Are Chinese brands ambassadors worthwhile for fashion brands?

In the fashion Chinese market, a lot of majors brands are using brand ambassadors to convey marketing messages toward their targets. This phenomenon is becoming more and more popular.

Luxury brands are the one that use the most Chinese celebrities. But actually, the ressources regarding China’s top celebrities are not very wide. Most of the young talents are well know for being soap operas’s actresses or from reality TV which is then not very suitable for luxury brands. That is the reason why, there is like a battle between luxury brands to collaborate with the one that will be able to embody the brand values and image among Chinese consumers.

Let’s have a look a some examples:

Chanel has one of the best brand ambassador strategy in China.

Chanel fashion china agency

If they choose a brand ambassador, they will keep her for several years and not just collaborate with her or one collection.

Before signing the deal with Zhou Xun in 2011, Chanel had been collaborating with her since 5 years. This has allowed the brand to make sure that her image was consistent with the one of Chanel. Once she signed with them, Chanel start to influence all the aspects of her professionals life by lending her some clothes, choosing her make up and hair styles as well.

Chanel was also involved in her private life when she decided to get married. The Chanel team then decided to organize a special trip to Paris for her in order to design her custom made wedding dress. They communicated around this event and publish into Vogue China some pictures of her in THE dress. The retail sale done by Chinese customers increased and the article on Vogue was shared by thousand and thousand of internet users.

Li Bingbing collaboration with Gucci

Li Bingbing Gucci

Having choose Li Bingbing as the Gucci’s brand ambassador was not a good choice for the brand as their collaboration was mocked by a lot of people in China when she appear in her Gucci dress at the Cannes Film Festival. Her fresh elegance wasn’t in adequacy with the luxurious and sensual image of the brand Gucci. This night, she was wearing a very dark smoky-eyes and a vampy evening gown and Chinese internet users qualified her as looking to a drunken mess.

What about Louis Vuitton?

Louis Vuitton China

Most of the time, Louis Vuitton uses celebrities endorsement to show that they’re able to adapt to the Chinese market. For example in 2012, they’ve collaborated with Fan Binbing for the Alma handbag line. After that the sales skyrocketed with Chinese consumers calling it the “Bingbing’s bag”.

How smallest fashion brands can benefits from celebrities/ influencers in China?

One of the best way to benefit from celebrities if you are a smallest brand is to use fashion KOLs (key opinion leaders).

They are people followed by thousand or even million of Chinese internet users on Chinese social media such as Weibo. Every time they publish content it’s immediately like and share by Chinese consumers. Very often, the product they promote become sold out very quickly.

The biggest KOLs start to be decried as they are more and more attracted by money and ask for a huge “red enveloppe” to collaborate with brand. That’s the reason why several brand are looking to collaborate with smallest

Collaboration with celebrities and influencers can be a good bet for fashion brand whether they are big or small. Choosing them carefully remain the biggest challenges for fashion brands. You can contact us, we’ll help you to choose the right KOLs to diffuse to your chinese target your brand values.

To read more information on how to market a fashion brand in China, you can have a look here.

1 comment

  • Bee Chen

    Hi GMA! One more amazing article, thank you. Could you please tell me the difference between égéries, brand ambassadors and KOLs please?? I am a little bit confused

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