The Campaign

Western and Chinese leaders are quite different. While western leaders are urged to multiply speeches and movements to justify their power, Chinese leaders don’t even need to over-signify: one single word, one single gesture is enough to be followed by a nation of 1.3 billion people. For instance, a simple picture of China’s current president Xi Jinping kicking a football during his visit in Ireland was enough to set off the construction of hundreds of stadiums in China. When QiongEr, Shang Xia’s Founder and Art Director, was invited for a dinner in French President Palace l’Elysée, at the same table with President Xi Jinping for the 50 years anniversary of Franco-Chinese relationship, it did mean a lot! Instead of publishing the traditional post-ceremony press release, we created a pre-release combined with a real-time Weibo reporting co-operation. Instead of traditional “After PR”, we chose adrenalin filled with “Before & During ePR”. Obviously, from the first post mentioning the name of Xi Jinping, it created uproar from the entire nation, which naturally turned Shang Xia’s weibo page into a bridge to connect with the President Xi jinping himself. We have created the first digital hotline to the Chinese President. In only 5 days, we generated more than 5 millions views, and we created a never-seen real time digital excitement while preserving the essence of a soulful Maison bridging two civilizations, France and China, in the 21st century.

The Brief

The goal was to activate the philosophy of Shang Xia, which bridges the best of two civilizations, France and China, in the 21st century, but with no media investment, neither with press conference nor camera, because of such the confidential issue of an Elysée dinner.

Results

QiongEr’s weibo page literally turned into a digital hotline to the President Xi Jinping: people asked tons of questions to him through the comments. Due to the virality of the campaign hashtag #PleaseAskXiJinping and indeed due to this unexpected and huge number of President’s name mentions, Sina Weibo locked the repost function. In total, the whole digital campaign generated more than 5 million views, with 2.8 million views only recorded for QiongEr’s and Shang Xia’s posts.

Execution

2 days before the dinner, we posted QiongEr’s Elysée invitation on her Weibo page, and then asked her to share her real-time, true emotion while she was attending this dinner. The execution was then all about live-24h 7-managing, observing the audience’s reactions to this post to react accordingly in real-time. We noticed chinese people started addressing President Xi Jinping directly in the comments. The day before the event, we made a screenshot of those questions and we asked a Weibo influencer to release it, using the hashtag #PleaseAskXiJinping. Minutes later, it naturally became a “meme” on the Social Media. On D-Day, in order to increase the live reporting effect, we asked QiongEr to post real-time moments while she was at the L’Elysée dinner, directly on her weibo page. It allowed the internautes to discover the backstage of probably one of the most important and private Elysée dinner of 2014. And at last, but not the least, QiongEr surprised everyone with a fantastic Selfie with the French President François Hollande himself.

The Situation

Shang Xia is a Soulful Chinese Maison celebrating traditional craftsmanship with timeless design, founded in 2008. 6 years after its creation, in March 2014, was the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of France-China relationship, with the first official visit of President Xi Jinping to France. At this occasion, the Founder and Art Director of Shang Xia, QiongEr, was invited by French President Hollande for the welcoming state dinner at L’Elysée at the same table with President Xi Jinping. It was such a privilege and honourable moment that we would like the whole world to know about it.

The Strategy

In China, when you have something interesting to tell, Weibo is the new press conference. But we realized that today’s China cherished speed so much that we could not come with the traditional post-ceremony press release. That’s why we created a pre-release combined with a real-time Weibo reporting co-operation to provide the audience with live news from L’Elysée, expected to be a very confidential space. Instead of traditional “After PR”, we chose adrenalin filled with “Before & During ePR”.