Those Annoying Wool Ads Strike a Chinese Nerve

Today is a gorgeous New England Day, still brisk but the sun pelts down and tries to cheer us up. I was on the phone today with a guy from SF who said he was underneath a lemon tree. With computer problems leaving us one machine short, I headed to the cafe to read the WSJ and read about a TV ad in China that everybody hates.

It's a commentary about the growing sophistication of Chinese consumers, they are rejecting a low budget low quality ad pitch. It's for a wool company that wanted to trumpet their involvement with the Beijing Olympics. The spot has a children's voice sing-songing over and over again the animals of the zodiac, a grating repetition of the Chinese words for "ox, ox, ox, tiger, tiger, tiger, rat, rat rat.

"When they first saw the ad, some people thought their TV sets were broken. Viewers savaged the ads in print media and online, some calling it intolerable, others saying it was the worst ad they'd ever seen. " Finally the company had to hold a press conference to explain they had stopped running the commercial.

One veteran adman, Richard Tan, head of Euro RSCG, says that when he first came to China, everyone used the 'caveman approach,' beating consumers over the head with repetitive, annoying ads with the same message. But now many Chinese agencies work is rivalling the slickness of Western agencies...so the wool company's irritating commercials made them look like they hadn't evolved like the others....but as usual, there is a twist. "The twelve animals ad has become a household topic of conversation across the country." In spite of this, it is unlikely 'consumers will ever be annoyed into brand loyalty," said Tan.