How ACANA Revived Growth in China Through RedNote: From Functional Messaging to Emotional Marketing

China’s pet economy has entered a phase of rapid expansion—while simultaneously becoming more structurally complex for international brands. As of 2024, the market has grown to RMB 400 billion (~USD 55B), with 125 million pets owned nationwide (KPMG China). China is now the second-largest pet food market globally, reaching USD 8.2 billion in size.

However, growth has been accompanied by intensified competition and shifting consumer dynamics.

Between 2022 and 2023, the number of domestic pet brands nearly doubled, accelerating category saturation. Today, 55% of the Top 20 pet food brands in China are domestic, signaling a clear redistribution of market power.

According to KPMG China Pet Industry Market Research, 50% of pet owners in China preferred international pet food brands in 2022, now the number is 20%. Consumer preferences for domestic brands nearly doubled in the past few years.

While demand for premium international products remains, the available growth space is narrowing. The core constraint is no longer product quality—but consumer connection.

Domestic brands have built their advantage through cultural fluency, strong reliance on UGC ecosystems, and continuous interaction with consumers across social platforms.

In contrast, many international brands entered China with a predefined global identity, but limited localized engagement. This creates a structural trust gap: a brand that does not interact with consumers cannot expect its positioning to be believed.

● China’s pet owners are predominantly Gen Z and young millennials (67%), concentrated in high-income Tier 1–2 cities.

● 66.1% use RedNote for pet-related information, 89% purchase after exposure, and full-funnel conversion within one month reaches 91%.

● Brand credibility importance increased by 25% from 2022 to 2024 - this means that a strong brand name can be translated to strong sales.

● Consumer preference has shifted from 50% international brands (2022) to 20% (2024), driven by stronger domestic brand trust and supply chain instability in imports - it's time for international pet food brands to take initiatives in this thriving markets.

Implication: success depends on participation, localized content, and co-creation rather than brand heritage alone.

Challenge

The core challenge was a misalignment between ACANA’s brand communication and platform-native behavior, and how to navigate that in the 618 (China's Black Friday) to leverage high sales revenue with small budget.

Functional messaging no longer resonates in a market driven by emotional consumption, where Gen Z and young millennial pet owners engage through rituals, identity, and shareable experiences.

RedNote (also known as RED or Xiaohongshu), whose user base closely mirrors this demographic, is the key platform for brand growth—but has become highly competitive, with rising content and acquisition costs.

While ACANA maintained strong global brand awareness, it lacked participatory, culturally relevant content formats, resulting in a gap between recognition and real consumer resonance.

Bridging this gap became the central challenge.

Execution

01 | Strategic Reframing: From “Feeding Well” to “Loving Well”

WSD repositioned ACANA's narrative from functional nutrition to “emotional pet care”, introducing a new brand story centered on companionship, rituals, and shared experiences.

Instead of competing on product claims, the campaign tapped into cultural behavior patterns—specifically, how pet owners express love.

02 | Insight: Birthdays as High-Intent Emotional Moments

Platform data revealed strong engagement around pet birthday-related content:

● CatBirthday: 31M+ views

● DogBirthday: 24M+ views

This indicated that birthdays are:

● Highly shareable

● Emotionally charged

● Naturally aligned with gifting and consumption

Key insight:

If “love” needs a ritual, birthdays are the most scalable ritual.

03 | Content System: Designed for Replication

The campaign built a UGC-first content framework across three formats:

● Tutorial : Pet birthday cake recipes using ACANA products

● Pet Moments: Birthday photos with branded elements

● Vlog: Story-driven “pet life journey” content

Each format embedded product selling points (nutrition, safety, variety) into emotion-driven storytelling.

04 | Amplification Strategy: Multi-Layer Traffic Flywheel

● Phase 1: Seeding (9 days)

○ Mid-tier and top KOLs generate initial momentum

● Phase 2: Explosion (7 days)

○ Campaign hashtag launch: #生日我要爱肯拿# （I want ACANA for birthday)

○ Platform-level placements (splash screens, topic pages, brand zones)

● Phase 3: Conversion (21 days)

○ Content linked directly to e-commerce

○ Retargeting via interest + search audiences

This created a full-funnel loop: Content → Participation → Search → Purchase

Result

● 64M+ impressions

● 1.15M+ reads

● 520+ UGC posts

● 70% of the posts got over 1000 engagements

● 20% of the posts got over 10k engagements

● Topic traffic increased 5×, with strong engagement rates.

● Brand search increased +120% MoM, indicating demand creation.

● Category impact included growth in “pet birthday” as a trend.

● #生日我要爱肯拿# (I want ACANA for birthday) hashtag had 8.3M+ views

● ACANA ranked #1 in imported dog food during 618 and Top 3 in cat food.

● Pet birthdays has since became a platform-native trend with a 6-fold content volumn increase

Key Takeaways

China is a participation-driven market.Cultural relevance outweighs brand heritage.

● UGC systems outperform traditional campaigns when done right

● Micro-scenarios can unlock scalable growth.

● Brands must enable consumers to co-create stories.

About WSD Social

WSD Social is a social marketing agency specializing in RedNote growth. We help international brands localize positioning, design platform-native content systems, and translate cultural insights into scalable consumer engagement.