A new Group Purchase category is now available on Baidu Feng Yun Bang,a list updated in almost real-time at http://top.baidu.com. The list reveals the top keywords used in historical searches for the day and the week and — for some categories — even, the month. When browsing the page, visitors can see the top ten group purchase websites and a scrolling window detailing purchases made by shoppers’ gender, generation (70s, 80s, 90s, etc.) and location.

According to Baidu Feng Yun Bang, on April 29^th female searchers favored Jumei (www.jumei.com), the first cosmetics-focused group purchase site. The site also reveals generational differences; 90s include Jumei as one of their top ten favorite sites while post-70s and post-80s do not.

Location-wise, netizens from tier one cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, have almost the same site preferences. While, shoppers in lower tier cities in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangxi, Fujian, Hunan and Inner Mongolia have more diverse preferences. Province-based sites like  Luobotuan (www.luobotuan.com, offering group purchase services only in Zhejiang) and city-based sites like 0731 (www.0731.com.cn, only in Changsha) are favored by lower tier city consumers.

While Jennifer Lopez was voted American People Magazine’s “World’s Most Beautiful Woman,” she was recently given a style thumb’s down when compared to China’s own Fan Bingbing.

A video clip from Fashion Police, an American fashion talk show, has travelled quickly across Sina Weibo. The hot topic is the hosts’ raving about Chinese celebrity Fan Bingbing’s styling of an Elie Saab dress. Fan’s sparkly turban and cardigan combined with miles of gold bracelets was compared to Jennifer Lopez’s simple styling in the show’s section “Bitch Stole My Look.” To the delight of Chinese netizens, Fan Bingbing won. Hosts described Fan Bingbing as “the No.1 star in China” and were awed by how she styled a camisole on her head as a turban.

Check out the video clip:

With the Royal Wedding only a week away, Chinese netizens have been encouraged to send their best wishes to his Royal Highness Prince William of Wales and Miss Catherine Middleton via Chinese microblogs.

For the first time, the British Royal wedding is looking to create a digital hub bub in China. The British Embassy in Beijing, the British Council, together with VisitBritain (UK’s national tourism agency) have partnered with Sina Weibo, the largest microblogging site in China, to offer netizens a platform to send their best wishes. Up to now, there have been over 114,440 microblog well wishings posted on Sina Weibo. Check them out here.

However, many China Sina micro-bloggers have voiced little interest in this campaign:

Picture on the left: another copy published online last December, created by Jing’an Traffic Police to heighten awareness about traffic accidents; on the right poster by Shanghai Police.

“Vancl style” has appeared on posters for Shanghai Police recently and the micro-blog post has been shared over 23,000 times on Sina Weibo after Weibo celebrities Yao Chen and Li Kaifu posted the news. Part of the poster reads:

Vancl’s campaign style became extremely popular after Han Han (writer and blogger) and Wang Luodan (actress) appearing on billboards as Vancl spokespeople, expressing their attitudes in an autobiographical style. Netizens picked up the style and have created countless self-styled versions since then.

The movie Stand By Me, sponsored by Vans, is a movie adaption of the recent coming-of-age TV series Struggle. Stand By Me tells the story of a group of young graduates who struggle in the city and eventually find out who they are. The movie adaption is more youth-targeted; all the leading roles are new on the acting scene. Most of the characters belong to the post-80s generation except Li Chen who is a 70s and plays the hero (compared to only two 80s featured in the TV version).

As promotion, Vans established an exclusive page on Renren.com for the movie campaign – introducing its manifesto, videos of skateboarders, models and actors, Renren users are also able to post their “OFF THE WALL” attitudes. Check out Vans mini-site on Renren.

We spotted Huang Xiaoming’s new billboard for Vancl canvas shoes in subway. Vancl started to work with Xiaoming on March 26th recognizing the star’s embodiment of the brand’s key characteristics such as striving, being real and optimistic.

Huang Xiaoming is one of the most famous young actors in China, active in TV and movie screens and famous for starring in a new adaptation of the TV series Shanghai Bund. He has a reputation for pronouncing English words in a very thick Chinese accent. Huang Xiaoming received wide criticism online because of the “Not At All” incident – netizens posted mocking commentaries regarding his dubious English pronunciation “not at all” in the song One World One Dream (check out our former post on this). Xiaoming laughs at himself in the ad this time “You are right. I don’t have excellent acting skill. Not at all. I am Vancl.”

On April 7^th, Geely Panda launched an exclusive two-tone edition of its cute and youth-favored cars to its flagship shop on Taobao, the first car sold exclusively online.

The car brand’s recent Sec-kill (AKA Flash Buy) promotions were a huge success and doubtless motivated the move online. In December, 300 Geely Panda cars were sold out in a Taobao flash buy.  Geely reports that limited edition, Taobao-only models is currently available in blue and white and feature special wheels, a DVD-player, a satellite navigation system and keyless start. According to Tencent’s 2010 automobile consumption trend report, over 75% of consumers said they would spend or consider spending more on automobile and its accessories.

Two-tone Panda cars can only be bought online but are available for test drives in the brand’s 4S shops (4S standing for sale, spare part, service and survey). Check out Geely’s Taobao shop.