Chinese brands are "conquering" the Korean idol circle.
In the past, there were Blackpink's niche designer brands Rui and Didu; Later, there were NewJeans and Cfierce working closely together; Even in the just-concluded SBS ballad war, NewJeans wore a domestic brand Shushutong on the red carpet.
The cooperation between domestic brands and Korean idols has a long history. Since 2015, when Metersbonwe and Red Velvet filmed new product pictorials, with the continuous development of Chinese brands and the rapid iteration of Korean idols, the relationship between brands and idols has become more diverse and closer.
In addition to the active choice of celebrities, there is also the role of "middleman" that has recently emerged as a "middleman" for brands to cooperate with artists - they have opened overseas public relations companies to connect domestic brands with overseas celebrities and celebrities to complete the brand's going overseas.
Behind the close business ties, on the one hand, more and more Chinese brands have begun to pay attention to brand building and tonal building, hoping to find the "second stage" of the brand by going overseas; On the other hand, it also shows that domestic brands, especially Chinese fashion brands, have quickly achieved the accumulation of users and commercial revenue in a short period of time, and have the spare power to extend their marketing tentacles overseas.
Even though the saying of "huge profits" of trendy brands has been around for a long time, from the perspective of business relationships, trendy brands and users are actually a "two-way rush". In this process, whether it is a Korean idol or an overseas celebrity, the essence is actually the same role, allowing users to accelerate the perception of the brand, and understand what kind of story the brand wants to tell.
South Korean idols "pick" Chinese trendy brands, in fact, earlier than everyone thought.
In 2015, Metersbonwe cooperated with Red Velvet, which had just debuted for a year, to shoot new autumn pictorials. At this time, the cooperation with Korean idols was still relatively traditional, and the spread was almost limited to the fandom layer.
In 2020, with the rise of social networks such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin, the cooperation between domestic brands and Korean idols will be more diverse and more "out of the circle". For example, Sincethen, a domestic brand that focuses on vacation and leisure style, quickly went out of the circle on Xiaohongshu with the upper body pictures of Blackpink, (G)i-Dle, and Red Velvet.
As a domestic brand, Sincethen not only takes advantage of idols, but also sets up an exclusive line "GUKA" in South Korea to recruit Korean designers and set up a studio, providing styling clothes for Korean idols for many years, which is a great test of the manager's resource accumulation and scheduling ability. Therefore, although Sincethen was out of the circle at the time, it seemed to be single-handed.
Soon, there were new entrants.
The following year, the designer brand Shushutong, which focuses on sweet and cool style, swept the Korean idol circle, which is a brand established in 2015 by designers Lei Liushu and Jiang Yutong, who graduated from the London College of Fashion. Xuanmei quickly went up, Somi's new song MV wore it, and Jennie also wore Shushutong to attend brand events.
Compared with Sincethen, there are many differences between the shushutong of "Chuang Han". First of all, Shushutong is positioned as a niche designer brand; Secondly, the average price of shushutong single products is four digits, and ** is more expensive; Finally, the best occasions of idols have also become more "grand" from pictorial shooting to attending events and shooting MVs.
Korean idols' love for shushutong has continued to this day. On the red carpet of the just-concluded SBS Song War, all members of NewJeans appeared in Shushutong; Red Velvet also went full on the stage at the beginning of his return; At the Cannes Film Festival, Jennie also chose Shushutong again.
Not only shushutong, but since last year, many domestic brands have begun to appear on Korean idols, and their styles have become more diversified.
For example, Rui and Didu, who like hollow and bare skin designs, are frequently picked by BLACKPINK; The visually expressive Windowsen appears in NewJeans' MV; Yueqi Qi, who deconstructs and expresses traditional Chinese culture with heavy craftsmanship, has become Lisa's solo robe at the Coachella ** Festival.
Although these brands have different styles, most of them are "famous".
Zhou Rui, the owner of Rui, was the first Chinese designer to be shortlisted for the LVMH Prize, and finally won the Special Jury Prize at the 2021 Karl Lagerfeld Prize. The founder of Windowsen, Leesensen, studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and provided costumes for Lady Gaga's concerts; Yueqi Qi, the manager of Yueqi Qi, graduated from **San Martin, Liu Wen and Naomi Watanabe have all been on their brand products.
