Picked this one up from Mark Englehart Evans blog, it’s a randomly cool billboard done by an environmental artist Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung; the subject? Siddhartha Obama, or to those of you not familiar with Eastern religion, it’s Obama depicted as Buddhism’s founder, and as the cure to the world’s environmental woes.
This one’s pretty funny; it’s from Mentos, and takes a mischievous look on the average melodramatic “everyone dies in the end” Chinese love story. With my little experience marketing candy in China, it seems when aimed at a younger audience, it always comes with a twist, some societal expectation or old formula that’s suddenly broken.
This is pretty interesting; picked up from LRB forums as well as dug up from pages across Youku, we see some “shanzai” or copycat advertising of Dior and Johnnie Walker by local Chinese brands.. both coincidentally featuring a continuous shot camera technique focused on the actor.
I’ve been seeing this trend recently, first introduced in Olympics advertising, then obvious in Vancl’s latest campaign, and now in Li Ning.. protagonists that focus not on conformity, but on discovery; a beautifully refreshing attitude of going against the grain of societal expectations, to instead slowly reveal the world like a precious gift opened with fear of ripped wrapping.
Based on my general experience of China advertising and social media, I’ve really come to admire Vancl’s advertising strategy.
The focus isn’t broad stroked Chinese cliche; or a usage of celebrities commonly seen promoting a myriad of products (like when you see famous Taiwan singer Jay Chou promote a fast food chain, a clothing line, a soft drink all in the same commercial break).
Picked these up from LRB Forums; it’s a collection of “sleeping action” shots of typical Chinese acrobatic/kungfu activities done in a sleeping position. Smartly done; each model lies on the floor, wherein the set is set, and a simple 90 degree turn of the camera gives an effect of action while the model sleeps.
Looks like we’re coming to the end of the Shanghai Expo. I’ve been there a few times for various projects, and all I can say is that the massive scale of it is a sight to behold.
Picked this one up from LRB Forums; it’s a Guerilla marketing trick done by Guan Yin Yoga Club; which according to them cost about USD 74, and created about USD 138,000 in free press.
Picked this up from LRB Forums via Sina Weibo (China’s version of twitter) via Jacob Tang; it’s an awesome visual of logos from worldwide brands in circular spectrum.
品牌色相圖 « MyDesy 淘靈感: [...] Beautiful Spectrum of World Brand Logos.. Tweet [...]
Picked this one up via Designboom and Thomas Morffew; it’s an amazing photography series by Alain Delorme titled “totems”; and features China’s oft seen sights of little bicycles carrying cargo many times their size and weights.
Got this one from the guys over at DMG; it’s a Volkswagen ad, executed beautifully; the story removes the pretentiousness of glamour, replacing it with a mischievous twist. This humanizes the brand, rather than the stale “buy this car, become famous” we have “you don’t need glamour, glamour comes standard.”
Picked this up via Han Jun Wei and Buzzandthecity; it’s a funny look at Chinese women’s dating options in China. Beyond the beauty of the photos, there’s also some sharp commentary on Chinese culture as well.
Charlie Wang: I love the "The Classy Guy", they are quiet common up here in Beijing. 爷们儿 LOL
Mao Ruiqi: OMG, I am not sure, upon retrospection, if the pic is as funny as on the first blush. As cultural…
xBizz: where is the expat option? and dang that girl is HOT.
chad: "where is the expat option?" Everyone's represented...look closely.
Tom: Well she could take her pick, couldn't she? With looks like that I don't think she'd have to worry about…
Picked this one up via LRB forums and Shanghaiist. It’s a recent campaign by Dior that visually treads the lines into racism against the Chinese. Interesting brand positioning “yes”; ability to catch attention and stir conversations “yes”; creates loyalty and brand affinity “no”; and therein lies the rub; one little “no” can ruin any good campaign.
