Top 10 Viral Campaigns on Chinese Social Media (2017 Q4)

In 2017, brands were very aggressive on Chinese social media, especially on WeChat and Weibo. Both local and international brands launched a wide range of campaigns to deliver branding messages and interact with their customers. The ultimate goal was to build a stronger social media presence and increase brand awareness.

ChoZan has picked 10 Chinese social media campaigns that went viral in the past few months and let’s see how they successfully caught Chinese netizens’ eyes.


China Merchants Bank

Scrambled eggs with tomatoes became the most popular dish on WeChat Moments last November thanks to China Merchants Bank (CMB) ’s online video campaign promoting its student visa card. The bank’s WeChat Index increased by a multiple of 68 in one day after the video was launched and generated huge discussion.

In the video, a young student, who has just arrived America from China, tries to fit in to the new environment by attending a get together where everyone was supposed to bring a homemade dish. A Chinese boy managed to make a delicious plate of scrambled eggs with tomatoes with his parents’ help from the other side of the world.

By illustrating many parents’ 24/7 support for their children, CMB wanted to show that their student visa card shares the  same principle by providing continuous help and care to college students exploring the world.


Vipshop & Pagoda Orchard

This December, Vipshop joined hands with Pagoda Orchard and launched a campaign called “Unspoken Love”. Users could order fruit sets through Vipshop’s official WeChat platform for their partners and receive a fruit set with romantic sentences on the package from Pagoda Orchard. The romantic sentences were chosen at random.

The campaign was a huge success because of its innovation and its combination of online and offline approaches that matched the desire among young people to express their love openly.


999 Ganmaoling

Everyone has ups and downs. Is there anybody there to comfort you when you’re going through dark times? If not, 999 was there for you with this campaign. 999 is a medicine brand famous for its influenza remedies.

The WeChat article was released during Thanksgiving, 2017 and achieved over 150 million views on the internet and 100 million shares on WeChat Moments and Weibo due to its ability to arouse sympathy.

The video showed how a girl who had decided to commit suicide changed her mind after receiving comfort and support from netizens. The campaign expanded when users were encouraged by the video and began to share their own stories on how they pulled through dark moments. 999 has been praised for conveying a positive, caring message and gave people hope at a time when many people feel there’s too much indifference.


Sogou

Hip Hop, parkour and immersive first perspective are three of the hottest elements in Sogou’s H5 promotion for its new audio conversion function. It became popular because it paid attention to so called “Long Audio Message Phobia” spreading among the young in China at the moment.

Sogou seized on this anxiety and exaggerated the moment for this H5 campaign. The audio conversion function can help fix the problem perfectly.

The conflict of fast-paced modern life with interpersonal relationships was captured well. It had many reposts because it truly understood the burdens and concerns of the young leading busy lives in big cities.


Burberry

Burberry launched a mini-game on its official WeChat account last Christmas. The game showcased the brand’s products that were available during the holiday. Players had to complete as many stages as possible and could then see their ranking among other players.

Many users left positive comments, praising the beautiful layout and enjoyable gameplay. Some of them also shared their scores and challenged their friends. In the end, the campaign generated over 30,000 views.


VIVI DOLCE

VIVI DOLCE is a Beijing based gelato startup brand. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, it launched a WeChat H5 campaign to promote its gelato mooncake.

The H5 campaign was an interactive story featuring some critical moments in a Chinese girl’s life. In the end, the criteria to get a free mooncake was that users had to share the campaign with 68 friends. There was also a link redirecting users to a ranking list of top sharers.

The main channel used to spread this campaign was WeChat groups. Group admins were invited to share the campaign and explained the “68-shares in exchange of a box of mooncake” rule. It was a great way to get customers to share the product with their friends.


H&M

Clothing brand H&M launched a WeChat mini-program to run an UGC (user-generated content) campaign last year. Users were encouraged to upload photos of themselves wearing H&M’s Fall & Winter collection to demonstrate their unique fashion sense. Users could also vote for each other’s outfits. The top 3 winners were invited to join a street snaps event in Shanghai co-organized by H&M and P1, an online fashion community.

The campaign engaged a large audience and successfully built a closer relationship between the brand and customers, positively impacting brand loyalty.


Durex

Thanksgiving is not a popular holiday in China, but Durex used the occasion to initiate a series of creative shout-out on Weibo, which went incredibly viral.

Throughout the day, Durex China published “thank you” posts to 13 irrelevant brands such as Wrigley, Snickers and Levi’s, which have never collaborated with Durex before.

For example, its message to Wrigley said “Dear Wrigley, Thank you for always being by my side and for providing an excuse for customers to buy me.”

The 13 posts attracted a lot of attention and resonated with viewers. They appreciated Durex’s creative copywriting and even urged the named brands to respond to it.

Wrigley’s Doublemint replied “You’re welcome. Feel free to request anything you want.” (in Chinese it also reads “open your mouth anytime”)

This humorous campaign grabbed a lot of attention because Chinese netizens were interested to see the interactions between the brands and their funny messages. The post to Wrigley alone has already received more than 16,000 shares, 10,400 likes and 4,200 comments on Weibo.

↑ Durex’s message to Wrigley (Right),Wrigley’s reply (Left)


The China Meteorological Administration

The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) is responsible for weather forecasts in China and is seen as a bit boring and serious to the general public.

However, its recent promotional video on Weibo has changed public perception. The video featured a man in black who is very caring and always offers help to a young man on windy and rainy days, helping him to see his girlfriend. The man in black symbolized the CMA, helping it build a warm and caring brand persona.

Due to the unexpected creativity of the video, Chinese netizens liked it very much and generated 80,000 shares and 16,000 comments.


Guerlain

The luxury cosmetics brand Guerlain launched a large-scale KOL (key opinion leader) campaign for its Kiss Kiss Matte Lipstick collection on Weibo last year. The brand collaborated with a wide range of celebrities like @杨洋icon, @聂子皓, @毛林林NIKITA, @YEPGIRLS戴燕妮, and Weibo beauty influencers, such as @睿睿cheryl, @佳佳酱很好吃, @June欣, @奋斗的小斤斤, @杨亘 and @周彦辰. They endorsed the brand by taking photos with the lipsticks and writing product reviews.

Guerlain also created a special hashtag – #分时诱惑# – for the campaign, which tracked over 81.6 million impressions and 850,000 discussions on Weibo.

↑ Weibo posts by celebrities Yang Yang and Nikita

↑ Product review posts by beauty KOLs


What do you think of the above social media campaigns? Do you any other good examples?

Leave a comment below. We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have.


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