How Chinese Skincare Brand KANS Actually Benefitted From the Kris Wu Scandal
Well, a super big hot topic this past week has been the scandal of top celebrity Kris Wu. You’ve probably heard about it by now and if not, we will recap it below. But what we wanted to highlight is that, while brands typically get hurt when their ambassadors are caught up in scandals, one Chinese brand actually became more popular!
It was a skincare brand KANS (韩束). This is a great case study of how to leverage ecommerce live streaming to avert a PR crisis.
So What Is the Kris Wu Scandal?
Kris Wu is a singer and an actor. The whole scandal started from one of the victims Du Meizhu’s (都美竹) Weibo post. In the post, Du was saying Kris often hooked up with girls, especially teenage girls. He often select women as commodities to decide which one to sleep with.
Following Du, there were other girls posting their chatting history with Kris, which were really disgusting and alike. The key point is, these girls were underage and many of them said they were forced to do things while under the influence of alcohol.
The scandal and related topics covered most of Weibo’s hot topic ranking board and have continued to stay there for quite some time as the situation continues to unfold.
KANS’s Live Stream Situation On The Night the Kris Wu Scandal Broke
The night Du posted about Kris’ behaviors, many netizens rushed to the live streaming rooms of brands that Wu works with and began criticizing the brands for working with Wu. This was what happened to KANS’ livestream that evening.
That night, KANS’ live stream had two co-hosts, a male and female. Neither live streamer know what had happened and had no idea why people were upset. After the boy searched on Weibo and learned what had happened, he told the girl that it was disgusting. The two live streamers were a bit panicked, and they encouraged each other not to be afraid. Of course they are saying all this live.
Shortly after this, they saw the hot topic on Weibo saying KANS has terminated its collaboration with Kris Wu due to the scandal. Their first reaction was, would KANS fire them as well? Haha, of course not.
As the first brand to bravely announced it had canceled its contract with Wu, KANS started receiving support from people. Thousands of people flocked to the livestream room and they actively shared the livestream with their friends.
The live stream lasted until 2am and the total amount of viewers reached 3.7 million. They’ve also achieved a sales amount that they would never expect: over 5.4 million RMB. That the sales from that live stream, combined with the rest of KANS’ sales in July, were more than KANS had sold over the course of 6 months the year before.
So How Exactly Did KANS Managed To Benefit From the Kris Wu Scandal?
Quick reaction to Kris Wu’s scandal
Brands that were hesitating to terminate their contracts with Kris were not able to continue their livestream that night because of too many angry netizens flooding the comments. For example, Lancôme only ran its livestream for 2 minutes before it chose to shut down.
KANS on the other hand, didn’t shut down, allowing a large amount of people to gather at a place and let off their anger. And then, when KANS announced it had canceled the contract, the stream gave people a place to come support KANS.
Two live streamers did a good job to personalize the brand
This may not be intentional, but two live streamers worked very well with each other and their interactions attracted many viewers to follow with them.
The average amount of viewers of KANS’ livestream before the scandal was not even 300. On that night, the amount became overwhelming and when the number surpassed 300, the girl asked viewers how to turn on the beauty filter so to look better.
When a serum, whose original price was 299 RMB, was auctioned to 1,200 RMB, the girl told viewers to spend their money rationally and not to keep raising prices, as it would waste their money.
And because they stayed cool-headed and performed well during the livestream, the boy received a call from their boss saying that both he and the girl would get reward for this. He looked so happy and surprised, and he excitedly shared the news with the girl and viewers.
Viewers were cheering up for them and they were encouraging the boy and girl to get married if the number of viewers reached 500k. Those two live streamers were joking that they didn’t even know each other for 3 days. After the stream, two lives streamers were titled KANS Couple.
Usually, we see live streamers recommend products, reading scripts in front of them. But this time, the KANS Couple acted like “real people”, and it really created closeness with viewers.
Two live streamers are trained well with their livestreaming skills
The first reaction that these two live streamers saw so many people coming into the livestream room, they were shocked. But they quickly presented their livestream skills: recommending products.
They stayed coolheaded and did a great job of grasping this opportunity to get in front of so many people. They told viewers that KANS’ new collection would show up in Austin Li’s livestream on July 19. Then after canceling its contract with Wu, KANS quickly announced that it appointed the National Swimming Team as its new ambassadors, and the two live streamers shared the announcement, and their joy, with viewers.
Support from the livestream system on Taobao
Many factors influence Taobao’s live stream ranking board including the length of time that viewers’ stay in the livestream, the length of the livestream, the number of viewers, and the likes, comments and other interactions.
In total, the livestream lasted for nearly 23 hours, with different live streamers. KANS’ performance also helped the brand to stay on top on the livestream ranking board for which it got more exposure.
What Can We Learn from KANS’ Success?
Quick reaction
KANS’ quick reaction and the corporation between two live streamers really earned itself a favorable impression. On the other hand, Lancôme was under severe criticism by netizens because of its hesitation to terminate the contract.
Closely monitoring the situation
It’s what people want to see that matters.
Brands need to monitor how the whole situation goes and make decisions that will please people. The earlier they show their attitude, the less harm will occur. They may even gain bonus from it, such as KANS.
Livestream: crisis preparation
In this incident, we can see that KANS’ live streamers are well-trained and that’s why they were able to drive so many sales in a night.
As livestream has become a necessary sales and marketing channel for many brands, brands often approach livestream agencies to look for live streamers, instead of cultivating their own. It is important that brands educate them about brands’ basic information and how they should behave if any scandal happens.
Maximize the influence of the livestream
KANS didn’t stop at that night’s livestream and has continued to ride the wave of attention. Since netizens named those two live streamers the KANS Couple, the brand has had them do more livestreaming to capture people’s enthusiasm and curiosity to watch them. Also, KANS’ CEO will appear in an upcoming livestream to meet consumers.
Read more: 吴亦凡事件发酵后，韩束直播间为何能一夜爆红？
