China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
KFC China’s Psyduck Toy is a Viral Hit
As Psyduck goes viral, KFC Children’s Day toys are deemed “too childish for children but just perfect for us adults.”

Published
1 year agoon

American fast-food chain KFC recently introduced three new Pokémon toys to go with its kids’ meals in various regions across China, with one of the toys, in particular, becoming a viral hit: Psyduck (可达鸭).
The new Pokémon toys were introduced on May 21st to celebrate Children’s Day (June 1). As reported by Shanghai Daily, the toys are randomly distributed in Children’s Day meals and will be released in different regions at different times.
Psyduck is a yellow duck-like Pokémon that is known to be confused because it’s bothered by headaches. One of the reasons why the Psyduck toy might be more popular than its fellow (Pikachu) toys, is because it dances, with its arms going up and down, and because of the catchy tune that starts once it starts moving. Psyduck is also a bit more dopey and ‘uncool’ than Pikachu, which makes him all the cooler (remember the Peppa Pig craze?)
Since its release, many people have been going crazy over the KFC toy. Psyduck fans have been hunting for the KFC treasure, and some have even turned it into a side business: they offer their services in getting as many KFC meals as necessary before grabbing the Psyduck toy – you’ll have to pay for their meal – and they’ll send the toy to their ‘customers’ later on.
The #Psyduck hashtag saw the first spike on Weibo on May 21st, the day of its release, when it received nearly 135 million views.
Although the toys were released for Children’s Day, most of these Psyduck fans are not kids at all. In one interview moment that went viral, an older man was asked about the Psyduck while he was standing in line at KFC. “I’m only here because my son wants it,” the man says. When he is asked how old his boy is, he answers: “He’s over thirty years old.”
A popular comment about the craze over the kids’ meal toys said: “This toy is perhaps too childish for children, but it’s just perfect for us adults.” The comment received nearly 20,000 likes.
If you buy a set meal including the toy, you will spend in between 59-109 yuan ($9-$16), but the reselling price of Psyduck has reportedly been as high as US$200 for just the Pokémon figure alone. KFC China has stated that it does not support this kind of reselling.

Illustration about the Psyduck crazy by New Weekly (@新周刊).
Especially among students, it has become popular to stick messages to the arms of the dancing Psyduck with motivational or humorous messages. Some students say the Psyduck keeps them company while they are studying.
Since short funny videos featuring Psyduck are going viral on Weibo and Douyin, a lot of Psyduck’s appeal relates to its social media success and joining in on the hype. People post videos of themselves unboxing their Psyduck, introducing it to their cat, imitating it, or they use the Psyduck in various creative ways.
We need to talk about Psyduck. pic.twitter.com/MZSWqrNoTJ
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) May 28, 2022
This is not the first time for KFC toys to become a national craze. Earlier this year, KFC came out with limited edition blind boxes in a collaboration with Chinese toymaker Pop Mart. To get one of the dolls, customers needed to buy a 99 yuan (US$15.5) family set meal.
But the blind box sales also sparked criticism from China’s Consumer Association for promoting over-purchasing of its food and causing food waste. In order to get all of the six collectible dolls, including the rarest ones, customers would start buying many meals just for the dolls. As reported by SCMP at the time, one customer went as far as to spend US$1,650 on a total of 106 meals to collect all six dolls.
KFC is the most popular fast-food chain in China. People outside of China are sometimes surprised to find that KFC is so hugely popular in the mainland.
As explained in the book written about KFC China’s popularity (“Secret Recipe for Success“), its success story goes back to 1987, when the restaurant opened its first doors near Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Some reasons that contributed to KFC’s success in China are the popularity of chicken in China, the chain’s management system, the restaurant’s adaptation to local taste, and its successful marketing campaigns.
Now, Psyduck can be added as one of the ingredients in KFC China’s perhaps not-so-secret recipe for success.
By Manya Koetse
With contributions by Miranda Barnes
Featured image via @Baaaaaaaaal, Weibo.com
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©2022 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.
Manya Koetse is the founder and editor-in-chief of whatsonweibo.com. She is a writer, public speaker, and researcher (Sinologist, MPhil) on social trends, digital developments, and new media in an ever-changing China, with a focus on Chinese society, pop culture, and gender issues. She shares her love for hotpot on hotpotambassador.com. Contact at manya@whatsonweibo.com, or follow on Twitter.

