“𝐃𝐨 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬?” - One of the big questions emerging on the back of Re-Hub's COMPASS Index.

The COMPASS index already tells us that brands which choose the 'right' celebrities drive engagement on Chinese social media.

𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐭?

Judging the ‘worth’ of a collaboration is a significantly subjective endeavor.

Ask the CFO – “did we make more than we spent?”

Ask a CMO – “what was the long-term equity uplift of the brand? Did we raise awareness?”

𝑫𝒐 𝒘𝒆 𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒖𝒑 𝒈𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔 𝒔𝒂𝒌𝒆?

Let’s make a simple (and flawed) model to see the commercial power of collaborations.

Taking a five day period surrounding the announcement of a new celebrity signing (-1 day > +3 days), calculate the total engagement on official Sina Weibo account posts (BGC), the total posts mentioning the brand (UGC), and sales on Tmall flagship stores.

Using this 5 day window number, we compare against a full year (1st April 2023 – 31st March 2024) and compare the percentage of Marketing and eCommerce metrics the collaboration drove for the brand:

‍Maison Kitsuné China x WeidaXun – 15th Dec 2023

UGC - 43.8%

BGC – 91.9%

Tmall – 2.9%

‍Michael Kors x JC-T – 27th Dec 2023

UGC – 25.9%

BGC – 42.8%

Tmall – 4.1%

‍Qeelin x Lay Zhang – 1st Jan 2024

UGC – 34.3%

BGC – 26.8%

Tmall – 4.7%

‍Lacoste x Wang Yibo – 6th Mar 2024

UGC – 43.9%

BGC – 84.9%

Tmall – 5.1%

‍Valentino x Yang Zi – 24th Nov 2023

UGC – 14.5%

BGC – 35.4%

Tmall – 9.1%

‍FURLA x Karry Wang – 12th Jan 2024

UGC – 17.2%

BGC – 15.2%

Tmall – 12.8%

‍Boucheron x Xiao Zhan – 7th Nov 2023

UGC – 41%

BGC - 71.4%

Tmall – 53.3%

Further, we looked at the metrics in the 100 days prior to the signing window and the 100 days after:

💡💡💡After the initial impact, and in all cases there was no significant impact on long term sales. Celebrities offer short term revenue generation potential on eCommerce.💡💡💡

But the social element is still important:

💡Furla was the most successful, due in large part to the relative obscruity of the brand on social before the signing of Karry Wang.

💡For Michael Kors and Maison Kitsune - they increased their social metrics between 3x - 5x. Likely helping drive traffic into stores and offline sales conversion.

💡For Boucheron, the impact is in the region of 2x. However, the overall impact during the signing window was overwhelmingly large that the ROI was already positive.

TLDR: Celebrity signings offer the change to significantly boost short term sales around the signing day, but the impact is short lived. The impact is directly related to the celebrity and their overlap with the brand, and careful strategy and analysis is required.This exercise is very limited in scope, and assessing it across a wider array of platforms and channels should be standard practice for brands.