From the category archives:

Case Studies

Live at the ‘Chivalry’.

10.26.2009 Case Studies
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You throw in a few ice cold celebrities, high-end whisky and a dash of ‘life’ and you end up with Chivas new-ish campaign reposition to ‘Live with Chivalry’. A small shift from the previous feature ‘This is Chivas Life’.
Fortunately for Chivas the budget was didn’t seem to be a problem, with a mix of [...]

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HP; Social Media Schizophrenia.

09.08.2009 Case Studies
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While using SNS campaign to promote brand/products online is becoming more and more common in China, it is not surprising to see a brand group on a popular SNS site such as Xiaonei (ooops, I mean Renren, Xiaonei’s new name), Kaixin, etc. However, seeing a brand open TWO groups on one same SNS site, this [...]

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Pocari MSN campaign pulls in record number of individual votes!

09.08.2009 Case Studies
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From singing contests to essay contests – all the big brands are using a ‘voting’ system to build mass amounts of traffic to a community. It works so why wouldn’t you? It spreads viral and it spreads fast through dedicated pockets of existing (offline) social communities.
This particular campaign seemed pretty ‘normal’ in what [...]

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Which promotion is dumber?

09.07.2009 Asahi Kasei
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Usually, we will think that the promotional gifts are something smaller than the purchased items, or something complimentary; for example, buy a camera get a free leather camera bag, or buy a computer mouse get a free mouse pad.
However, when I was shopping at Carrefour last weekend, I found couple strange promotions. One of the [...]

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BMW’s flirt with the masses – Qzone ‘1′ series launch

08.17.2009 BMW
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When I first looked at reviewing this campaign I thought why would BMW be pushing their product through QQ? I mean sure, the numbers are just astronomical but how many QQ users can really afford to buy a BMW?
I’m certain they did their research and they were pushing the most affordable product across the [...]

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Lancome; China social media campaign offers optimized engagement.

08.12.2009 Case Studies
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Internationally well-known cosmetic brand, Lancome, also made a move on China social media marketing, and started surprisingly early. In year 2006, Lancome already built its own Chinese community (www.rosebeauty.com.cn), where consumers can not only get to know Lancome products but also interact with the brand and other consumers.
Early this year, Lancome started to use [...]

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Mango China SNS campaign; Good attempt but lazy…

08.07.2009 Baidu
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The trend is emerging now with more progressive fashion labels making a move on China SNS. Recently we reviewed the cosmetic brands (L’Oreal and Olay) SNS campaign which made us think – who in Fashion is leading the charge in China SNS integration?
Then along came Mango, the popular Spanish clothing retailer.
Some background information about [...]

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Apple Xiaonei Campaign; 90% brand, 10% strategy.

08.05.2009 Apple
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Apple’s Xiaonei campaign actually started around last May; according to the record in the group, the peak time is May08 to Nov.08. The group has a very interesting name – Apple College, means Apple want to “teach” their product knowledge to Chinese students on Xiaonei.
Personally speaking, Apple College is the best designed Xiaonei group [...]

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Olay’s Social Media Campaign, success at a cost?

07.31.2009 Case Studies
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Congratulations to Oil of Olay for making a very dedicated move to Social Media with a series of well functioned, highly informative and responsive communication tools for the young women that frequent the site.
Steam rolled by The president of Nurun China (interactive agency) Yann Lombard-Platet stated that ‘beauty is the number 1 topic of conversation [...]

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Lufthansa; Use China SNS to promote flight tickets to students.

07.30.2009 Case Studies
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As we Chinese are proud of our 5000 years history, we can’t deny that most Chinese tend to worship foreign things, a typical example is the foreign education system. Every year, thousands of Chinese students are going abroad to study. German airline Lufthansa sees this, so it created a social media campaign on Xiaonei.com – [...]

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L’Oreal; Celebrates 100th anniversary on China social media.

07.28.2009 Baidu
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June 3rd, 2009 was L’oreal’s 100th anniversary. To celebrate this special occasion, and take advantage of it to market itself, L’oreal launched a social media campaign throughout different China SNS sites.
This campaign’s portal website is L’oreal100.com.cn – a website L’oreal created especially for this 100th anniversary; and the overall theme of [...]

