1 Gu Ailing = 100+ popular headlines?

The hot topic that marketers are paying attention to recently is nothing more than the Winter Olympics, from Bing Dwen Dwen, Wang Meng, the Chinese women's football team winning the championship, athletes such as Wu Dajing, Su Yiming, to Gu Ailing, the top Winter Olympics concept stock who has dominated our WeChat Moments and Weibo hot searches, there are too many hot topics to catch up.

Especially for Gu Ailing, her sudden popularity was completely predictable. Before the Winter Olympics, there were overwhelming advertisements in major subways, buses, airports, shopping malls, supermarkets, Focus Media elevators, etc. Many people asked me whether the marketing was excessive.

Based on my keen sense as a brand person, I would answer: It is not that Gu Ailing bought marketing, but before winning the Winter Olympics gold medal, Gu Ailing had already been an endorsement harvester. Many brands were betting on signing this blue chip in advance based on their prediction of her strength.

As it turns out, after winning the Winter Olympics, Gu Ailing has generated 100 hit headlines on various media marketing accounts . If your brand has this strength, would you not choose her?

As can be seen from the above picture, the brands that Gu Ailing currently endorses have covered several fields including sports, skin care, e-commerce, luxury goods, automobiles, dairy, communications, home furnishings, etc. She is a veritable top-tier endorsement harvester, and can even compete with Lin Dan and Liu Xiang in their peak period.

Behind the topics brought up by Gu Ailing, not only is a rising star in sports endorsements rising, but also a youth storm in endorsement marketing has been triggered.

1. Sports stars become the favorites of brand endorsements

An obvious trend is that sports endorsements are leaning towards young new forces. Some new consumer brands have also joined the array of sports star endorsements. For example, brands such as Luckin Coffee, Yuanqi Forest, and Kiehl's have begun to shift from entertainment stars to joining hands with sports athletes.

From the perspective of brand interests, there are several factors that led to the decision to choose sports athletes over entertainment stars:

The first is the cost factor.

I have written in my book “Breaking Word of Mouth” that locking in stars with the potential to become popular, paying attention to their growth cycles, and cooperating with them during their traffic dividend period can maximize the benefits of cooperation and leverage large traffic with a small budget.

For entertainment endorsement fees that easily reach tens of millions, athletes are undoubtedly a cost-effective choice.

For example, with Gu Ailing's endorsement this time, it was a wise choice for many brands to sign her before she stood on the podium of the Winter Olympics. At this time, Gu Ailing's endorsement fee was definitely relatively lower than the current reported 25 billion US dollars, so this was a collective marketing "big gamble" by the brands - betting that Gu Ailing could win the gold medal in the Beijing Winter Olympics and become a new sports weather vane.

The result is also gratifying. With the support of sports events and new media traffic, Gu Ailing, who has become a top sports star, has a commercial value that is not inferior to that of entertainment stars.

Here, if the company can, I would recommend that brands pay more attention to and get to know some sports stars in the development period, or potential experience athletes. At this time, their commercial attention is not high, so the signing fee will not be too high.

For example, the Chinese women's football team won the Asian Cup during the Spring Festival, which gave the Chinese people, who had suffered a lot from the men's football team, a chance to be proud and happy. However, in the brand marketing campaign, only Alipay and Mengniu recognized the potential.

This just shows that the commercial attention of the Chinese women's football team, a potential stock, has yet to be developed, but it therefore has strong marketing potential.

The second is the risk factor.

In 2021, from celebrity idols to internet celebrities, scandals have occurred frequently.

For those brands or products that spend a lot of money to hire popular celebrities to endorse them, the money has been spent and various promotional marketing activities have been carried out. However, after a fierce operation, it is very likely that due to negative news about the spokesperson, the marketing and communication that the brand has carefully planned will be defeated overnight.

As for sports stars, due to their higher professional threshold and sunny and positive image, the probability of failure is very low. Some netizens said: The Olympics has severely revised its own aesthetics. The flawed skin, strong and powerful body, and unyielding eyes, the diverse and layered high-level beauty of these athletes have broken the public's inherent perception of beauty and idols.

Compared with the top stars who are like invisible bombs, Olympic athletes who fight for national honor are obviously a more reliable choice.

The third is brand rejuvenation.

Communicating with consumers requires a very important medium. Especially as young people pay close attention to sports events, the Olympics, sports, athletes and sports teams have become very important communication elements.

Brands with a keen sense of smell have also begun to open up the young people's market by leveraging sports to cross-border and establish a youthful brand image and attitude.

Take Gu Ailing as an example. She is a skiing genius, a fallen star, the heroine of a cool novel, a Stanford scholar, self-disciplined, beautiful, and daring to challenge. These labels attached to Gu Ailing basically satisfy all the fantasies of young people about idols.

