WECHAT ADS *THE PALACE MESEUM

TitleWECHAT ADS *THE PALACE MESEUM
BrandTENCENT
Product / ServiceWECHAT ADS
CategoryB03. Social for Mobile
EntrantEDELMAN Beijing, CHINA
Idea Creation EDELMAN Beijing, CHINA
Production EDELMAN Beijing, CHINA

Credits

Name Company Position
Guo Qing Edelman National Creative Director

Background

The Spring Festival Celebrations in China represents one of the most cluttered and competitive seasons to advertise. The sheer advertising clutter is a huge challenge to circumvent as big brands all compete for mind share during the biggest of the Chinese holiday. Our challenge was how do we advertise the new technology of WeChat in a way that is relevant to the occasion while also attracting potential clients for WeChat. The opportunity came with the partnership between the Palace Museum's exhibition. This partnership was not simply a sponsored activation but also allowed more people to visit the Forbidden City which would otherwise be harder given the huge popularity of the Palace among domestic tourists. The Forbidden City also plays a crucial cultural glue that ties the nation to its rich cultural heritage which is highly resonant during this most iconic of Chinese festivities.

Describe the creative idea

The Creative Idea: "Opening The Gates of the Forbidden City" The Forbidden City has always held fascination among the Chinese home to 24 emperors. To live here meant one lived in a celestial world inaccessible to ordinary people until now. The "Forbidden City in Celebration of the New Year" was an exhibit showcasing how imperial family and its court celebrated Chinese New Year curated in an exhibit spanning thousands of years. Unsurprisingly this garnered national attention but to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience, the number of visitors was limited, which meant there were still people unable to get into the exhibit. The social campaign we designed addressed the desire of the "Palace" to reach a wider audience through social while showcasing WeChat's new technology capability. It was a win-win arrangement that allowed the cultural sharing of this once in a lifetime exhibit while simultaneously showcasing WeChat's newest interactive capability.

Describe the strategy

• Connecting offline exhibition with 1.1 billion online users. The online exhibition held by the Palace Museum and WeChat Ads solved a problem that with only thousands of offline capacities, the exhibition can reach over million. • Using interactive methods to attract users’ attention • “Swiping” interactive function: scrolling down the screen as if users are pushing open the gate. • @friend function: inviting friends to tour the “online show” • Using teasing slogan to interpret the traditional culture WeChat Ads interpreted classical Chinese by modern languages, “Even the Emperor has sealed the jade and stopped working. Why not you?” In Qing, once the Emperor sealed the jade, the holiday begins. This encourages busy Chinese to get ready for Spring Festival.

Describe the execution

The Gates of the Palace Opens… The execution played on "Palace Gates" as a metaphor for access and privilege. The exhibition journey started with an ad on WeChat Moments and as they scroll a gate is opened to grant them entry into the Forbidden City. At this point, they are greeted by five Chinese characters "Fu" written by five emperors to greet our virtual guests as they start their journey of discovery of the imperial family and its court celebrated the Spring Festival centuries ago. Making it more social… We further enhanced the social experience by adding a @friend function so users can invite friends to tour the virtual palace themselves. We made the journey more accessible to everyone… There was a content piece published and a buzz video that was instructional to allow the older and less tech-savvy audience to get interested and access this exhibition themselves.

List the results

Generated incremental 86% reach through earned social sharing. The advertisement reaches nearly 30 million users but ultimately reached 74.75 million users after social sharing. They stayed within the app, 10x longer than average The total engagement rate is 14.92%, 10 times the industry average. The AVG. ad retention is 12 seconds, comparing to an industry of 8 seconds. Effective client recruitment – Achieved a 20% conversion lead from a base of 150 clients who reached out to find out more about this new technology feature. We produced a short video explaining this social campaign. 150 advertisers forwarded it and 30 of them approached us to express their interest in cooperation.

Links

Video URL