“Merry Christmas from Bobbie! To all our valuable customers, we would like to advise that Bobbie is on holidays until after Christmas. Please check our website early in the New Year and Bobbie will be available again.” This festive message by “Bobbie” is currently reducing countless Chinese girls to tears. Bobbie is not the singer of a Korean boy group, but a lavender-coloured teddy bear who is not only hand-stuffed with Tasmanian lavender but can also, with the help of a microwave, be converted into a virtual hot-water bottle. Produced by a company called Bridestowe Estate in Nabowla/Tasmania, it has become a “must-acquire” item for sophisticated urban young ladies in China with the help of social media. Unfortunately for would-be buyers, Bridestowe was inundated in the past three months with orders for 45,000 Bobbies from China, which even the four extra staff brought in to help hand-stuff the only bears in the world containing fine lavender had struggle to fulfil. Australian media cite the Managing Director of the Bridestowe Estate, Robert Ravens, saying “Our phone system has gone into meltdown. We can’t put Bobbie on the internet anymore because the demand just overwhelms our ability to supply on a daily basis. People are using their friends, close contacts, pressure is brought on us through all sorts of channels just to acquire one, or one thousand, of these bears, it's become a mania.” Some people, Ravens ads “have been hacking into the backend of our website to place orders.” Mr. and Mrs. Ravens, who bought the Estate in 2007, have been targeting Asian markets since years. With more tourists from Mainland China as well as Hong Kong arriving in Tasmania, visitors came to Bridestowe, bought the bear and brought it back. But it is only since August 2013 that Chinese outbound travellers turn up by the busload at the Bridestowe Estate on a regular base, only to find out that each visitor is allowed to buy only one bear, regardless of how much money they offer to buy additional Bobbies for their friends and family. This is based on the understanding that “the new Asian consumers are seeking goods and experiences that are not necessarily expensive, but of limited availability”, according to Mr. Ravens. Therefore they are not moving to mass production. The beginning of the Bobbiemania in China can be traced back to the social media activities of a single celebrity. Viann Zhang Xinyu, a model and movie actress from Suzhou, got a bear some months ago and consequently let her followers on Facebook and on several Chinese social media know that she preferred to sleep with Bobbie, claiming that the calming qualities of the fragrance brought her health benefits. Zhang, who before had achieved netizens attention with online postings showing herself in bed with various boyfriends and with photos on the covers of magazines exhibiting the very visible enhancements of her female forms through cosmetic surgery, fired the imagination of her female followers who want to become a bit more like her by owning the same cuddly toy. “Every (Chinese) lady under 30 wants one,” Mr Ravens is quoted. There are more than 600 million internet users in China, most of them very actively using the opportunities of information technology every day. Following the antics of celebrities is one of the favoured usages of online social media. Another one is online shopping, as the “Bachelor’s Day” on Nov. 11th demonstrated again, when on a single day goods for US$5.7 billion were purchased on Alibaba, the Chinese equivalent of . To put products and destinations onto the mental map of Chinese consumers, including outbound travellers, nothing beats in speed and depth the endorsement of the right kind of celebrity. It is not known if Bridestowe Estate organised the posts of Viann Zhang or if they were simply lucky to get the bedroom phantasies of China’s “Generation 2” connected to their microwaveable bear. In any case this example shows how a unique, authentic and exclusive product, being it a toy or the Tasmanian fields of lavender which are flowering again in these weeks of Southern summer, can gain the instant attention of segments of the Chinese market with the right kind of online communication. “I wannabe order the lavender bobbie bear the heat one, when is available?”, “Bobbie heat pack bear, I have waited for a month!”, “In November the lavender have or not?”, read some of the visitor comments on the homepage of the Bridestowe Estate. Bobbie, come back soon from your Christmas holidays!
Reported by Forbes.com 19 hours ago.
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