Do you know your WeCom from your KOS? Your REDnote from your WeChat? If not, you probably should have been at Polaris Upfront 2026.
Move first, not perfectly, build diverse teams within your brand, stop relying solely on translated campaigns and understand what consumers are already saying about your brand before you spend a dollar on media. Those were just some of the themes to emerge from Polaris Upfront 2026, where industry leaders from Tiffany & Co, Jaguar Land Rover, Moët Hennessy, OMD and Polaris took to the stage to explore how brands are connecting with Australia’s Chinese consumers in a rapidly changing market.
Opening the event, Polaris founder Jessica Yue reflected on the agency’s evolution over the past decade, from a Chinese-language publisher into a multicultural strategy, insights, content and creator agency working with some of the world’s biggest brands across luxury, beauty, automotive, retail, tourism and government.
“We started Polaris because Chinese consumers were becoming an increasingly important part of Australia’s economy, yet very few brands truly understood how to communicate with them,” Yue said.
It set the tone for the event, where the overall sentiment was that the brands succeeding today are investing in local insight over assumptions, trust over awareness, and culturally relevant experiences over global campaigns alone. The marketers pulling ahead aren’t waiting for the perfect playbook, they’re building it.
Polaris client partnerships lead Sue Jun (below) acknowledged why many marketers have been hesitant to invest in Chinese audiences.
“I understand why some have waited. The platforms can feel unfamiliar, the audiences can feel hard to read, and sometimes the business case is not easy to build internally,” she said.
“But the brands that moved first saw the same uncertainty and acted anyway. They tested, they learned, they backed local insight and moved before the perfect playbook existed.”
Jun then backed up her argument with a series of compelling statistics, reminding delegates that Australia is home to around 1.4 million people of Chinese ancestry, Chinese international students contribute $12.7 billion to the Australian economy each year, and Chinese leisure travellers spend an average of $5,081 per trip.
Her point was that the opportunity hasn’t disappeared despite the market softening and China’s luxury market contracting by 18–20 per cent in 2024. Brands simply need to rethink how they approach it.
She also highlighted how spending is evolving beyond traditional luxury into categories including home, wellness, pets, automotive and lifestyle, with consumers becoming increasingly considered in where and how they spend.
Rather than asking, “How do we reach Chinese consumers?”, Jun challenged marketers to instead ask, “How do we earn their trust before they choose?”
Next up on the trio of solo presentations was Polaris account lead Irene Jin, who shifted from insight to application, showcasing how leading brands are redesigning customer journeys around consumer behaviour rather than media channels.
One of the standout examples came from Tiffany & Co. Rather than driving consumers straight into boutiques, the luxury jeweller created a concierge-style customer journey using REDnote, China’s lifestyle and discovery platform, and WeCom, Tencent’s business messaging platform. The approach allowed prospective customers to ask questions, build relationships and connect with private client managers before ever stepping inside a store.
Range Rover took a similarly long-term approach, recognising that trust begins long before a customer walks into a dealership. Its strategy combines always-on REDnote content with Chinese-speaking dealership staff to create a more seamless purchase journey.
Meanwhile, Hennessy’s “Different Tables, Same Spirit” campaign demonstrated how local storytelling can outperform simply repurposing global creative, celebrating the way Australia’s Chinese community marks Lunar New Year rather than relying on traditional clichés.
Jin also showcased campaigns for the NSW and Victorian governments, proving these principles extend well beyond luxury brands. From tourism and museums to public sector communications, she explained how culturally relevant storytelling is helping organisations better engage Australia’s Chinese communities.
The takeaway was that culturally relevant communication isn’t just a marketing challenge, it’s increasingly important for public sector engagement too.
The Upfront concluded with a panel featuring François Fournier, senior vice president of international markets at Tiffany & Co; Gabriella Kuiters, head of communications and advocacy at Moët Hennessy Australia & New Zealand; recent Cairns Crocodiles speaker Gavin Merriman, national retail operations manager at Jaguar Land Rover Australia; and Katy Eng, head of diverse markets at OMD.
Moderated by Polaris head of strategy Rihanna Duan, Merriman explained that while global campaigns still play an important role, they often represent only a small part of the overall marketing mix, with locally developed campaigns and culturally relevant content becoming increasingly important in building trust with Australian Chinese consumers.
Practical advice of the evening came from Eng, who suggested brands should truly understand their audience before deciding where to spend their media dollars.
“What are they already saying on REDnote about my brand? Because if you’re not on REDnote talking about your brand, the consumers are there talking about it for you. They’re filling the hole that brands aren’t providing them,” Eng said.
The conversation also turned to the people behind the campaigns, with Eng arguing that brands need to rethink not only who they market to, but who is doing the marketing.
Eng recalled presenting the business case for multicultural marketing to the chief marketing officer of a major Australian brand, saying the opportunity became obvious once the data was laid out.
“Literally, anyone in the room can do this. Go to the Census, check the Census data, see the numbers. You’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people,” she said.
She said the marketer immediately recognised the commercial opportunity.
“He was smart, he was forward-thinking. He immediately said, ‘Yes, obviously we need to be here… we’re not going to grow if we ignore this audience.'”
But Eng argued there is still a broader challenge facing the industry.
“I think there’s a systemic problem… our marketers all tend to look a certain way sometimes. We all come from the eastern suburbs or the northern beaches. We need more diversity in our marketing teams, we need more diversity in our media team,” she said.
Eng, who spent years working with Roy Morgan and Nielsen to modernise audience measurement and successfully advocated for new survey questions that capture people who consume media in languages other than English, urged marketers to think more inclusively when hiring and challenged agencies to broaden their view of who their audiences really are.
From Bottega Veneta and other luxury retailers in attendance to media agencies, media owners and brand marketers, the packed-out room, which enjoyed Moët Champagne, Hennessy cocktails and a caviar bar, walked away with far more than a snapshot of what Polaris can do. Delegates left with a practical market update, real-world case studies and plenty of food for thought around trust, cultural relevance and changing consumer behaviour.
Attendees also included Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), a term widely used in Chinese marketing to describe established creators and trusted voices with influence, alongside Key Opinion Sales (KOS) creators, who specialise in driving product sales through live commerce, recommendations and affiliate content. While KOLs build awareness, KOS creators are typically focused on conversion.
As Polaris celebrates its 10th anniversary, Yue said the mission remains unchanged despite the market continuing to evolve.
“The platforms have changed, the geography has changed, but our mission hasn’t,” Yue said.
“We help brands create meaningful connections with Chinese consumers wherever they are.”
Keep an eye on B&T for coverage of all upcoming Upfronts events.
