Why do celebrities compete to be the top store explorers?

In today's social media era, celebrities are no longer limited to the red carpet and the screen. They have begun to walk into the streets and alleys, transforming into restaurant experts and sharing their food and life experiences with the public. This trend not only makes the image of celebrities more approachable, but also brings new traffic and opportunities to the catering industry.

The end of the star is to explore the store?

Walking the runway at fashion weeks, competing at award ceremonies, singing on stage, and changing faces in film and television dramas are the traditional home turfs of celebrities, but these scenes that the public can only watch from afar always lack a sense of the everyday and approachable.

Rather than being high and mighty, it is better to share happiness with the people.

Female stars who act as socialites are easily mocked for being "too pretentious", while male stars who play the role of domineering bosses are disliked for being "greasy". Therefore, more and more celebrities have revealed their true nature as foodies, walking into small shops on the streets and alleys, vying to become experts in store exploration.

Kenji Wu served unlimited refills of gaiwan tea for 15 yuan in Chengdu, Wilber Pan created a unique way of eating with his family at the Puppy Noodle House in Suzhou and was named "Pan Wei Bo", G.E.M. Deng showed off the "most delicious" grilled lamb chops from Inner Mongolia in her late-night live broadcast room, Lu Yi and Bao Lei checked in at their hometown in Harbin for a full Northeast lunch for as little as 12 yuan, and Jeff Chang experienced the Guangxi specialty "sour food" in the streets and alleys of Nanning...

Nowadays, more and more celebrities are joining the store exploration race. What is the impact of the rising trend of celebrity store exploration? Will the public buy in?

1. Celebrities visit the store and become top stars upon entering

Recently, everyone may have seen the video of Lu Yi and Bao Lei's family returning to their hometown Harbin, showing off their Northeastern barbecue and iron pot stew in Douyin.

Lu Yi revealed to the camera with a pious look on his face that in order to taste the authentic Harbin barbecue, "I didn't even have lunch." A bite of crispy and fragrant condensed milk bread, a bite of roasted pig intestines that were crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, Lu Yi ate until he burped and held his belly, which also caused a group of Heilongjiang friends to stamp their seals and certify that "you can tell at a glance that it is traditional barbecue" and "Harbin sons-in-law really know how to eat!"

Opening their Douyin accounts, there are many kinds of store exploration videos, including sightseeing at the Louvre, visiting museums, and checking in at Harbin Tiger Forest Park and Central Street.

In addition to Lu Yi and Bao Lei, there are many singers like Jeff Chang, Kenji Wu, and G.E.M. Deng who, whenever they go on tour in a city, explore the local food and scenery.

Some time ago, Zhang Xinzhe's "Future Ultimate Edition" tour came to Nanning, Guangxi. He went to Nanning's mysterious alleys and showed off the local specialty braised pork and sausage rice and the famous snack "suanye". Wu Kequn went to Pingtan, Fujian to participate in a music festival, and did not forget to visit Pingtan Island to experience the local customs and people.

There are also actors like Wang Xun and Hong Jiantao who have even made restaurant exploration a second career besides their acting career. Clicking on their Douyin homepages is simply a feast of food from all over the country.

Why do celebrities, who were once high and mighty in the public's impression, now collectively visit restaurants and become the public's dining companions?

It seems conflicting, but in fact it is self-consistent.

Being down-to-earth is directly proportional to popularity. Stars who are full of down-to-earth tend to win the public's favor.

In the past, there was a clear dimensional wall between stars on stage, on screen, and the audience. However, short videos and live broadcasts have broken this dimensional wall. Eating, drinking, playing, visiting stores, and checking in, these scenes full of life, unlock the other side of stars who love life and are vivid and three-dimensional. They are no longer flat and alienated two-dimensional paper people.

A week ago, Zheng Kai went to Chongqing and checked in at a small noodle restaurant. Netizens in the Douyin comment area did not regard themselves as outsiders at all, "I have never been so close to you in my life", "I will take you to eat brain flower noodles", "I really want to treat you to the most delicious barbecue here"...

After Pan Weibo finished two large bowls of family-style mixed noodles for two people, "the store owner said netizens couldn't finish Pan Weibo's meal" became a hot topic on the Internet, and Pan Weibo also got a new title "Pan Wei Bo" on Douyin.

Looking at the videos released by celebrities, relatively speaking, videos of eating, drinking, playing and having fun in stores are usually the most down-to-earth, the most popular, have the highest level of interaction, the best traffic, and the most fans.

For example, the video of Hong Jiantao and his son checking in at Nanjing No. 1 Duck has been viewed over 10 million times. Such high views and high attention made Hong Jiantao very happy and surprised. "What does this mean? A play with 1,000 people is considered a lot. If a short video has 10 million people watching it, how many performances would it take?"

