In front of machine tools and dust, Robyn Qiu, a 29-year-old influencer with a trendy outfit, stands out: like her, many ultra-connected Chinese film themselves on TikTok or Instagram to find new opportunities at the family factory.
In the middle of the production lines which produce metal parts, the young woman speaks in a cheerful tone, in English, to her foreign subscribers – and potential customers.
She is one of the children of factory bosses in China who try, via the internet, to support the company in the face of rising costs and geopolitical tensions.
Robyn says she grew up with “the sound of machines running day and night.” But working in this sector was not always his first choice.
As a child, his parents encouraged him to aim for an office job, far from the noise of the factory located in Nantong (eastern China).
“When they set up the factory, their objective (…) was that I could have a good education” and no longer have to live in the countryside, she emphasizes.
The plan worked: a graduate of the prestigious American University Yale, she worked for a few years in a consulting company.
But Robyn now says she wants to “give back to the manufacturing sector” what it “gave” to her.
She created a marketing company that directly connects Chinese factories with overseas audiences, via videos on Instagram and TikTok – platforms blocked in China but accessible with a virtual private network (VPN) that many Chinese use.
A way of promoting its products which contrasts with that of its parents’ generation, who had to go through multiple intermediaries – which ate into their margins.
In her videos, Robyn presents China as an ideal manufacturing destination. We see her in front of assembly lines, explaining the country’s situation in this area, but also in the streets of Shanghai, praising the local cuisine.
His parents founded the company in the 1990s, riding the wave of entrepreneurship that was sweeping China with the major economic reforms launched a decade earlier.
China then became the world’s factory.
But rising wages and tensions with the United States have made other countries like Cambodia and Bangladesh increasingly attractive to international clients.
Not to mention the weakness in consumption in recent years.
Result: the Qiu family lost contracts.
But it has adapted, investing in more modern machinery or making its own products, instead of just producing parts for customers.
Just like Robyn Qiu, another influencer, Rose Law, daughter of a cosmetics factory owner in Guangdong province (south), hopes through her activity to have a “positive influence on the sector”.
Responsible for product development for the family business, she also launched her own brand of shampoos.
“In my parents’ time”, with the economic opening, “all sectors were new, everyone was on the same starting line and competed with each other”, she told AFP.
Many were simple subcontractors and had to fight. But today, having your own brand means more stable income, she emphasizes.
“Being seen” on social networks is therefore “very important”, she specifies.
According to Robyn Qiu, more than 500 buyers have contacted her since May and she has 150,000 followers on Instagram.
These women are what we call in China “changerdai” (“children of factory bosses”), an expression echoing another, very popular one: “fuerdai” (“children of the rich”).
A lot of content produced by this young generation has gone viral.
On Instagram, the company LC Sign, from Canton (south), which produces illuminated signs, has attracted half a million subscribers with videos where a young man creates imitations of Donald Trump.
On Chinese social networks, a short film entitled “The Towel Empire”, produced by a “changerdai” from a towel factory, has accumulated billions of views.
Today, “if you want to attract people’s attention, you have to invest in these short videos,” summarizes Robyn Qiu.
