The Campaign

SHANG XIA is a lifestyle Chinese premium brand, created by Jiang Qiong Er and supported by French luxury brand Hermes. It aims at protecting and celebrating traditional Chinese craftsmanship, but with modern contemporary design. Our mission is to spread the message on Chinese social networks that SHANG XIA – born in China – will open its Paris Store in the luxury capital of the Western world. But how can we draw Chinese netizens' attention by knowing that going social on such a profound luxury brand is always a risk? As a soulful brand, SHANG XIA is not about seducing the mass. SHANG XIA is about to touch the soulful audience, honestly interested in the brand’s way of life and philosophy. Therefore, on the occasion of SHANGXIA-opening-in-Paris, we invented the story of a mysterious masked man, wearing the traditional Han Fu. He traveled from China and sowed the “culture” seeds in Paris. We let the people post pictures of him and develop conversation initiatively on social networks. This generated the public curiosity until the brand revealed the whole story on the opening day on the official Weibo. The campaign got 452,200 views without any KOL push, and the total page views reached 6,000,000. But more importantly this “digital-happening” succeeded in finding the right balance, between social media conversations’ rules, and the spirit of a high luxury soulful brand.

The Brief

Our mission is to spread the message on Chinese social networks that SHANG XIA – born in China – will open its Paris Store in the luxury capital of the Western world. And solve the problem how to draw Chinese netizens' attention by knowing that going social on such a profound luxury brand is always a risk.

Results

Without any KOL push, the official Weibo of “the mysterious seed-sower” has been viewed by 452,200 times, with 600 reposts and more than 100 comments. During the period we managed the brand Weibo, SHANG XIA has recruited 15% more followers. Total page views reached 6,000,000. By successfully arousing the curiosity of the public, in 19 days and with 0 media buying, we led people entering the culture world of SHANG XIA.

Execution

We dress up the actor with traditional Han Fu and mask provided by the brand. Following the story, the seed-sower first appeared in the streets of Shanghai, then Beijing. We let people post pictures, and develop conversations about him on Weibo. This generated questions like: Who is this mysterious man? Where does he come from? What is he doing? Who is behind this? Then we spread pictures of our mysterious man sowing rice seeds on Paris’ pavement. We let the conversation grow until he was seen arriving at Shang Xia’s Parisian store for the official opening, on September 10th. And the brand official Weibo released a beautiful Seed-Sower’s esoteric campaign to reveal the whole story.

The Situation

The social networks are taking more and more power in terms of brand communication in China as in the other countries in the world. Almost every premium brands open the official account on Weibo – seen as the Chinese tweeter and the No.1 social network in China. There’s a lot of debate about to which degree the premium brands go in social networks to avoid damaging the brand image and exclusivity. Officially on Weibo, any topic that is related to brand advertising would not become the #hot topic#. People on Weibo often dislike the content that is suspected as advertising, and they will blame the KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) who earn benefit by pushing these information to their fans.

The Strategy

Our mission was to bring this major cultural event of Shang-Xia-opening-in-Paris to Chinese netizens’ attention. Sharing the brand spirit that is to promote and protect the traditional Chinese culture and craftsmanship, together with designer Jiang Qiong Er, we invented the story of a mysterious masked man who wore the Chinese traditional han fu and mask, travelling in the modern Shanghai, to Beijing, and finally to Paris. The curiosity of the people on the street helped us to spread the image of this “mysterious man” on Weibo. Our audience followed and discussed the topic on social networks, and the topic went viral by itself.