Girl group BLACKPINK member Jisoo shared a instagram post of herself in a Dior dress, winking her eyes. The single post garnered 237,000 hearts from fans worldwide, with comments like “Human Dior” and “Dior’s Treasure” flooding the post.
Pietro Beccari, the CEO of Dior at the time, once said, “If YG fires her, message me. I will take her,” in a fashion show held in 2022. Her influence as Dior global ambassador is astronomical.
Brand ambassadors represent the brand and play a crucial role in enhancing the brand’s name, value, and sales.
Dior experienced a significant increase in sales after naming Jisoo as its global ambassador in 2021. The sales figures soared from 3.255 trillion won in 2020 to a record-high sale of 9.305 trillion won in 2022. Additionally, the media impact values (MIV) of a single Dior Instagram post by Jisoo during Paris Fashion Week was estimated at $1.74 million by big data analytics firm Launchmetrics.
Jisoo’s fellow group member Jennie also generated MIVs of $1.9 million at the Cannes Film Festival in France last year. Luxury brands like Calvin Klein, which appointed soccer star Son Heung-min as its brand ambassador, and Louis Vuitton, which named BTS as its ambassador, are also experiencing economic boosts thanks to their brand ambassadors.
This phenomenon is driven by the rising number of young adults interested in fashion and luxury goods. Spending on luxury products by individuals born between the 1980s and 2010s has surged by over 80% in three years, rising from 178 trillion won in 2019 to 332 trillion won in 2022. This trend aligns with the fact that young adults aged 25 to 34 account for 39% of luxury brand Yves Saint Laurent sales.
Luxury brands are shifting the trend of naming brand ambassadors from American and European stars to Korean stars, primarily due to the high marketing effect of Korean celebrities. Marketing platform Lefty revealed that five of the ten most talked-about stars at Paris Fashion Week last year were K-pop stars. Moreover, while the Earned Media value (EMV) of Dolce & Gabbana’s partnership with Hollywood star Kim Kardashian generated $ 4.6 million, Jisoo’s appearance at the Dior show in the same year garnered an EMV worth $7 million, according to Launchmetrics.
