With so Many Massive Scandals, Do Luxury Brands Still Love Chinese Celebrities?
Luxury brands love working with Chinese celebrities to grab attention and drive sales. But time and time again, we have seen that this is also a risky marketing tactic.
Recently, Zhang Zhehan (张哲瀚), a Chinese actor and singer ended his career in the entertainment industry, due to a mistake he made during his nine-day endorsement with the Japanese jewelry brand TASAKI. Why? Because of his misbehaviors in patriotism. Weibo deleted both his personal Weibo account and his studio’s account.
Right before that, top Chinese celebrity Kris Wu was accused of sexual assault and rape of minors. The scandal was so massive that the police detained him. Related topics covered Weibo’s hot topic ranking board for days. Louis Vuitton and Bvlgari were among the luxury brands that had to terminate their collaborations with him so as not to get in any trouble (or any more trouble than they were already in.)
Several months ago, another case that generated a great deal of attention was Zheng Shuang’s scandal. On the day the scandal exploded online, Prada, who had named Zheng as its ambassador just seven days before, experienced a 1.7% drop in its stock price.
However, the sweet taste of working Chinese celebrities still overcomes the potential risks that it might bring. But it hasn’t always been this way.
When Did Luxury Brands Begin Liking Chinese Celebrities?
It is not until recent years that luxury brands let down their guards and began to fancy Chinese celebrities.
In 2013, Gucci had actress Li Bingbing (李冰冰) as its ambassador, first in Asia and later the title bacame a global level. Li showed professional skills at performance, and she had no scandal. Back then, brands were skeptical and being very cautious to name a Chinese celebrity as ambassador.
However, with the development of Fan Economy and social media in China, celebrities had an increasing influence on their fans. In 2016, Lu Han (鹿晗, who has 63M followers on Weibo currently) was invited by Cartier to be its “Brand Friend”. Following Lu, in the same year, Kris Wu became the first non-British ambassador for Burberry and walked in its show. With Wu’s influence back then, Burberry’s sales performance grew 25% in the third quarter of 2016.
Dior is the first one to test the water
Among the many luxury brands vying for a piece of the China market, Dior has benefitted the most from its celebrity strategy.
In 2017, Angelababy became the brand’s first Chinese ambassador. The announcement post had more than 380k reposts within hours, making it the most-reposted post on Weibo at that time.
Dior didn’t stop at one spokesperson in China, building a team to expand its influence. It has another skincare ambassador, a makeup ambassador, a jewelry ambassador, a fragrance ambassador and many other Brand’s Friends.
It only took four years for Dior to grow its follower base from 1.79M to 6.56M. Dior has become one of the most popular luxury brands among Chinese consumers.
After Dior’s Success, Other Luxury Brands Decide the Risk is Worth it
In 2019, Prada signed young idol singer Cai Xukun (蔡徐坤, who has 36M followers on Weibo) as its ambassador. At the time, there were voices saying Cai had not been famous for very long and he may not be qualified to be a luxury brand’s spokesperson. Yet since then his fame has only grown, and many of his campaigns with Prada have done quite well.
In 2020, Tiffany’s started working with Jackson Yee (易烊千玺), and promoted him to be a global ambassador. Then Guerlain announced Fan Bingbing (范冰冰) as one of its global ambassadors. This appointment also triggered many skeptical voices. Fan was involved in massive a tax evasion scandal not even a year before.
This year, we have TOD’S collaboration with Xiao Zhan (肖战), who had previously been criticized by state-run media outlet People’s Daily. On the day of the announcement, the number of followers of TOD’S Tmall flagship store grew 110k, which was 24 times the scale before.
Despite the risk that many of these brands face working with these celebrities, especially those with past incidents or those that are newer celebrities, it seems the benefits outweigh the risks. In such a short time span, brands went from being reluctant to work with Chinese celebrities to being so willing to work with them that they are willing to risk their brand reputation.
Panerai Welcomes Chinese Actress Dilraba as Its First-Ever Female Global Brand Ambassador
And despite the host of scandals lately, it appears brands are not planning to stop working with Chinese celebrities anytime soon. What’s more, they are appointing them to even more prominent positions. For example, only yesterday, Chinese actress Dilraba joined the Italian luxury watch maker Panerai as its first-ever female Global Brand Ambassador. Not just Brand Ambassador for China or Asia, but the global ambassador. This is a brave time to make that move!
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