How Did Prada Protect Itself From Its Brand Ambassador’s Scandal?
Celebrity brand ambassadors are an extremely powerful marketing tool, yet at the same time, they do not come without risk. If the celebrity gets caught up in a scandal, it can often have a serious negative impact on the brands that it works with. Recently Prada brand ambassador Chinese actress Zheng Shuang (郑爽) was caught up in a major scandal. On January 18, Prada’s stock price dropped 1.7%. However, the next day, its price grew 3.14% and the day after, it grew 5%.
How did Prada protect itself from being seriously affected by this incident? What lessons can other brands take from this?
What Was The Scandal?
On Jan 18, actress Zheng Shuang’s ex-boyfriend Zhang Heng (张恒, another celebrity) posted on Weibo saying he has been receiving lots of unfriendly messages because of his breaking up with Zheng and their financial dispute but that actually he was the victim in the situation and people need to be more understanding. Zhang said his family was severely affected by the Internet bullying and the most important thing he said was, he was staying in America because he needed to take care of two little kids.
All of a sudden, people were so surprised by his mention of two kids and began asking whether they were Zhang and Zheng’s kids. From more information revealed by Zhang’s friend, it was revealed that they are indeed the couples’ kids and they were born through surrogacy.
Later, the friend also revealed a recording about the discussion of Zheng and Zhang’s babies. When Zheng and Zhang broke up, the babies were already 7-months-old in two surrogacy mothers’ bellies. The recording revealed that Zheng and her parents insisted that they didn’t want those babies since the couple had broken up, and Zheng was saying it was such a pity that two babies were too old to be aborted.
Public reaction
As soon as this was revealed, the public lashed out at Zheng saying Zheng was insane and she had no sympathy. Many of her former followers posted on Weibo saying though they liked Zheng, they couldn’t stand their idol doing such a thing and that they wouldn’t be her fans anymore.
The scandal happened just 7 days after Prada had announced Zheng to be its brand ambassador, and as we mentioned at the beginning, Prada’s stock price fell down that day.
The Chinese government reacted very quickly to the scandal. The National Radio and Television Administration publicly announced that any format of Zheng Shuang’s works won’t be aired in the future and took some of Zheng’s TV and shows from the shelves. Zheng’s career is no doubt screwed.
Back to Prada, on January 19, Prada made the announcement saying it had officially terminated its collaboration with Zheng Shuang. So we saw its stock price rapidly grow after the announcement.
Prada Was Not A Victim in The Scandal
In most occasions, brands are victims when their ambassadors are caught up in scandals. This time, however, Prada was the victim for a very short period but it did not suffer too much. One of the reasons could be it had just started working with Zheng. The other reason, and the most significant one, is that Prada has worked very hard to build up its brand reputation and diversify promotional channels and content so that it is not overly reliant on celebrity endorsements like some brands are.
Cultural Events
First, Prada values culture. Some of its cultural events might seem unlikely to generate any commercial profits, but they are in fact shaping a better brand image among consumers. In August 2020, Prada held a private event called Prada Mode in Shanghai. The topic was: What Color Is Your Hometown?
When other brands were trying to boost revenue growth in the China market after the country began recovering from COVID-19, Prada went the opposite and focused on the cultural aspects, which made it stand out and draw extra attention from consumers.
Digital Marketing
Second, Prada values digital marketing. It often livestreams its offline activities. For example, the event featuring ocean pollution at SKP-S Beijing in December 2020, which attracted 107k views. It also livestreamed its Prada Mode event in Shanghai for 2 days. Prada only invited a small group of people to attend the event. By livestreaming it, having it go public aroused many people’s curiosity.
During the COVID lockdown period, whenever it held fashion shows, it invited celebrities and KOLs from all over the world in New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Shanghai to watch the livestream and discuss it online.
Products love by China’s It Girls
The most important thing that prevented Prada from suffering too much from this scandal is its products. Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons are working hard on every collection and it shows. Many fashion KOLs in China highly praised the latest 2021 Spring/Summer collection.
The brand is also launching new products to catch up with consumers’ taste. Its last viral product was the Re-Edition 2005 nylon bag, almost every It girl in China has it. Before consumers’ feelings of freshness towards this bag is gone, Prada launched another viral product: Cleo. The bag quickly became out of stock and consumers need to wait for days to receive the parcel.
Brands Should Be Cautious When Working With Celebrities
This sounds cliché but as the fan economy is booming in China, many brands are desperate to join the trend and generate profits from celebrity sponsorships. Working with celebrities, especially those top ones, is definitely a quick and effective way to drive lots of traffic.
But brands need to recognize that celebrities drive traffic, not necessarily profit. If brands want to create profits, it depends on how they leverage the collaboration. Chinese beauty brand Colorkey is a good example in this case, we have included it in one of our previous articles.
One key reason that Prada is able to get itself out of this scandal is, it doesn’t make celebrities its main marketing strategy. As we see, the brand also focuses a lot on its product and the cultural aspect. Without those elements, consumers will only know Zheng Shuang or Cai Xukun (蔡徐坤, a top idol and Prada’s global ambassador).
Bad examples are Chinese shoe brand DAPHNE and beverage company Tenwow Food. Both brands were top runners in the industry and now they were millions in debt. Both of these brands relied too heavily on celebrities and related promotions to grow their revenue. Another brand that has been relying too heavily on celebrities and lacks a clear strategy is Chinese beauty brand Proya.
Conclusion
Celebrity marketing, beneficial or not? In most occasions, it benefits a brand. If you are looking for a safe card, brands can consider virtual influencers, which is a buzz term in recent two years.
While they aren’t completely risk free, they are unlikely to have any cheating or surrogacy scandals. Or brands can work with celebrities in short term collaborations, for example, 6 months or just inviting them to show up on offline events, or pay them to do a livestream for the brand, so that the brand’s image doesn’t get too attached to any one celebrity.
Read more:
