Cai Xukun, Xiao Zhan, Yang Yang, Zhang Linghe, Liu Yifei, Dili Zeba, Wang Xinling, Shu Qi, Yang Mi, Shen Teng, Sun Honglei... if I don't tell you that this is the spokesperson of the car company, you must think that this is the attendance list of which entertainment circle award ceremony. But yes, these stars are now working for car brands. And these are just the tip of the iceberg. According to incomplete statistics, in the first eight months of 2026, at least more than 40 stars held more than 20 car brands. The problem is that two years ago, car companies still collectively "disliked" stars: "The boss himself is the best spokesperson." "Cars don't need stars, the product speaks for itself." Ideal, Lantu is the famous "no endorsement school": Li Xiang made it clear in 2024 that he would not ask for a celebrity endorsement, and Lantu insisted on zero endorsements for many years. The result? Ideal In September 2025, he signed Yi Clan Qian Xi, and Lantu signed Yang Yang in July 2026. Two "nail households" broke down their defenses one after another. In just two years, the wind in the car circle, why did it suddenly blow back into the entertainment circle? Isn't the boss's IP fragrant? More exciting videos, all in the car home video platform first, from "the boss personally" to "the boss laid off" 2024, is "the first year of the car company boss live broadcast". Lei Jun held a press conference to reshape the entire industry's perception of traffic. Li Bin, Wei Jianjun, and Yin Tongyue all rushed into the live broadcast room. Everyone thought that they had found the truth: the founder's IP was the cheapest and most controllable traffic password. But this road only went for a year. According to the "China Automobile Brand Marketing Development Report (2025)" blue book, in 2025, the personal communication volume of automobile executives shrank by two-thirds year-on-year. The reason is not complicated. First, the boss really does not have time. There are a lot of things waiting in the company. It is too late to hold a meeting every day, and you have to go on a live broadcast in person? Second, the content is easy to get tired of, over and over is technology, strategy, feelings, people just start to feel fresh, listening too much is aesthetic fatigue. Third, and most lethal - the risk is uncontrollable. The boss said a word wrong, a negative news, the brand and model are all dragged down; but the star endorsement is pure business cooperation, and the car company can cut at any time after the collapse. So the stars collectively returned. Now they also broadcast live endorsements to brands on a high frequency, including Wei Jianjun and a few others. It's not that the boss's IP suddenly "doesn't smell good", it's that the division of labor has begun to change: the boss is responsible for building brand trust, and the star is responsible for letting more people see it. 2. The star rolls out a new gameplay method, but you note that the current endorsement is not the same as three or five years ago. What was it before? Please be a top streamer, shoot a TVC, read two sentences according to the preposition at the conference, go through the field, and calculate the KPI. As the audience knows, this is a commercial show. But after all, cars are big consumer goods. Concert tickets are hundreds of thousands of dollars, and cars are often two or three hundred thousand or even higher. It is difficult for fans to impulsively buy a car because of a "brother is the same style". What about now? Car companies are starting to think of ways to really tie stars and products together. Stars don't just stand next to cars to take photos, but to participate in press conferences, live broadcasts, test drives, product experiences, and even turn their lifestyles directly into product scenarios. Top stars do work, at least when it comes to pulling new and manufacturing orders. After the signing of Shangjie Xiao War, the small order of Shangjie Z7/Shangjie Z7T quickly soared, and the market was set to exceed 12,000 in 27 minutes. Ideally, after Yi Closing Qianxi, the relevant topics were quickly broken, and the orders in the first week also increased significantly. These are the more typical cases: the star is responsible for pulling the new, and the product is responsible for undertaking. Other car companies have slowly discovered that the true value of a star may not be to "sell the car" for you, but to help you talk about the car more easily to be seen, understood, and remembered. At the Yijing X9 conference, Guo Fucheng's interactive session could talk for nearly an hour, from the beginning to the end. Zhang Linghe, a 1.9-meter man, sat in the back row of Avita 07L and walked out easily. Without saying a word about the space parameters, the audience understood it themselves. The image of Yao Ming sitting in the rear leg of the NiO ES9 can directly end the product discussion of "whether the seat is large enough". There are also car companies looking for stars to do "personality translation" for the brand. Xiaomi asked Shuqi to be the brand spokesperson. On the surface, it was a homophone, but also a breakthrough to women and high-end fashion circles. Beijing off-road by Sun Honglei translated the off-road vehicle into a "calm, calm and confident" social pillar image. Liu Xiang was chosen by himself, and he did not need to explain how fast its lizard chassis was. Liu Xiang stood there, which is the most intuitive brand endorsement for "mastery and ultimate speed". III. Endorsement is not a panacea. Of course, the car rings are packed and the celebrities are invited to endorse it, and the questioning voice has also been cut off. Dongfeng Nissan executives publicly shouted "Don't crowd for stars": stars can bring exposure, but can't answer "why buy you" for the car, the traffic is scattered, what is left in the hands of the brand is the key. He believes that cultural IP co-creation is the "spark". There is no instantaneous explosion, but it can slowly burn out brand memory and is a long-term asset. However, from another perspective, although this statement is correct, it also has to admit the reality: in this market environment, you don't need a spokesperson, and you don't even have a chance to be seen. He Zhiqi, executive vice president of BYD, recently shared a set of data: 542 new cars were launched across the industry in January-May this year, an average of 3.6 models per day. However, a car has invested more than a billion dollars in research and development, and the cycle is more than two years, and the heat can not be maintained for three months. The more new cars come out, the colder the market becomes. According to the data of the Passenger Vehicle Association, from January to July 2026, the retail sales volume of the narrow passenger vehicle market in China reached 10,173,000 units, a year-on-year decrease of 20.3%. In this information-overloaded environment, a new car leaves itself a window into the minds of “rooted” consumers, perhaps 72 hours after the launch. At this time, the face of a star is the most efficient compression bag, which "blows" the brand out of the ocean of information. "Hot search is easy to get, and users have long recognized that it is rare" is correct, but between "being seen" and "being remembered", there is still a "survival first". Summarizing the collective "star chasing" of car companies is essentially an extreme desire for traffic and exposure. Boss IP can not solve the emotional connection and exposure speed, the star can be on the top; but the star can not solve the "why buy you", and ultimately have to rely on the product itself to answer - safety, after-sales, intelligent driving, battery decay, these are the things that really stay on the beach after the tide recedes. If the fireworks look good, there must be a fire burning underneath. (By/Automobile House Peng Fei).