![]() Many starlets expect to quit after a couple of years, straining incubators’ business model. MC Tianyou was recently barred from his platforms for promoting drug use. The profane Ms Jiang has been reprimanded by censors. Given the influence of wanghong, some of the more risqué can run into trouble with the authorities. Many consumers seemed put off when Christian Dior, a French fashion house, hired Zhao Liying, an actress who had previously endorsed mass consumer brands like Dove. Like all branding, however, the influencer business is a delicate one. Other apps like Xiao Hong Shu (“Little Red Book”), a Pinterest-like e-commerce site, blur the distinction altogether. Alibaba hopes such integration will keep shoppers on its marketplace for longer (an average one opens the Taobao app almost eight times a day). A year ago Weibo launched a venture to support e-commerce wanghong and their incubators with consumer analytics and customer surveys it owns a live-streaming platform, as does Taobao. Alibaba has stakes in video-streaming sites such as Nonolive and Youku Tudou. Its success illustrates how intertwined online retail and social media are becoming in China. In 2016 it was already 15% bigger than the Chinese film industry’s gross box-office sales, Analysys reckons. The wanghong economy looks poised to grow. In 2016 Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce group and owner of the Taobao emporium, invested 300m yuan in Ruhnn, an incubator which was valued at 3.1bn yuan at the time and has since inked contracts with a few dozen influencers. They help with hiring designers, sourcing fabrics and finding factories. Dedicated wanghong incubators, of which China now has around 50, seek out promising candidates, help them hone online business models and act as supply-chain managers, as well as agents. Agents of changeĪn industry is indeed springing up to assist the internet starlets. But it expects the model to become an industry in its own right, straddling entertainment and e-commerce, and driven by online data. For the time being only 3-5% of wanghong follow Ms Fang’s entrepreneurial example, iiMedia Research reckons. By creating her own marque, Becky’s Fantasy, she retains full control of the quality. Part of her motivation, she says, was that the brands she endorsed did not always match the trends she was sharing with her followers. In November Ms Fang launched her own clothing line. Sales of goods accounted for just under half of wanghon g earnings of 53bn yuan ($8bn) in 2016, estimates Analysys, a Chinese market-research firm (the rest came mostly from live-show tips and adverts). They increasingly make money not merely from online endorsements or advice but by launching their own e-commerce stores. Whereas previously a company would look for a celebrity to match its image, wanghong and their admirers are shaping merchandise.Īnother challenge comes directly from wanghong themselves. This poses a new challenge for retailers, whose supply chains must respond ever more quickly to wanghong verdicts. The length of a dress might be decided by a survey of a wanghong’s fans its launch date might be based on the number of hits, shares or comments it garners, some of which can prompt last-minute design tweaks. Zhang Yi of iiMedia Research, a consultancy, reckons that up to 15% of sales on shopping sites like Taobao or social-media apps such as WeChat are influenced by wanghong endorsements. After the Communist Party’s anti-corruption campaign crimped sales of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s snazzy timepieces among its traditional older clientele, the Swiss watchmaker hired Ms Jiang for a video ad targeting young urbanites, including her 27m fans on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like microblog. Papi Jiang, a comedian, pokes fun at stardom and Chinese society in salty tirades.Ī few have been recruited by luxury brands. MC Tianyou raps about the hardships faced by other young, working-class men. “Pudgy Luo” is a middle-aged man who discusses everything from Chinese emperors to 3D printing on his talk-show. Some of the most successful are not especially glamorous. ![]() Unlike conventional luxury-and-beauty brand ambassadors, many wanghong have built their fan bases through compelling online content rather than a famous name. The fans are helping this new breed of Chinese internet star to monetise their popularity-and to shake up the country’s e-commerce industry in the process. Every day millions of Chinese trawl social media for wanghong posts or tune in to live-streams for opinions on everything from a French fashionista’s essentials to rampant sexism in China. Both are wanghong, literally “red-hot on the web”. Becky Fang offloaded 100 turquoise Mini Cooper cars in just five. LIANG TAO shifted 80 pink Givenchy bags in 12 minutes.
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