Tencent is Setting Up Advertising Division in Silicon Valley

Outline: WeChat is expanding into the U.S. market. Tencent will offer advertising services to American brands that want access to Chinese consumers.

Tencent is setting up an advertising division in Palo Alto, CA., aiming to promote its services to U.S. enterprises.

“Advertisers can spend some budget in gaining brand awareness in China,” said Yang Baoshu, the VP of International Business. “Our advertising technology can help advertisers target at Chinese travelers who are likely to go to the United States next month,” he explained.

WeChat is a one-stop platform for mobile users in China. WeChat is also a competitor for Snapchat, Facebook and Messenger. WeChat provides news, media, payment and other services, and it is the most valuable brand in China.

WeChat offers advertising and targeting technology similar with that of Facebook, which might be familiar to American advertisers. But advertisers probably don’t understand the Chinese market and this is why Tencent offers advertising services in Palo Alto.

For now, Tencent will only hire a handful of representatives to serve the advertising industry, including advertising companies and brands.

The New York advertising week is about to begin and Tencent will participate in the event to explore how brands can better reach Chinese consumers.

According to Yang, 3.5 million Chinese tourists go to the United States each year, spending 35 billion dollars. Tencent has teamed up with Rebecca Minkoff, Zillow and FreePeople to target this group before they travelled the U.S.

Yang said, “Many Chinese go shopping in stores. Consumers are interested in American stores. Tencent now has a local team that helps advertisers, particularly those of retail, hotel and fashion brands, to understand the market and to learn how to do more efficiently.”

Tencent will also support electronic payments through WeChat, which will help users buy products in ads more easily after they arrive at stores.

Tencent is launching marketing in the United States. In this summer, Tencent hired Droga5 as the first creative agency to help reach its American clients.

This article originally appeared in Sina Technology and was translated by Pandaily.

Click here to read the original Chinese article.