Thursday, May 25, 2006
Internet Advertising Flourishes in China
by from BeijingI have been living in China for almost two years now. Although my studies in Chinese are progressing well, I still don’t have quite enough command of the dialogue to get the full benefit of Chinese TV programming. As a result, a lot of my free time is spent using the internet for communication, news and entertainment purposes.
After I’ve read my email and reviewed the news online, one thing I enjoy checking out is what’s new on the popular video site, YouTube. I know it is popular in the U.S., but it is also popular in China. The site enables anyone to post a video about almost anything. Last year, Motorola China launched a campaign for a new model of cell phone. Their way to market this new product: Internet video. Motorola thoughtfully signed on a pair of college students from southwest China’s Guangdong province whose popularity was growing due to homemade lip-sync videos they posted on YouTube. The duo is now known as the “Back Dorm Boys” due to their habit of performing Backstreet Boys songs.
As the Motorola campaign continued, a competition was held that allowed consumers to submit their own lip-sync videos. The result was over 14 million page views which even caused a brief shut down of the site due to the increase in traffic. The eventual winner was chosen as a result of over 1.3 million votes. As an end result of all the Internet traffic, sales of Motorola cell phones skyrocketed. The campaign produced great results and has since caused a new wave of Web advertising for many companies in Asia.
Cellular companies in the US also seem to have noticed what happened in China: Cingular.
In China, Pepsi is also another company that has recently launched a campaign where they have asked the consumer to participate in the advertising and creativity.
With over 111 million Internet users in China, it doesn’t appear the Web marketing trend will stop here anytime soon. During the past three years, China has seen Internet usage growth of over 75% annually. Online ad investment here is estimated to be over $800 million this year and is expected to surpass $1 billion in 2007. With Chinese youth the primary internet users and the ones driving the future of the economy, video marketing via the Web seems to be a “can’t miss” opportunity for many corporations.
