The encyclopedia · Marketing & Brand · Marketing decision · 2023
Ambrosial's livestream host called boycotters 'braindead' — 2.4bn yuan wiped off Yili
As consumers pressed Yili's yogurt to cut ties with a tainted show, a brand-named host berated them as 'braindead bandwagoners'; Yili shed 24bn yuan in a day.
Yili Group · Ambrosial · 2023
What happened
Ambrosial (安慕希), Yili Group's flagship ambient yogurt brand launched in 2013, was a top sponsor of the Chinese talent show 'The Voice of China' (中国好声音) — a show that had just been dragged into a national scandal over the death of a contestant, pulling in its sponsors.
Consumers flooded the brand's channels demanding Ambrosial cut ties with the broadcaster. On 20 August 2023 a livestream running under the brand's name pushed back instead of disengaging: the host called viewers 'braindead' (脑残) and 'bandwagon followers' (跟风狗), said 'you not drinking suits us no skin off our back', and answered a comment with 'I am insulting you'.
On 21 August Ambrosial's official Weibo replied that the account behind the stream ('牛奶酸奶供应总仓') was not its official livestream, not a dealer or distributor, and that the host was not its employee and did not speak for the brand.
The verbal clash hit the parent on the stock market: Yili shares fell 1.37% on 21 August, wiping about 2.4 billion yuan off its market value. Rival Mengniu's Zhenzhen (纯甄) saw its own official livestream fill with the aggrieved audience, which the market openly mocked as 'wealth falling from the sky'.
Why it happened
- A stream trading on the brand's name answered a consumer boycott with abuse instead of disengagement, letting one host's words become the brand's face.
- The brand had no visible control over a channel that carried its name, so every insult reflected on Yili until it could publicly disclaim the account.
- In a boycott, the audience is not a nuisance to argue with but a crowd to be handled; 'I am insulting you' turned objectors into a rallying point for the competitor.
- Sales-led live selling staff were left to decide alone how the brand responded to a reputational crisis.
The lesson
During a boycott the audience is a crowd to manage, not a heckler to win an argument with. A brand-named channel must disengage when the backlash arrives — never trade insults on camera.
Aftermath
Ambrosial's 21 August 2023 statement put distance between the brand and the offending '牛奶酸奶供应总仓' account, but the day's 1.37% Yili share drop and roughly 2.4 billion yuan of lost market value had already happened. The incident became a standard case of how a single unscripted livestream exchange hands a boycott's energy to the rival brand.
Sources
spotted an error? The club wants to know.
More like this
Linyi Ge'erli sold a gel, a pad and gummies as cures in one livestream — ¥100k fine
Zhong Xue Gao sold 66-yuan ice cream to a 3-yuan market — from ¥4B to liquidation
China's 'first baking stock' ran 1,052 stores, then nine years of losses and a court
Somewhere, someone solved the problem this company failed at. 2nd Opinion →
Comments · 0
Sign in to join the comments.