WASHINGTON — Audi took the top rank in the second-annual Prestige 100®: China IQ, which measures the digital footprint of 100 prestige brands in China, the world’s fastest-growing luxury market. The study was developed by NYU Stern Professor Scott Galloway and a team of experts from L2, a think tank for digital innovation, and Doug Guthrie, dean of GW’s School of Business and China scholar. Brands were scored on over 300 data points across four dimensions: site, digital marketing, social media and mobile. To download the complete rankings and key findings, visit this link.
Top Ranked Brands in the Study:
- Audi
- Burberry
- BMW
- Volvo
- Benefit Cosmetics
- Cadillac (tied)
- Estee Lauder (tied)
- Land Rover (tied)
- Mercedes-Benz (tied)
- Porsche
Key findings include:
- Selling Is Knowing: The percentage of e-commerce enabled brands has doubled since 2010. Those prestige brands with online selling capabilities boast an average IQ 16 points higher than those without online sales. Beauty and cosmetics has the highest e-commerce penetration of any category with 11 out of 15 brands selling online.
- Digital Disparity: Over 50 percent of Chinese luxury purchases are made abroad, yet only 58 percent of brands provide U.S. and European store locators – missing an opportunity to expand global reach.
- Wild About Weibo: In the highly fragmented Chinese social landscape, Sina Weibo, the Chinese microblogging site, is the platform of choice. Fifty-seven percent of prestige brands maintain a presence on this platform.
- Buried On Baidu: Local search engine Baidu possesses 76 percent of the Chinese search market. However, visibility on this search engine is on the decline with 42 percent of prestige brand sites appearing outside of the top three search results. This suggests that brands are optimizing for global platforms versus Chinese specific platforms.
- Mobile Incompatibility: Two-thirds of China’s 485 million Internet users access the web via their mobile phones, yet only 25 percent of brands maintain a mobile optimized site.