Judging from the past development of these brands and the partners they work with, the cooperation with the Korean market is more like a common strategy for brands to go global. The other wave of Chinese brands heading to South Korea is in a different story.
The most obvious is that this batch of brands** is lower. For example, Aespa-Ning Ning, IVE-An Youzhen are frequently on the N dress, and the top three monthly sales of Lisa in its **store are priced at 598; The average price of Cfierce products, which works closely with NewJeans, is also around 100 yuan; The same blazer of the rookie brand Two Narcissus has also been priced at less than 200 yuan, which is more accessible to fans than international designer brands priced at four or five figures.
From the perspective of style, these brands are also more diverse, which also accurately matches the rapid iteration of Korean idols. The daughter girl style idol who lives in the mainstream is very compatible with shushutong; Fifth-generation girl groups that like to emphasize "girl crush" and "futuristic mechanical sense", as well as more personal expression, can choose Rui and Windowsen; The close cooperation between the latest generation of NewJeans and Cfierce has also made the ghost horse elf feel youthful and landed in the brand.
Even if the style is the same, how to make the product appear on the star is still a problem for most brands.
Generally speaking, celebrities like things and things are easy to do. For example, Windowsen, the most out-of-the-circle giant high heel series is very popular with European and American stars, Charlie XCX wears it to shoot MVs; Madonna, Paris Hilton, and Doja Cat have also expressed their love for Windows on various occasions.
But this is relatively rare, and it requires both the exact matching of the style of the brand and the star, as well as a little luck. But in the vast business world, professional hands are indispensable.
For brands that have survived the survival stage and come to the development stage, it's time to take this step. Xiaohongshu blogger, a well-known fashion ** person @王小彩 24 (hereinafter referred to as Wang Xiaocai) said in **. In **, she also simultaneously showed the offline showroom and PR agency she opened in South Korea, "so that more Chinese brands can be seen", Wang Xiaocai described what she is doing.
The role of this "middleman" requires a certain understanding of both the trend circle and the entertainment industry. Wang Xiaocai has worked in fashion for many years, accumulated a lot of brand resources and star contacts, and after starting to carry out the brand's overseas business, she released a large number of star-chasing ive-An Youzhen**, as well as the "cooperation results" to help Chinese fashion brands get on the body.
It is not difficult to understand the importance of the Korean market from the perspective of brand marketing. At present, there are generally two main purposes for brands to go overseas, one is to do tonality, and the other is to look at transformation. In terms of tonality, there are many types of Korean idols and fast iteration, which can meet the marketing needs of different styles of trendy brands in China; In terms of conversion, the Korean idol fan group is basically compatible with the audience of trendy brands, which can achieve cost-effective precision marketing.
Wang Xiaocai also said in **, "The same style is still the most powerful word to bring goods, which can allow the brand to quickly create explosive models and drive sales." Even if many fans don't follow the trend, when your logo and brand name are in front of fans for a long time, they have to understand it, which can achieve the effect of breaking the circle. ”
In addition, the Korean market also has its peculiarities, such as K-pop's broader and multi-dimensional influence. South Korea's developed industrial star-making system allows Korean idols to have more stages, and niche brands also have the opportunity to follow them on the stage.
In my opinion, there is also the possibility that brands need to endorse the Chinese market. Xiaohongshu fashion blogger @lexie Jiaying (hereinafter referred to as Jiaying) thinks so. In 2023, Jiaying, together with Huang Xindi and Zulmira Litip, co-founded "Flustra", a BASE New York-based PR agency that mainly helps Chinese brands with overseas marketing. The customers they have served are more "miscellaneous", including the cutting-edge trendy brand SMFK, the new consumer contact brand Moody, and the old liquor brand Shede Liquor.
In the process of communicating with many brands, Jiaying felt the strong willingness of the brand to go overseas on the one hand, and on the other hand, it did encounter problems and difficulties in the overseas business.
