China is a non-democratic country. The Government has banned voting of all kinds – even on TV talent shows. But in 2013, we changed that. For the first time ever, more than 140 million viewers of China’s biggest TV talent show – China Idol – were given a voice. Something taken for granted in other countries was suddenly possible through our creative approach. Rather than voting for singers in the elimination rounds – which would mimic a democratic election in the eyes of the Government – viewers could go online, visit our platform, and choose to protect their favourite singer from elimination by the judges and studio audience. As sponsor of the show, a Castrol icon popped up on screen at pivotal moments of the contest prompting viewers to ‘Protect Your Idol.’ Suddenly, the Castrol brand didn’t just stand out, it actually stood for something true to its positioning – Magnatec Oil Protects Your Engine.

China Idol viewers were amazed when the Castrol icon appeared on screen prompting them with ‘Protect Your Idol’. It was the first time they had ever had a say in the outcome of this talent contest or anything even similar to it. They could visit Castrol’s customized micro-site to protect their favourite singer. Or they could do it via the incredibly popular voice message app WeChat, which was integrated into the show for the first time in China. They could also visit one of 15 social media sites to protect their idol. We engaged the audience further with behind-the-scenes content on Castrol’s Weibo (Twitter in China) to help them feel even more involved in the decision-making. And every week, the TV audience could see the effects of their voting preferences as the ‘Castrol Protection Index’ showed who was being protected the most online by the viewers themselves.

Every week, viewers protected their idol more than 10 million times. That’s 1 in 14 viewers. Chinese fans of the show were passionate in engaging with the campaign and to make their voices heard. Our Castrol micro-site alone attracted one million decisions to protect a singer and over 5 million page views. Castrol’s Weibo drove 100,000 tweets about ‘Castrol’s Protect Your Idol’. Search volume increased by 300%. And since this was also a B2B campaign, our strategy to raise eyebrows among mechanics in the competitive engine oil market was important too. It resulted in 700 new stores signing up for Castrol and a 78% increase in sales.