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This is not the end, just the beginning of hopefully something bigger and better…

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.
(Confucius)

Shanghai’s Guangyin Yoga Club (光胤瑜伽) became famous outside China this week. The marketing idea implemented to promote the club hit international websites and the story quickly spread across numerous sites.

The idea itself (from February 2010) placed one of the club’s yoga masters in a wooden box that was placed in various locations across Shanghai. The yoga master would then pop his hand out of the box with the club’s business card in his hand and this greatly surprised passers-by.

It was a simple, effective, original, and widely talked about execution that won the yoga club far more customers than it had expected, plus the total cost of doing it was £74.

A truly great piece of creativity, one only wishes that every marketing campaign was this cheap and easy to implement but still made the client extremely happy.

Please do take a look at the original post on Ads of the World.

McDonald’s (麦当劳 – Màidāngláo) has just launched a new digital campaign in China.

The focus of this new campaign is the feeling of happiness, and it is aimed at urban Chinese white-collar workers. The campaign’s slogan is 快乐就是0负担 (Kuàilè jiùshì 0 fùdān), which roughly translates to ‘Happiness is 0 burdens‘.

For those confused by the awkward translation, the slogan is suggesting that true happiness is when you let go of the burdens of everyday life.

The TVC (which also headlines the digital elements) for the campaign is directed by and features the Chinese actress and director Jane Wu (Chinese name: 徐静蕾 – Xú Jìnglěi).

For those of you living outside mainland China, Jane Wu is an extremely popular Chinese celebrity – so much so that her Sina based blog was once the most clicked blog on the internet.

Within the advert Chinese people give their thoughts on happiness are, and the question of ‘what is happiness?’ forms the basis of McDonald’s new Tudou page. Go check it out.

Credit to: TBWA China

Audi has teamed up with the Chinese version of the syle publication Esquire Magazine (时尚先生- Shíshàng xiānshēng) to create a front cover with an LED display.

The front cover has been created with E-Ink (Electronic Ink) and the lights can remain flashing for up to 6 months. It’s a great fit with the Audi brand as the signature design piece of most of its vehicles are the LED-esque headlights.

Chinese netizens are very excited about this piece of creativity and Esquire’s Chinese website calls it “a world first”. However, Western readers will have seen this two years ago when Esquire used a similar display on their 75th Anniversary edition in the US version of the magazine, as shown in the video below.

Regardless of this, the impressive front cover is a really nice collaboration between the two brands and hopefully China will see more of this type of creativity in the near future.

Unilever’s shampoo and soap brand Lux (力士 – Lìshì) has rolled out another campaign featuring the famous actress Catherine Zeta-Jones. The ad above shows the Welsh star promoting the new Lux beauty range in China.

The new commercial is based around Lux’s Chinese slogan of 让您光彩照人每一天! (ràng nín guāngcǎizhàorén měi yītiān!) which roughly translates to ‘Allowing you to shine everyday!‘.

However, this is not the first time Catherine Zeta-Jones has featured in a Chinese commercial for Lux. Last year she featured in a short film entitled The Alchemist (shown below) and has since become the main brand ambassador for the Lux brand in China and Japan respectively.

Unilever will be hoping this new campaign will bolster Lux’s market position against Procter and Gamble’s product ranges such as Head & Shoulders, Rejoice and Pantene Pro-V which together account for around 40% of shampoo sales in China.

Credit to: JWT (Shanghai Branch)

September 25th marks the day the so-called ‘revolutionary’ iPhone 4 launches within Chinese shores.

You may be asking why is the launch being mentioned on a blog about advertising? Well, the answer is because the reaction of Chinese citizens to the product launch is a perfect example of how Chinese consumers are changing.

Despite being labelled a ‘developing country’ over 200,000 iPhone 4 devices were pre-ordered from Chinese telecommunications firm China Unicom and thousands were even prepared to queue outside for 2 days outside Apple’s Xidan Joy City store to get their hands on one.

This reaction highlights how disposable income among urban Chinese citizens has soared, and the fact that Apple have uncharacteristically decided to release the product so soon after its US launch demonstrates how the organisation has realised this and wants to make sure it profits as much as possible from the wealthy Chinese population.

Steve Job’s firm has even opened two more Apple Stores in the country (doubling the number in China previously to four) in order to meet the increasing demand from Chinese consumers.  Although ironically the demand for the new iPhone 4 in China is far exceeding the supply.

With so much wealth flying around in the urban areas, it’s important to remember that there are still many, many Chinese citizens living in rural regions still struggling to get by each day. It would seem the gap between rich and poor is further increasing and one wonders what the Chinese Government can do help balance things out.

Nonetheless the success of Apple’s iPhone 4 launch will act as a bright beacon to Western firms looking to enter the Chinese market, and a battle between the rapidly growing domestic brands and their developed Western counterparts seems somewhat inevitable.

Last month brand consultancy firm Brand Finance produced a report of the Top 100 most valuable brands in China today.

The full list can be viewed by clicking HERE.

China’s most valuable brand of 2010 is China Mobile, which is worth a whopping $22.62billion.

You may also be surprised to know that the Top 10 Chinese brands come to a total value of $117.995billion, and this is worth more than half of all the other Chinese brands in the Top 100 combined.

The only shame is that the majority of Chinese organisations’ logos (as pictured above) are so uninspiring, but as many of the brands seek to go global soon – the logos will no doubt be developed to compete with those of international markets.

In China, the number ’9′ or 九 (jiu) is seen as meaning ‘long’ so three number nine’s or 999 is in fact a metaphor for long life. Thus the Chinese see Sanjiu medicines as adding longevity to one’s life.

So that’s the company, and now here are the ads:

The slogan of the ads translates to ‘Reverse the pain’ as the visuals metaphorically demonstrate.

Credit to: JWT (Shanghai Branch)

The campaign slogan is, ‘一个神话中的装人, 一装人中的神话’ (Yīgè shénhuà zhōng de zhuāng rén, Yī zhuāng rén zhōng de shénhuà) which is very roughly translates to ‘The myth of loading people, is loaded with myth‘ and also makes a nice little Chinese tongue twister. MINI’s recent world car cramming record is currently being promoted on MINI’s Chinese homepage.

Car cramming itself is actually quite a serious competition. The new record was set by employees at the Beijing YanBao Auto on the 25th May 2010. They managed to fit a staggering 25 people into a MINI – (smashing the previous record of 24 set in 2009 by New Zealand based All-Star cheerleaders)!

Here are some photos from the 2010 world record win:

Credit to: Interone (Beijing Branch)

Previously we’ve seen how both the aforementionned rival manufacturers have created ‘long wheelbase versions’ of the E–Class and 5-Series respectively.

Now Audi has created a sedan version of its A3 specifically for the Chinese market, and here are the TV and print ads for its promotion.

Credit to: Lintas – Lowe (Beijing Branch)