Luxury brand podcasts struggle for Chinese audiences

25 Jun 2025

Luxury brands are investing heavily in Chinese-language podcasts but struggling to build meaningful audiences, with recent launches drawing limited engagement despite the format’s growing user base.

On 7 June, luxury house Loewe launched the second episode of its Loewe Frequency (罗意威调频) podcast on the Xiaoyuzhou platform, titled “Hands On” (要上手). While the brand maintained its signature aesthetic and tone in both visuals and content curation, the episode had garnered just 16,000 plays at the time of writing. Social media engagement was minimal, and the release has yet to generate significant buzz.

Luxury brands venturing into the podcast space is by no means a recent phenomenon. As early as 2017, Chanel launched its 3.55 podcast, a series of conversations rooted in the house’s century-long heritage. The show invited creatives from across disciplines to share personal stories and reflections tied to Chanel handbags.

Later, during the pandemic, podcasts emerged as a new narrative medium — a way for brands to connect more intimately with their audiences. The format promised slower, deeper storytelling, and was quickly embraced by houses like Prada, Gucci and Dior. With their eyes on affluent Chinese listeners, luxury brands hoped to cultivate emotional resonance and expand their cultural equity through Mandarin-language podcast content.

Yet so far, the reality has fallen short of expectations. While user numbers on Chinese podcast platforms continue to rise, most branded shows have struggled to break beyond niche circles, with limited cultural impact or visibility.

“Most luxury brand podcasts are just self-indulgent, lofty topics no one’s really interested in,” a senior commercial director in the luxury industry tells Jing Daily. “I’d rather hear about how a handbag is crafted than sit through another vague episode on feminism.”