We hijacked hottest TV dramas with hundreds of billions of views, turning bullet screens into Corona’s free media spots. Corona was also the first brand that innovatively turned bullet screens into the media spots.

Corona with a slice of lime is the drinking ritual (also known as lime ritual) and the brand’s most valuable asset. Promoting lime ritual is Corona’s strategy in China, which helps to strengthen the brand’s difference and premium image. However, this ritual was not well established. Even in many drama series with billions of views, where Corona was often used as a popular prop without the brand’s knowledge, the celebs forgot to add the lime while drinking Corona.

The objective was to raise Lime Ritual’s awareness by hijacking these hottest series.

Creative Idea:

We hijacked 34 hottest TV dramas with hundreds of billions of views, turning bullet screens into Corona’s FREE MEDIA SPOTS by engaging audiences in sending bullet screens of lime ritual.

Insights / Research:

Commenting while watching is the hottest behavior on video sites in China.

Bullet screen is a feature on China’s online video platforms, which allows real-time comments generated by audiences to fly across the screen like bullets, and remains in each episode forever for future viewers to interact!

Major video streaming platforms players, including iQIYI, Youku, bilibili, Tencent Video, etc., have adopted the practice and revolutionized the way audiences watch and interact with films and TV series. And Chinese audiences are fanatic about sending bullet screens to comments while watching TV series.

We intended to leverage this social behavior to let audiences send bullet screens of lime ritual.

Target audience: Chinese audiences who watch TV series online.

Media: bullet screens in 34 hottest TV series in China’s online video platforms, including iQIYI, Youku, bilibili, Tencent Video, etc.

Approach: turning bullet screens into Corona’s free media spots.

In 2021, Corona launched #ShootForSoulMate# contest on weibo (Chinese equivalence of Twitter) to engage netizens in sending bullet screen reminders when they spot celebs drinking Corona without lime in TV series online. As a token of appreciation from these soul mates, viewers will be rewarded based on the amount of likes – as much as a lifetime’s worth of Corona and lime!

The contest was implemented on major video streaming sites including iQIYI, Youku, bilibili, Tencent Video, etc. And it’s an always-on contest since it was first launched in Jan of 2021.

Total expenditure for Corona: Nada.

Outcomes: 34 of the hottest drama series with billions of streams were hijacked to be turned into bullet screens to promote lime ritual. These bullet screens will serve as permanent and no-cost monuments to Corona’s efforts to reinforce the Lime Ritual.