The Campaign

Creating engaging content is becoming increasingly difficult as Chinese consumers’ have become more demanding. With more and more content flowing in from overseas, the standards continue to rise making engagement ever tougher. Branded content is also faced with tough restrictions from the government. Every program that gets put online has to go through a maze of approvals from the local and national government. For example, there are additional regulations concerning content that may be seen as corrupting China's moral or societal values. On the other hand, content that is seen as helping Chinese society, or a message that promotes harmony will have a much easier time getting through the approval process.

Results

The world’s biggest migration isn’t just good for business, but is also tough because of media clutter. So for PepsiCo, it was a challenging time to grow business. Now PepsiCo's brands are already an integral part of popular culture in China. Our brands are familiar and are regularly consumed. This consumption gets heightened over the festive CNY. And with China's meteoric economic rise this conspicious consumption was being taken for granted. We discovered though that this rapid growth wasn't without a price. China's development had started eroding a sense of community among the Chinese, threatening the happiness quotient of the country. This decline in happiness was real and relatable to our audience. According to one recent study as much as 70% of people in China admitted they would rather stay back in their town of work and pursue their careers than go home and be with family. This offered PepsiCo a great opportunity to reconnect with Chinese youth. We created a shared experience around the journey home through a mini-movie, ‘Bring Happiness Home’. The cast was loaded with people’s favorite celebrities and performers. It showed how a group of anxious strangers trapped in a snowstorm overcame their differences, their anxieties and awakened their feelings of family and community to create an unforgettable CNY. While the mini-movie made for engaging content, media’s challenge lay in getting this to people who were busy and on-the-move. Our approach focused on the path they followed. We created relevant, star-studded content that would keep them engaged every step of the way via transit media screens, train & bus stations, internet and mobile screens. We even had walk-in movie viewings at train and bus stations entertained them while they waited. Movie posters and trailers drew their attention. There was even a making-of our movie. A movie theme song, starring our celebrities, accompanied tens of millions of travelers on their journey home.

Our content was placed at every point of travel to draw our audience to our mini-movie. - Transit media screens at train and bus stations became key to drive awareness and viewing of our mini-movie. - Walk-in movie viewings entertained them while they waited for their transport. - Movie posters of BHH at key transit points along with movie trailers kindled curiosity. - A theme song of the movie, sung by the stars of the mini-movie, was available for streaming and download. - Our mini-movie actually ended up driving our audience to bonus content. A behind-the-scenes video with the celebrities in the mini-movie.

With over one billion views we became China’s most watched video in just 7 weeks. Our theme-song music video went viral with 315 million views. Even the Chinese government lauded our efforts in promoting harmony and gave us significant airtime valued at over USD15 million. Campaign awareness reached a staggering 86% and Brand Pepsi’s advertising appeal soared to 50% more than the nearest competitor.