CReATION: Netease TVC takes China to the Internet

With relevant content embraced by a community spirit, Netease has grown at a spectacular rate since its launch five years to easily being one of the more popular websites in China today. What is surprising though is that much of that growth was due to word of mouth advertising rather than from any formal promotional campaigns. However, despite its successes, Netease recently launched a nationwide television and print campaign to ensure that it would continue to command top of mind awareness and interest among the majority of Chinese Internet users. According to Mr Craig Davis, regional executive creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi - Netease's advertising agency - the website has the largest number of people chatting online at any one time, about 14,000, compared with around 4,000 for Yahoo. But the advertising campaign was made necessary because China's Internet market was quadrupling in size every year, he said. "They want to make absolutely sure that they have a fair share of that growth. They might have the largest number of people chatting at any one time, but really 14,000 is not a really big number in China's scale of things," Mr Davis told MEDIA. The 30 and 60-second TVCs aimed to portray Netease as being steeped in Chinese culture and having a strong sense of community spirit. Mr Davis said that Netease was a made in China, for China website. "It's about the community spirit, cooperation, the sharing of ideas, wisdom and knowledge and ultimately empowering the individual. It's not about exploiting people or information. It's much more humanitarian in outlook," he said. Under the tagline, "Power to the People", the commercials highlight scenes that are synonymous with China - the Great Wall, gunpowder, table tennis and the Dragon Boat Festival. However, a series of questions punctuates the TVCs: "What if the Great Wall of China had been left to just one person? What if gunpowder had been kept a secret? What if ping had no pong?" These questions are answered at the end of the commercial with the statement: "Only by helping each other can we be 1.2 billion times stronger. That's the power of the Internet. Netease. Power to the people." Mr Davis said, "We set out to make a very powerful leadership statement on behalf of the brand; something relevant, emotional and entertaining. Netease is about bringing China to the Internet rather than taking the Internet to China."

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