The Campaign

Qeelin is a high-end jewellery brand part of French group Kering, whose name is inspired from the Qilin, a chinese mythological animal. In China, no one has heard about Qeelin as a brand, but every chinese knows the Qilin as an animal. In order to create awareness around Qeelin brand, we decided to make chinese people believe the Qilin existed for real, though it is totally legendary. To make the heart-shaking news of the Qilin existence credible in a country as big as China, we shot a puppet baby Qilin and we integrated it into ancient chinese photos and into a vintage-style video. We sent a first round of pre-written posts accompanied with either the video link or some retouched photos to a small circle of influencers of Weibo and Wechat and let them to spread the news, asking their communities “what is this animal”? “is it the Qilin”? and finally concluded “Is the Qilin alive”? To make sure people won’t miss any content and to amplify the conversation, we created the hashtag: #babyqilin# (#麒麟宝宝#) In less than 24 hours, #babyqilin# became trending topic on Weibo, for two days in China. The campaign generated 35 million views, with more than 30,000 reposts and 15,000 comments

The Brief

Qeelin’s DNA is to ally inspiration from chinese mythology with contemporary design, to seduce the new generation of Chinese people proud of their origins while keeping an eye on the Western trends. Above all it is one of the rare brands in the luxury sphere allowed to be truly original: its ambassador is a puppet reproduction of the Qilin, a chinese mythological animal made of lion, ox and dragon. The Qilin has been a legend in China for thousand years, but except in front of temples or in traditional paintings, nobody has ever seen a living Qilin before.

Results

With only 10 retouched pictures and one 20-second-long video, we drove China crazy. The hashtag of the campaign #babyqilin# became the most discussed topic on Weibo during two days right after posting the first pictures and the video. In the following days, spontaneous conversations were created with people asking for the truth ; some people even researched the original photos to find out the trick, generating the belief this was a scientific conspiracy behind, hiding the existence of the Qilin for years! When we announced the identity of the brand behind the campaign, 2.1 million people attended the post-reveal on Weibo. All the posts of the campaign

Execution

We shot the puppet baby Qilin, ambassador of the brand Qeelin, and we integrated it into a selection of ancient chinese photos. These photos included old photos of Ruan LingYu actress, the “Chinese Marylin”. We also shot the Ruan LingYu imaginary in a vintage-style viral video, in which the puppet baby Qilin slightly appears, to intrigue people. Copywriters pre-wrote a dozen of social media posts that would accompany the photos and the link to the video, and we sent them to a selection of social media influencers with a calendar of posting. To make sure people won’t miss any content and to amplify the conversation, we created the hashtag: #babyqilin# (#麒麟宝宝#) We followed in real-time the audience’s reactions on the social media, repost by repost and comment by comment, to adapt the story and orientate the conversation. A situation room was implemented for this 24h 7 days live-following and action managing.

The Situation

China is the hottest market for luxury brands, which all want their share of the pie. The brand Qeelin is a new comer in the high-end jewellery sector, with a boutique spirit. Facing Cartier or Bulgari which have giant flagships in the biggest malls of China, the battle of the physical visibility was already lost. However the competitors are quiet on the chinese social media: the objective was thus to win the battle of digital visibility.

The Strategy

The strategy was all about seeding the announcement of the Qilin existence in the right place to create the fastest and biggest echo effect. Our insight was that nowadays Chinese people mostly trust what their peers share on the social networks than official article nor classical PR communiqué. That’s why to seed our trick we used a blend of the most popular social media in China: Weibo & Wechat, sending some retouched vintage pictures via a small circle of influencers, and a mysterious vintage video featuring the Qilin puppet to make the belief of its existence even more credible…