Chinese Coke Billboard Goofy...Or Not
There's something about Chinese culture that makes relatively snark-free advertising like this Coke billboard possible. Of course we have no idea what we're talking about because we've never been to China. But we do know, or at least we're told, there's a bit more innocent goofiness in the culture that makes this stuff possible. Of course, we could be completely wrong about that notion too.
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Here is the short film which inspired the billboard:
mms://61.172.201.153/2005/kele/VTS_01_1.wmv
Well thanks to a lovely Chinese co-worker I can now tell you the following:
It translates to enjoy yourself, but it really means if you want to do something, do it your own way.
The guy in red in the centre is the first Chinese person to win a gold in the hurdles in the Olympics.
The rest are pop idols/ models, with the guy on the very left a rap artist.
Chinese Advertising seems to work on simple patterns.
Here's similar ad. The photo was taken in september 2005, in Beijing.
Could it not have more to do with the big network agencies being completely out of touch? Rather than the market itself responding to simple patterns or liking innocent and "nice" messages and images? I'm asking not stating...
Its a very Chinese ad in cultural terms. Its also useful in avoiding any possible censorship.
Its the same kind of positive message Coke use elsewhere, just nicely altered for the region.
as a lay person observing the advertising sector in China, I would say this coke ad is very typical of an industry that is still very much led by celebrity endorsements. T
he sportsman in the ad (Liu Xiang) is currently the number one hot property in this regard alongside NBA star yao ming. Liu can be seen in a number of ads including visa and a host of local brands. to say he is overexposed is an understatement but the big corporates see no problem with this. The same is true of the girl band SHE, who are also on this ad.
A few companies seem to be showing a little more innovation (eg. Nike), but as someone who grew up in the first wave of trulu creative advertising in the UK, China does feel about two decades behind
well, i think you don't understand this ad because you don't know the culture. it's just another simple ad counting on celebrity. basically the people in this ad are the stars (singers, actors, sports icon) who are very popular among Chinese kids. kids idolize them. isn't it just simple? coke can do much better than that. but it works. as long as it works. lol..
hey, this just using stars for ad.
it's the same thing for Hannah Montana,Jonas brother