HEYOU — About

Compliance was never the plan.
It became the necessity.

HEYOU was founded in Shanghai in 2017 as a China marketing consultancy — helping international brands plan, execute, and optimise campaigns in the Chinese market.

Every time an international client wanted to advertise in China, they hit the same wall: compliance requirements were opaque, the rules were different from every other market they operated in, and the consequences of getting it wrong were real. Most agencies either ignored the problem or outsourced it to lawyers who didn't understand the advertising context.

We solved it ourselves — campaign by campaign, qualification by qualification — building a working framework for navigating China's advertising compliance system from actual experience, not policy documents.

By the time we had delivered 300+ campaigns across gaming, financial media, and consumer brands, that compliance framework had become the most valuable thing we had built. In 2025, we made it the core of what HEYOU offers.

HEYOU was founded by someone who spent over a decade in European brand strategy before returning to Shanghai — where she has built and run her own business for more than 15 years. That's why we communicate with Western clients the way they think, and with Chinese partners the way they work.

Three problems that were harder than they looked.

These are examples of the kind of compliance challenges that stop most international brands — and what it actually took to resolve them.

Eight years working with Ubisoft China across multiple franchises — Just Dance, Assassin's Creed, Star Wars, and others.

The work spans two fundamentally different compliance scenarios: titles that can be launched and promoted through proper licensing channels, and titles whose content makes direct advertising in China impossible — requiring an entirely different approach built around KOL content co-creation and soft marketing within regulatory boundaries.

The most recent chapter: coordination support for Just Dance Mobile's China App Store launch in June 2026, with approval accelerated through Shanghai's latest game industry policy.

China's game marketing environment is genuinely complex. We know how to operate in it.

Approved vendor in Ubisoft's Asia-Pacific supplier network. Eight-year ongoing relationship. Case references shared with client consent.

Ongoing · Game Compliance · Campaign Execution

The problem: Bloomberg needed to promote a commercial data product in China, but the product didn't qualify for direct advertising under Chinese financial content regulations — a situation where most advisors simply say "you can't do this."

What we did: Rather than a blanket no, we identified a compliant content and placement strategy within Bloomberg's existing Chinese legal structure — achieving their original promotional objectives without regulatory exposure.

Case reference shared with client consent.

Compliance Under Constraints

The problem: Running advertising across three brand entities — Gentle Monster, Nudake, and Tamburins — required solving credential sharing between separate structures, and resolving a WeChat-to-App Store cross-platform compliance challenge most agencies hadn't encountered before.

What we did: Established a compliant Group Credential Pool enabling credential sharing across the three entities, and resolved the WeChat-to-App Store advertising compliance pathway.

Approved vendor in Gentle Monster Group's supplier network for over five years. Ongoing. Case references shared with client consent.

Ongoing · Cross-Platform Ad Compliance

Three things you won't find in the same place elsewhere.

We know the rules. We also know where they flex.

Legal firms can tell you what the rules say. Execution agencies can follow a checklist. Very few can do what HEYOU does: read China's advertising regulations the way a practitioner does — understanding not just the letter of the rules, but the real flexibility in how media platforms apply them, where creative space exists, and how to achieve your marketing objectives within the boundaries that actually matter. That knowledge comes from running campaigns, not reading policy documents — and from maintaining the kind of government relationships that mean applications move through established channels, not cold submissions.

We don't explain China to Westerners. We are both.

Most China consultants understand one side of the relationship. HEYOU was built by someone who has operated seriously on both sides for over 25 years — long enough to know how Western clients actually make decisions, and how the Chinese regulatory and media system actually works. Not as an observer. As a practitioner.

No media buying. No publishing deals. No conflict.

Some China market services that claim to help overseas developers enter China are also in the business of media buying, content distribution, or publishing — creating structural conflicts of interest that most clients never see coming. HEYOU's scope ends at the compliance and structural foundation. We don't do ad buying, we don't take revenue shares, and we don't have publishing interests. When we tell you what China entry requires, it's because it's what you actually need — not because it feeds another part of our business.

Our compliance expertise wasn't built in a classroom.
It was built in the field.

Compliance was never the plan.
It became the necessity.

Three problems that were harder than they looked.

Three things you won't find in the same place elsewhere.

Find out what China entry looks like for your app.

Our compliance expertise wasn't built in a classroom.It was built in the field.

Compliance was never the plan.It became the necessity.

Three problems that were harder than they looked.

Three things you won't find in the same place elsewhere.

Find out what China entry looks like for your app.

Our compliance expertise wasn't built in a classroom.
It was built in the field.

Compliance was never the plan.
It became the necessity.