DingTalk put 48 programmers in dresses for a sale promo — and deleted it in 30 minutes

On 16 June 2020, ahead of the 618 mid-year shopping festival, workplace app DingTalk posted a promotional video and poster billed as its 'treasure boys' campaign. It featured 48 male engineers from its developer ecosystem dressed as women — wigs, makeup, women's clothing — dancing to a viral dance-meme song to promote 618 deals through the platform.

The video spread on Weibo within minutes, but the reaction ran the other way from what DingTalk wanted: viewers called the cross-dressing routine a cheap gimmick that reduced gender presentation to a punchline, said it clashed with mainstream expectations for a corporate brand, and argued the shock content buried whatever the platform was actually selling. Some commenters flagged it as inappropriate for younger viewers who might see the video circulate on the same platforms.

DingTalk deleted the video and its accompanying post about 30 minutes after it went up. The brand's official account followed with a self-deprecating 'we surrender' post rather than a formal apology, and the campaign quietly closed. Commentators noted the irony: DingTalk's more anime-styled crossover content on Bilibili, aimed at a niche audience already comfortable with the aesthetic, had performed well — the same idea failed once it was pushed to Weibo's much broader and more mixed audience.