Quan Hongchan's endorsement is a negative textbook
Author: Chen Jing
Number of characters: 2151 characters
Suggested reading time: 10 minutes
People who care about Quan Hongchan may have been a little frightened recently.
A domestic women's clothing brand called "Taro Ting Clothing" became the "official fashion partner" of the Chinese national diving team, and shot a group of catwalk blockbusters for Quan Hongchan, Chen Yuxi and other members of the national diving team.
Quan Hongchan, who calmly and domineeringly staged the disappearance technique again and again in the top arena, wore the brand's clothing that had nothing to do with her age, temperament, and identity, which was awkward, stiff and embarrassing. What is even more puzzling is the designer's personal interpretation of the brand's style: simple, decadent, refined, Nordic, expansive, fashionable...
Let's just say: Sister, blink if you're controlled!
endorsed Quan Hongchan as if there was no endorsement
Quan Hongchan's meteoric surge in popularity after the Tokyo Olympics did not bring about a substantial transformation in her personal business income. In her Sina Weibo, in just half a year since registration, only two brands have been exposed.
One is Yili, the official sponsor of the Hangzhou Asian Games, judging from the content released by Yili's official account and Quan Hongchan's forwarding skills, this is a cooperation between the brand and the Asian Games delegation, not a personal endorsement. The other time was at the end of October this year, she posted a endorsement plan for Nongfu Spring on Weibo, but judging from Nongfu Spring's official Weibo release, this is only a sponsor activity of Nongfu Spring as the official partner of the national diving team, and Quan Hongchan participated in related activities with other teammates.
The biggest reason may be that Quan Hongchan, who was born in March 2007, is still a minor after all, and due to the impact of the previous epidemic, the cycle from the Tokyo Olympics to the Paris Olympics has been shortened by one year, and the training and competition tasks are heavy.
However, as a "gold medalist" at all levels of events, and in the Paris Olympics cycle, the Chinese diving team has no shortage of sponsors, in addition to Nongfu Spring, Blue Moon laundry detergent, as well as the newly signed strategic partner kitchen and bathroom brand Wanjiale in August, plus the recent controversy "Taro Ting Clothing", Quan Hongchan has become a member of the sponsor's "hand-picked" team without exception, appearing in every poster, press conference and event site C position.
The background of the controversial brand is a mystery
But the main reason why "Taro Court Costumes" attracted controversy and ridicule was that it was "too ugly", in the words of netizens: "Di Lieba can't be saved". Whether it is the costumes themselves, or the makeup and hair, camera style of Quan Hongchan and other team members, and even the filters used in the promotional videos, they are far below the mainstream aesthetics, which has aroused the disgust and complaints of netizens.
The brand name of "Taro Garden" is SuCi, which was registered in October 2022 with a capital of 3 million, and will not be officially unveiled until March 2023. What's even more bizarre is that at the same time as the brand's official debut, a promotional video was released with the participation of Quan Hongchan and other members of the national diving team.
In the brand's version, they are not a new company, but "presented a lot of evidence to the diving team to prove that they are just a new branch of an old company that has been in operation for decades". After entering online platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and WeChat video accounts in March this year, "Taro Ting Clothing" only uses short videos for marketing and promotion, and Douyin is its only online sales channel at present, but the sales situation is not ideal.
The fact that such a company can become the "official partner of the Chinese Diving Dream Team" is beyond the cognition of ordinary people, not to mention that these promotional videos can be called an image slander of the world champion, and it is no wonder that they have been ridiculed by the whole network. However, the brand side of "Tou Tie" did not take down the promotional videos that criticized and complained one-sidedly in the comment area, and even did not delete a large number of negative comments, of course, there has been no response so far.
From the perspective of brand marketing, the brand side is probably adhering to the idea of "black and red are also red". After all, it is an era when traffic is king, even if this wave of operations is exchanged for scolding, it is much stronger than spending money, but not splashing a little splash.
But this is clearly a negative lesson in sports marketing.
Athletes who stand on the brand marketing outlet
This is not the first time that athletes have been on the cusp of brand marketing.
Yao Ming, Liu Xiang and Li Na, three epoch-making top athletes, have received commercial value rewards matched with their athletic achievements and influence during their careers, but after them, due to the long-term complex system in China and the problem of athlete ownership, the development of commercial value of athletes has always been subject to various constraints.
For a long time, brands of all kinds favored entertainment stars. Because first of all, entertainment stars are not limited by the competition cycle, there are no layers of competent units, and the exposure rate is high and the continuous influence is relatively strong. Secondly, in terms of commercial value, entertainment stars have higher activity, interaction rate, topic dissemination and fan loyalty.
However, with the increase in the number of "house collapse incidents" of celebrities, coupled with the fact that the Tokyo Olympics and the Beijing Winter Olympics have been held in more than half a year, it has caused a wave of "Olympic fever", which has made the brand begin to turn its attention to athletes with healthy and sunny public images and outstanding sports performance. So Gu Ailing, Su Yiming, Su Bingtian, Ma Long, Zheng Qinwen, etc., as well as the Chinese women's volleyball team, the Chinese women's football team, the Chinese table tennis team, the Chinese diving team, and the Chinese track and field team caught up with this wave of "dividends", and their figures occupied the advertising space of major brands and even luxury goods.
In fact, in a more strict sense, a large part of this belongs to "big event marketing", where brands gain short-term popularity, but as the popularity of the event wanes, the benefits of cooperation will also quickly decline. Therefore, the new trend is for brands to take the lead in marketing before the arrival of the "big event", "betting" on the athletes or sports teams they are optimistic about, and gain long-term and continuous exposure. Under such a premise, a sports team like the Chinese diving team, which has long had an absolute leading advantage in the world, can easily become the object of long-term cooperation between brands.
But will the consumers expected by the brand really pay for the product because of the "choice of the Chinese diving team"? At least "Taro Garden" tells us with this failed marketing incident: no.
Whether it is a brand or an individual athlete, if you want to obtain long-term and stable benefits from business cooperation and transform the audience's love and trust in athletes into the brand, the first thing to do is to match the tonality of the athlete and the brand. The competitive spirit embodied on the field, the personality charm shown off the field, and the experience of growth and self-breakthrough are all shining points that the brand can easily tap out and tell the story well.
From this point of view, at least the brand tonality currently shown by "Taro Ting Clothing" is not related to Quan Hongchan and the Chinese diving dream team.
As netizens said: "It's better to give me a reversal in this matter, otherwise I won't be able to figure it out." ”
The picture in this article comes from Xinhuanet and the Internet