely changes the business models of different industries, thus forming an internet-driven digital economy. **Data shows that by 2018, the scale of China's digital economy reached 31 trillion yuan, accounting for one-third of the entire GDP.** The digital economy has become a new engine for China's economy. In 2018, online retail sales of physical goods nationwide grew by 25.4%, 16.4 percentage points higher than the growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods. The digital economy has promoted innovation, facilitated capital flow, expanded consumer demand, and created employment. The internet has become the infrastructure for social and economic development. Under the digital economy, new models and new business forms have emerged, from competing for demographic dividends to competing for new consumption dividends, and various industries have undergone changes accordingly.
**The Evolution Route of Digital Marketing in the Past Decade**
Looking at the 10 years of digital marketing in China, the roles and functions of players in the digital marketing industry chain have changed, and their positions and business model evolution are inseparable from the transformation and innovation of the overall business environment. Reviewing the development and evolution stages of digital marketing in China over the past 10 years, it can be found that the annual digital marketing hotspots are all related to the development of internet media forms.
**2009-2010: Rise of Social Marketing and Video Marketing**
2009 was the first year of social marketing. Similarly, in 2009, Weibo began trial operations and quickly became popular in 2010, opening a chapter of social marketing. Overnight, people across the country began expressing their thoughts on Weibo via computers or mobile phones, and a new term "shang qiang" (meaning to project messages onto a screen) was coined. How to build influence through Weibo and how to create events through social media became the hot topics of the year. Meanwhile, online video websites entered a stage of comprehensive development and growth. With the increase in online video users, the standardization of government policies, and the gradual resolution of copyright issues, advertisers' acceptance of video website marketing models further improved.
**2011-2012: The Beginning of Mobile Internet Marketing**
In 2011, mobile internet showed its edge. By the end of December 2011, the number of internet users in China reached 513 million, and the number of mobile internet users reached 356 million, a year-on-year increase of 17.5%. The rapid growth of mobile internet users signaled the arrival of the mobile internet era. In the same year, social apps like WeChat were launched. The mobile internet developed rapidly due to the growth of the smartphone industry and the rise of various social applications. Also, 2012 was called the "first year of programmatic advertising." Compared with traditional media buying methods, programmatic buying, through the analysis and utilization of massive data, can derive relatively accurate budget plans based on predictions of advertising effectiveness, helping advertisers make better budget decisions.
**2013-2014: Transformation and Breakthrough in Digital Marketing**
In 2013, digital marketing continued to "flourish" and began extensive attempts in various aspects. E-commerce marketing, multi-social interaction, and other forms of communication greatly enriched the communication forms of internet digital marketing. WeChat officially began to strongly promote enterprise WeChat public account services, further opening up the platform for social marketing, forming a multi-polar social media marketing landscape with Weibo and others. 4G brought China into the era of high-speed wireless internet, further leading to a leap in mobile marketing. "Qipa Talk" (a talk show) created the "fancy oral sponsorship" type of product placement. WeChat cooperated with CCTV Spring Festival Gala, pioneering the red envelope grabbing during the Spring Festival, and social marketing embarked on the parallel path of "Weibo + WeChat."
**2016-2017: AI, Live Streaming, and the Internet Celebrity Economy**
In 2016, artificial intelligence, live streaming, and content entrepreneurship became hot trends. After AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol with a total score of 4:1, a global in-depth discussion on AI technology was sparked. Internet giants like Alibaba entered the AI field, and Alibaba launched the "thousand people, thousand faces" intelligent distribution algorithm, boosting the counterattack of e-commerce website advertising. In addition, the live streaming industry exploded. Papi酱's personal live streaming debut on the "Yizhibo" platform received nearly 100 million likes, marking the beginning of the "internet celebrity economy." New technology media represented by live streaming and short videos brought self-media and content marketing into a new track, and brand digital marketing content tended to become more native.
**2018-2019: Competition in Short Video and Intelligent Marketing**
In 2018, short videos had become an internet lifestyle, and "Double Micro One Douyin" (Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin) became the new standard for digital marketing. At the same time, Martech became the breakthrough point for technology to solve marketing scenarios, and AI-empowered marketing became the new favorite. On the basis of artificial intelligence, various internet platforms are competing in "intelligent marketing" around technology, which is changing the landscape of digital marketing. Entering 2019, in the era of new technology-driven marketing, under the increasingly complex media environment and diverse consumption scenarios, how to form an organic body that integrates creative origin and technical interface is a question that the entire industry has been continuously exploring in the 10 years of digital marketing development.
**Seven Major Marketing Trends Driven by the Decade of Digital Marketing**
Over the past decade, the marketing industry chain has undergone tremendous changes. Digital marketing has gradually expanded from portal website display advertising and search marketing 10 years ago to forms such as social marketing, video marketing, and content marketing, and has continuously integrated new technological elements. It can be said that digital marketing has reconstructed the entire marketing ecosystem.
