How Chinese Brands Leverage Heritage to Captivate Consumers
The Art of Cultural Storytelling
June 2025
In the fast-evolving Chinese market, authenticity and cultural storytelling have become powerful tools for brands to resonate with younger consumers. Three innovative Chinese brands—Beast East, Documents, and Soft Mountains—illustrate perfectly how to blend tradition with contemporary aesthetics, offering valuable insights for marketers seeking to enter this vibrant market.
Beast East: Reviving Tradition Through Herbal Luxury
Beast East (东边野兽) is a luxury skincare brand uniquely rooted in the traditional herbs of China’s eastern plateau. Its distinctiveness lies in drawing inspiration from local herbal medicine, fusing fading herbal traditions with cutting-edge skincare technology to rebuild the connection between people and nature. Sourcing ingredients like reishi mushrooms, matsutake, and Pu'er tea roses from regions such as Yunnan's Diqing, Gansu's Jinzhai, and Dali's Eryuan, Beast East embeds the rich narratives of land, culture, and community into its products. This thoughtful integration of cultural heritage not only respects ecological diversity but also offers consumers an immersive experience of Eastern herbal healing.Its skincare combines ancient herbal wisdom with modern innovation, honoring seasonal rhythms like Dragon Boat Festival.
Documents: Modern Fragrance Infused with Zen and Cool
Documents (闻献) skillfully integrates traditional Chinese architecture, such as mortise-and-tenon joinery and ancient ink tones, into minimalist modern designs. Its narrative centers on “Zen” (禅), embodying subtle introspection, and “Cool” (酷), emphasizing youthful creativity. Documents' fragrance collections use Eastern ingredients like walnut and wormwood to evoke Zen tranquility. Notably, it tackles life's duality, symbolized through incense rituals and symbolic conch imagery during Qingming Festival—a traditional occasion for remembrance—partnering innovatively with funeral brand to explore deeper philosophical questions through bold, contemporary storytelling.
Documents 向新风 Campaign
Documents LNY Campaign
Soft Mountains: Reviving Minority Heritage in Contemporary Jewelry
Soft Mountains (软山), founded by Yi ethnic designer Long Hongziwei, creatively fuses Yi cultural heritage with contemporary jewelry design. Inspired by traditional Yi silver craft and the animist worldview where nature is revered, Soft Mountains transforms symbols like stars, moons, and landscapes into poetic jewelry pieces. Notable works like silver-thread flower earrings capture the sparkle of stars, blending traditional motifs with modern aesthetics. Recognized internationally, including by Vogue, Soft Mountains connects younger audiences with minority traditions through engaging storytelling and contemporary appeal, embodying the brand ethos “We Come from Heritage.”
By fusing tradition with innovation, Chinese brands turn heritage into a living, emotional asset. Western brands can learn to look inward—mining local culture for authentic stories, not just aesthetics. In a saturated market, identity-driven storytelling rooted in heritage offers lasting resonance, cultural relevance, and a fresh model for global brand building.