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Dell; China promotion through social media: Almost, but not quite.

07.23.2009 Case Studies
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Continue from yesterday’s entry, China domestic PC brand Foundertech and International PC brand Dell both created a doodle contest, and both are promoting it through a Chinese SNS site – Xiaonei. After reviewing Foundertech’s campaign, now it is time for Dell.
Dell’s doodle contest website:

Dell’s Xiaonei banner took me to its independent website for this doodle [...]

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Amazon.cn, Dangdang.com; a big step back for email marketing.

07.20.2009 Amazon.cn
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Although there are more and more online market methods, the traditional email direct marketing is still remaining as a most used, also mostly one-way communication between brands and consumers. Recently, I came across an article written by a Chinese blogger who is interested in marketing. The headline is already very attractive – “The Awful [...]

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Pepsi; So-So Social Media Campaign.

07.15.2009 Case Studies
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Pepsi recently launched a social media campaign targeted to the youth market; its a “battle of the bands” themed event; all elements are aggregated online on Pepsi’s main promotional site (pepsi.sina.com.cn), and a series of satellite SNS groups were created to drive traffic to the contest and stimulate buzz online.

However there seems to be a [...]

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Building a successful Chinese social media network from scratch.

06.18.2009 Case Studies

I mentioned BA’s “secret” in-house project a little while back (here); this project is an attempt to create a popular Chinese social media site from scratch, solely using China’s already established SNS.
Now the initial impression for something like this is “yeah right good luck buddy”, and to tell you the truth I also almost bought [...]

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China’s domestic beverage branding wars.

04.27.2009 C100

In march this year, Coca-Cola failed to purchase Huiyan Juice Group, due to legal issues in China. Huiyan’s strategy after this no doubt depressing turn of events was to begin an attack on the local concentrated juice market. Obviously this local market is a small pond with some freaking huge fish; question begged: how would [...]

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Zhuyeqing; Branding the “zen” of Chinese Tea Culture.

03.19.2009 Case Studies

“Success  |  Failure  |  Human nature” I’m taking some liberties here on translations; if you have a better version; please comment.
In the West, there is coffee; in China there is tea. Ya, I know you can find a Starbucks on every major Street in Shanghai (most times, you’ll find 2-3 close by, ala-strip mall fashion). [...]

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China Telecom; Becoming the telephone version of Google.

02.23.2009 Case Studies

Conservative, middle of the road ad full of yuppies using 114. Doesn’t get the blood racing, but certainly does deliver the message.
China Telecom’s latest China advertising campaign expanded their information service 114 (yes, the exact opposite of the US’s info service 411) from the basic database driven directory search into a comprehensive service center; their goal: [...]

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HengYuanXiang; The most annoying Chinese commercial ever made (also one of the most successful).

02.23.2009 Case Studies

I apologize in advance for showing you this commercial.
Here’s a great a example of the old PR adage: any publicity is good publicity. HengYuanXiang (HYX) carpet bombed China’s nationwide TV channels with this ad, which, when watching, is somewhat akin to banging your head against the wall. The commercial lists each of the 12 Chinese [...]

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Puma; What do Puma, F1, and Lego have in common?

02.06.2009 Case Studies
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“Fast enough to be No.1, Successful enough to be No.1, the fastest F1 in the world, brave enough, just come.”  As you may have guessed… this line sounds better in Chinese.

Very cute series of ads bring the idea of “play” to the Puma brand. Through a co-sponsorship with F1, Puma leveraged the 2008 China Formula [...]

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Shell HELIX; Racing Car Surgery.

02.03.2009 Case Studies

SAW III 2.0 – Shell version of SAW, made in China.
Shell cut a racing car open! Recently, this is popular on China web; some curious guys even try to find out which brand this poor racing car is (this is one of the “which brand” questions asked on Baidu Zhidao, a Chinese version of Yahoo Answers).
Well, no [...]

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General Motors; Buick Excelle TV Campaign.

01.16.2009 Buick

Am I watching an ad for a car or having an acid flashback? Either way… I like it.
As a companion to the last blog entry “General Motors; How Buick beat Volkswagen in China“, this entry will show you that while the simple sponsorship of CCTV-4 was a huge boon to Buick’s brand; there is still [...]

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