The APEC Women Leadership Forum 2020, with the theme “Innovators: Unbounded Growth”, was held in Shenzhen on December 25th and 26th, and Wu Xinhong, founder and CEO of Meitu, was invited to be on the panel at the Brand Growth in the Digital Era forum. 

Meitu CEO Wu Xinhong at the APEC Women Leadership Forum 2020

According to Mr. Wu, Meitu has 2.08 billion registered users around the world, with 295 million monthly active users (MAU), and 80-85% of them are female users who love and share beauty. To create a deeper connection with users in the digital era, Meitu’s two most popular apps, the Meitu App and BeautyCam, have taken the initiative to cooperate with brands and celebrities so as to bring more creativity and novelty to their users. Its skin analysis brand, MeituEve, has also worked with international brands, including Dior and 3M, to bring scientific skin care ideas and suggestions to users.

Drive the growth of brands by satisfying the needs of the younger generation

The advent of the digital era has broken the barriers of normal growth patterns and has diversified competition, bringing brands both opportunities and challenges. Mr. Wu admits that, as a 12-year-old Internet brand, Meitu also needs to keep pace in the digital era and gain precise insight into the needs of young users, by listening to users' ideas to promote product iteration through internal mechanisms on the one hand, and understanding young users through external research on the other. Satisfying the needs of young users is always at the core of driving growth for Meitu. 

Meitu Founder and CEO Wu Xinhong at the APEC Women Leadership Forum 2020

In 2013, younger users started asking for more natural and real selfie effects. So, Meitu released BeautyCam, a camera app that provides users with natural effects that preserve the original details of the face and features makeup effects that are different from traditional beautification effects. Later, BeautyCam launched its “Natural Mode”, which added more attention to detail and texture and set off a new selfie trend among young users. These efforts drove remarkable user growth, placing BeautyCam in the top position in the Photo & Video category of app store rankings.

Over the past few years, the general public has gradually become the main force of content production on the Internet. Meitu embraced this trend and gave powerful creation tools to its users with the launch of the Meitu Creator Platform in 2020, with which individual creators can win rewards by submitting original works. Meitu also launched the Future Aesthetician Co-Creation Plan to gather outstanding and pioneering artists from a variety of fields, including science, fashion, and music.

Meitu has been able to maintain its brand vitality by continuously understanding and satisfying users’ needs and has thus made its core products, the Meitu App and BeautyCam, the top apps on the market for image processing and beautification.

To grow your brand, pay attention to both products and marketing

The digital era is reshaping the patterns of social life and the organization of enterprises, while at the same time overturning the development and growth modes of brands. Enterprises are changing their brand-building methods in every aspect as the digitalization of the domestic market is rapidly developing. “Adding value to products and making marketing innovations are the key points for the continuous development of a brand,” said Mr. Wu. 

Meitu Founder and CEO Wu Xinhong at the APEC Women Leadership Forum 2020

Add value to products

As Meitu’s first product, the Meitu App has been upgraded from an image beautification tool to a platform where users can share their lives. Supported by MTlab’s industy-leading imaging technologies, the Meitu App has launched many popular functions, including HD portraits, online makeup trials, AI photo editing, templates, and more. With regard to content, the Meitu App has promoted topics such as makeup, styling and fitness in its community to encourage users to pursue a healthy lifestyle. Meitu also launched the Creator Project, which offered creators an RMB 1 million cash reward as well as Meitu promotional support, encouraging individuals and MCNs to create beauty related content. The measures will help users discover high quality content and creators, and cultivate a comprehensive content environment on the Meitu App.

Make marketing innovations

The Meitu App and BeautyCam jointly released the CG Face feature for Halloween last year and introduced the Dark Queen CG effect with actress/singer Qi Wei, which spread virally on social media. Other celebrities, including Jin Chen, Guan Xiaotong, Mao Xiaotong and Zhang Tian’ai also posted Meitu’s CG Face effect selfies on their social media accounts, setting off a craze among their fans.

As an Internet technology company that started its internationalization process earlier than many others, Meitu has found that cross-field marketing was a huge help in its development overseas. Meitu’s first overseas product, the BeautyPlus app, cooperated with Japanese variety show celebrity “Matt” to design interesting makeup effects. The effects were shared voluntarily by dozens of celebrities and used by over 12 million users. It not only helped spread the reputation of BeautyPlus far and wide, but also promoted the beauty of Chinese culture.

“The digitalization of the industry brings both opportunities and challenges to brands, asking brands to conform to the trends of the times and develop themselves according to the demands of their users. Meitu has been focusing on ‘becoming beautiful’ over the past 12 years, and in the future we plan to continue creating beauty-related content and continue helping our users easily become more beautiful,” said Mr. Wu.