THE HANDWRITTEN NEWSPAPER

Gold Spike
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TitleTHE HANDWRITTEN NEWSPAPER
BrandHANVON
Product / ServiceTOUCHPAD (TABLET PC)
CategoryA02. Best Use of Magazines/Newspapers
EntrantMAXUS CHINA Shanghai, CHINA
Entrant Company:MAXUS CHINA Shanghai, CHINA
Advertising Agency:JWT BEIJING, CHINA
Media Agency:MAXUS Beijing, CHINA

Credits

Name Company Position
Meng Li Maxus China (Beijing) Deputy General Manager
Xian Fan Maxus China (Beijing) Associate Planning Director

Results and Effectiveness

CBJ’s first-ever handwritten newspaper article converted technophobes. Purchase intention soared to 93.3% (95.8% in Tier 1 cities), while 60.4% were persuaded. We smashed industry norms on ‘uniqueness’ (90%), ‘credibility’ (91.7%) and ‘easy to comprehend’ (94.6%) scores. And seeing a page of their favourite newspaper transformed into an elegant, handwritten work of art, they couldn’t help talking about it. Over 850,000 impressions were created (CBJ’s circulation). The subject was forwarded from CBJ’s microblog 1,722 times and attracted 279 comments. Google key word searches generated 492,000 results. Readers even believed that top actor/director Jiang Wen had become Hanvon’s new brand ambassador.

Creative Execution

Our target loves reading newspapers. But China’s newspapers rarely allow creative intervention on editorial. After explaining our idea, we were allowed to take over a page of one of China’s leading business publications, China Business Journal (CBJ). The entire page was printed in handwritten characters for the first time in history. We chose a feature interview with one of China’s biggest actors and directors, Jiang Wen, as he was promoting his new and much-anticipated blockbuster, Let the Bullets Fly. A quarter-page Hanvon Touchpad ad was inset with the headline: ‘Your signature is your authority and personality’. To bring the Touchpad’s USP to life, we had written not just the ad but the entire page using the Hanvon Touchpad.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Our target writes everything by hand. They may be China’s senior executives and leading Government officials but these over 45s were born before the digital revolution, so they are alienated from this technology. To move perceptions of the Hanvon Touchpad away from being a confusing technology to an enabling, relevant business communication tool, we had to highlight a key USP. Using its stylus, they could still write everything by hand on its screen. But that message alone couldn’t address their deepest fear. These elite operators sign documents all day. Their personal signature is the stamp of their authority and personality. We needed to show them that their signature – and therefore authority – could still be used with the Hanvon. So we brought these messages to life in a simple, vivid way in the channel they most enjoy and trust.