iv. Digital

Johnnie Walker + Han Han; “Sentiment Road” China Social Media Campaign.

Dec 15, 2010

China’s uber-famous blogger Han Han is going the way of Jay Chou; we see him sponsoring a wide assortment of products, though with a more introspective edge compared to singer Jay Chou’s wide spread magnetism.

Mentos; A Twisted Chinese Viral Love Story.

Dec 13, 2010

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.

Li Ning; Beautifully Inspirational China Viral.

Dec 2, 2010

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.

CIC; Shanghai Panel: From China Social Media to Social Business.

Nov 1, 2010

Hey all; our friend(s)/strategic partner, CIC will be holding a China social media panel at Fudan University on Nov. 15th. From as far as I can tell, CIC is the leader in China social media monitoring; I say this because for every client I land, CIC was usually there first; but don’t take my word for it, refer instead to the list of speakers as evidence.

BMW; Kaixin001 China Social Media Case Study

Oct 28, 2010

Some of you may recall the period when we posted case studies on brand campaigns. Well today we’re revisiting that, but in a more “social media-ish” sort of way; cause while in the past our cases were limited to living on this blog; now we’re putting them on slideshare.net, then embedding into this blog; and then also seeding it to our linkedin groups where you can go to ask questions about any of the cases we publish.

David Delgado: I enjoyed the presentation since it gave further insight into a Chinese social networking site I previously didn't know about.…
- KyleChin: Yes, the campaign there is not pretty interactive, at least it's not so interactive as that of other brands in…
- Rand: Ya I agree; its a positive step forward, though there is a lot of room for optimization. The site has…

Absolut; Transforming Social Media Creative.

Sep 29, 2010

Recently I picked up an interesting post from Thomas Crampton on the domination of user generated content in China social media.

IBM; Best KungFu China Viral EVER.

Sep 15, 2010

Picked this one up via LRB Forums; it’s the most awesome kung fu viral ever; why? Because it goes in the complete opposite direction of high production, and instead is a throwback to Japanese theatre, pre-television.

7UP; China Viral: 10 Days, 10 Million Views.

Sep 8, 2010

Picked this up from LRB Forums; it’s a hilarious 7UP viral that tells the story of young love from a twisted perspective.

oni: I am wondering it's an official viral campaign or just another Mr Hu ge's parody?
- KyleChin: That's the complete version of the official viral video. It is said that there is also a commercial edition which…

Rejected China TV Ad Receives 2M Views Online.

Aug 3, 2010

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.

Vancl; Expertly Planning a China Viral Buzz Campaign.

Aug 2, 2010

Advertising is maturing; I’ve mentioned before someplace in this blog that the future isn’t the traditional campaign, but rather a series of conversations that take place with users. In its more obvious form this expands toward branded content, where the ratio between entertainment /advertising is about 80 /20. I’ll cover this in-depth in a future post, but now I want to talk about something way simpler.

k.y.: There certainly is a lot of buzz, but what about? Is this idea still Vancl's when there are more parodies?…
- Rand: Depends on how you define "success"; most people will know that the ad is a parody of the original vancl…
A revolutionary move? VANCL tires out e-commerce 2.0 | Offbeat China: [...] marketing campaign led by VANCL, China’s largest branded apparel e-commerce website. (Refer to Vancl; Expertly Planning a China Viral…
VANCL’s New TV Spot Reminiscent of Classic MasterCard Advert – Advertising @ chinaSMACK: [...] the commercial is sweet, it is not a scratch on the great viral campaign the clothing giant launched last…
Vancl T-Shirts featuring quotes of Chinese PM Wen Jiabao get confiscated | Ministry of Tofu 豆腐部: [...] Vancl, China’s largest apparel web-exclusive retailer, is known for selling cheap-chic duds tailored to young urbanites. Its aggressive advertising…

Adidas; Sina Weibo “China Twitter” Campaign.

Aug 2, 2010

This is a quick snapshot of a campaign we came across on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. It’s an Adidas campaign with a simple engagement, prompting users to add Adidas Originals as a friend, and then RT a specific tweet and comment which shoe color the user is wearing today for the chance to win an Adidas original bag.

This simple engagement has gained 7000+ follows for Adidas on Sina Weibo; the account was created on 2010.06.18. Not too bad for a few months.

