Part 9: The rise of influencer-driven apps and platforms.
Apps and influencers determine what dishes are trendy, not traditional gatekeepers.
In many countries, diners hoping to hear about a hot new restaurant might turn to established food critics writing reviews in newspapers and magazines. Others might rely on high-end authorities such as the Michelin Guide. Diners in China, however, have skipped traditional critics and judges and turned instead to online influencers and user-generated content.
Meituan-Dianping is one of China’s leading food-related internet platforms. It’s an app for discovering and rating food, but also a payment platform, a food-delivery platform and a network of influencers. Indeed, it’s now common to see diners deciding what to eat by looking at their phone, not the menu, and scrolling through dish rankings and recommendations.
Kevin Gentle, a strategy director and expert in digital trends in China, says there are a few reasons why Chinese diners consume or share food-related content. “I would separate it into three categories: trendy food where food is part of a global zeitgeist with a focus on novelty, cultural foodwhere food is part of the content universe of a certain sub-culture like sports or manga (such as fitness influencers who talk about food as part of a fitness lifestyle), and hobbyist foodwhere people are actually interested in recipes and cooking techniques.”
China’s most popular food apps demonstrate these variations. Xiachufangis a platform for browsing recipes and enrolling in digital cooking classes. Xiaohongshuis a “public notebook” app where people can follow the latest trendy foods enjoyed by celebrity influencers. And video platform Douyinis the best place to discover the latest eating trends and food crazes.
The role of influencers shouldn’t be understated. On social channels they’re an important way for people to discover new brands and products. Influencer-centric apps in China are packed with features to help people create, edit and share content. One of China’s fastest-growing apps, with 150 million active users (as of June 2018), Douyin “treats its top influencers almost as its own employees [and] actively helps promote them by subsidizing their traffic.”
Still, in 2016, Michelin launched its first Chinese restaurant guide, listing recommended spots in Shanghai and publishing it in both English and Chinese. And 2018 saw Meituan-Dianping launch its own restaurant guide, the Black Pearl Guide. Yet what will become of these more traditional “authorities” in the influencer-driven world is very much an open question.
This is a 12-part series on Food Megacity: how urbanization and technology are changing the way China eats. The full series can be found here.
