KOC (Key Opinion Consumer), the Phenomenon of Decentralized Marketing

In this article of the China Growth Lexicon Series, I will take on KOC: Key Opinion Consumer. KOCs are actually quite similar to the nano-influencers that global marketers have already been paying attention to in the past several years: they are not celebrities or influencers who have millions of followers, but they have a credible voice in their own small circles, they can affect the choices of these small circles by sharing their personal experience. What’s special in the China market is that KOCs have become almost indispensable trust mediators in the relationship between brands and consumers. This is particularly true in the e-commerce ecosystem where consumers don’t have physical interaction with the real products and there are many new direct-to-consumer brands that have few track-records.

The word KOC is often talked about along with another buzz word KOL — Key Opinion Leader. On the surface, the difference between the two is just the number of audiences they can reach. You have to have millions of followers on social media to be considered a KOL by marketers, but you can be a KOC by having a social media account with just hundreds of followers or organizing several WeChat or Facebook groups with hundreds of members. There is a joke among marketers that the concept KOC became hot because brands’ advertising budgets…