The Campaign

Challenge: Since China instituted its one child policy in 1978, almost 13 million abortions take place every year due to gender preference. Gender preference is not new news in China. Objective: Make the general population aware of this problem that they are used to ignore. Strategy: Mother’s Day is a celebration of motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. We want to make use of Mother’s Day to do a creative experiment on expecting mothers when they are doing their ultra-sound scan of their babies. Execution: We rigged the Fetal Doppler by inserting a mini MP3 player inside the device. At the push of a blue-tooth remote control button, it will play a pre-recorded sound of a young child saying, “Happy Mother’s Day”. We captured the emotions stirred in these mothers-to-be from such an unexpected greeting. Outcome: - Film released on Youku, NetEase Gongyi, NetEase News APP. - Made headline news on one of China’s biggest online news platform, NetEase. - Over 200,000 views within first 3 hours. - Additional 300,000 daily new users to NetEase Gongyi website This project is appropriate for PR as it brought created interest in a topic that is very hard to get cut through with the general public. We managed to get free, top exposure on the NetEase social platform in the form of news articles, being featured on China's most popular NetEase mobile news APP and their main public welfare website. Celebrity KOLs on Weibo also helped spread the film.

The Brief

The objective is to make the general population aware of this problem that they are used to ignore. Our target audience are women in general and families-to-be. Forced abortion traumatizes women and by some estimates from the WHO, as many as 500 Chinese women commit suicide every day, mostly in the rural provinces. In a society where girls are devalued, it's no surprise that China has the highest female suicide rate in the World. NetEase Gongyi, being a social welfare platform, has accumulated a huge trove of knowledge and research on this topic.

Results

The film spread very quickly once it was released on Youku, NetEase Gongyi and Weibo. It made headline news on one of the four major online news platform, NetEase, and got over 200,000 views within the first 3 hours. It also brought a daily average of 300,000 new users to the NetEase Gongyi website. It collected thousands of comments, mainly from young women, mothers-to-be and mothers. The most common comments were how the film made them cry and made them see child-bearing in a more 'sacred' light. "Although the women in the film aren't pretty at first, but they seem to be shining at the end of it." "Bringing a new life into the world is not easy." "I hope every mother can cherish the life she brings." "Babies are predestined, be it a boy or girl, I'm happy. Just as long as it is healthy."

Execution

We managed to get Shanghai Redleaf Women's Hospital to aid us on the project. Not only did they provide the use of a sonogram room, but also a doctor (which we featured) and a nurse to assist in the experiment. We were amazed by the number of volunteer pregnant women who are willing to participate in this goodwill exercise without even knowing what was expected of them. On the actual day, we rigged the heartbeat detector (fetal Doppler) by inserting a mini MP3 player inside the device. At the push of a blue-tooth remote control button, it will play a pre-recorded sound of a young child saying, “Happy Mother’s Day”. It was really touching to see all the unaware volunteers break down in tears. The outcome was much more touching than expected.

The Situation

In 1978, China instituted its one child policy to address its massive overpopulation problem, and since that time, as many as 13 million abortions take place every year. With Chinese parents' strong traditional preference for boys, it's not surprising that the vast majority of them were destined to be little girls. Gender preference is not new news in China. As there have been a lot of media and goodwill exposure on this issue over the years, people have gotten used to it and have closed one eye on it.

The Strategy

Mother’s Day is a celebration of motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. We want to make use of Mother’s Day to do a creative experiment on expecting mothers when they are doing their ultra-sound scan of their babies at the hospital. We want them to hear their unborn child telling them ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ as they are listening to the heartbeats of their babies in the womb. We want to capture the emotions stirred in these mothers-to-be from such an unexpected and simple greeting. As our client, NetEase Gongyi is a subsidiary of NetEase, one of the biggest news platform in China, we got them to agree to help us spread the campaign. We also secured a few celebrity KOLs on Weibo to help spread the film. Namely Luo Haiqiong, Mei Ting and Hao Lei.