http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=903861&lang=eng_news
Taiwanese heartthrobs conquer Singaporean women's wallets
Singapore, March 25 (CNA) Taiwan's male pop stars have won the adoration of many female fans in Southeast Asian countries, including in Singapore, driving a lot of them to travel to Taiwan where they snap up items for which the celebrities act as spokesmen, according to a local newspaper.
The strategy of using Taiwanese male heartthrobs to promote products has apparently racked up impressive business revenues for sponsoring companies, which mainly produce items for women's use, the Singapore-based Lianhe Zaobao reported on Wednesday.
A 40-year-old woman surnamed Liu who heads the Jiro Wang Singapore Fan Club was quoted by the newspaper as saying that she really wants to try the lipsticks and facial cleansing cream advertised by Wang and Fahrenheit.
Wang is a popular actor who gained popularity in recent years thanks to several Taiwan-produced TV dramas in which he stars.
Fahrenheit is a four-member pop music group, which is popular among young women in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
"But I can only buy the product for my friends and other fans when I go to Taiwan, because the product that Fahrenheit advertised is exclusively sold in Taiwan," Liu was reported as saying.
According to Liu, their strong desire to purchase products promoted by Taiwan's young male idols has also helped stir up their husbands' or boy friends' attention on them and push men to overcome their embarrassment to buy these items for their wives or girl friends.
"Even if products of the same brands are sold in Singapore, we love to buy them in Taiwan where we can get the items with stickers showing their (Fahrenheit members') faces, " another female fan identified as Lim told the newspaper.
Good-looking men are extremely attractive to most women, and their power to sell products to females cannot be underestimated, Lim said. "A co-worker of mine who is not a fan of Fahrenheit is also interested in getting the products they publicize." Other Taiwanese young actors and pop music singers have also been invited to act as a product spokesmen recently. One of them, Vic Chou, a member of the popular band F4, who became famous after being featured in a Taiwanese TV drama -- Meteor Garden -- has been promoting a newly marketed lipstick in Singapore for a cosmetic company, the report said.
Alexander Wang, a Taiwanese pop singer who is super popular in Asia; Wu Chun, a Fahrenheit member; and Ashin, a vocalist of Taiwan's super popular rock band Mayday, have also made new advertisements to appeal to women to buy perfume, sanitary napkins, lip gloss and skin whitening products that they represent, the report added.
(By Charles Kang and Flor Wang)