World Wide News Flash: Adidas; Sina Weibo ?China Twitter? Campaign.... I found your entry interesting do I've added a Trackback to it on my…
Buying agent in China: weibo is new online market in china
Olivier@Chine: 7000+ follows it is well done for addidas. Is any other brands did better?
Chinese Marketing and Recruiting: Nice article. Weibo is definitely a useful tool. Also, everyone loves a chance for a "free lunch" - or a…

Asus; Japanese Viral a Big Hit in China.

Jul 28, 2010

Found this one via LRB Forums. It’s a Japanese viral spoofing “The Ring” for Asus computers. Normally I wouldn’t post a Japanese viral, but this was found on China’s Youku, and has managed to garner 620k views in about one month, as well as a slew of commentary from China’s netizens ranging from date requests to the “ghost”, to helpful pointers on how the ghost can defeat Asus computers.

leikmann: it was very interesting to read www.littleredbook.cn I want to quote your post in my blog. It can? And you…

Accessing Twitter from China via Linkedin (Proxy/VPN not required).

Jul 21, 2010

Accessing Twitter from China via VPN or proxy takes forever, so recently I discovered a way to get around it by accident. This happened while I was tinkering with my Linkedin account, and discovered that Linkedin’s twitter plugin “Tweets” will allow you to access Twitter direct from China sans proxy/VPN.

thomas: Well that's LinkedIn blocked........
- Rand: ...What's Linkedin blocked?
- Morgid: Linkedin cutting a hole through China’s great firewall. I think that's impossible. I found a very fast VPN service, everyone…
  - Rand: it ain't impossible!
    - Morgid: How to progress now? :)
thomas: Just saying that the GFW are surely going to jump on this.
Rand: That'll take time; GFW still in process of killing off it's second wave of home grown microblogs.
S. Rein: Some things are better left quiet. There is not benefit from posting this.
Tait: My VPN isn't slow. I use Witopia.net. (I'm not affiliated with them.)

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How to Become a Chinese Internet Celebrity.

Jul 19, 2010

Here’s an eye opener: China’s most famous digital blogger is more popular than China’s top movie and sports star celebrities combined… by a pretty wide margin.

This is crazy, but when you think of it, oddly intuitively right. Offline celebrities are great, but seem distant and inaccessible. When compared to your average blogger or online celeb however, there exists the opportunity to engage, keep up with them daily, and share more of their lives; more points of contact eventually equal greater engagement, assuming the content of those engagements remains fresh.

From Nielsen APAC Social Media Report.

C. Maoxian: Any idea who the girl is in the Vancl ads?
- Rand: You mean the girl riding by on her bike? She's not in the ad, shes just overlapping it!
  - C. Maoxian: No, I mean the girl with the bob haircut wearing the 99 kuai polka dot dress. The one with the…
    - Rand: ? I'm not seeing that in the vancl ad in this post, are u refering to another ad not featured…
      - C. Maoxian: Not in this post... this is a Vancl ad I see every day in the subway. Sorry for being cryptic.
    - yiplee: you may mean the famous actor in China,her name is Wang Luodan(王珞丹).
jeff: Only problem with this comparison is the HanHan became famous before he starting blogging. He went "online", not the other…
- Rand: True, he was a best selling author, among many best selling authors, but after becoming a blogger he became Time's…
good job now!: good job now!
hua3.cc: 很精彩~~~~楼主很了解中国互联网嘛~~

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Evolution of Brand China Social Media Campaigns.

Jul 14, 2010

The problem with social media is that its a very broad term; it’s sort of like saying “advertising”, which in itself can mean a huge amount of differing services, all with different objectives; ATL, BTL and whatever lies in between.

@mark_e_evans: why post something so blatantly racist, when its 'distantly' related to your post? Why?
- Rand: I guess its cause I'm racist? lol - Actually wait, I'm not, though I am a homophobic communist. Wait -…
aavezel: it was very interesting to read. I want to quote your post in my blog. It can? And you et…
- Rand: sure - go ahead and post - just be sure to link back!
Jakob O: You do understand the irony of the crab wearing three watches don't you? A hint is to say the the…
- Rand: i did not know that - very awesome.

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