Since September 2024, Pan Weibo has released a total of 9 videos. The two videos with the top two views are both related to food. Among them, the video of visiting the Puppy Noodle House in Hangzhou has been played 13.62 million times and has received more than 345,000 likes.

The time when celebrities release store exploration videos is usually also the peak time for their Douyin accounts to increase followers. According to Feigua data, in the past month, Pan Weibo's peak daily follower increase was on September 30, which happened to be the day after he released a video exploring the Puppy Noodle House. He gained more than 13,000 followers in a single day, which was more than six times his average daily increase of about 2,000 followers that month. The Douyin follower increase trend of crosstalk actor Sun Yue also formed a clear peak after he released the store exploration content.

When talking about why he is so keen on visiting restaurants, Wang Xun believes that visiting restaurants and the film and television industry are complementary. On the one hand, if actors want to portray different roles well, it is important to experience life, and visiting restaurants is the best way to get in touch with different people and stories; on the other hand, as one of the important platforms for film and television promotion, the traffic and fans gained by actors through visiting restaurants can also be fed back into film and television promotion.

Between a socialite and a foodie, between a domineering boss and a restaurant explorer, more and more stars will choose the latter, and it will become the norm.

2. The public is happy to get a meal partner

When visiting stores, most celebrities rarely choose lavish consumption, but instead tend to spend money on affordable items that are down-to-earth and affordable to the general public. After bringing their consumption levels in line with those of the general public, celebrities and the general public seem to have become "dinner partners" who can eat and drink together through a video.

The video of Lu Yi and his wife visiting restaurants in Harbin shows that there are traditional Northeastern lunch boxes with a minimum price of 12 yuan per portion, Harbin barbecue with an average price of less than 100 yuan per person, and even grilled corn and sweet tangerines at street stalls for a few yuan each; the Puppy Noodle House where Pan Weibo checked in, the same dishes as the ones in the family photo are only about 100 yuan; a week ago, Hong Kong actor Zheng Haonan visited the Chengdu Jianghu Restaurant and the Malaysian Restaurant, both of which were about 70 yuan per person. After watching the video, netizens recommended to him, "Tongren mutton noodles, only ten yuan a bowl."

Under the Douyin video of actor Ray Lui visiting a wonton shop in Chengdu, netizens lined up to "get close to him": "Don't call me when you're eating wontons", "I'm eating noodles and you're eating wontons", and some netizens seized the opportunity to recommend snacks from their hometown, "Come to Xinjiang for wontons, we'll treat you to the most authentic ones."

At the same time, since celebrities’ restaurant visits are focused on delicious food and do not involve any advertising or marketing attributes, they are more objective and credible.

In short, celebrities' store visits have won the public's recognition by leveraging their wide influence and popularity, their purity and credibility, and their affinity for checking in at affordable stores. The public foodies' recognition, interactivity, and conversion rate of celebrity store visits are also generally high - the closed loop of celebrity store visits and public shopping has been efficiently achieved.

These store exploration videos have aroused the desire of many old diners to reminisce and repurchase.

After watching the video of Wang Xun visiting the Huainan beef soup restaurant in Anhui, a Douyin netizen was so hungry that some people ran hundreds of miles at night, and some drove for 5 hours, just to check in for the same dish.

The time-honored and affordable restaurants that have been personally certified by celebrities have also won the trust of new customers, which in turn has encouraged them to try new things. Many foreign tourists who have just arrived here are prone to making mistakes when choosing restaurants. When celebrities visit restaurants, it is like a strict selection of officials, so tourists can follow suit without making mistakes.

In addition to promoting and converting the general public, celebrity visits to restaurants also attract restaurant experts to follow suit and create a second wave of business for affordable restaurants. For example, Hu Zige, a restaurant expert with more than 300,000 fans, followed Pan Weibo's lead and checked in at the Puppy Noodle Restaurant in mid-October, which "can make Pan Shuai think about it for a year." The number of views exceeded one million, and the number of likes reached more than 2,000. Under the Douyin position of "Puppy Noodle Restaurant (Fuxing Nanyuan Branch)", there are also ordinary netizens who check in at the restaurant and attach comments, "I checked out the kidney noodles recommended by Pan Pang, it's so delicious"...

Celebrity store visits have also updated the platform's store visit content ecosystem. Store visit model 1.0 started with ordinary people visiting stores; model 2.0 added professional chef groups; celebrity store visits have brought store visits to model 3.0 - "affordable consumption + public perspective + high credibility + celebrity popularity". Compared with ordinary people visiting stores and chefs visiting stores, the celebrity's own popularity and store visit affinity form a very shocking contrast tension, which has a unique appeal.

