This campaign was designed to be part of a wider effort that made Midea, a Chinese appliance company, go from an unknown brand in the US to the #1 AC brand in the country. Midea realized they had a killer product—the Midea U Air Conditioner, a model perfectly suited for big cities with older buildings. Midea focused on that unit and the New York market. Focus was one-third of the battle. Another third was to spread the message. Our I Heart U (Midea U) campaign covered a lot of ground while keeping the product in the center. The third part was to find a creative idea that made the claim believable, in a way that made New Yorkers feel like the brand belonged and understood the city. And so we did the stunt 90 MINUTES OF AIR CONDITIONING and distributed a social video about it to millions in NYC.

The 90 MINUTES OF AIR CONDITIONING campaign was spread to millions of New Yorkers on social media, earning 440 million impressions. Critics dubbed the movie “the coolest film of the summer,” “the longest product placement ever,” and “the sequel to Andy Warhol’s Empire film. More impressively, sales in NYC and the tri-state area grew so much that by the end of the summer, Midea had become the #1 AC brand in the country (in both sales and units sold). And just like that, this foreign brand became a real New Yorker.

The fact that the film was deliberately unengaging and designed to be talked over or napped through pushed the insight even further—the audience came for the AC, not the movie. We promoted it like any other summer film. We took over the movie theater marquee. Invited local film critics and press to attend the premiere and held several more showings at NYC theaters over the course of the summer. We captured the event and audience reactions and spread it to millions of New Yorkers on social media.

New York City can be unbearably hot during the summer. Because of all the asphalt and concrete, the city averages eight degrees warmer than surrounding areas. It’s a phenomenon called a “heat island.”

To escape the heat wave, New Yorkers are notorious for going to ANY movie just for the air conditioned theater. They don’t care about the film itself. They will watch anything for 90 minutes of cold air. This practice has a long-standing tradition, stretching back to the debut of modern AC in a New York City theater in 1925. Back then, AC was advertised on theater marquees on par with the films being shown. Movie theaters and AC have been forever linked since then, and they provide a basis for an unending stream of jokes every year when the heat starts to rise in NYC.