In fact, it's not just Gu Ailing. In the past two years, many of our young athletes have also become popular spokespeople for brands.

For example, before signing Gu Ailing, Sankeshu had signed Wu Dajing as its brand spokesperson; Yang Qian, who won the Tokyo Olympics, became the spokesperson for the SUPERCHINA series under the clothing brand Peacebird; Sun Yiwen, the women's individual epee champion, became the 8th anniversary brand ambassador of Guji Mattress, etc.

Brands are keen on competing for sports stars, which also reflects a major shift in brand marketing thinking: from the past traffic thinking to brand thinking.

Brands are no longer simply pursuing ROI returns in endorsements, but have moved on to shaping brand image and long-term value.

2. How to conduct a brand endorsement marketing campaign?

What should brands consider when they want to sign sports stars or maximize the effect of endorsements in terms of communication? Apply the three points I summarized in the book "Breaking Word of Mouth":

First, in the selection of athletes, brand x star fit = depth of brand proposition delivery.

The cooperation between brands and sports stars is a combination of two IPs. The two do not bloom in isolation, but cooperate and win-win on the basis of matching tones. In addition to traffic and topics, communication must consider the CP feeling of the two more deeply.

For example, Red Bull, which signed Gu Ailing very early on, can easily form a strong association. However, for communication brands like China Mobile, it is difficult for the spokesperson to give the brand its own characteristics, so it is difficult to form a memory point on the consumer side.

There is also the collaboration between Su Bingtian and Xiaomi. One is the first Asian to enter the men's 100m final, and the other is the fastest domestic company to enter the Fortune Global 500. Judging from the temperament of the two alone, Su Bingtian and Xiaomi exude unique brilliance in their respective fields. The combination of the two can be said to be a resonance of souls, reaching the same destination through different paths.

Therefore, in the Internet age, a good spokesperson does not need to use too many words to explain to consumers. There is a natural connection between the brand image and the spokesperson.

The second point is to amplify the endorsement effect in terms of communication.

Many brands sign sports stars for short-term gain, so it is important to market in popular competitions.

First, there is the race for time. The athletes' warm-up before the game, the outburst during the game, and the heat accumulation after the game are all marketing rhythms at important time nodes. This is why we are surrounded by various advertisements of Gu Ailing in the past few days.

Secondly, it is the occupation of space . Elevators, CCTV, app opening screens, Weibo, Moments, core KVs, TVCs, and poster-related materials should be utilized well, and if the materials are uniformly replaced with stars, the brand temperament will undergo a subversive change, and the cognitive stimulation to the public will be stronger.

The third point is that content output must be personalized and differentiated.

Like Gu Ailing, who is currently at the forefront of traffic, there are more than 20 brands behind her.

When she has multiple endorsements, it also means that each cooperating brand has to compete for fans' attention in the same traffic pool. It depends on who knows how to play it better. At this time, it is even more required that the brand can have a very good and strong connection with Gu Ailing, that is, the brand and the person can be integrated into one.

If you don’t believe it, take a look at the article we reposted on “Baozou Brand Club” a few days ago, “Gu Ailing’s screen-sweeping appearance triggered a public relations competition among 30 brands”. Which brand did you remember?

Therefore, when it comes to content output, customized creativity should be created by combining fans’ concerns with celebrity characteristics.

A brand that has done a particularly memorable job in this regard is Anta.

In 2021, after signing Gu Ailing, Anta launched a new marketing theme #Beautiful by Movement# for the female market targeting specific groups of people, interpreting Anta's brand spirit of "Keep Moving-Never Stop" from a female perspective, and launched a series of women's promotion activities, emphasizing the sense of power and fearlessness of challenges of women in the new era.

However, the hot searches I saw the day before yesterday made me doubt Anta’s marketing again. Emm, it’s unnecessary!

What I mean is #Gu Ailing's down jacket makes her look slim#.

From the perspective of hot searches, to the posts with product links from a number of marketing accounts, to Anta’s voice, insiders can see at a glance that there are heavy traces of brand marketing.

After watching it, one just wants to complain: Is this the situation?

This reminds me of Gu Ailing's interpretation of the topic of "thinness":

Victoria's Secret has broken away from the marketing shackles of "white, young and thin", and a sports brand doesn't put health, strength and beauty on the public screen. Emmm, I don't know what to say.

Finally, what I want to say is that for sports stars to become the new favorites of endorsements, they only need two key supports: performance + commercial operation.

However, to become a top sports superstar who harvests brand endorsements, one must possess unsurpassed achievements, personal charm, and public influence that can break through the social circle .

For someone like Gu Ailing, being blessed by God is important, but the hard work and millions of times of training behind the scenes have made her the talented ski athlete we see today.

Author: Sister Mulan

Official account: Mulanjie (ID: mulanjie-)