Iron Man 3 in China

Iron Man 3 in China (Click for the video)

OMG. This morning, I opened youku.com and clicked on the preview of Iron man 3 for China market. After that, I watched Tony's presence in the Chinese release party which was unbelievable great.

The event was held in Forbidden City. It is such a shock for me to see Iron Man in the Forbidden City and I can feel how ambitious the Disney & Marvel together with DMG entertainment are to win the China market. In order to capitalize on the Labor Day holiday, they even decided to change the release date from the same US release data to two-day's early.

Although US is still the major market, to be honest, I do not feel enough effort has been put into the film promotion. I only saw a Iron Man-Verizon ads on Youtube once, and some ads in the cinema. (But I have already booked the IMAX ticket. Anyway, I will go and watch it.)

Another interesting tactic is translating Iron Man into "铁哥们" which means a brotherhood relation. (but the official film name is still 钢铁侠) This strategy show the power of Iron Man, present a kind of responsibility and reliability. FYI, in the past months, a lot movies are focusing on the emotion of "屌丝" ( short, poor and ugly boy-- Dior's) which is a hot word in the whole society. For me, that focus is not fresh anymore. However, the marketing team of "American Dreams in China" (中国合伙人) which will be on release in Mid May, still utilized that old method and I even felt disgusting to watch the preview. Their marketing should better focus on the story itself and the castings -- they have got the most popular actors! Why they still make fun of the  Dior's emotion?

Thinking about watching film in US as a Chinese, I wanna talk more about the Chinese film in US. Although people criticized that Chinese films do not perform well in US, I would argue that they deserve it because they never do marketing! As a Chinese, on one hand, I can not watch those great film on the same date as in China, on the other hand, I do not know the cinema here like AMC has films from China. If any of the film can come to US fast and do marketing to the Chinese in US, the market is huge enough.

I think Americans in China can watch the films from their country even earlier than Americans. But I can not watch the hot Chinese films on time! I hope that day can come soon.

Coke's Personalized Package

Although this is not something happening recently, I just read about this campaign today which will be copied in the US market. I really love personalized product and merchants can easily capitalize on me. One month ago, when in Orlando, I specially look for key chain with my name (now it rests on my desk.. not use it). Apple also shows the emphasis by providing engraving service for customers.

Personalized products can have two side effects. On one hand, consumers may feel closer to the brand and increase purchase probability. One the other hand, the brand itself may be neglected as people focus their personalized feature.

For small brands, this strategy may be risky when lots of players are utilizing it as people will not feel the special. For big brands, I personally see great potential not only for Coke but also for PC manufacturer and some other mass product. and the cost can be compensated from the economy of scale and borrow resources from marketing expense.

But when it comes to China, difficulty occurs as it will be so weird to have my Chinese Last name on the bottle. And due to the diversified first names in China, you can not capture the full name of people. You may argue that we can try to produce the names used most often. However, those popular names always are considered as tacky, not-knowledgeable which may show that you come from a family without a great   education background. So what I think will work better may be just character instead of the full name. And a good association would be character with Chinese calligraphy for bottle water product and PC product.

Ice cream Micro Film Campaign in China

This blog is just some thoughts and thinking in my daily life. I want to record those interesting marketing campaigns in China and US.

Yesterday, I happened to click on this video ads on Youku, the Chinese YouTube. Micro film has been so popular in China after the introduction of micro blog which caters to the fast information processing of the new society. Naturally, brands are seeking opportunities to be involved in this new trend and marketers are making every effort to incorporate brand into the micro film in an indirect way.

Micro film normally has a length of 15 minutes. It has a simple story which is coherent with the brand message. Compared to commercial ads, the micro film is longer to have a more complete message and fans can have a better engagement with their idols. Compared to the real film, the micro film is short which people will not spend much time to watch and can get the message immediately and clearly. So in terms of consumer impact, micro film far more outweighs the traditional way.

Let's focus on this micro film for the ice cream brand "Ke Ai Duo" which means "more cute" or "Love more" in Chinese. The campaign positioned the ice cream to be a label of "Love" instead of just an ice cream that can cool you down in summer. Giving up the functionality of ice cream, the ads pay more attention to transform the product into an emotional accessory.

In the micro film, we do not see a direct mention on the ice cream. Instead, the ice cream is just a prop, a daily life snack, a source of surprise.

I highly recommend to watch the series of films. It is not only about the ice cream, but about love, especially, love for the youth. And maybe you will feel more in love if you watch it with this ice cream.

NYC Teen Moms Campaign

This blog is just some thoughts and thinking in my daily life. I want to record those interesting marketing campaigns in China and US.

These days, I was overwhelmed by these ads on the subway. For me, it is the first time to see such ads from a government to discourage being a teen mom . The approach is very interesting. Since abortion is such a sensitive topic in US that we can never directly encourage, the other creative way is to use the prevention focus incorporated into the ads and scare the potential teen mom away.

The four ads have different targets but the cohesive message.

1) Mom 

2) Dad

3) The development of the child

4) The financial burden from a child on the parents

The mom & dad are the decision making unit of the kid.

And the financial burden and the education of the children must be the two major concern of those teen moms. I believe this approach comes from a market research to understand the key focus of the parents.

And by presenting the innocent children's faces, the ads easily draw attention from the public. The voice of the kids is more appealing. 

This campaign reminds me of the PR campaign from Jiaduobao, a Chinese beverage company. After they lost the law suit towards Guangyao, they started a PR campaign, on one hand, to apologize for their unsuitable use of the brand name, on the other hand, to show their great effort in growing the brand.