Here’s an interesting addendum to my post yesterday about Chinese advertisements. When I said in that article that the two commercials featuring Chinese actresses literally yelling at the viewer was not representative of Chinese commercials in general, what I meant was that I’ve seen many Chinese commercials that are better, and many that are worse.  Well, here is one that is better:

This video is part of an advertising campaign for Semir and their new line of T-shirts. The video has gotten an absurd number of views though I’m not sure you can call it win for Chinese advertising. Sure it’s a Chinese commercial, but it’s full of Americans… in America.

But according to the Chinese advertising company that produced the commercial, that’s precisely the point: “Teenagers in China [attach] an aspirational value to youth culture in the West. Youth culture in the West is more encouraging of self-expression. It’s a kind of mental escape. If we had produced this in Shanghai, it would have been different.”

If that’s true then I hope to someday see Chinese teenagers in Shanghai staging impromptu Rube Goldberg domino setups on the street in an unmistakable display of self-expression.

Sources:

http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2011/05/13/how-to-reach-chinas-teens-head-to-l-a/
http://adland.tv/commercials/semir-ieverything-tee-2011-draftfcb-china