The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2024
Yili congratulated Zheng Qinwen on 'silver' before her Olympic final — she won gold
Days before Zheng Qinwen's Paris Olympic final, Yili ran a 'congrats on silver' billboard test — then she won gold, and the premature ad became a national joke.
Yili · 2024-08
What happened
Yili had bet early on Zheng Qinwen, signing the then-unknown tennis player as its only true brand ambassador back in 2022, reportedly for over ¥10 million a year. When she reached the women's singles final at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Yili prepared a set of congratulatory billboards for the outcome.
On August 3, 2024, before Zheng's final had even been played, Yili's outdoor screens in Beijing's Sanlitun district displayed 'Congratulations to Zheng Qinwen for making history — silver medal in Paris women's singles tennis', alongside premature congratulations for Sun Yingsha winning gold in table tennis and Fan Zhendong winning gold in men's table tennis.
Zheng went on to win gold — China's first Olympic tennis singles title — while Sun Yingsha took silver. The 'silver' banner was instantly ridiculed online as a jinx. Yili apologised that evening, saying it had been testing the billboards in advance 'so that we can share the joy the moment the match ends, which led to the material appearing at an inappropriate time'.
Netizens did not accept the explanation. The misstep, nicknamed a 'poison milk' jinx, turned what should have been the highlight of Yili's Olympic sponsorship into a widely shared brand-crisis joke, and raised questions about whether Zheng herself would resent the blunder.
Why it happened
- Yili pre-loaded multiple outcome versions of its ads and tested them publicly before the match was decided, so the wrong version leaked
- A premature 'congrats on silver' implied the brand expected less of its own ambassador moments before a historic gold
- Testing ad content on live public screens — not in a sandbox — made the error visible to millions and impossible to walk back
The lesson
When your ad fortune-tells an outcome a day early, you gamble your brand on the result — prepare every version, but never expose one before the event is decided.
Aftermath
Despite the apology, the 'jinx' label stuck and the misstep became a reference point for Olympic marketing blunders. The incident did not end Yili's relationship with Zheng Qinwen, but it highlighted how a marquee sponsorship can backfire through a single premature creative execution.
Sources
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