After an understanding of the category, we uncovered the importance of MEANING attached to a piece of jewelry (i.e. the timelessness of a diamond to express commitment). Jewelry is not just about beauty, it’s the mean through which emotions are expressed. For Bulgari, its history, Roman origins and bold designs were not just an expression of love, but of Italian passion. Bringing this to life would require a story with characters whose passion Chinese audiences could identify with. This meant a radical redefinition, a more restrained approach away from the over expressive ltalian behaviours.

In China, being passionate about something means having to make sacrifices. Working with Chinese filmmakers, we created a modern tale of passionate love story where choice and sacrifice were central elements, infused with visual metaphors of a Bulgari ring- the infinite shape of a circle, O.

“THE STORY OF O” was born.

The “Story of O” is about a young physicist Aarif who, by chance, found an unfinished love song (a USB message in a bottle!) that led him to his destiny - beautiful singer / songwriter, Yo Yo. As Aarif had to leave Yoyo to pursue further studies, Aarif gave Yoyo a Bulgari ring as his promise of unending love beyond boundaries. The ring shape or "O" of the title was used to symbolize the eternal nature of love and devotion.

It took eight months of preparation to launch the film - a comprehensive content audit, press releases, script and master movie production in Hong Kong, up to the big premiere in Beijing. Further amplification was then carried out using Youku’s paid platforms, airport and in-flight screens, key influencer seeding and Bulgari’s owned assets. Even the lead stars themselves helped to drive strong social buzz during the entire campaign period.

Over 4 million people followed the production via our talents’ social media profiles (Source: WeChat and Sina Weibo). In its month of launch “The Story of O” was watched over 26 MILLION times on Youku (representing about a third of the country’s most popular TV shows’ ratings!) and achieved an 8.7/10 rating- one of the highest ever for a Youku original content. But the important test was the influence it had on the brand and the sales:

•306% Media ROI (Source: Admaster, Agency Monitoring)

•89% Baidu brand search volume increase versus year ago (Source: Baidu)

•Over 26 million video views generated on Youku with an 8.7/10 rating- considered a very high positive viewer rating on Youku (Source: Youku)

•77% increase in social media buzz (Source: Brandtology- WeChat and Sina Weibo)

•38% increase in sales within a month following the campaign (Source: Client Data)