The three store exploration modes are not mutually exclusive, but coexist and interact. For example, celebrity store exploration can also trigger store exploration experts to follow suit and create secondary creations, thus becoming the platform's traffic engine and topic lead, driving more creators to join and continuously enriching the platform's content.

In summary, the platform enriches the ecology, celebrities gain traffic, the public is happy to have "celebrity" dining companions, and celebrities' store visits are a win-win for all parties.

3. In addition to being a foodie, they are also cultural and tourism ambassadors

The time-honored brands and small restaurants that welcome celebrities to visit their stores are undoubtedly the biggest beneficiaries. Celebrities have become the stores' living signs, attracting diners and bringing about a surge in store performance. They also often put those small shops that were originally hidden in the streets and alleys on the local food lists.

In August this year, crosstalk artist Sun Yue released his first video of visiting a restaurant - "Sun Yue recommends Beijing Zhizi BBQ". After he visited the restaurant, the BBQ restaurant became very popular, with diners lining up in long queues, and the owner happily "complained" that "the staff were exhausted".

The influence of Pan Weibo's visit to Puppy Noodle House on Douyin has also spread to the entire Internet. On Xiaohongshu and Weibo, many netizens posted notes and checked in "the same style as Pan Shuai".

After many small shops were visited by celebrities, customers followed suit and formed long queues at the stores. One small shop owner even apologized to netizens on TikTok, saying, "Recently, due to the large number of customers, some places have not been well taken care of. Please understand."

If celebrities' store visits on their own are like casting a hook to catch delicious food, then the large number of netizens they drive is like casting a "big net" to catch delicious food. In the comment sections of these celebrity store visit videos, netizens from all over the country not only follow suit and check in, but also start to do the opposite, spontaneously recommending local shops and special foods.

Pan Weibo's Puppy Noodle House video section has now become a large-scale carbohydrate PK platform. Gansu netizens strongly recommend beef noodles, "Ramen 8 yuan, side dishes 2 yuan, beef 9 yuan, tea is free, I'm waiting for you in Gansu!" Zhejiang netizens strongly invite Pan Weibo to check in at Zhuji, "Brother, go to Zhuji Lizhao Noodle House, even those who don't like noodles will fall in love with it."

The linkage of "celebrity baiting + public casting the net" has also benefited more catering companies.

At present, the catering industry is experiencing unprecedented internal competition.

According to Tianyancha data, in the first half of this year, the number of newly registered domestic catering-related companies reached 1.347 million, while the number of cancellations and revocations was 1.056 million. A simple calculation shows that the net increase in catering companies in half a year was about 290,000.

Fierce internal competition and sluggish consumption have caused a large number of catering companies to hover on the loss line, and even the catering industry in first-tier cities has not been spared. According to the Beijing Statistics Bureau, the total profit of Beijing's catering companies above the limit from January to June 2024 was 180 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 88.8%, and the profit margin was as low as 0.37%.

Driven by celebrities' store visits and check-ins, the ripple effect caused by the public following suit and promoting the products in the opposite direction has brought valuable growth to catering companies and become a trigger for the development of the offline real economy.

These celebrities who visit stores often have a potential second identity – cultural and tourism promotion ambassadors.

Celebrities such as Chun Ni, Sun Yue, and Wang Yan often do a lot of homework before visiting restaurants. Their videos are not limited to recommending food and scenery, but also introduce local customs, culture and history.

For example, in the Qianmen Street check-in video released by Chunni in September, she not only showed Qianmen Street’s old Beijing specialties such as candied haws and century-old copper pot hot pot meat, but also introduced the cultural masters Lao She, Bing Xin, Lin Haiyin, Liang Shiqiu, Lin Yutang and others’ encounters with Qianmen Street, as well as the historical origins of Qianmen Street.

Using friendly store exploration videos as a medium, coupled with wide public appeal and vivid appeal, these celebrities check in not only to see delicious food and beautiful scenery, but also to subtly spread culture.

Food and sex are part of human nature. Eating, drinking and having fun have always been the basic needs of the public, and celebrities generally expect to have deep connections and high-frequency interactions with the public. With the superposition of subjective and objective factors, more and more celebrities are entering the market to explore stores. This is not a temporary situation, but a long-term trend.

As long as those small fireworks shops can control the quality and get the taste right, it is a well-deserved gift for them to welcome celebrities to visit their stores.

Written by Chen Jiying Edited by Wan Tiannan This article is written by the author of Operation School [Financial Story Collection], WeChat public account: [Financial Story Collection], original/authorized to be published on Operation School, and any reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.