999 Cold Remedy is the top selling cold and flu medicine in China. Its classic “999” green and white box is one of the essential items in every Chinese household.
The brand’s look and feel had remained the same since it was first launched in 1991. 999 wanted to rejuvenate its brand image and to attract a younger generation to the product, while communicating 999’s core value “Feeling Warm, from Heart to Heart.”
View the case film on YouTube: https://youtu.be/HMNpRfzvpvU
In China people wear old-fashioned leggings during winter in order to keep the body warm and prevent colds. These leggings tend to be as outdated style-wise as the image of 999 Cold & Flu brand. Young people refused to wear these leggings, which made them more prone to catching a cold. So Serviceplan China reimagined winter leggings for a young generation, with tongue-in-cheek styles such as the; ‘Won’t Get Cold Youth’ which looks cold but is secretly warm inside; ‘Wearable Luck’ leggings which will make your wishes come true, ‘Regimen Punk’ that turn you into the hottest dancer at the club; and ‘Client’s Logo Bigger Version’, an ironic dig at the youthful obsession with wearing your designer’s logo as big as possible on your clothes.
A series of retro posters designed by Danni Wang and Er Suo, Art Directors at Serviceplan Beijing, became a social media sensation, and the campaign became the hottest search on Wechat and Adquan, a leading online media and industry interactive information service platform for the Chinese advertising industry, and a trending hashtag and topic on the search engine Baidu and Weibo, the Chinese Twitter equivalent. It also reached the No. 2 spot on Weibo’s hot search and stayed there for 2 hours: usually the top 3 spots are taken by celebrity gossip. A video of the campaign had more than 21.5 millions views with a 130 million trending hashtag and 15,000 interactions.
More than 10 Government-owned media outlets shared the campaign. There was a 790% of increase on WeChat search on the day of launch, and a 560% increase of views on 999’s official WeChat feed.
Serviceplan Greater China Chief Creative Officer Chong Kin said: “The great thing is that more than 430 million impressions of the 999 Cold Remedy campaign have been generated through social media and mobile apps.”
Screenwork Credits
Agency: Serviceplan Greater China
Client: 999 Cold Remedy
Campaign: 999 Warm-Hearted Leggings
Chief Creative Officer: Chong Kin
Executive Creative Director: Ballball Wong
Account Director: Mark Liu
Account Director: Gao Jing
Art Director: Danni Wang
Art Director: Er Suo
Copywriter: Emily JIn
Business Director: Erin Li
Social Media Manager: Alison Feng
Head of Creative Support Unit: Cedar Tian
About SERVICEPLAN
The Serviceplan Group is the largest and most diversified owner-managed and partner- managed agency group in Europe. Founded in 1970 in Munich as a traditional advertising agency, Serviceplan today has offices in 38 locations worldwide and more than 4,100 employees whose work regularly wins awards at national and international creative competitions.
As well as Serviceplan itself, the additional corporate brands within the Group – the media agency Mediaplus, the digital agency Plan.Net, and the market research institute Facit – also rank among the market leaders in their respective competitive environments. The precise interplay between the various specialist agencies – more than 45 in all – in matters of creation, technology and media makes Serviceplan the leading agency group for innovative communication.
In order to guarantee outstanding performance in the execution of its campaigns, Serviceplan is represented with own offices in all significant economic areas in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia. The global network is called Serviceplan International.
