The Aged Care-Father's Lie & Takeaway
Background
Chinese are known for having strong family values and being filial to the elders. However, in the past 20 years or so, China has been going through drastic economic and therefore social changes. A significant amount of the countrymen in their prime immigrate into the big cities to work and leave the elders in the countryside. They are the bereft generation. They are lonely, they have no one to care for in sickness, they are burdened with responsibilities of baby sitting and they do not have adequate financial support to live a good quality life. Some of them even die in their own home without anybody knowing.
Planning & Execution
Challenge
Restricted by financial difficulties and bounded by work commitments, these workers do not have the luxury to visit their elders frequently. It is an easy choice for them just to call the elders occasionally.
Strategy
Tell a story of an old man lying to his daughter to conceal the real difficulties he is experiencing in his old age to remind all Chinese sons to go back home more often.
Effectiveness / Results
Results
This commercial has been aired for more than 5000 times on CCTV since January 2013. It is worth of RMB 200 million of media dollars. There were more than one million posts discussing this commercial just in the first two weeks of this campaign. More than 400 media in the world cover this story. CCTV has done two feature stories in its news programs. This commercial resonates so much with Chinese sons that there is a national movement pledging Chinese sons to go home. A worker from Hebei Provence who failed to go home for seven years was touched deeply and went home to be reunited with his parents. The script “ He may forget a lot of things, but he will never forget loving you” has become talk of the town.