On July 18, 2021, @FANCL Health Science posted a feed and a 15-second short video, officially announcing the celebrity @Leo Wu as its brand spokesperson. The brand also posted the topic # Leo Wu FANCLHealthScience brand spokesperson, launching the activity in celebrity endorsement marketing.
On May 8, 2021, @Swisse officially announced the stunning celebrity @Dilreba as the brand spokesperson on Mother's Day.
On May 31, 2020, @Cenovis announced Hua Chen Yu as the first spokesperson in the Asia-Pacific region. As an oral supplement, Cenovis launched Sugarless C for daytime vitality and Mega B for staying up late at night. The slogan for this topic is “No fear of day and night challenges”. Up to now, the topic has received 3.9 thousand likes.
On February 26, 2021, @Kun Cai released a video about one minute and thirty-two seconds long. The video was based on the theme of “luminous code”. The style was classy and minimalistic, with a modern and dynamic soundtrack. Even the silver-white hair colour of the spokesperson matches the theme. The meaning of the video is obvious, at the same time, a lot of contrast between light and dark in the video shooting is used to highlight the subject. To promote By-Health’s new product: pink bottle collagen, @By-Health Official Weibo also forwarded the post on the same day, officially announcing Kun Cai as the brand spokesperson.
The common strategy for online marketing: celebrity endorsements
In order to boost product sales and popularity, it is a common practice in marketing to invite celebrities as brand spokespersons. Celebrity endorsement refers to a marketing strategy that uses portraits or videos of celebrities and stars, to make the product widely known by the audience when promoted by a series of publicity carriers. The endorsement period is generally two years.
Here we will mainly focus on FANCL’s invitation in endorsement by celebrity Leo Wu (Wu Lei), and provide some perspectives about the influence of celebrity endorsement marketing techniques, as well as fan economy on the product.
FANCL and its “nothing harmful” concept
Mr. Kenji Ikemori pioneered the new field of “additive-free” skincare and established FANCL in 1981.
FANCL is Japan's largest non-additive skincare and health food brand. It is now a listed company on the main board of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Founded in 1980, FANCL has the world’s cutting-edge scientific research and production technology. It has developed beauty and health food products that are different from general skincare products, in which the first to contain no preservatives and chemical additives. The brand aims at eliminating skin problems caused by common preservative-containing skincare products. Hence, it occupies the world's leading position in additive-free products.
Compare and Contrast: Endorsement marketing strategies and effectiveness of FANCL and other nutritional supplement
Weisse, Cenovis, and By-Health, as nutritional supplement brands, all adopted the marketing strategy of inviting celebrities to endorse.
Up to now, the topic # Leo Wu FANCLHealthScience brand spokesperson has received 7498.6 thousand of views and 22.4 thousand of discussions. Besides, the topic # Dilreba swisse brand spokesperson has views of 2.88 billion and a discussion volume of 2189.8 thousand. While the topic # Kun Cai endorse for yep collection of By Health has received 6040.9 thousand views and 10.8 thousand discussions. Aside from that, the topic # Hua Chen Yu cenovis Asian brand spokesperson received views of 390 million and a discussion volume of 297.6 thousand.
The topic with the highest number of views is that Dilreba endorsed for Swisse. The official announcement of the topic’s endorsement on Weibo received likes amounted to 1.6 thousand. This is not only due to the brand’s constant review of the topic, but also the support by consuming of fans, which increased the heat of the topic.
(Distribution of the likes of the content of Swisse)
Most of the topics in the content have received less than 500 likes, which is attributed to feeds published by many entertaining KORs in promoting the heat.
Among the topics of By-Health, the likes are mostly attributed to KOLs and amateurs. The number of contents about By-Health’s yep collection is 833. While for the topic of cenovis, KOCs and KOLs account for 58.82% and 41.95% of the likes respectively, and the content of KOL is 456. However, due to the larger fan base of the KOLs invited, the amount of views for cenovis’s content is much higher than that of By-Health. It is noteworthy that the total number of KOL content is crucial in affecting the popularity of the topic, it is also important to choose the right KOL to match the promotion.
(Cenovis’s KOL data)
Highlights of Data
Among the brand's Weibo topics, the total number of likes was 483,217, the total number of reposts was 215,616, the total number of interactions was 778,736, and the media value was 778,736. The popularity of the topic has accelerated because of the videos released by Leo Wu, which also illustrates the importance of choosing the right spokesperson that meets the brand's tone.
FANCL reached its highest volume on July 22, 2021. The previous fluctuations are more likely to belong to preheating effect.
(FANCL’s Weibo volume)
The brand By-Health official Weibo currently has 281.8 thousand of followers, with an average of 5753 likes. Yet, the likes of the post about the official announcement of Kun Cai as brand spokesperson has nearly doubled the average number of likes, which is 1.3 thousand. This is due to the fan effect, resulting in the spread of support of fans.
(Leo Wu posted a feed for promotion of FANCL)
That the famous skincare and health food brand FANCL invited celebrity Leo Wu to endorse is a case in point of using the marketing technique of celebrity endorsements. Celebrity endorsements are a more obvious and eff ective way for brands to expand their influence and directly hit the fan circle. As a young male actor, Leo Wu has a broad fan base, as well as a positive and healthy image, which is in line with the brand image. Furthermore, fans are generally young and willing to pay for supporting idols, therefore this greatly boosts brand sales. In fact, not only did FANCL use celebrity endorsements, but also the brands we mentioned, including By-Health, cenovis, etc., all invited famous celebrities to endorse their brands and products.
