In an age where word of mouth and fame are becoming the keystones to successful communications, the critical mass attained by blockbuster movie buzz and launches does this better than anything else. Especially in a film market like China where foreign releases are limited to a fixed number per year, and the majority local movies tend to cover similar themes over and over – the buzz surrounding a hit spreads like wildfire across social media. What’s more, although the Chinese cinema market is huge, the vast majority of movies are being watched (legally or not) online. To date, no brand in China has managed to replicate this kind of movie buzz and sharing.

Launching with a series of online trailers and movie posters posted on China’s most popular portals, we drove anticipation for the ‘Premiere’ hosted on Jun 27th, 2011 at a famous Beijing landmark. Thousands of fans, journalists and KOLs were invited to an open-air screening where our stars and the now infamous motorbike appeared live. More importantly, the premiere was simultaneously webcast on a dedicated Weibo channel, leading to a staggering number of reposts and views (260,000 within the first hour). The first few episodes were also aired on outdoor screens (transport and OOH) further driving traffic to the full content.

The response to this content exceed all of our and the clients’ expectations. Within days, the film had been seen over 4m times, and to date that figure exceeds 78m. Based on trailer viewing figures provided by Tudou and Weibo that beat all of the top grossing movies over the summer period (Kung Fu Panda 2, Pirates of the Caribbean 5 and local hit, The Swordsman). We were covered by over 400 news outlets, and generated over 70,000 comments on video and social networking sites. The estimated earned media was over US$20m– more than 4 times what we spent. Most satisfying were the Weibo comments asking when the full movie would be released (the impression was there’ s much more to the story than we produced!).The brand itself grew by 5% in value share and Extra was responsible for 77% of the entire category growth – selling an additional 2bn pellets of Extra versus the previous year (despite a price increase). Anecdotally, our male star is now 1 of the most sought after actors in the region, commonly referred to as the Chewing Gum guy or the Extra guy – people still aren’t as familiar with his name!