Why Should Brands And Spokesmen "Break The Circle"?

In order to find a good and popular spokesperson, the brand is very busy, and the official announcement is even more timid. However, the feedback from social media is inevitably mixed. Unfortunately, it may even attract boos.

　 Why do brands always stumble on the issue of "spokesperson"?

Some people say that it is because the brand did not do its homework well, and only relied on the intuition of the CEO, creative director or a small group of executives to make this decision worth millions of dollars.

More insiders lament that the real reason is just the opposite. Brands often do too much and too detailed research work, so much that they almost get lost in the tangle of details such as the background of stars, staffing, fan traffic data, and benchmarking brand operation methods.

Especially in China, an emerging market with a large user base and rapid growth, under the balance of all parties, the dazzling "traffic" stars and young people's favorite fresh meat have become the "reassurance" that many brands seek help in various entanglements.

Unfortunately, the spokesmen so selected are often difficult to get the real users of the brand to pay. They either have no feelings for the "public face", or complain that their real feelings are ignored, or even feel that the brand is deliberately catering to social hot spots, overexerting, and losing dignity.

　　 What is the problem?

In the past, brand users were like sitting in the auditorium of the concert hall, concentrating on the soprano singing in the spotlight; Now, it seems that I am walking in the open-air square, in a carnival with ten thousand people reveling and full of floats, and the singing of street performers comes from all directions.

The relationship between the brand and the spokesperson (from soprano to street artist) has been completely subverted, and the scene where the brand "transmits voice" to users (from concert hall to open-air square) has been completely changed.

How to "break the circle" for the brands with spokesmen?

If there is no spokesperson for the brand, how can we "break the circle" to select people?

Is there a relationship between "broken circle" and brand?

"Breaking the Circle" Selection: Two Extremes of the Balance: Real vs. Virtual

Today, the spokesmen selected by the major brands under "careful" weighing have four "hidden meanings":

1) Overexposure, especially the use of "public face" in the same period of time - for example, popular supermodel Kendall Jenner received 22 different advertising endorsements in one month.

2) Its so-called exposure does not match the real interaction rate between users - there is no doubt about the exposure of American reality show star Kim Kardashian West on social networking sites, but the survey results show that a large number of consumers think her credibility is not high.

3) High cooperation costs and hard to quantify IP value

4) Vulnerability and risks hidden under seemingly perfect "human setup"

Fashion needs emotional connection with people, and concrete and IP worthy characters are always needed.

When the brand and users' trust in traditional spokesmen continues to decline, the true and perfect image is especially precious, but it cannot be both.

In China, due to the extreme development of social media and e-commerce, user attention and purchase behavior are highly overlapped, which directly leads to the deepening of "marketization" of the spokesmen. The results are obvious:

The division of labor of spokesmen is constantly refined, the number of people who can speak for the brand is increased, and the cost is reduced. New people, big and small, who are more authentic than superstars, variety shows, and powerful people in the vertical field, and KOLs who bring goods more directly have emerged in succession... making many "ordinary people" act as brand ambassadors, brand friends Even superstars on the Internet (such as the recently popular network anchor Li Jiaqi).

Globally, in the process of looking for a more authentic spokesperson, the brand even found a perfect "human design" brought by technology: virtual idol

"Breaking circle" employment: work hard from the communication scene

After the communication scene was subverted, the traditional "concert hall" marketing strategy of "advertising+attendance" is worth rethinking.

For example, the way that Gentle Monster directly curated the exhibition with Li Yifeng as the theme is more in line with the "carnival" scene,

Offline immersive experience is the DNA of the brand Gentle Monster. This Korean eyewear brand, which is good at creating space, is directly inspired by the childhood of star Li Yifeng. At the same time of his Dream Visit birthday concert, it specially creates an experience space for offline collection devices, multimedia and performing arts. The brand gave full play to its own strength in creating space, and satisfied the star fans' sense of participation in narrowing the distance from the stars to the greatest extent. By channeling them offline, it strengthened its awareness and goodwill of the brand.

Some outstanding new brands will also be more targeted in terms of spokesperson cooperation and launch strategy.

Compared with the huge investment of commercial brands, the internal and external NEIWAI team of China's original underwear brand spent three months independently completing the copy and creativity of the entire marketing plan (the shooting was completed by a professional team familiar with the spokesperson Du Juan), and customized the publicity campaign for Du Juan: "# You know my internal and external knowledge".

In terms of the launch channel, NEIWAI inside and outside also opened a new way, and all three video promotional films of the brand were launched through cinemas.

Liu Xiaolu, the founder of the brand, said frankly that the cinema is not the most cost-effective channel, but she is interested in the accuracy and experience of the cinema. "Our users will regularly go to the cinema to watch movies. We hope that users can see the best quality content and have aspirations".

Today's brands and endorsers understand that they no longer have "audiences" who listen quietly, but only "users" who want to be moved or interact.

　 The "broken circle" of the spokesperson: from endorsement to brand creation

Rihanna, a pop diva, has 70.5 million followers on her personal Instagram, and her brand endorsement contract is usually astronomical.

Now, her status in the fashion circle is no longer a simple "brand spokesperson", but a gorgeous founder of a brand - working with LVMH Group to create her own exclusive luxury brand Fenty.

It is worth noting that Fenty is the second new luxury brand developed from scratch by LVMH Group since Christian Lacroix, an investment designer, suffered a fiasco in 1987. Rihanna has also become the first black woman to take charge of the luxury brand under LVMH Group.

Speaking of this unusual form of cooperation, Jean Baptiste Voisin, the chief strategic officer of LVMH Group, said: "Rihanna is not the most famous person and has not the largest number of fans, but she has extraordinary charm. I believe there are other celebrities who have more fans and are very professional, but they are not Rihanna. "

It is believed that this move is also based on the judgment of LVMH Group from long-term observation and in-depth evaluation of Rihanna, not only considering her real interaction rate and credibility as a star with users, but also looking at her sense of responsibility and professionalism as an entrepreneur.

Previously, Rihanna has cooperated with LVMH Group to develop the profitable Fenty Beauty beauty series, and has also cooperated with German sports giant Puma to launch the hot sportswear and shoes series, as well as the underwear brand Savage x Fenty.

Rihanna said, "My fashion concept is different and non-traditional, because I am not a person in the fashion industry."

Similar cases include the launch of Haus Laboratories cosmetics product line by Italian American pop star Lady Gaga and American e-commerce giant Amazon.

Adidas, a German sports giant, also promised to help Beyonc é, an American pop star, restart the female sports fashion brand Ivy Park she founded, while retaining Beyonc é's ownership and control over the brand.

More and more spokesmen "break the circle", starting from "touching goods" and even acting as the brand manager, which is expected to be lucrative, but also means that they have to bear huge operational risks and opportunity costs - different from acting as brand spokesmen, building their own brand, even if backed by strong capital and professional team, it is difficult to sit back and enjoy its success, and they must invest wholeheartedly and do it by themselves, Take care of every detail.

Recently, Gorgeous Chronicle reported that Kardashian, a super celebrity with 143 million followers on Instagram, announced to establish the brand of body shaping underwear, but the product has not yet been launched. Just because the brand name is exactly the same as the English pronunciation and Roman spelling of the word "kimono" in Japan, it caused a public crisis. In a wave of opposition, Kardashian was forced to announce the brand name change.