How the forgotten Chinese brand has become a hot topic in China

08Nov2018

How the forgotten Chinese brand has become a hot topic in China with the help of KOLs | Daxue Consulting

Chinese skincare brand Pechoin (百雀羚bai que ling) has become a hot topic on Chinese social media with one so-called “long-pic-ad” (长图广告chang tu guang gao) and successfully turned its brand image around among Chinese young consumers. Not very long time ago, Pechoin was still considered outdated and not-cool. How does that happen and what is so special about this ad?

Here is the story: one morning, the queen found out that her skin was full of wrinkles and she looked much older all of a sudden. After a series of investigations, they finally found out who was responsible for that – the time. The solution of this tragedy was, with no surprise – Pechoin product.

Pechoin gift_box presented in the ad

Several KOLs on WeChat posted this long-pic-ad of this new skin care product with different titles and in different contexts, many of these posts got 100.000+ views (since WeChat only counts until 100.000 views per article).

Pechoin’s long-pic-ad related posts with 100.000+ views on WeChat

First thing what makes this ad memorable for viewers is the format used: this one piece of long-pic is made of 17 vertically combined images. By scrolling screen, viewers can easily read one short story without much effort. This kind of storytelling made the reading experience unbroken and painless. After finishing reading it, consumers won’t feel pushed or uncomfortable, and the chance is much higher that they will share the post compared to a traditional ad.

Screenshot: parts of Pechoin’s long-pic-ad

Another essential reason for the success of this ad is the painting style. In the recent years, Chinese court drama (宫廷剧 gong ting ju) is prevailing in China, even when this story is not that intriguing, the era of this story and style of drawing are already extremely eye-catching for many Chinese consumers, especially young female consumers. For the last two decades, imported western skin care products have dominated the Chinese skin care market. Chinese millennial are used to western styled ads for skin care products, this Pechoin ad really was thinking out of the box and fills up the empty space of Chinese styled ads. It also successfully awoke Chinese people’s sense of identity and national pride.

Chinese TV Drama Yanxigonglve with huge success in China in 2018

Pechoin Group founded in Shanghai in 1931. Pechoin is the most popular brand of the company. Not only this piece of the ad, but all other marketing campaigns of Pechoin also utilize lots of traditional Chinese elements to emphasize its long history and oriental philosophy of balance and harmony. It implies the relation of oriental beauty with natural skin health.