IFSC enters the Chinese market with Weibo and Douyin

The International Federation of Sport Climbing is landing today on two of the most popular social media platforms in China: Weibo and Douyin.

To do so, the IFSC teamed up with Yahao Sports, Synca and Dentsu agencies. Yahao Sports is a media production company based in Shanghai, that provides host broadcasting resources for major sports events, as well as tailor made digital contents for sports organisations and events.

Moreover, Synca and Dentsu are Japan-based agencies that signed an historical media and marketing agreement with IFSC in 2019. Both agencies will also put their wide knowledge of the Asian market in this ambitious project.

IFSC President Marco Scolaris said:

"China is without any doubt one of our leading country in the world. This agreement will finally provide an unprecedented exposure for our athletes, events and stories to the largest audience on the planet. We are so excited for our future climbs in China! I want to thank CMA and President Li, for their constant support and advice to the IFSC."

Yahao Sports will manage IFSC social media, providing an extensive coverage of IFSC athletes and competitions to the Chinese fans, and significantly extending the digital global reach of Sport Climbing.

Anne Fuynel, IFSC Marketing and Communications Director, said:

"We are enthusiastic about the idea of launching this ambitious project which will allow us to promote our sport across China. Sport Climbing is booming and conveys positive values widely adopted and relayed by the new generation. Climbing meets unprecedented enthusiasm among young people, active consumers of social networks and we are happy to be able to share with them a unique experience. We thank IFSC Partners for their outstanding support in launching, by our side, this innovative project."

The date chosen to take this important step was not picked randomly: May 18, 2020, in fact, is the first Climbing Day celebrated in China. The initiative - launched by longtime IFSC-partner Kailas along with the hashtag #518ClimbingDay - will see the participation of more than 60 climbing gyms all around China. Also, the pronunciation of 518 in Chinese is very similar to the pronunciation of "I want to climb".

About the two platforms: Weibo is a microblogging platform launched by Sina Corporation in 2009 with almost 500 million monthly users – available both on desktop computers and mobile apps. Douyin, instead, is a much younger video-sharing service launched in 2016, and mirrored by its western counterpart Tik-Tok. Both developed by the same company, ByteDance, Douyin and TikTok together hit the 1-billion downloads mark on February 2019.

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