OPINION: Brands in China increasingly put ‘bad boys’ to work in digital campaigns

Engaging with rebellion in China has traditionally been a no-go territory for brands. The risk of getting it wrong has always been assumed to outweigh any potential gain on the consumer front.

Notably, recent shifts in Chinese media have created a zone of ambiguity that gives brands a new context to engage more challenging social and political conventions. This is welcome news for marketers challenged by the increasingly sophisticated and fickle consumers in China’s larger cities.

Despite considerable commercialisation of Chinese media in the reform period, levels of regulation are still inconsistent and reactionary. As part of their New Year’s resolutions, the Chinese government announced plans to make local television “less entertaining”—closing down production of popular reality shows such as American Idol-style Super Girls. An underlying aim of the new regulations is to ensure that television is more “educational”, which means more emphasis on patriotic indoctri-tainment.

Increasingly lobotomised TV content is most likely to speed the migration of urban consumers to social media, creating more diversified online content. In this environment, more challenging points of view will find a welcome audience.

Novelist, turned super-blogger, Han Han, is a powerful example of emergent online culture and celebrity in China. With more than 300 million followers, he is undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in Chinese media. His mass appeal, particularly with the increasingly affluent post-80s generation, results from an honest and cheeky tone that invariably creates controversy.

While not an out-and-out democratic crusader, Han’s viewpoints can be seen as politically disruptive. He escapes the official attention afforded other artists due to his mass popularity and carefully crafted prose.

As more urban consumers turn to the internet for entertainment, the popularity of the literary bad boy is proving too good an opportunity for marketers to pass up.

Until recently Han has been reluctant to lend his image to brands. However, with a series of recent collaborations, he has been increasingly deployed to give brands an aspirational edge with white collar, urban consumers. Han lent his name to Johnnie Walker’s ‘Sentimental Journey’ campaign, where he helped the brand bring to life their ‘Keep Walking’ ethos for local consumers.

In the process, Han has set himself up as a bona fide spokesperson for the 1980s generation, someone who speaks the truths that everyone else is afraid to mention. This marketable brand image is now being taken up by household brands such as Nescafe, which recently engaged Han for its ‘Live Out Your Boldness!’ campaign.

As the anchor of the campaign, Han encourages Nescafe drinkers to “take their own road” and “commit brave acts.” He serves as a role model, supporting disabled athletes, helping to build a school and encouraging musicians to be creative. Han is the consummate “rebel with a cause”, clad in leather jacket and riding a Harley—providing a metaphoric conduit for office workers constrained by their environments.

While arguably tame from a Western perspective, the use of Han as an icon of rebellion is a strong differentiator in a category defined by fluffy office moments. For consumers increasingly shifting to the internet for inspiration, Nescafe captures a sense of latent idealism inherent in the post-80s generation.

Lynx—known in other markets as Axe—is another consumer brand that is tapping a sense of the bad boy in China. Lynx’s first brand ambassador in China is Edison Chen, the Hong Kong movie and rap star blacklisted after an infamous sex-photo scandal erupted in 2008.

Cleverly, Lynx has used Chen’s sensational past as a way to break consumer stereotypes. First, the impressive list of celebrities Chen bedded created the popular perception that he has an extraordinary ability to seduce women. This quality gives local expression to the inordinate powers of attraction Lynx promises to provide (think Axe’s claims on seduction). Secondly, male deodorant does not have a behavioural precedent in China. Blokes just do not think it matters. In this context, a rebellious figure is a perfect way to challenge consumers to engage with new habits.

Once again, as with Han Han, we see a “rebel with a cause”. This time, Chen is clad in a white coat, posing as a professor who reveals how best to deploy the secret formula to “get the girl”. For further instructions and tips, fans can download the “pulling babes bible” from the Lynx website.

An interesting similarity of the Nescafe and Lynx campaigns is they were predominately focused online rather than through traditional channels. As the online space in China becomes a medium in its own right, this is creating a wider set of possibilities for brands. The decoupling of media in China is coinciding with consumers who are becoming thirsty for engaging content that challenges and emboldens them.

As a result, brands in China have the opportunity to finally leverage their bad boy.