**Trend 01: Digital marketing has reconstructed the logic of business and brand building, from top-down, brand-centered, and competition-oriented to completely "consumer-centered."**
What defeated Mobile (China Mobile) was not Unicom, but Tencent! What defeated Kodak film was not other film companies, but digital cameras, and what defeated digital cameras was mobile phones! What defeated Master Kong was not Uni-President, but food delivery. These phenomena all illustrate that business and brands have reconstructed new consumption meanings and new values through the "reconnection" of the internet.
Brands have begun to show a new landscape. Native brands relying on internet platforms have entered the consumption trend, such as Xiaomi, Three Squirrels, and Lechun Yogurt. The rapid iteration of the internet has shaped cyclical consumption trends. From the earliest Huang Taiji to today's Sang Tea and Heytea, new consumer brands that emphasize experience and sharing are constantly evolving, meeting consumers' needs for consumption upgrade, personalization, and brand perception gaps. Local brands have achieved classic rebirth by integrating into internet culture. Typical examples include China Li-Ning, Laoganma, and White Rabbit, which have achieved brand renewal through cross-border collaborations, national trend actions, design renewal, and youthful expression, engaging with new consumers.
However, in the era of consumer sovereignty brought by the internet, brands have become increasingly fragile, and anti-fragility requires more transparency, equality, and sincerity.
For example, when Hua Zong exposed that top hotels used guests' used bath towels to wipe cups and toilets, the entire star hotel industry fell into a hygiene crisis. A female car owner crying on the hood of a Mercedes-Benz to defend her rights brought Mercedes-Benz down from its pedestal. Durex's overly explicit copy was collectively ridiculed. Today, the elements of a brand have changed. It is not just about winning in awareness, but also about the unity and support of three aspects: brand trust, brand popularity, and brand belonging.
**Trend 02: The internet has reconstructed the content industry chain and communication chain: content consumers and producers are "prosumers," and any touchpoint and hotspot has become a medium and source of communication.**
In the era where everyone is self-media, marketers need to observe and capture subtle and surging emotions of the times. For example, the popularity of "Book Drop Battle," "Travel Frog," "Social Pig Peppa," and "Story of Yanxi Palace" all captured the emotional fission of society. For brands, today they need to think about how to find consumers' emotional touchpoints, create social currency, and let consumers actively spread their brand. For example, behind the 5.68 billion yuan box office of "Wolf Warrior 2" is the triggering of patriotic emotions. The popularity of Jiang Xiaobai is a mockery and self-deprecation of young people's anxiety.
**Trend 03: Digital marketing has reconstructed consumer behavior patterns: consumers have evolved from "planned purchase" to "real-time purchase," from "next-day delivery" to "I want it now."**
Today, for brands to capture consumers' attention, they need to consider how to enhance the sense of scene experience and ritual. By creating a sense of consumption ritual, brands can form new social momentum. For example, Tmall Double 11 and JD 618 are a stimulation and satisfaction of consumer desire, allowing many things that consumers planned to buy to be realized in advance, turning them into real-time purchases. Group-buying social e-commerce led by Pinduoduo, mini-program e-commerce, and smart retail scenarios are also constantly creating new consumption scenarios and experiences, through new experiences such as next-day delivery, same-day delivery, and half-hour delivery, continuously releasing consumer demand.
**Trend 04: Consumer groups have shifted from fragmented masses to re-aggregated fine groups. People are increasingly segmented and personalized. Traditional demographic and sociological characteristics can no longer define today's consumers; user communities are becoming more niche and vertical.**
Birds of a feather flock together. Today, interest has become an important criterion for dividing circle cultures, such as "hip-hop," "street dance," and "e-sports." The internet is helping to promote the popularization of niche subcultures. Looking at the popular variety shows in the past two years, they are all interpretations of circle cultures.
Consumption today has also become a process of self-discovery for consumers living in the internet era. Therefore, brand persona is more important. Finding a "persona" is also one of the important driving forces for Generation Z consumption. Whether it is "Buddhist-style parenting" or the popularity of NetEase's Jung psychological test, it represents people constantly seeking themselves. If a brand can help them express themselves, it can find a resonant circle.
**Trend 05: Diversified reconstruction of entertainment marketing: The new fan economy era has arrived, with celebrities, internet celebrities, and KOLs advancing together, making the entertainment industry more diversified.**
Today, with the continuous development of mobile internet and the enrichment of various media forms such as text, images, live streaming, and short videos, everyone has the potential to have their own fans. Especially with the development of the internet, traditional star-making models and paths are constantly being subverted and innovated, and the stars created are increasingly diverse, making the concept of "star" more generalized. Weibo big Vs, KOLs, internet celebrities, topic stars, traffic idols, etc., are all stars.
