The film was always meant to be about more than just selling Julie's Biscuits. Our goal was always to create a short film about the brand, rather than just another ad looking to sell a product or service. While we can never ignore that aspect of any campaign, the primary goal of this campaign was to tell a compelling story of a character who embodied the values Julie's holds dear. We felt that the story of a Translator, who spends most of his time sandwiched between others, was the perfect parallel to the sandwich biscuit we were promoting.

Julie's had a minimal presence in the heavily saturated snack category in China. Looking to break in, we needed to find a way to stand out. The Chinese market's penchant for love stories provided us with an opportunity to launch Julie's in an unconventional way. So rather than creating a regular 15-second commercial, we decided to launch a 15 min short film to showcase the brand’s values instead.

The overall objective was to create greater awareness of the brand and its values within the Chinese market. Creating resonance with the brand was the first step in aiding top-of-mind recall in purchase channels like supermarkets or e-commerce sites. The values of the brand needed to be intertwined in the communication without sounding overly preachy.

The Translator is the story of a man who excels at helping others communicate but lacks every social skill imaginable in his personal life. In fact, his most meaningful relationship is with his pet Parrot, White.

His latest project, being the on-set translator for a biscuit commercial, triggers a set of circumstances that will take Jonathan on a journey of self-discovery that culminates ultimately in him learning about what makes us truly human: the need to love and be loved.

With singlehood growing in China, the debate about finding love is only getting more heated. Today it is quite difficult for the younger Chinese generations to find love due to their daily pressures of work and study which are very important in their life. We wanted to explore this territory in a more light-hearted and entertaining way.

A brand trying to enter a saturated market with a typical, product-focused ad would face a near-impossible task to stand out without a million-dollar media spend. However, love stories are hugely popular in China and we decided to take a different route. We created a short film about a different kind of love *(The Translator) and how the values of the brand can bring people together.

The film was shot in Thailand, but was predominantly for the Chinese market. It was released on 20 May 2019 and ran til 20 June 2020 on Facebook, Youtube, Vimeo, Weibo, WeChat and Douyin.

To further expand our reach, we engaged 28 key opinion leaders to create ancillary content around the message of the film, and drive traffic.

Total 24,081,722 reads/impressions through social media and eCommerce live broadcasting from May 20 to June 20 2019 with 13,041,472 engaging interactions including video views, forwards, comments and likes. 28 KOLs promoted this campaign to 39.09% active fans (total 48M). Nearly 7.4M video views through Weibo and WeChat KOLs as well as WeChat Moment Ads. Earned additional 300+ posts from amateurs and unpaid KOLs in social space during the campaign period in China.

The film also won accolades from a diverse range of film festivals globally. 9Filmfest, Accolade Global Films, AFMA Film Festival, ARFF Barcelona, Athens Short Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, Independent Shorts, Indy Shorts International, Pittsburgh Shorts & Script, San Jose Film Festival, Top Indie Film, Yountville International Short Film Festival.

The film also won the coveted Grand Prix (Entertainment) at Spikes Asia 2019.