Will China's Tiny Fresh Meat sit on the commercial rocket?

Chinese national swimming team received great reception from around 1,000 enthusiastic fans at Beijing Capital International Airport yesterday when returning from Kazan FINA World Championships with triumph.

Despite credits given to all the players and coaching staffs for winning China the third place in medals, the awaiting supporters paid extraordinary attentions to the 22-year old 100m men’s freestyle champion Ning Zetao, the emerging star both in swimming and commercial values seemingly.

In the part of swimming, Ning has really showed his gift in the sport with 4 gold medals at 2014 Inchon Asian Games and the latest historic achievement, as the first Asian swimmer and also a debutant in the competition, to break the monopoly by westerners on men’s 100m freestyle in FINA World Championships.

So over the past few days, “tiny fresh meat” (a term used by Chinese to describe a good looking young male) Ning Zetao, has been a buzz on Chinese social media, such as Sina Weibo and Wechat.

And Ning himself has seen a significant increase in number of followers on these sites. As learned, now the number of Ning’s followers on Sina Weibo dramatically increased to approximate 2.86 million from around 15 thousand before 2014 Inchon Asian Games.

What could the fanatic social media buzz mean for the 22-year old emerging good looking world swimming champion?

Well, for brands, the answer is potential explosive growth in commercial values. Despite policies of China’s National Swimming Administrative Centre that discourage him from commercial opportunities, the “tiny fresh meat” has successfully taken his first step by partnering with USA’s headphone brand Skullcandy as an ambassador. Besides, he also spoke for the youth edition of credit card released by China’s Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.

Apart from that, China-based brands like 361 Degrees and Geely Automobile has made good use of Ning’s eye-catching exposure in marketing campaigns. But more importantly, there are rumours that international brands, such as Coca-Cola have also showed interests in the Chinese swimming starlet especially in an age lacking sports idols after the retirements of the likes of Yao Ming, Li Na and Liu Xiang.

In this point, we would possibly see Ning pocket one billion yuan (CNY) in the next five years, said an insider in Chinese advertising industry. And the commercial values generated from Ning’s female supporters merely could reach RMB100m, he added.

Some may disagree with the promising expectation with concerns about the relatively lower exposure in top swimming competitions for swimming players, which could deteriorate the size of commercial values for swimming stars.

But as a freshly emerging starlet in a place where sports idols are desperately needed, the “tiny fresh meat” could be the one for either supporters or brands.