Junko: If you think that is racist, why don't you take pictures of Chinese brands advertising in China? They always portray…
Rand: I don't think Dior is racist, though I do see how these ads can be defined as racist; it's not…
Junko: To see much worse ads, look around for the fake Western brands. Tons of them in Jiu Guang above Jing…
Rand: Well people always remember the bad stuff; and when you look at Chinese historically there's been a lot of unwanted…
KyleChin: "As to the A Dream of Red Mansion, different people have different discoveries: Scribes found I Ching; Taoists found erotism;…
Mao Ruiqi: Racism is a tough word to handle, especially if you do not first attempt to define your specific usage of…
Rand: Ya I agree; there is a clear dichotomy created in these ads. "Racism" is a tough word to handle; but…
Jessyclaire: I don't think it's racist as much as it is (and I'm in full agreement with you here) extremely poorly…
Rand: Ya agree; if there is any room to question racist vs. not racist, already there's a problem. The potential to…
Picked this one up via LRB Forums; In an interesting twist, a commercial banned by China Central Television (CCTV) once posted online received 2M views in only 8 days.
There’s a bit of celebrity power behind this one though; the ad features Yan Liu, a famous, beautiful TV anchor for Hunan TV getting her faced sucked by a sweaty fat man… and within that sentence you can intuitively grasp why it was banned without having to watch the ad yourself.
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”.
Picked this one up via Danwei and Thomas Morffew; it’s a cover story from China Computer World bashing Tencent, the very powerful internet company behind QQ and numerous others. As you can guess, it’s not very flattering.
Drop Shopping: Though our user base is much smaller, our virtual economy is of a similar size to TenCent. Drop Shopping
Here’s some beautiful ads that have zero demonstration of Brand USP, and are actually a bit forgettable in the end after the initial “ooo thats nice” reaction fades into “… zzzzz”.
Ric: I like these ads. I think people know what a fan does pretty well. This shows that the company has…
Tara: Well, As someone who has been in advertising and seen ad scams (ads you do and get a client to…
Rand: Ya I agree with you Tara, the ads are quite beautiful, but do place the fans a few levels higher…
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.
Simon: I agree it's kinda jarring but the whole USP of the tea is that is apparently helps you lose weight…
Rand: Ah now I see; thats why they chose the anorexic model; lol - thanks for pointing that out -
Y: Totally took the EXACT same pic at Nanjing Xi Lu metro station, right? ;) It felt very Japanese. It seems…
Rand: ya thats right from nanjing road! :)
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 this particular campaign seen in China’s subways; Wildaid shoots endangered animal posters with money, through the billboards glass. The end result is a billboard with a bullet hole; the center of which features a coin.
The intended communication? Each time you buy even a coin’s worth of endangered species produced product, you’re pretty much shooting the animal; sometimes on the torso, but in the case of elephants, in the face. Though difficult to see the actual copy (at first you’d almost think it was a Discovery Channel ad with animals leaping out of the billboards toward you) once the message is absorbed it has impact; and execution-wise it’ll catch your eye.
However, one must wonder of the effect on highly-trafficked China subways; will enough people, rushing from point A to point B stop to get the sense of the communication? Or will they simply tune into the Discovery Channel thinking to catch the new “3D animal show”?
julie: It is a great campaign. However, it is likely to be misunderstood as accidentally broken glass, as people rarely stand…
Rand: Exactly right; I think its great as well, but likely better if you saw it in a magazine so you…
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 facelift; the issue isn’t lack of development… now the problem is making the Chinese care.
To shed the previous rural undeveloped image; JiaDing district put this quasi-romantic commercial together. In it, you’ve got your typical Asian introverted romance; slow sensuous music; girl ineffectually hitting boyfriend with backpack, etc; you know the drill. It brings a bit of modernity to JiaDing, a sensibility that’s surprising for a place most people thought was… well, empty really.
If we know one thing about JiaDing we know that we can dream of better times with our backpack wielding girlfriends. We also know that there’s a train that will take us there. And… well I guess that’s about it. But maybe that’s enough.
Veronica: It sounds like an old trick to crown any overlooked area a title of "new town" and just expect it…
Rand: good point :)
Jake: This is stupid..........the video shows nothing of Jiading. I've been living in Jiading for 4 years now and its actually…
Wenhui: Thanks for sharing, they're eye-catching.
Rand: My pleasure :)
singapore web design: Nice ads, thanks for sharing but I didnt get to see them in public?