From coconut trees to hawthorn trees, why has “male sex marketing” become so popular?

Nowadays, male sex marketing has become the traffic code of brands. On Douyin, the "masculine cross-dressing" videos of tea brands have accumulated more than 2 billion exposures. From coconut trees to Wangshanzha, how did "male sex marketing" become so popular? This article analyzes this, let's take a look.

Who would have thought that "male sex marketing" is becoming the new traffic code in the brand industry.

Recently on the TikTok platform, the topic of macho cross-dressing launched by a tea brand has received more than 2 billion exposures in total.

The protagonists of these videos are mostly handsome muscular men, holding milk tea in different postures. But without exception, they all show off their bodies in the videos.

The "male beauty marketing war" is not only hot online, but also offline. With the frequent appearance of male model restaurants and macho hot pot restaurants, the trend of brands using "male beauty" marketing is becoming more and more obvious.

Why did "male sex marketing" become so popular? How can brands take advantage of it and avoid pitfalls?

1. “Male sex marketing” is booming. Who is the winner in this business war?

Speaking of the recently popular "male beauty marketing", Shuyi Roasted Herbal Jelly and Wang Shanzha are two names that cannot be avoided. In fact, they are also the initiators of this wave of "male beauty marketing war".

In July this year, Shuyi Herbal Jelly took the lead in launching a promotional campaign on Douyin - "I Love He Shuyi", inviting all Internet users to share their creative videos of drinking milk tea.

In order to stir up the topic, Shuyi Shaoxiancao specially invited a group of handsome male bloggers to shoot several cross-dressing videos showing off their bodies.

It is not difficult to see from the data and comments that netizens like Shuyi’s “fancy” operation of roasted grass jelly.

Not only did the number of views of many videos exceed one million, but the comments section also received a lot of praise. For example, one netizen said, "Shu Yi is really good, I bought it."

Under the leadership of Shuyi Herbal Jelly, more and more tea brands have chosen to join the army of "male sex marketing", and the most popular one among them is Wangshanzha.

The cause of the incident was that Wangshanzha officially announced its collaboration with Gong Lingna on the new song "Gong Lin Spicy", and launched the #Eat spicy food and drink Wangshanzha# joint challenge on Douyin.

At first, the topic was full of normal magical dance videos. However, after just a few days, the style suddenly changed and gradually went down the path of "borderline" and never returned.

A group of muscular men with hot bodies, holding hawthorns in their hands, took off their shirts while drinking in front of the camera, and then began to show off their abdominal muscles, pectoral muscles, and biceps from various angles.

Not only do the handsome guys have good figures, but the types are also extremely diverse, including the temptation in uniform, handsome guys in sunglasses, younger students... The ever-changing styles perfectly capture the aesthetic tastes of different female consumers.

So far, the topic has accumulated 440 million views, far exceeding the 240 million views of Shu Yi's "Dress Up Challenge". From the perspective of marketing communication, Wang Shanzha is obviously the bigger winner.

However, in the field of "male sex marketing", Wangshanzha may only be considered a junior. If we really want to trace the origin, Coconut Tree is the originator.

In March this year, Coconut Tree Group tried "Macho Live" on Douyin for the first time. The live broadcast room was full of handsome men with a height of over 180cm, healthy and sunny, and with abdominal muscles. The first show received nearly 100,000 views.

By a live broadcast on March 18, Coco Tree had garnered 2.56 million views, and its traffic was soaring.

Not only that, Coco Tree also responded to netizens' "orders" and launched new activities such as "dress-up games, live broadcast of shaving legs", etc.

Since Coco Tree broadcasts at irregular intervals, users will even spread the word on social platforms, record screens and edit clips, and advertise for Coco Tree on the spot.

"Male model live broadcast" has become a phenomenal topic in 2023, frequently appearing on hot searches, and has brought huge traffic to Coco Tree.

In its first Taobao Live show in May, the total number of views exceeded 700,000 and the number of likes reached 116,000.

Coco Tree even took the opportunity to put "disco tickets" for the live broadcast room on sale, with a starting price of 50 yuan. The winning netizen could dance with the model group in the live broadcast room for 30 seconds. In the end, the ticket was sold at a high price of more than 80,000 yuan .

In addition to the brand officials, many "wild" merchants have also smelled the business opportunity and worked hard on "male beauty". Those who sell apples and citrus fruits have come out to show their "masculine charm" in the live broadcast, which brings a steady stream of orders.

Of course, "male sex marketing" is not a panacea, and it also tests the brand's grasp of scale.

2. “Male sex marketing” is risky, and brands need to strike a balance.

Although "male beauty" can bring a lot of traffic and exposure to a brand, there are also many cases where it has failed.

For example, the century-old brand KFC was controversial because of a Mother's Day advertisement. In this advertisement, KFC's classic IP image Colonel Sanders was transformed from an old grandfather into a suave uncle.

At the beginning of the video, Colonel Sanders and a group of muscular men cordially send their blessings to the mothers. Then, they start dancing, first tearing off their shirts, then taking off their pants, until they are left with only a pair of underwear.

