Suntory; Lazy Thinking in China Advertising.

by Rand on 2010/07/13 · 9 comments

Suntory’s latest ad, seen in Shanghai’s subway, attempts to sell Suntory’s oolong tea by showing a model eating a pizza… did you just experience a disconnect? You are not alone.

Should I buy the pizza or the tea?

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/reddit_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/dzone_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/blinklist_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/blogmarks_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/furl_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/newsvine_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/technorati_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/magnolia_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/google_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/myspace_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/yahoobuzz_48.png

http://www.littleredbook.cn/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/twitter_48.png

Related Posts:

Construction cranes in the bamboo forest; Balancing nature and urbanization in China PSA Advertising. Great PSA ad campaign focuses on China’s preference for urbanization over environment. This style of Chinese landscape painting is very traditional, and can be seen pretty much anywhere in China. By mixing elements of urbanization (ie: construction towers, etc) the...
Lipton; Impactful China subway advertising has a few strings attached. Great concept and clear message: Lipton tea helps you lose weight. I’m not sure how many people would buy into this extreme concept however, as I’ve always heard about green tea’s ability to help you lose weight; but is this...
Kingston; Targeting China’s IT Stoners. Here’s a good example of a “Lost in Translation” ad; likely either done by a local agency, or the brand’s localized marketing staff.The original message is: “Set your enthusiasm on fire”; followed by an English sentence that says “WE are...
Wildaid; Shooting Glass with Money. This recent campaign by Wildaid is pretty interesting; I’d venture to say most wildlife protection advertising is great; as their primary focus is to shock the crap out of you to get you to change your point of view. In...
Phillips; “Better Technology, Better Life”. Picked this one up via Adquan; it’s a Phillips campaign recently launched by DDB Shanghai, in conjunction with Shanghai Expo and the theme “Better City, Better Life”. The primary focus is viewing Phillips’ “better life” value-add through the eyes of...

Tagged as: Shanghai, Suntory, tea

Article by Rand Han

Rand previously worked for Axciom and McCann Erickson in China before creating BA360 in 2005. In 2009 Rand founded Resonance China for which he won the "Internationalist Innovator of the Year" award. He currently serves as Strategy Director, overseeing business development, client creative strategy, and general project management. Rand created the popular China advertising blog Littleredbook in 2008, and has spoken at UC Berkeley Asia Business Conference, served as a judge for the Global Effie Awards, and served as panelist at the Effie Awards Social Media Roundtable. Connect with Rand on Twitter, and/or Linkedin, or at rand.han@resonancechina.com

Rand has written 223 articles for littleredbook.

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Simon July 13, 2010 at 12:53 pm

I agree it’s kinda jarring but the whole USP of the tea is that is apparently helps you lose weight or at least allows you munch up a whole bunch of greasy food i.e. pizza and then balance out your “qi” (http://www.angelfire.com/id/croon/chinesemedicine/yangyinfoods.html) .

The last campaign, http://www.black-cp.com/ , was much better executed imo. Simple print and video ads of pretty girls eating greasy foods were plastered around subways. The premise being you could then follow up online and vote for your fave girl and also figure out how she can eat all that horrible food and stay so nice and purty. You come for the pretty girls and then you stay for the tips on how drinking the tea keeps you looking grrrrreat.

2 Rand July 13, 2010 at 12:58 pm

Ah now I see; thats why they chose the anorexic model; lol – thanks for pointing that out -

3 Y July 13, 2010 at 4:03 pm

Totally took the EXACT same pic at Nanjing Xi Lu metro station, right? It felt very Japanese. It seems like this one was imported straight from Japan without any “localization”.