Since 26 July, Kylian Mbappé has been a mainstay on Chinese television and social media for his advert with former Chinese hurdler and Olympic gold medallist Liu Xiang. The ad is for the lifestyle-centric social platform Xiaohongshu (RED), which Mbappé joined when he made his debut on Chinese social media platforms back in April.
The ad involves a call-and-response between Liu and Mbappé, standing on a balcony in Paris. Liu asks where he can search for different things, such as ‘small towns with good views but no crowd’, or ‘how to beat a defender in football’. Mbappé, in turn, answers each question with “Xiaohongshu”. The reason the video went viral is because the French captain’s tone in pronouncing “Xiaohongshu” varies each time with his Parisian-flavoured Mandarin. However, tone aside, many online find his pronunciation to be quite accurate and commend him for his effort.
On Xiaohongshu, the original post by one of Xiaohongshu’s official accounts Captain Shu (薯队长) received 15,200 likes and was reposted by many other accounts. The post on Mbappé’s own account, where he receives a panda plushie from Liu received 48,300 views on the platform. On Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, the topic “So Mbappé learned Chinese from Liu Xiang” (#原来姆巴佩的中文是刘翔教的#) reached number 41 on the Hot Search list with 24.2 million views.
The tagline of the ad is “Xiaohongshu – a lifestyle encyclopaedia for 300 million people”. To many, Xiaohongshu has become a search engine and browser, where users would go first when they want to search for something. From travel and local lifestyle to the latest recruitment, the app is becoming increasingly all-encompassing. It will be worth watching to see how Xiaohongshu will evolve after the high-profile TV commercial campaign to further raise awareness of the platform as a search engine across a much broader audience.