For brands and marketers, the choice of stars must consider both exposure and sales, and driving sales has become the new king. In addition to airport sales queen Yang Mi, lipstick brother Li Jiaqi, and Kuaishou sales influencers are becoming new choices for brand sales, because these so-called "sales kings" come with their own fans, channels, and production capabilities, and are competing with traditional advertising agencies, becoming a new force in the digital marketing industry.
**Trend 06: Products are becoming more content-oriented: What connects products is no longer media, but "people." More and more people are keen to share consumption preferences and trust, giving rise to the "grass-planting economy" (i.e., recommending products to others).**
User reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations have always been the focus of e-commerce platforms' "operations." From Taobao's five-star reviews to Weibo's influencer economy, in recent years, e-commerce platforms have increasingly supported "UGC content." Opening the homepage of mainstream e-commerce shopping apps, you will find that besides the mall and shopping cart, the center of the homepage also has a "grassland" specially set aside for users. Examples include Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) and Smzdm, which focus on user-shared content communities. JD has "Discover" in the middle, NetEase Koala has a "grass-planting community," and NetEase Yanxuan has "Know Objects" at the center of its homepage.
**The ability to "plant grass" and "create content" has become an important capability for brand marketing.** According to data from the "2019 China Consumption Trend Report" released by Zhimeng Consulting, comments on e-commerce platforms have the greatest impact on consumers' purchase decisions, accounting for 53.4%. 55.1% of consumers share through social applications such as Moments and Weibo. Of course, successful grass-planting requires stimulating consumers' emotions, making them discover that "buying this makes you like me."
**Trend 07: The internet has entered the era of "everything is media." Intelligent technology has shifted digital marketing from "precise reach" to "scene resonance," and intelligent demand matching and emotional activation have become the key to "AI."**
According to the "AI Empowers Marketing White Paper" jointly released by Zhimeng Consulting and Baidu, based on AI technology and big data, future marketing will break the barriers of traditional outdoor marketing, fully empower offline screens and terminals, and have the characteristics of online-offline integration, multi-scenario, and multi-terminal. The era of everything as media is coming. At the same time, intelligence + big data drives digital marketing from "communication" to "communication + service." Through probes/LBS, chatbots, wearable devices, IoT, and connected vehicles, brands can achieve scene computing, experience management, and immediate response, activating new brand vitality and broadening new brand paths.
**Three Future Trends to Watch in Digital Marketing**
The past decade has been a period of rapid change and development for China's internet economy. In the next decade, with the upgrade of consumption behavior, the 5G era, and the wave of the Internet of Everything, China's digital marketing industry will need to face new situations and challenges in the near future.
**First, digital marketing enters the 5G era.** 5G will help brands build a customer-centric, all-round information ecosystem. 5G closely connects people to people, people to things, and things to things, narrowing the distance between everything and building a customer-centric, all-round information ecosystem.
**Second, the assetization of brand user data.** In the context of the digital economy, data is becoming a "new wealth," helping enterprises establish a data-centered strategic decision-making transformation.
**Third, holographic organizational restructuring driven by data.** Today, many enterprises are still on the road to digital transformation. From marketing-driven to full-chain, full-scenario systematic driving, enterprises must enhance their ability to respond quickly to the market. This requires building flexible enterprise decision-making mechanisms, comprehensively restructuring from product, manufacturing, operations, and marketing ends, ultimately achieving the goal of growth.
**Summary: The Unchanging Laws of Digital Marketing**
After ten years of evolution, the internet has undergone a transformation from PC to mobile, and content has gradually shifted from text and images to short and long videos. The form of internet media has undergone tremendous changes, and all marketing has become digital marketing. At the same time, changes in the internet ecosystem have also changed the roles and division of labor of marketers. In a complex media environment and diverse consumption backgrounds, it is easy for brands to do digital marketing, but it is increasingly difficult to create digital marketing that deeply moves consumers. The biggest pain point lies in the fragmentation between creativity, insight, technology, and media. How to form an organic body that integrates creative origin and technical interface is a question that the entire industry has been continuously exploring in the ten years of digital marketing development.
Looking to the future, as we face more and more new technologies, the "way" of digital marketing becomes more important. Trends and strategies should precede technology and presentation. Based on real insights into consumer life, build creativity that can resonate emotionally with consumers, and through the latest technology, achieve broader and more intelligent coverage. This is what "good" digital marketing is: insight first, creativity as the foundation, technology as the bridge, interaction as the momentum, and integration as the king. Fusion, collaboration, and symbiosis are the unchanging laws of digital marketing.
Source: Origin Learning


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