First of all, the brand does have demand, but the demand is not clear, whether to establish tonality or seek conversion, many brands themselves have not figured it out, "it seems that everyone does not know much about the overseas market, and does not know what role they play in it", Jiaying believes.
Behind this "ignorance", in essence, there is a marketing differentiation between the two markets. In Jiaying's view, the domestic brand marketing system is relatively complete, and the platform transformation represented by Douyin and Xiaohongshu is also very mature.
Basically no one looks at the ** on the IG for more than 40 seconds, so it can basically only be implanted in a short and flat way. If you want to tell a brand story, you have to go to YouTube, and the platform has a very clear division of labor. Jiaying said, "And most of the brands that came to me wanted to give it a try." ”
This in turn brings us to a more important issue – the budget. The budget of finding Jiaying's cooperative brand is more or less, but the essence is that they are not familiar with the market and resources. An example that is popular among overseas PR companies is that a few years ago, a well-known domestic clothing brand had an 8-figure overseas marketing fee, but the final launch platform was Google and Facebook, which is confusing.
Even if the budget is more or less, most of the brands that go overseas for marketing are still "rich".
Taking trendy brands as an example, as an emerging track, trendy brand consumption has not been developing in China for a long time. According to the "China Trendy Brand User Trend Report", domestic trendy brand consumption only began to emerge in 2015, but continued to usher in high growth in the following three years.
This growth is not unrelated to the emergence of trendy content in the cultural market. In 2017, the popularity of "China Has Hip Hop" directly ignited the public's attention and consumption enthusiasm for trendy brands, and variety shows such as the first and second seasons of "Trend Partner", which was launched in the year, continued to push trendy brands to the public eye. "The Development of China's Trendy Consumption*** also shows that in 2020, Chinese young people have contributed nearly 400 billion yuan to trendy brands.
Behind the high profit is the low cost. Most trendy brands focus on the clothing track, which is also a well-known profiteering industry, and the general selling price can reach 6-7 times the cost, and trendy brands will be even worse. Taking the most common single item of fashion brand - cotton short sleeves as an example, according to textile engineers in the industry, the fabric cost of this single product is 25 yuan, plus accessories and workmanship, the total cost can be reduced within 50 yuan, but the pricing can basically reach more than 7 times the cost price.
Therefore, even if the trendy brands that break into South Korea do not seem to be so expensive, they are actually making a lot of money, which is also an important reason for being able to extend their tentacles overseas for marketing.
Although they are notoriously profitable, trendy brands are never short of people to pay. For brands and users, trendy brands have the importance of transcending the product itself.
For example, although some trendy brands have ordinary fabrics, they emphasize the sense of design, which also leads to higher added value of products, and the initial input cost and manpower energy are greater; In addition, compared with mass brands, trendy brands are aimed at a more circular audience, and managers and designers also need to use their own aesthetic concepts to produce products that meet the needs of users.
The more important reason is that compared with other brands, the audience of fashion brands will have more layers of filters, and most of the time this filter comes from the owners, and even luxury brands have noticed this trend and strengthened their connections with the owners of fashion brands. For example, Kenzo invited Nigo, the godfather of Japanese fashion, to take charge, and Virgil Abloh, the founder of Off-Whiite, also served as the artistic director of LV**.
In recent years, there are also domestic celebrities who have taken a fancy to the two-way bonus between the manager and the trendy brand, and opened a personal brand. For example, Wang Hedi's personal brand ddesirable, Wang Jiaer's personal fashion brand TeamWang, William Chan's personal fashion brand Canotwait, Bai Jingting's personal fashion brand GoodBai and Ouyang Nana's personal fashion brand Nabi.
This can also explain from another angle why domestic fashion brands want to advertise Korean idols. In addition to being more cost-effective, the users behind it are more consistent and accurate, the more important factor is that the industrial system of domestic entertainment and Korean entertainment is different, and Korean idols are highly professional, with a high degree of excellence, fast iteration, but low degree of freedom, which is closer to a perfect product.
And when a product finds another "product" to advertise, to a certain extent, what is actually completed is a precise but cruel "two-way rush".