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China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Bad Apples? Chinese Actor Liu Jin Smashes iPhone 13 Pro Max, Anger over ‘Chinese’ Employee Photo on Apple Website
Who’s the bad Apple? There’s much ado about Apple on Chinese social media this week, but things turn out differently than expected.

Published
6 days agoon
September 19, 2023
There is a lot of Apple anger on Chinese social media this week. Two separate trending topics have ignited discussions. One revolves around Chinese actor Liu Jin, who smashed his iPhone 13 Pro Max in front of the Apple flagship store, while another one centers on an image of an Apple employee deemed inappropriate by Chinese netizens. But both viral trends have unfolded with surprisingly ‘juicy’ twists.
The Chinese actor Liu Jin (刘金) has become a big topic of discussion on Chinese social media this week for a remarkable statement he made in a 2-minute video that has gone viral.
The ‘statement video’ shows the actor angrily throwing his iPhone 13 Pro Max on the ground until it breaks, right in front of the Wangfujing Apple flagship store in Beijing, pledging he will never buy another Apple product again and accusing the company of being arrogant and overbearing after running into some repair issues.
Liu Jin is an actor who played in various productions, but he made his major breakthrough in 2015 when he played in the Chinese CCTV series Don’t Let me See (别让我看见) and in the successful comedy movie Goodbye Mr Loser (夏洛特烦恼).
This was not the only Apple incident going viral on Chinese social media this week. Another trending topic revolves around actor Liu Jin, who angrily smashed his iPhone 13 Pro Max in front of the Apple flagship store in Beijing. (Caps autogenerated, but you get the idea.) pic.twitter.com/MdPvnKqh1T
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) September 19, 2023
In the video, recorded on September 17, Liu explains he just visited the Apple store to get his iPhone back after bringing it in for repair. Liu claimed that he bought his iPhone 13 Pro Max in August of 2022 through the official store and that, after a year, it had a hardware problem that needed to be fixed.

From the video by Liu.
According to Liu, the Apple store has now returned the iPhone to him without repairing it, saying that the phone was “modified without authoritization” by a third party, and that Liu should pay a 6,960 yuan ($950) fee to get it fixed.
Refusing to pay such an amount of money, and denying he got the phone through a third party, Liu then smashes the iPhone on the ground until it is broken, promising never to buy Apple again.
A hashtag related to the video was viewed a staggering 270 million times on Weibo, where it became a top trending topic (#演员刘金苹果店前怒摔iphone#).
Apple vs Huawei Rivalry
The actor’s recent actions have garnered considerable attention, primarily because they coincide with the escalating rivalry between Huawei and Apple. This rivalry has become a prominent topic of discussion in China recently, due to various things coming together at the same time.
Notably, Apple unveiled its iPhone 15 shortly after Huawei introduced its latest flagship, the Mate 60 Pro 5G. Noteworthy enough (and unlikely coincidentally),it was launched on the same date as the return of Huawei executive daughter Meng Wanzhou from Canada in 2021 (read here).
The official launch ceremony for Huawei’s new products is coming up on September 25, and people are hoping to find out more about the powerful Kirin 90000s chip that is being used by Huawei despite facing heavy US sanctions regarding Chinese access to crucial chip technology.
Simultaneously, reports emerged about alleged Chinese restrictions on iPhones within government and state agencies, resulting in a significant decline in Apple’s stock value. The Foreign Ministry later stated that that China has actually not issued any law, regulation, or policy document to ban the use of Apple phones.
All of these developments have reignited the ongoing tech giant competition in China, that is now about much more than smartphones alone and has come to symbolize geopolitical rivalry, encompassing themes of nationalism, anti-Western sentiments, and a growing sense of pride in products made in China.
Much Ado about Apple Employee Photo
As Liu’s phone-smashing video went viral, so did another controversy concerning an Apple customer service employee’s photo depicted on the official website of Apple.
A Chinese netizen pointed out that a photo of an Apple Watch Specialist representative on the Apple site may have been purposely “insulting China” (辱华) due to the appearance of the person in the photo.
Initially, many people thought the image was specifically used on the Chinese-language Apple site, and that it concerned a Chinese individual with a hairstyle that resembles a queue: a single long braid of hair that was traditionally worn by male subjects of China during the Qing.
Some people also thought the individual had a pockmark near the mouth and that their looks reinforces stereotypes surrounding Chinese appearances regarding eyes and forehead. The image therefore sparked wide-spread resistance among netizens who thought Apple deliberately and inappropriately used such an image to show Chinese individuals as being backward and unattractive.

