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.
Yes, it’s yet another viral video! This time it comes from the computer hardware giant IBM. In 2005, IBM merged it’s PC division with the equally giant Chinese based computer manufacturerLenovo (联想 – lián xiǎng).
The Japanese style viral is promotes the IBM eX5 server, that launched in China 3rd of March 2010:
It’s not very exciting to look at, and it’s difficult to understand exactly what it does. This is where the viral video comes in. The video provides a metaphor of what the IBM eX5 can do for a business, that is support invisibly from behind scenes to effortlessly allow organisations to achieve their goals.
The message of the above commercial is 天天喝养乐多 (or in pinyin ‘Tiāntiān hē yǎng lè duō’) which in English translates to ‘Drink Yakult Every Day‘.
For those of you who don’t know,Yakult is a probiotic drink and just to educate you ‘probiotic‘ refers to ‘live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host’. hmm.
Yakult is actually originally from Japan and the Japanese call it ヤクルト pronounced in English as ‘Yakuruto’. The Chinese on the other hand call the drink, ‘Yì duō‘ (益多).
Anyway back to the marketing campaign. As well as the TV advert, Yakult has been promoting its product across China in a variety of ways. Including subway advertising to print ads which are shown below:
The Yakult brand is further becoming an extremely popular amongst urban Chinese citizens. Before I finish I thought it would make an interesting comparison to see the Chinese commercial against the current UK / USA TV ads:
UK
USA
Despite their current differences it wasn’t too long ago when the British Yakult ads were along the lines of China’s current commercials.
This is the latest spoof advertisement from the notorious ‘Hugo‘ (胡戈):
It’s a rather amusing take of 7-Up’s Chinese current promotion where Hugo demonstrates the downside of findng a winning 7-Up bottlecap. The video is already very popular in China.
Within 24 hours of being uploaded to Hugo’s official Youku page it had already been viewed over 150,000 times and has even been awarded honours for its immediate popularity.
Who is Hugo? Hugo is known as 网络恶搞第一人 (Wǎngluò ègǎo dì yīrén) aka the first man to spoof the network.
He is from Wuhan (Hubei Province) and has previously produced a number of other spoof videos that can be viewed on Hugo’s Sina page. If you like his videos Hugo would like to let you know that he is available for work.
I will be following his latest spoof over the next few weeks to see how it progresses.
Swedish Vodka brandAbsolut has this month produced 350,000 limited edition bottles solely for the Chinese market. The limited edition range is branded asAbsolut 72变. The Chinese character ‘变‘ is written in pinyin as ‘Biàn’, which translates in English to mean ‘Transformations’ or ‘Changes’.
Why ‘72 Transformations’?
The name is a reference to the Chinese novel Journey to West, further details about the famous book can be found in one my previous posts here. Absolut has dedicated the designs / title of it’s range around arguably the most famous character in the novel – Sun Wukong(孫悟空) – aka The Monkey King.
The print ads Before I get on to explaining the significance of The Monkey King, we will get onto looking at the bottle designs and their advertisements (below). Absolut wanted to ensure that the bottles had a true feel of China and innovation, so they hired two local Chinese creatives — the artist Gāo Yǔ(高瑀)and photographer Chén Màn (陈曼). Gāo designed the bottles and Chén created the associated photography. The results of their collaboration are stunning:
‘Monkiwi’
‘Ginger Ale’
‘Tonic’
‘Cranberry’
Who is Sun Wukong?
He is the first character that readers come across in the novel Journey to the West . He was born out of a mystical stone which gave him immense powers including super speed and incredible strength.
Yet his greatest power came in his ability to perform 72 transformations. He could change himself into everyday objects as well as people themselves.
For many years he was happy ruling the monkeys who lived on his home mountain. However, Sun quickly realised that despite all his powers he was still only mortal so he went up to Heaven to seek immortality — but was refused. So he started a war with the gods and caused havoc in the heavenly kingdom.
It was only when Buddha stepped in that the Monkey King was impeded. Buddha imprisoned him under a mountain. 500 years later a monk was sent to travel from China to India to collect the holy Buddhist scriptutres, he took Monkey out of Buddha’s imprisonment and made him his disciple and the tales they have travelling together form the basis of Journey to the West.
Why do so many brands utilise Sun Wukong? Sun Wukong has become much more than just a character in a book. He is a hero to many Chinese citizens, and he is embedded deep into Chinese culture of past and present. Chairman Máo Zédōng(毛泽东) referred to the Monkey when he promised to bring China out of poverty. There is a even Chinese festival to celebrate him.
For those of you in the UK, you may remember the Monkey as part of the BBC‘s Beijing 2008 Olympics coverage:
Sun Wukong is a national symbol of Chinese people and their values, which is why so many western and domestic brands utilise him as a tool to communicate messages to the country’s consumers.
The commercial promotes COFCO’s (The largest food manufacturer, processor and trader in China) drink brand ‘Lohas‘.
The girl in the advertisement is the famous Taiwanese model and actress Lin Chi-Ling (林志玲). It’s not the most inspiring or original ad that I’ve seen of late, but it certainly cheered me up after a long day at work.
I’d like to introduce you all toForever Bicycles (永久 – Yǒng jiǔ).
For those of you who have no idea who this organisation is I’ll give you a quick introduction. Forever Bicycles stretch back all the way to 1940 when the company was orignially founded as Shanghai Forever Co. Ltd.
50 years down the line the organisation was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and following the turn of the millenia the company turned it’s focus to creating eco-friendly products.
Forever Bicycles produces four million bikes per year and is the top domestic producer of bikes in China. This week the organisation announced that a new range of bikes will launch shortly under the brand Forever C(永久C).
One can draw comparisons of this new brand / range to Adidas’s – Adidas Orginalsbrand. It essentially takes old styled bikes and gives them a modern makeover. They are as the cool kids say – retro.
So why the name Forever C? Well the ‘C’ has six meanings:
China — 中国 (Zhōng guó)
Classic — 经典 (Jīng diǎn)
City — 都市 (Dū shì)
Colourful — 多彩 (Duō cǎi)
Cycle — 自行车 (Zì xíng chē)
Culture — 文化 (Wén huà)
With the above in mind, the new brand offers consumers bicycles that are light, eco-friendly, stylish, and modern. They are available from September, and the Forever C website launches August 20th 2010. As part of this announcement Forever C has already released some seriously cool print ads (below):
I don’t know about you but I’d love to get my hands on one…
Yes, it’s yet another car commercial. I apologise for a lack of diversity in recent posts, hopefully I will get my hands on some advertising from other sectors soon.
Nevertheless, BMW have just released a new advertisement promoting a special version of the BMW 5 Series Li for specifically for the Chinese Market. The main difference between this 5 series and those you will find in Europe and the USA is that it has an extra long wheelbase.
The ‘Li’ was launched on August 5th 2010 and prices range from 489,600RMB to 791,600RMB (£45,500 – £73,700). The tagline for the new model is路有多远，只有心知道 (Lù yǒu duō yuǎn, zhǐyǒu xīn zhīdào) which in essence translates to ‘How long the road, only the heart knows‘. Here’s the ad:
Three print ads (as shown) below promoting the new model were also produced as part of ‘The Joy of BMW‘ campaign.
Ads of China // 中国广告 
