Hiring Jay Chou is working out great for that Chinese ecommerce company

Original photo by Archernar

Remember when Chinese ecommerce site Vipshop hired Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou as its “chief joy officer?”

Well, Jay’s role at the company still isn’t entirely clear, and he hasn’t been there long, but he’s apparently making a difference anyway. On Wednesday, Vipshop posted its Q1 financials, and they look good. Revenues are up to almost US$1.9 billion. Net profit is up 29 percent year-on-year to US$74 million. And active users are up 52 percent year-on-year to 19.7 million.

There’s a lesson here for the burgeoning ecommerce companies of Asia.

Yes, the company did spend almost US$92 million on marketing. And yes, sneaking ads into the popular TV show Ode to Joy probably played a bigger role than the addition of the king of Mando-pop in terms of Vipshop’s bottom line. But Jay’s star power never hurts. In fact, his name is featured prominently in the headlines of most Chinese tech news sites covering Vipshop’s financials. “On the backs of Jay Chou and subway ads, Vipshop’s active users grew 52 percent year-on-year last quarter,” Sina Tech’s headline blares.

So there’s a lesson here for the burgeoning ecommerce companies of Asia. If you need to boost your numbers but don’t want to sign a famous spokesperson, you can always hire them as a company executive. They don’t even have to do anything – the name association alone could be enough.