The 30-minute web movie premiered yesterday simultaneously on Youku.com, Tudou.com, and in a Beijing theater packed with Pepsi celebrities. According to a release put out by Pepsi: “Pepsi’s campaign marks the latest and the most elaborate attempt by a major brand to create themed content targeting China’s massive and growing audience.
Prior successful campaigns from brands like General Motors and Yili have earned more than 100 million views and upwards of 100,000 comments. Pepsi’s 2012 campaign of the same title involved a web movie released on Youku and a call for Youku users to upload videos expressing their wishes for their family members. Prior to the movie premiere, the campaign successfully generated thousands of uploads, and by the end, the web movie had more than 100 million views.”
Building on last year's success, Pepsi designed this year's campaign to have the scope and quality of a major title release - in addition to the web movie and user-submitted video contest, viewers can enjoy a celebrity-packed music video featuring lyrics about home, family, and mutual trust, additional mini-web movies, and a lottery. "Bring Love Home" content has already garnered more than 71 million views, 92,000 comments, and 17 million forwards. In addition to Youku Tudou's powerful media platform, this year Pepsi also leveraged the power of Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo, and Taobao into this multi-layered campaign.
The "Bring Love Home" movie opens with a bus full of people anxiously heading home to their families to celebrate Chinese New Year. A surprise blizzard strands their bus in the mountains and threatens to bring out the worst in everyone. But, as they seek shelter in an abandoned cabin and settle in spend New Year's Eve together, the strangers open their hearts to one another and enjoy a beautiful holiday.
When the storm passes and they reunite with their families, the stranded strangers really do "Bring Love Home": not just love for their nuclear family but, as Pepsi's campaign suggests, love for everyone from colleagues and strangers to their online "micro-family." This story has clearly struck a chord with the Chinese audience - a shorter version of the movie uploaded 5 days ago already has 10 million views.
"The Pepsi campaign is a perfect example of the kind of branding communications that we excel at," said Dong Yawei, senior vice president of Youku Tudou Inc. "We understand the Chinese audience and consistently deliver content that strikes a chord. With Youku and Tudou joining fully inter-connected, our ability to deliver commercially effective and socially affecting campaigns is huge, and only increasing."
