What brands need to know about paying influencers

Things escalated quickly after A03’s takedown. Enraged by Xiao fans’ censorship plot, millions of free speech activists began boycotting the dozens of brands Xiao campaigns for, including Estée Lauder, Piaget and Qeelin. But they’ve gone further than the usual boycott by promoting competitors of Xiao-promoted brands, crashing Xiao-sponsored brands’ customer service lines, and pressuring those brands to end their collaborations with Xiao. So far, the Chinese Weibo hashtag #BoycottXiaoZhan has exceeded 3,450,000 posts and 260 million views.

Though Xiao’s PR team apologised on Weibo and urged fans to “be more rational”, the damage has been done. The idol’s public image has gone from pop-culture sweetheart to “lowbrow” celebrity with crazed fans in a matter of days.

As of today, Estée Lauder and Piaget’s Weibo profiles have been invaded with thousands of comments like “change the idol, or we boycott you”. And though no brand has taken the step of terminating their collaboration with Xiao yet, brands like Olay and Crest have taken product campaigns that use the idol’s image completely off their e-commerce sites.

Before this incident, China’s idol economies were known as a key growth engine that drives big spending on luxury brands. A collaboration with idol Kris Wu reportedly contributed 20 per cent growth to Burberry’s second-quarter performance in 2016. And over last year’s 11.11 shopping fest, Estée Lauder sold out US$1.22 million (8.52 million yuan) worth of Xiao Zhan-themed products on its Tmall store in only one hour.

Coronavirus: How is the fashion industry coping?

Chinese idols have hard core fan bases with highly organised operating systems in place. But unlike Western fans who look up to idols, fan communities in China see themselves as “mother figures” who nurture their idols and their careers. This desire to nurture leads Chinese fans to have unusually frank attitudes about their idol’s commercial collaborations.

They see themselves as accountable contributors by pledging loyalty and actively buying or promoting their idol’s promoted products. This helps measurably boost their idol’s commercial ranking. For example, a common way to earn respect in a Chinese fan community is to buy an idol’s advertised product, take a screenshot of the purchase, mark it with your username, and upload it to social media while tagging the brand.

But the idol economy has a sinister side. In the Chinese model of idol adoration, fans are the ones in control of the idol’s reputation and commercial worth – not the idol. And since fan communities are so actively involved in their idol’s brand sponsorships, it also falls on them to attack brands that they perceive to be opposing their idol’s interests.

In Xiao’s case, neither the idol nor the brands have done anything wrong, but things went off the rails because of poor fan behaviour. “Xiao Zhan’s fans have harassed others so violently online that they managed to kill a source of creativity and expression for massive numbers of people,” said a Beijing-based PR professional who asked to be anonymous. “This is an example of modern-day toxic fandom in China.”

But could brands have done better due diligence before collaborating with an idol to avoid issues such as these? And how can they intelligently and quickly react to a crisis like this? Another PR professional, who is from a Shanghai-based celebrity agency, said that the current scandal is a wake-up call for brands that have become too reliant on idols in China. “When a brand’s growth relies on a pop idol’s fan base rather than its core branding and products, you know this is unhealthy,” she said. “The fan economy only creates temporary buzz, but the harm it generates will last a long time.” And now, after a growing number of fan-generated crises, she also warned that companies should be cautious with indemnity agreements during the contract-signing process.

4 ways luxury brands are failing China’s Gen Z consumers

A risk-dispersion strategy of not putting “all eggs in one basket” would also work. “In recent years, many brands have learned to do short-term collaborations with multiple celebrities to disperse risk,” said Jerry Liu, a marketing strategist for a French cosmetic brand’s Shanghai branch. “But this strategy doesn’t work when the scandal becomes out-of-control, as the public doesn’t care if the idol has a proper contract with the brand. Once you work with someone, their image is your image.”

As an ancient Chinese saying goes: Water that bears the boat is the same that swallows it up. When fans go mad, the idol pays the price. But for brands, that price might be even higher.

Want more stories like this? Sign up here. Follow STYLE on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter .

This article originally appeared on Jing Daily