Niche Luxury Brand By Far Chooses Controversial Brand Ambassador in China
On August 14, Bulgarian designer brand By Far announced its collaboration with Chinese internet celebrity Grace Chow (Zhou Yangqing 周扬青). This surprised many people for two reasons:
- Grace is a somewhat controversial figure in China
- Signing a Chinese brand ambassador is a big move for a niche luxury brand such as By Far
Was it the right choice? Let’s take a look:
Who is Grace Chow?
Grace is a Chinese internet celebrity/influencer with 10 million Weibo followers and owner of eponymous apparel brand Grace Chow.
If you follow our content, then Grace’s name may be familiar to you – we wrote about her earlier this year when she revealed on Weibo that her ex-boyfriend Chinese celebrity Show Lo (罗志祥) had been cheating on her for many years. The scandal was such a big topic in China that it stayed on Weibo’s hot topic list for over a week.
With the scandal still fresh on people’s minds, By Far is definitely making a bold choice appointing Grace, however, its less risky than you think as Grace was on the positive side of the scandal and many people sympathized with her and applauded her for standing up for herself and revealing what Show Lo had done.
But there’s no denying that Grace Chow is still very controversial. But it is this contradiction that draws so much traffic for her on social media. After the scandal, Grace’s career took off. She was photographed for BAZAAR, launched her apparel store open in Tokyo and suddenly attracted many sponsorships.
It is highly unlikely that By Far would not be aware of the scandal, so we must assume that the brand’s founders feel that Chow’s public persona aligns with the personality of the brand and they are willing to take the risk.
The Brand Ambassador Announcement and WeChat Store Launch
To announce the brand ambassador relationship, two of By Far’s co-founders and Grace shared a video call with each other on social media. The video had over 2.4M views within the first 4 days.
On the same day as the announcement, By Far launched its WeChat mini program store with special launch promotional discounts and free shipping for 72 hours. Several of the most popular bags sold out immediately. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Earlier in April, By Far launched its JD flagship store. Its Mini collection went out of stock in 20 minutes, and the classic Miranda bags sold out in 2 hours.
It is interesting to note that By Far took off and became popular throughout the world due to Instagram, a social media platform that most Chinese consumers don’t have access to. Brands should be aware that Chinese people living abroad, or those back in China with VPNs, will often scout Instagram for the latest international fashion trends and purchase products not yet available in China, and then other people who follow these trendsetters will find ways to get these products such as purchasing through daigou. In this way, a product that is popular on Instagram can become extremely popular in the China market.
Consumers Are Concerned By Far is Becoming Too Mainstream
So far, consumers’ criticisms have turned out to be less about Grace Chow and more about their fear that By Far is becoming too mainstream, with some people commenting that By Far is going a little overboard when marketing in China and is losing its niche character.
This is a delicate dance for many niche foreign luxury brands who become very popular among young Chinese trendsetters. They experience massive demand from the China market and want to cater to the Chinese consumer, but if they do so too fast, they risk becoming mainstream and losing the interest of the fashionistas driving the demand for the brand.
Our Take:
At the moment, when it comes to sales figures and brand awareness, By Far seems to be benefitting from appointing Grace Chow as its ambassador. But selecting a top tier KOL as the brand ambassador may hurt the brand reputation in the long run as a main reason why Chinese people were obsessed with this brand is that it was a niche one and wearing its bags or shoes shows good taste.
For niche luxury brands, there is no right and wrong having big KOLs speak for them. It depends on what owners are pursuing. If you want nice sales numbers, mega KOLs is always the choice, though you are risking losing some loyal consumers. If you want to keep it low-key, then just focus on the quality and provide what you think is the best for consumers.
Brands can also approach mid-tier or small KOLs. In some way, these KOLs have closer relationships with followers so their recommendations may come out more effective than big KOLs. And at the same time, the brand can maintain its niche image.
Read more: 深度｜请周扬青做品牌挚友的By Far能在中国走得更远吗？
