Category: Fast Moving Consumer Goods
Advertiser: YILI
Product/Service: SHU HUA MILK
Media Agency: MINDSHARE, Beijing, CHINA
Managing Director: Sarah Yi (Mindshare)
Partner: Christina Chu (Mindshare)
Director: Gary Pan (Mindshare)
Director: Justin Liu (Mindshare)
Director: Blanchhichi Zhu (Mindshare)
Manager: Miro Wang (Mindshare)
Marketing Director: Anna (Yili)
Vice Marketing Director: Zhao Nan (Yili)
Senior Brand Manager: Fan Shaojing (Yili)
Media placement: TV - National TV + Local TV - 24 June 2011
Media placement: OOH - Office LCD + Bus Shelter+ Metro Wall Sticker - 15 June 2011
Media placement: Print - Fashion+ Entertainment+ News MG - 20 June 2011
Media placement: Radio - National Music RD + Local Music RD - 27 June 2011
Media placement: Internet - Portal +Weibo +SNS - 24 June 2011
Media placement: Movie - Product Placement - 20 July 2011
Insights, Strategy & the Idea
To Chinese consumers, all milk is the same. So to grow the ShuHua Milk brand in their hearts and minds we needed to do something extraordinary. We made ShuHua Milk the most famous milk brand in the world. This Chinese brand became the star in the most memorable moment of a Hollywood movie watched in every corner of the earth, even though it is only on sale in China. We couldn’t do a product placement in a local movie as this is shunned by Chinese consumers who dislike blatant promotion. But putting it in a Hollywood movie changed everything. It engendered a huge sense of national pride, transforming ShuHua Milk into a national brand hero.
Creative Execution
We placed ShuHua Milk in one of the funniest scenes of the massive box office hit ‘Transformers 3’. In a scene we developed for Chinese American comedian Ken Jeong, Ken slurps a ‘Shuhua Milk’ using the line: “Not till I’ve finished my ShuHua Milk, Donny!” The scene created a huge stir in China. They didn’t just laugh, audiences were amazed to see a Chinese brand they know from their local supermarket in a movie produced by Steven Spielberg! This was totally unexpected. Transformers 3 is the fourth biggest grossing movie of all time. Of its non-US takings, China accounted for 10% in the first weekend alone. This made the product placement one of the most talked about subjects in internet chatter, which translated into a major sales lift.
Results and Effectiveness
Consumers were amazed to see a local brand on the global stage.
Online chat went crazy as 10% of all tweets on Weibo mentioned ‘ShuHua Milk’.
Over 3 million comments were made online about ‘Transformers 3’, ‘YiLi’ and ‘ShuHua Milk’, and search volumes grew by 1000%!
They bought 12% more ‘ShuHua Milk’ as a result and brand preference increased 5%.