Background

Situation Jackson Wang is one of the biggest pop stars in China, and Team Wang came to us to produce the video for his single, “Pretty Please”, an unbelievably catchy, disco-inflected anthem produced by Swedish EDM duo, Galantis. Brief A hands-on creator across all elements of his work, Jackson came to us with a challenge: To translate his love for Hong Kong cinema into a contemporary music video that would pay homage to ‘90s-era directorial greats, while still capturing the attention of a Tik Tok-generation audience. Objectives The objective was to create a music video that would successfully mix narrative storytelling with all of the style, flair and choreography that’s a requisite to resonate in 2020 among a young audience, and, ultimately, to engage new and existing fans online.

Describe the creative idea

In the words of Jackson Wang himself, “the song is a love story about me falling in love with a girl and confessing how much I adore her. Growing up as a kid, I watched a lot of Hong Kong Chinese movies, which were the visual inspirations for this music video.” The artist himself was keen to show his admiration for actors of that era, and made a point of presenting this love story in the style of '90s Hong Kong cinema with its overarching tone and manner.

Describe the strategy

With Jackson’s own passion exuding throughout the production, the main point was to make sure that we equipped him with the tools to successfully translate his directorial vision from imagination to execution. To do this, we enrolled the help of superstar dance group The Kinjaz, who are an ultra-popular lifestyle brand in their own right, and knew exactly the right moves to get this song and dance routine popping off on Tik Tok and elsewhere. We also made a point of casting the same actress as in Jackson’s “100 Ways” music video, providing an extra narrative hook for fans of the artist to sink their teeth into.

Describe the execution

For the Pretty Please MV, Jackson decided to cast the same girl actress as in his previous MV 100 ways, showing connection between the both love stories. The video starts in an old Shanghainese restaurant where Jackson catches eyes for a girl. She gets into an argument on the phone and leaves in a hurry. Jackson jumps up and the chase begins. He is fighting for her attention until he finally ends up getting her. The video ends with Jackson gazing into emptiness. He opens his hand and finds the girl's necklace. EDM Duo galantis are somewhat present in the video, as director Jackson and Congling use the symbol of a wolf throughout the video - in parallel to Galantis Seafox logo. Timeline: May - June (2 months) Placement: Online via all social channels (Chinese & Global: Weibo, Tencent video, Instagram, Youtube, Facebook,TikTok) Scale: ~ 1.000.000 RMB

Describe the outcome

Reach - Tik Tok: 22.7M views for this music video’s hashtag #prettypleasejackson - YouTube: 22 M views - Weibo: 14.3M views - Tencent Video: 15.2M views Engagement - YouTube: 1,2M likes / 80K+ comments - Weibo: 1M+ repost, 91K+ comments, 311K likes Impact - In its first week, the video was YouTube trending in the Music category globally, a huge achievement given that many of his Chinese fans are unable to even access the platform