---
title: "Wahaha's New Spokesperson Hsu Kuang-han Won't Solve Its Brand Rejuvenation Problem"
description: "Wahaha announced on May 31 that Hsu Kuang-han would become the spokesperson for its purified water and sparkling water products, marking a new chapter after ending its 20-year partnership with Wang Leehom in 2019. However, this change alone cannot address the brand's aging image and declining sales, which stem from deeper issues like product innovation, channel over-reliance, and e-commerce resistance."
author: "寻空2009"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2020-06-02"
language: "en"
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---

# Wahaha's New Spokesperson Hsu Kuang-han Won't Solve Its Brand Rejuvenation Problem

> Wahaha announced on May 31 that Hsu Kuang-han would become the spokesperson for its purified water and sparkling water products, marking a new chapter after ending its 20-year partnership with Wang Leehom in 2019. However, this change alone cannot address the brand's aging image and declining sales, which stem from deeper issues like product innovation, channel over-reliance, and e-commerce resistance.

Wahaha has changed its spokesperson. On May 31, Wahaha announced that Hsu Kuang-han would become the spokesperson for its purified water and sparkling water series. This means that after ending its contract with Wang Leehom in 2019, Wahaha has opened a new chapter for the brand.

The collaboration between Wahaha and Wang Leehom has always been a celebrated story in advertising history. They mutually benefited each other in the early stages of entering the market and continued their partnership for over 20 years. Over those two decades, Wang Leehom became, to some extent, a representative of Wahaha, and together with the brand's image, they became deeply ingrained in people's minds.

Therefore, when Wahaha officially announced Hsu Kuang-han as the new spokesperson, many fans and consumers found it hard to accept at first. On its Douyin ads, a large number of comments read: **"When will Wang Leehom come back? I'll drink only then."**

**In my view, if a spokesperson change was necessary, Wahaha's choice of Hsu Kuang-han is not a bad one—at least better than many brands that hire traffic stars.**

Hsu Kuang-han, born in 1990, may not have many works, but his acting skills are decent. Compared with traffic stars, his acting ability and potential have been recognized by the industry.

(Sunny)

Wahaha's official website explains their choice of Hsu Kuang-han: "Hsu Kuang-han debuted in 2003. Over the ups and downs of 17 years, despite constant difficulties and challenges, he has always maintained the purest original intention and passion for his acting career, which highly aligns with the simple and pure qualities of Wahaha purified water."

Indeed, there is a high degree of fit between Wahaha and Hsu Kuang-han in terms of temperament.

Nevertheless, compared with his predecessor Wang Leehom, Hsu Kuang-han currently lags in both fame and body of work. Most crucially, over 20 years of endorsement allowed Wang Leehom to imbue the Wahaha brand with his own qualities, such as "sunshine, purity, and strength." A sudden shift in this temperament is naturally hard to accept.

This is the reason why Hsu Kuang-han's endorsement has met with opposition from many fans.

**It is clear that Wahaha decided to change its spokesperson to achieve brand upgrading and rejuvenation, but this goal cannot be realized simply by replacing Wang Leehom with Hsu Kuang-han.**

**-01-**

**Wang Leehom, the King of Product Endorsement**

In 1998, Wahaha prepared to enter the drinking water market and launched Wahaha purified water. At that time, it was the golden age of television advertising, and Zong Qinghou, himself a marketing master, decided to find a spokesperson for advertising.

At the time, Wang Leehom was still a newcomer, and Zong Qinghou's choice of him carried some risk. However, Wang Leehom performed exceptionally well, incorporating his original song "Loving You Equals Loving Yourself" into the advertisement, making it widely known.

From today's perspective, the ad is relatively crude, but the copy is quite impressive. The line "Love you, so wait for you to love yourself" seamlessly connects with "Wahaha purified water," being catchy while giving the brand ample exposure. In those days, many people on the streets could sing a few lines: "Love you, so wait for you to love yourself, Wahaha purified water."

**It can be said that Wang Leehom's sunny image and his songs were the most powerful weapons in building the popularity of Wahaha purified water. Without Wang Leehom, whether Wahaha could have been so successful over more than a decade is questionable.**

When Wahaha first signed Wang Leehom, it cost only 200,000 yuan. After that, Wang Leehom became increasingly famous, but to show gratitude for Zong Qinghou's patronage, he did not raise his endorsement fee much. Rumors have it that the figure remained at 200,000 yuan, which was a bargain price in the early 21st century when Wang Leehom was at his peak.

Over these 20-plus years, Wang Leehom has never had any negative news or scandals. His sunny, handsome, and pure image has greatly benefited Wahaha.

In 2010, Wahaha's sales exceeded 50 billion yuan, and three years later, sales reached a peak of 78.3 billion yuan. From the late 1990s to the early 21st century, those were the years when Wang Leehom was most popular. If you say there is no connection, I wouldn't believe it.

**-02-**

**Wahaha's Midlife Crisis**

In December 2019, Wahaha decided to terminate its contract with Wang Leehom. At that time, when discussing why they ended the partnership with the spokesperson of over 20 years, Wahaha's PR director Zong Fuli said, "I don't like Wang Leehom... because he is old. From the consumer's perspective, the audience will experience aesthetic fatigue."

