On the 21st of November, Prada launched its latest campaign with three players from China’s women’s national football team, Yang Lina, Chen Qiaozhu and Dou Jiaxing. This campaign followed the format of their campaign with 4 other Chinese women athletes early last year. Partnering with Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister app, Prada unveiled a fashion shoot video and 2 clips of the footballers interviewing each other.
Prada officially partnered with the women’s national football team in July, just before the FIFA Women’s World Cup. At the time, the media reported that Prada was in need of positive ambassadors since its then-newly named ambassador Cai Xukun was embroiled in a sex and abortion scandal. Many described the partnership as mutually beneficial, but some believe it was more beneficial to Prada, because of the positive image the women’s football team has in the public mind.
The dynamic shifted slightly as the women’s football team experienced disappointments in the World Cup, the Asian Games and the Olympic Qualifying Tournament. With their manager Shui Qingxia fired after the team lost to North Korea and failed to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics, the team and their supporters needed a morale boost. The Prada campaign was just in time for this.
The effort paid off as the reaction online was overwhelmingly supportive, with over 35,000 likes from the three videos combined, and hundreds of comments supporting the players and the Chinese national team.
On Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, the topic “#美自有力量#” was launched last year with the previous part of the campaign. It can be interpreted as “beauty comes from power” or “beauty has power of its own”. The topic has cumulated 110 million views as of November 23rd on Weibo.
