From Camel’s Spokesperson Marketing: Observing the Evolution of Communication Strategies

    At the end of the year, many companies start busy planning their annual marketing strategies, and quite a few renew or select new brand spokespersons. Although I’m not a professional marketer, with the dual goals of seeing beautiful celebrities and scoring free meals, I’ve attended quite a few spokesperson contract signings and launch events. I’ve gained quite a bit from them. I’ve felt anxious for those brands that spend a fortune but only manage a few photo ops and a brief appearance, and I’ve also been delighted to see some e-commerce startups really make the most out of their spokesperson marketing. Take that adorable camel, for example.

    Without further ado, let’s briefly analyze Camel’s spokesperson marketing and compare it with X Brand’s (my principle is not to hit people in the face) spokesperson marketing (which is actually just a spokesperson, with no real marketing), to see how e-commerce businesses have taken the lead in evolving their communication through spokesperson marketing.

    First, they drew public attention through David Beckham, then expanded that attention across multiple domains with the “Four B’s,” skillfully combining event marketing and suspense marketing within the spokesperson signing. With very little PR spending, they gained a huge amount of extra brand exposure;

    You can search “Camel Spokesperson” for plenty of press releases—I won’t go into the details.

    Of course, we could say this approach lacks integrity, but from Lei Jun (the “Lei Master”) downwards, as long as it doesn’t touch the core values of the brand, sacrificing a bit of integrity is a common practice in e-commerce—no harm done.

    X Brand chose a more well-known domestic celebrity, took several promotional photos, held a press conference, spent money to distribute two news pieces in entertainment media, and that was it. They spent quite a bit (the press conference alone cost over 1 million RMB, and the total spokesperson-related costs for the year exceeded 4 million RMB, but there was no effectiveness assessment).

    In the old days, a spokesperson was used to elevate a brand through their fame;

    In modern times, a spokesperson is also used to express a brand’s culture through their image;

    In the age of social media, a spokesperson should communicate with consumers from a brand-consistent perspective;

    How to communicate with consumers is another field of study, but the choice of spokesperson must be able to spark active communication willingness among the core consumer group.

From this perspective, when fame levels are similar, the spokesperson should have strong activity on social media (consumers view the spokesperson as an idealized version of themselves, rather than a fanatical fan or a distant celebrity);

    Now look at Camel’s two spokespersons. Han Han may be controversial, but he’s candid, loves challenges, and communicates with consumers through various formats such as magazines and Weibo.

As for the new spokesperson, “Bear” Grylls, he’s also an outdoor enthusiast who loves live-streaming survival activities on social media. “Bear” isn’t only extremely well-known in the outdoor community, but he’s also famously dubbed “the man at the top of the food chain” in China’s social media scene, which makes it easy to generate viral, meme-worthy events;

    If Bear himself gets involved in these viral campaigns, then for Camel, that would be a picture too beautiful to even imagine. Moreover, Bear has never endorsed a domestic brand before. The first time an international superstar endorses a “web-born” brand (Camel is half that, at least), and the first time Bear endorses a Chinese brand, are both great communication angles.

(Rumor has it Bear has very high endorsement requirements—wonder how Camel managed to pull it off.)

    X Brand’s choice of spokesperson: first, fame; second, price; third, looks.

    Let’s wait and see how Camel will leverage Bear’s influence, but we can definitely study how they made more of Han Han in 2013;

    Brand activities centered around the spokesperson (foreign brands are already quite familiar with this approach, but for domestic e-commerce, blending branding with promotions counts as semi-innovation);

 

    There’s a lot of room for improvement in both the domestic spokesperson signing model and how spokespersons are utilized. During the signing process, factors like the spokesperson’s social media reach and themed activity setups all need careful consideration.