Finally, all the actors jumped into the KFC family bucket together and shouted loudly: "Happy Mother's Day!"

As expected, this KFC ad successfully aroused the disgust of the audience. In the comment section, netizens clicked on it:

It's hard to explain. I don't want to eat KFC anymore... Is your ad content getting worse, or has your account been hacked? As a family-friendly fast food restaurant, do you think this kind of ad is appropriate?

In the end, KFC’s “well-intentioned” efforts were a complete failure. Not only did the cost of filming the commercial go down the drain, but the brand even had to come out to do public relations to explain its actions. Judging from the results, this “male sex marketing” was undoubtedly a failure.

ORA understands KFC’s pain best.

At this year's Shanghai Auto Show, ORA Auto invited a group of muscular men to perform boxing to attract attention.

However, compared with the previously popular Coconut Tree male model, the Ola male model seemed to lack a sense of conviction. Not only were his boxing movements loose, but his expression was also awkward and confused.

Seeing that the atmosphere on the scene was not as good as expected, the organizers decided to "step up the intensity" and invited the audience to come on stage, dip their hands in paint, and then graffiti on the T-shirts on the chests of the male models.

However, this straightforward show of goodwill not only failed to win praise, but instead caused controversy online.

In the view of some netizens, male models and female models need to be respected. If the gender is changed, it is a naked sexual harassment.

Moreover, the action of "touching chest muscles" cannot show the performance or selling point of the product. The activity of Euler Automobile, "rubbing for the sake of rubbing", gives people an offensive feeling.

What’s worse, it not only brings negative reputation to the company, but also touches on laws and regulations.

From April to July this year, many tourists reported that a restaurant in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan hired several men to feed consumers mouth-to-mouth in the restaurant, and performed provocative actions such as licking the penis and twisting the hips to the consumers, with minors watching on the scene.

After filing a case for investigation, the Yunnan Tourism Bureau plans to order the restaurant to stop performing and impose a fine. They originally wanted to earn traffic, but in the end they ruined themselves.

From the above-mentioned negative cases, it is not difficult to draw the following conclusion: although “male sex marketing” can usually impress female consumers quickly and easily, it is by no means a panacea .

When a brand chooses to engage in "male sex marketing", it needs to consider whether its own user group is suitable for this type of marketing, and it also needs to grasp the expression method and scale.

Don’t just go for traffic for traffic’s sake. As the saying goes, water can carry a boat, but it can also capsize it.

3. The prevalence of male sex marketing

The essence is the rise of "her economy" . Since "male sex marketing" has considerable risks, why are there still so many brands rushing to do it?

The reason is easy to understand, that is the rise of the "she economy" .

The report "Pleasuring Yourself, Her Upward Power and Realizing Her Economy" released by Tianyancha last year showed the huge size of China's female consumer market, which covers multiple industries such as medical beauty, maternal and child care, and financial management. The overall market size has exceeded 10 trillion.

As of now, there are 4.929 million she-economy-related enterprises in China, and 3/4 of them were established within 5 years. The number of newly registered enterprises in 2021 was 1.3 million, with an annual registration growth rate of 21.8% .

Image source: Tianyancha

The growth in the size of the female consumer market is driven by the continued growth in consumption desire among women.

In the past two years, a "purchasing power ranking" has gone viral online: women>children>dogs>men. Although this list is somewhat of a joke, it is an indisputable fact that "women have strong purchasing power."

As female consumers move to the top of the consumption chain, the marketing strategies of businesses have also changed. In order to attract women, businesses have decided to cater to their preferences and engage in "male sex marketing".

Movie Barbie is also a form of "female marketing"

From initially inviting popular male stars to endorse women's products to now openly selling "male beauty" in live broadcast rooms.

The two methods are different, but in essence they both focus on the purchasing power of the female group and hope to connect the brand and users by catering to female aesthetics, thereby achieving product marketing benefits.

For example, Yang Yang endorsed Guerlain lipstick KISSKISS (color number 344). As soon as the promotion came out, female fans rushed to buy it, and sales increased by 300% instantly.

Before that, Olay officially announced Xiao Zhan, Origins signed Wang Yibo, and Li Xian endorsed Estee Lauder. These are all typical examples of brands taking advantage of the "love the house and love the dog" mentality of female consumers by bundling celebrities with products.

It is almost certain that as women’s purchasing power continues to rise, the number of brands engaging in “male sex marketing” will only increase for a long time to come.

I just don’t know, when this type of marketing becomes increasingly homogenized, how long will female consumers continue to pay for “male beauty”?

IV. Conclusion

The so-called "marketing" means that marketing is a means and sales are the result.

When it comes to "male beauty" marketing, although it may bring attention and traffic to a company in a short period of time, it is only a temporary phenomenon.

No matter how innovative the marketing strategy is, if the focus is not on product quality and customer experience, the value of marketing will be short-lived.

To establish long-term brand influence, the foundation of the brand needs to be built on excellent product quality. Only when the product is strong enough can the conversion of traffic to sales be achieved, thus standing out in the fiercely competitive market and winning a lasting business position.

Author: Yan Tao, WeChat public account: Yan Tao Sanshou