HsuFuChi Chinese New Year Memory Train
HsuFuChi is a traditional Chinese candy brand that has been a gifting staple during Chinese New Year. But with electronic red packets (envelopes with money) becoming a more preferred gifting option, the brand was losing relevance during this crucial occasion. HsuFuChi had to regain relevance in a crucial sales occasion that it once owned.
Insights & Strategy
Before the eCommerce boom in China, families went to hypermarkets and supermarkets for holiday shopping. You would hear the same few songs on repeat your entire shopping trip. Holiday shopping are linked strongly with Chinese New Year songs.
Music is also an integral part of Chinese New Year. Much like how no Christmas is complete without Christmas songs, no Chinese family can think about Chinese New Year without humming a few of their favourite celebratory songs.
This provided a big opportunity for HsuFuChi. Music comes the closest to expressing the inexpressible – it has a language of its own and the power to hit the emotional nerve that is within us all.
We set out to take our target audience a trip down the memory lane, and use music as a way to connect our brand with them.
Execution
First, HsuFuChi created a New Year’s playlist on China’s top music app – Netease Music (68% penetration among Chinese netizens). The playlist contained iconic Chinese New Year songs from every decade since the 1970s.
We embedded the playlist into an interactive H5 page (in-app content) called “HsuFuChi Time Train” and launched it right before Chinese New Year – when people were traveling to their hometown to reunite with their families.
When clicking on the HsuFuChi Time Train page, fans could select a decade, and Chinese New Year songs from that decade would start to play.
On screen, a drawing of new year candy stories during the decade would show up. For example, in the 70s, candies were rare in China and would be handed out sparingly by parents. In the 80s, families would buy candies from street vendors.
The interactive H5 also allowed users to customize New Year posters and share them with friends on social media.
Fans were then directed to HsuFuChi’s online store on China’s biggest eCommerce platform, Tmall, so they could make orders on their way back home.
Results
More than 4 million people visited HsuFuChi’s mobile H5 page in the first five days alone, driving a massive uplift in sales.
Most importantly, HsuFuChi’s top of mind awareness became the highest among our audience after the campaign.