Brand Research and Strategy

Xiami Music

A research study examining how Xiami Music built a distinctive brand identity within China's competitive music streaming market.

Client: Xiami Music
Year: 2020
Role: Research, Brand Analysis and Creative Design

The insight

China's major music platforms offered increasingly similar core services, making brand character, content culture and community experience important points of differentiation.

Xiami stood out through its distinctive visual identity, recognisable cute shrimp mascot (XIAMI means Shrimp in Chinese), strong music discovery experience and long-standing support for independent musicians. Rather than competing through functionality alone, the brand had developed a particular creative character and relationship with music audiences.

The approach

The study began with an overview of the Chinese music streaming category and its key marketing characteristics, followed by competitor analysis across NetEase Cloud Music, QQ Music, Kugou Music and Kuwo Music.

I then focused on Xiami through several dimensions, tracing its development from its origins as EMUMO through its later evolution as Xiami Music, alongside its brand personality, advertising creativity, media performance, recent marketing trends and promotion initiatives.

The research also explored how Xiami used design, original music, independent artist support and creative content to build a more distinctive cultural identity. The final section translated these findings into potential content directions across radio, commerce, live formats and interactive music discovery.

FYI: Founded in Hangzhou in 2006 as EMUMO, Xiami later became part of Alibaba in 2013. Its music streaming service officially ended on 5 February 2021.

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