From the category archives:

TVC

Selling China to the Chinese.

01.12.2010 JiaDing
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Or rather, selling Shanghai to the Shanghainese. I picked this one up from LRB forums; JiaDing district in Shanghai is known as rural, “end of the line” district… generally speaking its the kind of place you don’t want to live or really even want to visit. With Shanghai’s breakneck development pace, even the fringes are getting a [...]

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Skittles; Celebrating Youthful Irreverence.

10.19.2009 Skittles
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I picked this one up from LRB forums; this campaign is very cute, and celebrates a pretty common theme in China youth advertising: irreverence for social norms, mischievousness, and an emphasis on fantasy and imagination.
One thing to note though is that in most Chinese youth advertising there is still a a social conformist aspect to [...]

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Isabelle; 12 Zodiac TVC Love Stories.

10.16.2009 Isabelle
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This is a beautiful series of different proposals made to 12 constellations crowned with the slogan “let’s get married”. The short clips are produced by Taiwanese, and so do we find the typical pure love story style as in many Taiwan TV series in these ads. Horoscope is very popular among young people these days [...]

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CCTV; Stunning TVC perfectly balances Chinese Art Aesthetics and Nationalist Spirit.

10.13.2009 CCTV
Thumbnail image for CCTV; Stunning TVC perfectly balances Chinese Art Aesthetics and Nationalist Spirit.

I picked this one up from LRB forums; this is truly a stunning commercial; with a distinct nationalist tone, similar to the Adidas Olympic ads from last year, this commercial uses Chinese water painting aesthetics to weave inspiring visuals.
It’s difficult not to feel a sense of pride when watching these commercials; they’re perfectly tuned to [...]

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HSBC; Warm & Cuddly Financial Services.

09.28.2009 HSBC
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I picked this up from LRB’s forums; this is a sweet TVC; sentimental imagery that pulls at the heart strings.
It’s interesting how it plays out; following the life of a middle aged man as he progresses through the different stages in his life is an HSBC rep, a young woman who resembles Zhang Zi Yi [...]

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Nokia; Transformers + Michael Jackson Viral.

09.23.2009 Nokia
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Here’s a pretty cool ad; it takes advantage of current pop trends to weave together a simple engaging experience.
A key element to note is that both the Transformers & Michael Jackson elements are western in origin, yet either separate or together, they have a big emotional impact on the average Nokia-targeted Chinese.
I like this ad; [...]

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China Mobile; Using love to cellphones.

09.01.2009 China Mobile
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This is a collection of China Mobile’s newly launched TVCs posted in LRB’s forum. China Mobile’s trick is to stress love among people, basically between parents and children; husband and wife, and to boast cellphone’s power of getting in touch with whoever you are emotionally connected.
The TVCs are made genuine, touching; however, the audience is [...]

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Pepsi; Inspiring the deaf.

08.03.2009 Pepsi
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The TVC features a young man going through all obstacles and shut himself down from the surrounding denotative “noise” to reach the music stage, which echos with Pepsi’s recently national rock band contest that we have covered in a previous entry. The contest, too, encourages China’s youth to seize opportunities and set out for dreams.
A [...]

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Mercedes; “Smart” car ad a little “dumb”.

07.01.2009 Mercedes
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Mercedes Benz, a brand known in China (among other countries) for selling expensive luxury cars – is focusing on the China market with its new brand “Smart”.
In this context, “Smart” seems to mean “cheap and small”. This ad contrasts larger expensive cars that are hard to park in China’s congested urban areas to cheaper easier [...]

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LiNing; Traditional Chinese Shadow Puppet Basketball Theatre.

06.05.2009 LiNing

Excellent series of TVC’s by LiNing, takes Chinese traditional Shadow puppets applied to basketball ownage. Fits well with their “Anything is Possible” tagline.

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Chinese “Viagra”; He’s good, I’m good; Sex drugs promote family happiness.

04.29.2009 Huiren

Chinese are too shy to talk about sex publicly. For the few ads related to sex on TV (there are no Viagra or condom ads on TV in China), they must adopt a fairly indirect and funny way to tell the story.

“他好，我也好! ” / “He’s good, I’m good.”
“Lacking of energy”; “pain in waist and [...]

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Mousa; Crossing the line between “Independant Woman” and “Lesbian”.

04.29.2009 Mousa

Mousa, a Japanese chocolate product, recently launched an ad featuring a hot Taiwanese movie star, Vivian Hsu. The theme of the ad was widely interpreted as featuring “lesbian overtones”, which, as you can guess, triggered commentary; general chagrin from the ladies, and general river of drool from the gents.

The ad features 2 Vivian Hsus, one [...]

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Naobaijin; Pissing off Chinese people achieves 1 billion in health product sales.

04.27.2009 Naobaijin

Similar to HengYuanXiang’s branding strategy, Naobaijin, a health supplement product adopted a “repeat annoying commercial 10,000 times” strategy to great success. What’s interesting is that this actually seems to be a valid strategy when dealing with FMCG products in China. While online Chinese buzz is generally against the ad, sales tell a different story.

When I [...]

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“Sissy” star revitalizes Chinese folk arts; represents major Chinese brands.

04.22.2009 China Modern Culture

Xiao Shenyang is a recent entertainment phenomenon, not because he’s new to the Chinese folk scene, but because his “sissy” performances breathe new life into an old, tired art form.
Renhe’s recent Chinese medicine TVC adopted Xiao Shenyang’s TV comedy sketch <Bu Cha Qian er (Money is not a problem)>, performed during the 2009 National Spring [...]

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Snickers encourages Chinese kids to fight in public; Parents not impressed.

04.21.2009 Snickers

A Snickers’ TVC (created by Nitro Shanghai) featuring a classroom fight was shown regularly on major TV channels and Mobile TV in public vehicles in China. Soon after, Chinese kids began copy the “fighting with chocolate weapons” featured in the ad for fun in school, in public, and at home.

“Unlimited vitality beats hunger”
Chinese parents and [...]

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Visa; Going out to dinner with China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan; Chinese netizens react to politically charged ad.

04.14.2009 TVC

It’s no secret that there’s an obvious tension between China, HK, and Taiwan; Visa uses this political balance in their latest ad to showcase the Card’s universal appeal.

In the ad,three groups of people (from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) have an argument over dinner check. All speaking Mandarin with their local accents—the man from [...]

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Beckham, Reeves, and Connery; Selling Sex Pills in China; Fake ad and Chinese Netizen Reactions.

03.02.2009 Insights

Now you can “bend it like Beckham” too!
The age old question: “how to make lots of money without spending lots of money?” takes on it’s own meaning in China. In a land of low IP authority, we see some very “creative” copycatting; from designer bags, wallets, clothes, etc, all common fare. Lately though our friendly [...]

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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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GM; When their viral videos dominate Chinese internet, GM decides to make a few more.

02.19.2009 General Motors

You go girl.
Several videos featuring “anti-social girl power” went viral on the Chinese web last year; viewed and discussed ad infinitum, many Chinese netizens argue these videos were created by GM’s China advertising agency, rather than random passerbys on the street.
I side with the “China advertising agency created videos”; each show GM’s cars in a [...]

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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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