online poll with nearly 198,000 likes on Weibo, asking if this photo is appropriate or not (the majority voted that the photo was not appropriate).
On the same day as Liu’s video first came out, September 17, the topic of the “braid-wearing customer service representative” went trending, and the hashtag of “how do you feel about the Apple China website image of the braided customer service representative” (#如何看苹果中国官网辫子客服形象#) has since received over 200 million views on Weibo.
Political commentator Hu Xijin (胡锡进) also responded to the issue, explaining how the Chinese people are particularly sensitive to issues related to “perceived insults to China by Westerners,” due to historical and cultural factors which are further amplified by current tensions in US-China and broader China-Western relations.
Hu therefore argues that “American and Western companies should be more careful and cautious when promoting their products and try to avoid using images and texts that could be misinterpreted by Chinese people.”1
Who’s the Bad Apple?
But to what extent is criticism of Apple reasonable in both incidents?
In the case of the “braid-wearing customer service representative”, it soon triggered a response from Apple’s customer service (#苹果客服回应辫子客服形象#, hashtag with 180 million views) and led to more information.
It has since become evident that many assumptions about the image were unfounded. Contrary to the initial belief that the photo was exclusive to the Chinese page, it was also featured on Apple’s official websites in the United States, Japan, South Korea, and other countries.
Furthermore, it was revealed that the Apple employee in question is not of Chinese descent at all; she is a Native American female employee (also see Wen Hao’s post on this). Additionally, the perceived pockmark near her mouth was, in fact, a piercing.
In response to this, some people mocked Hu Xijin for how he responded to the controversy.

Photoshop meme mocking Hu Xijin.
But Liu’s video also turns out to be a bit different than the version of the story he presented.
The actor seemed to voice a popular public sentiment by taking a stand against Apple’s dominant position, that rivals that of China’s tech darling Huawei, by smashing an Apple smartphone in public.
But where is the proof that Liu actually bought his iPhone at an Apple store in 2022? Where is the receipt showing that his phone was indeed not coming from a third party that might have modified it?
To the dismay of many netizens, the actor refused to show the official store receipt of his Apple phone, and many people started to doubt if the actor might have just put on a show to gain attention at a critical moment in the market competition between Apple and Huawei.
Moreover, the actor’s story seemed even less credible when he tried to further explain it in a recent social media post.
Why?
As many netizens noted: the post he sent was actually sent from an iPhone.
By Manya Koetse
1 “(..)一些国人在西方人“辱华”的问题上很敏感,有其真实的历史和文化原因。目前中美关系很紧张,中西关系也不如过去,美国和西方公司在做产品宣传时,多一些细心、谨慎,尽量不要选用有可能引发中国人误解的图文,这是他们开展跨文化交流时一份应有的素养和水平。”
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China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Eyebrow Pencil Gate: “Lipstick King” Li Jiaqi Loses 630,000 Fans In One Night
China’s famous beauty livestreamer Li Jiaqi is in hot water after his annoyed response about an $11 eyebrow pencil.

