Haier is one of, if not the best-known electrical appliance brands in China. The chairman and CEO Zhou Yunjie (周云杰) of Haier recently became another executive-cum-influencer à la Lei Jun of Xiaomi. In fact, his viral popularity is also in part thanks to Lei. Over on Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, after a long sabbatical, Zhou is now one of the biggest stars on the platform.
During the “Two Sessions” earlier this year, the pair were filmed attending the same event. However, Zhou’s diminutive stature, low profile and stoic presence were in stark contrast with Lei’s confident smile. The comparison lit up the internet as netizens saw themselves in Zhou, the “introvert engineer”. Haier quickly seized the opportunity to make their boss a meme, making #zhouyunjie# a hot topic on Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister app, with 250 million views. However, the man of the hour, Zhou Yunjie of Haier, is only seen with a post on his WeChat Moment (a private platform for mutuals only).
On 21 March, the low-key executive finally rejoined Weibo and also joined the lifestyle platform Rednote. On Weibo, the topic “Haier boss back on Weibo:” (#海尔老总回归微博#) reached number 11 on the Hot Search list with 87.91 million views. On the other hand, the topic “Haier boss really debuted with group” (#海尔老总真组团出道了#, “组团出道” or debut with a group is a boy band lingo and means debuting on social media here).
Pundits find that Zhou is different as an entrepreneur influencer from earlier Gen 1, characterised by “deification” and worship and Gen 2, known as “man of the people” type of CEOs. Instead, he represents a new “co-created” influencer/IP, basing his online persona on user-generated memes. As Haier aims to diversify from an appliance maker to an “ecosystem” brand, it is also building an “ecosystem” on social media.
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