Should China’s idols really be brand ambassadors? Kris Wu and Zheng Shuang had legions of fans to promote to, but then came those scandals …

Aug 10 , 2021

Chinese “traffic stars” have been great assets to beauty brands in building fanbases, but with several of them mired in scandal, government authorities are cracking down and making their use more risky. Photos: 龚俊Simon; Guerlain法国娇兰; 范丞丞Adam0616/Weibo

After drama The Lost Tomb, Yang Yang got gigs with Armani Beauty, L’Oréal and Elizabeth Arden, while Word of Honour got Gong Jun work with Louis Vuitton

But scandals lost Wu deals with Louis Vuitton, Bulgari and Lancôme in a week, and Chinese state media has issued public pledges for a ‘media cleaning’ project

Tapping “traffic stars”, the Chinese term for hyped celebrities who drive high digital traffic, has made big beauty brands’ ambitious growth in China possible over the past few years. But now, after an explosion of idol industry scandals, brands and marketing agencies alike are rethinking the viability of this strategy.

In 2016, Guerlain took the unusual step of appointing Yang Yang, a Chinese actor who rose to fame overnight through the Chinese drama The Lost Tomb (2015), as its brand ambassador, even naming a lipstick “the Yang Yang shade”. The lipstick quickly sold out, and Yang’s massive base of superfans had to shop for the product with retailers abroad.

Yang Yang at a Guerlain product release event. Photo: Guerlain法国娇兰/Weibo

Guerlain’s experiment with Yang Yang, one of the first traffic stars in China’s new digitally-empowered fandom culture, ended the traditional celebrity hierarchy in China’s brand ambassador system. Its success showed that young, media-hot traffic stars are much more effective in triggering consumer purchasing decisions than Oscar-winning artists.

Since then, traffic stars who rose to fame via popular talent shows and TV dramas have become the go-to media strategy for big-name brands – in beauty but also in luxury, fashion and consumer goods as well. By 2018, over 40 international beauty brands switched their female celebrity ambassadors for male “traffic stars” in their marketing campaigns.

These pretty-faced male stars come with a massive young female fan base who are especially attuned to spending money on the brands their idols promote. Because of how fans see themselves as responsible for their idols’ commercial value, these brand appointments have been able to bring about both media buzz and immediate business results.

Actor Gong Jun was the face for Yves Saint Laurent. Photo: 龚俊Simon/Weibo

Fast forward to today and beauty brands have only intensified their strategy of fast-tracking these new traffic stars. In March 2021 alone, Armani Beauty, L’Oréal and Elizabeth Arden appointed Chinese rising star Gong Jun (chiefly known for his role in the surprisingly successful Word of Honour, a “boys’ love” genre TV drama) as its new face. Louis Vuitton has also worked with Gong on several PR events. In less than six months, Gong jumped from being a little-known actor to the most coveted poster child for the world’s biggest beauty names.

Fan Chengcheng, a singer who rose to fame from C-pop talent shows, is another example of how brands have quickly embraced China’s idol culture to fit their marketing agendas. With more than 25 million fans on Weibo, Fan is now the face of Givenchy, Christian Louboutin Beauty, Fenty Beauty and Shiseido.