Published
2 weeks agoon
September 11, 2023
Li Jiaqi is facing controversy for remarks he made during his recent e-commerce livestream. When viewers made comments about an eyebrow pencil being expensive, he lashed out and asked them if they worked hard enough. Due to his cold attitude and arrogant comments, the ‘lipstick king’ seems to have lost his crown.
Li Jiaqi is losing fans. That is according to a Weibo hashtag that went trending today (#李佳琦掉粉#), which highlights a significant drop of 630,000 Weibo followers in just 24 hours.
For those unfamiliar with Li Jiaqi (1992, English name Austin Li), he is one of China’s most renowned make-up influencers, also known as the “Lipstick King.” Previously a cosmetics salesman, Li has since risen to become one of China’s most celebrated livestreamers, setting numerous records along the way.
In 2018, he broke the Guinness World Record for “the most lipstick applications in 30 seconds.” He once sold 15000 lipsticks in 5 minutes, and also managed to apply 380 different lipsticks in another seven-hour live stream session. Li made international headlines in 2021 when he sold $1.9 billion in goods during a 12-hour-long promotion livestream for Alibaba’s shopping festival.
But now Li is in hot water because of an e-commerce livestream he did on Sunday, September 10th. When some viewers complained that the eyebrow pencil by Huaxi Zi (花西子), Florasis, seems to be getting more expensive (79 RMB, $10.9), Li vehemently defended the cosmetic brand. Seemingly annoyed with his viewers, he insisted that the product was reasonably priced, highlighting the brand’s use of high-quality ingredients and claiming it had not increased its prices for years.
In addition to this, Li began to lecture his audience, questioning whether they had made significant efforts to have received salary raises over the years (Literally: “Sometimes it’s because of yourself, if you haven’t seen a raise in so many years, did you work hard enough?” [“有的时候自己原因好吧。怎么多年了工资张没涨有没有认真工作”]). Even his assistant, next to him, seemed visibly uncomfortable when Li lashed out. We added some subtitled to this short fragment here.
China's famous make-up influencer #LiJiaqi is in hot water due to an e-commerce livestream he did on Sunday. When viewers complained about an eyebrow pencil being too expensive (79 RMB/$10.9), he got annoyed, insisting that the product was not expensive at all.raTnslated video: pic.twitter.com/JDKGMKovDX
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) September 11, 2023
Later on, Li appeared to recognize his mistake and suggested that people weren’t obligated to purchase the Florasis brand; instead, they could opt for a more affordable eyebrow pencil that he would be promoting later on.
This incident sparked major backlash from fans who voices their anger and disappointment, accusing Li of losing sight of his humble origins and owing everything to his viewers. Starting out by selling Maybelline makeup behind a shop counter, Li rose to prominence alongside the live e-commerce trend, amassing immense wealth thanks to his dedicated fans and viewers.
Why would he now alienate his viewers in such a way? Furthermore, many argued that the Florasis eyebrow pencil is undeniably expensive, with some even making comparisons to the cost of gold when measured by weight.
In the early morning of September 11, Li apologized on his Weibo account. He wrote that he felt disappointed in himself for responding the way he did. “As a livestream host I should send out positive energy, and learn to control my emotions,” he wrote.

Li Jiaqi apology on Weibo.
Later on, he issued an on-camera apology during a livestream. With tears in his eyes, he expressed heartfelt remorse for letting down so many people and acknowledged his mistakes. A related hashtag on Weibo soon got over 430 million clicks (#李佳琦哭着道歉#).
But many people do not appreciate his apologies. The top comment under his written apology post says: “You are making money out of ordinary people and now you turned around saying ordinary people are too poor,” while the most popular comment under the livestream apology said: “If I would earn 5 million yuan a day ($685k), my tears would be much more sincere than yours.”

This meme shows that many viewers do not feel moved by Li’s apologetic tears.
There are more angles to this story. Besides alienating his audience, others also feel he is not being completely transparant. As Li Jiaqi hinted during the livestream, he seems to have a very close relationship with the Florasis brand. Some reports even suggest that the commission rate for his endorsement of the Florasis brand, which was established in Hangzhou six years ago, may have been as high as 80%.
It is not the first time Li gets caught up in controversy. Last year, Li disappeared from China’s e-commerce channels for three months after one of his livestreams made references to shooting tanks. The ‘cake tank incident’ (坦克蛋糕事件) occurred on the night before June 4, the 33rd anniversary of the violent crackdown of the Tiananmen student demonstrations.
However, a notable distinction between that controversy and the current one lies in how his fans reacted. Despite the prior controversy, the majority of his supporters remained loyal to the beauty influencer, extending a warm welcome when he returned in September of 2022.
This time, many followers feel personally attacked by him. While Li Jiaqi defended the brow pencil price by suggesting that “domestic brands are struggling,” some commenters ask: “If domestic brands are struggling, don’t you think the people are also struggling?” (“国货难,国民难道就不难了吗?”)
Earlier this year, a casual remark made by Chinese actress Zhang Yuqi during a livestream also ignited discussions surrounding the stark disparity between the perspectives of celebrities and the financial realities experienced by ordinary individuals. During that promotional livestream, Zhang suggested that 699 yuan ($100) for a cashmere blanket was so cheap, saying: “I don’t even think I can buy a pair of socks with that amount.”
In response to this incident, some commenters mentioned that they could cover their food expenses for an entire month with that money. Many netizens remarked that some Chinese celebrities seem to not only live in a world where everything costs more, but they also seem to reside in a place where “poverty” is defined differently.
By Monday night, Li Jiaqi still had 29,8 million followers on Weibo, although some wondered how many of them were active and authentic Weibo users. Will Li be able to win back the favor of his fans? The numbers will tell.
By Manya Koetse and Miranda Barnes
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