2023 is in the books. What does that mean? It’s time for our Re-Hub COMPASS China Luxury Index for Q4.

This week will be a busy one bringing you insights to start off the year from around the China luxury industry each day until the release of our China Luxury Playbook on Thursday.

Q4 Index: The Re-Hub COMPASS Index is calculated using a blend of user generated and brand generate content performance from the four key social platforms in China – WeChat, Weibo Corporation, Xiaohongshu (RED), and 抖音 tik tok – in essence it offers an insight into which brands are big, small, growing, shrinking, waxing, or waning.

This list comprises of the top soft luxury brands:

What does the Top 50 from Q4 tell us:

🔎 The Top 10 has the expected faces - Christian Dior Couture, Louis Vuitton, CHANEL, Gucci, Prada, Hermès – synonymous with top luxury and their performance is reflected on our list – also worth mentioning is the budgets that sit behind these brands to maintain top of mind awareness.

🔎 Michael Kors’ last minute surge - Signing new brand ambassador Jianci Tan on December 27th, MK was able to drive up our rankings. After a disappointing 11.11 performance, perhaps the new face of the brand can help drive commercial success in 2024.

🔎 New Top 10 Entries - Valentino and CELINE break into our top 10, Valentino was positioned at 20 in Q3 and Celine at 26. Valentino drove much buzz from the signing of YangZi as its brand ambassador in November, helping it crack the top 10 for the first time.

🔎 Brands on the rise - Moncler, Ralph Lauren, LANVIN, Maison Margiela, Longchamp, Alexander McQueen, and AMI PARIS – interestingly many of the brands mentioned here also had impressive commercial performances during an otherwise turbulent 11.11 festival.

🔎 Bigger Kering brands see turbulent performances – Gucci drops one place to Chanel, Bottega Veneta drops from #12 down to #38 in our biggest overall slide, and BALENCIAGA drop #13 down to #23. Saint Laurent is the only one of the big four Kering brands to see improvement moving up two places from #14 to #12.

We are always careful to caveat that this but one way of looking at the market, and all insights are directional as to brands’ success. Understanding strategic imperatives of brands, which platforms matter, which ones do not, understanding the presence of 'fake engagement', and considering the quality of audiences are all key in deeply understanding the direction brands are headed.