Chinese Football Star Wu Lei On Endorsement Spree; Bags Heilan Home Deal

Chinese star footballer Wu Lei, who is plying his trade for Spanish top-flight club Espanyol, is set to endorse fast fashion brand Heilan Home.

The deal, confirmed by Heilan Home on its Weibo page, will see the 28-year-old forward feature in marketing and promotional material for the Chinese brand across all platforms, particularly social.

It is the latest commercial deal for Wu since moving to European football. After signing for the La Liga club in early 2019, Espanyol partnered with China Mobile in June for video content and to live stream reserve team games on the company’s Midea Entertainment platform in China. A month later, Chinese tech company iFlyTek penned a deal with the club which also made Wu an official ambassador.

Wu’s popularity in China has seen audience numbers for Espanyol matches rise in the country since he joined the club. His debut against Villareal in February drew over 40 million Chinese viewers across various platforms.

The announcement of the Heilan Home deal comes after Wu scored a late equaliser for Espanyol in the Catalan Derby to earn a point against defending league champions Barcelona.

The social media leverage for Heilan Home is obvious for all to see, with the #wuleigoal hashtag featuring in 88,000 comments and generating more than 380m page views on Weibo. Wu’s historic goal was even the second-highest trending topic on the platform recently.

According to ASN records, Heilan Group – the conglomerate which owns Helian Home – has only been involved in a long-term celebrity endorsement deal worth an estimated US$200k per year with 34-year-old Chinese actress Wang Likun for Eichitoo, its womenswear brand.  

Despite being a significantly capitalised Chinese company, Heilan Group has been punching below its weight in its sponsorship game, but this is likely to change as it starts to eye global domination, beginning by banking on Wu Lei’s popularity.