As soon as Zong Fuli's remarks were made, netizens immediately condemned them. Changing a spokesperson is a corporate strategic decision, and the company naturally has its own considerations. However, saying such things as "old" and "aesthetic fatigue" about a spokesperson who has contributed to the brand for over 20 years and has become a brand symbol is clearly not wise.

Look at netizens' comments to see how thoughtless this statement was.

When the media asked why Wang Leehom still drank the brand's water at his concert after the contract had ended, Wang Leehom responded, "I also grew up with it. I must be grateful to everyone who has supported me since childhood. I will definitely continue to support and drink it."

The contrast in emotional intelligence between the two is stark.

**Wahaha's termination of its contract with Wang Leehom reflects its midlife anxiety.** After sales peaked at 78.3 billion yuan, performance began to decline year by year. Data shows that from 2014 to 2017, Wahaha's revenue was 72.8 billion, 67.7 billion, 52.9 billion, and 45.6 billion yuan respectively, shrinking by over 30 billion yuan in five years.

For a company with a rigid system, when sales decline, it inevitably stirs things up. If there is no competitiveness in product innovation, then it will stir things up in promotion, starting with changing the logo and spokesperson.

**The problem is that without changes in products, merely changing the spokesperson is only a temporary solution. Replacing Wang Leehom with Hsu Kuang-han cannot alleviate Wahaha's midlife crisis.**

**-03-**

**Hsu Kuang-han Cannot Solve Wahaha's Brand Rejuvenation**

As a company founded in 1987, more than 30 years later, Wahaha faces numerous tests such as changes in the market environment, competition forms, and consumer habits. In the face of these changes, Wahaha's response has been a step slow.

Wahaha's revenue has been declining since its peak in 2013, and there are at least the following problems.

**1. Insufficient product and marketing innovation**

Have you noticed that over the years, Wahaha's packaging and design have almost never changed? The unchanged packaging and design reflect the brand's lack of innovation. Many people who drank Wahaha as children no longer drink it when they grow up because they find it "outdated." After all, products from the 1990s are unlikely to match today's consumer preferences and aesthetics.

In this regard, Nongfu Spring, which is like Wahaha's apprentice, has done better. Nongfu Spring's various new packaging designs have repeatedly won international awards. It integrates design elements into marketing, making every bottle design an event marketing campaign that attracts industry attention.

Want Want, which was established only two years after Wahaha, is also an old brand, but in recent years it has launched various crossover products, such as hospitals and airplanes, which are eye-catching.

Items like the giant Want Want snow rice cake and the 56-ethnic-group Want Want milk have brought this old brand back into many people's sight. Want Want has turned the image of the Want Want boy into an IP. In fact, Wahaha's little figure also has such potential, but it has not been well utilized.

**Of course, most importantly, the products have also been criticized for being knockoffs.**

(Source: Zhihu @大学生活杂货铺)

**2. Overemphasis on the role of channels**

Wahaha's success is inseparable from the important role of channels.

Data shows that Wahaha has deeply cultivated nearly 10,000 distributors, hundreds of thousands of wholesalers, and over 3 million retail terminals nationwide, enabling it to distribute new products to every small shop in remote rural areas within a week. It is said that **"in China, wherever there is a small shop, you can see Wahaha products."**

Wahaha's joint sales model based on channels has even been cited by Harvard Business School as a case of Chinese channel innovation.

As recently as 2018, Zong Qinghou still believed in an interview that the "joint sales model" was the mainstream sales model of the Wahaha Group.

For FMCG, channels are certainly extremely important, but in today's mobile internet era, many brands have begun to advocate de-channelization and become D2C brands. Some emerging brands, such as Genki Forest and Zhong Xue Gao, have made online marketing and sales an important source of revenue.

This is not to say that channels are unimportant, but rather that one should not ignore the trend of selling directly to consumers due to over-reliance on channels. Over-reliance on channels may be the reason why Wahaha has not produced internet-famous brands in recent years.

**3. Resistance to e-commerce**

Due to overemphasis on offline channels, Wahaha has also resisted e-commerce for many years.

In 2016, Ma Yun proposed the concept of "Five New" regarding e-commerce on a CCTV program. **Zong Qinghou responded, "Except for new technology, which is reliable, the rest is nonsense."** Later, Zong Qinghou also said: **"E-commerce tends to dump goods at low prices, which can disrupt the market. Therefore, in the end, business must return to the real economy."**

At that time, he still believed that channels were king.

In 2018, Zong Qinghou changed his attitude toward e-commerce. In an interview, he publicly stated, "We do not resist e-commerce, nor do we embrace it."

In April this year, Wahaha established an e-commerce company in Hangzhou and announced plans to build four e-commerce platforms: a health products e-commerce platform, a food and beverage e-commerce platform, a cross-border e-commerce platform, and a Haba amusement park.

It was only then that Wahaha began to fully embrace e-commerce, but it must be said that this has delayed several years. It is precisely because of Zong Qinghou's resistance to e-commerce that Wahaha lost a huge opportunity.

As a middle-aged brand, Wahaha naturally wants to achieve brand rejuvenation, but this is not a problem that Hsu Kuang-han can solve.

From product and design innovation, to changes in marketing methods and channels, to embracing new platforms like e-commerce and live streaming, these all require significant effort. Otherwise, so-called brand rejuvenation is just a slogan for Wahaha.

Source: Xunkong's Marketing Revelations (ID: xunkong2005)


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