CReATION: Saatchi & Saatchi positions MWeb as dotcom pulse

Saatchi & Saatchi Beijing recently set-out to fuel more dotcom frenzy on the mainland, as the creative brains behind a portal launch by South African media consortium MIH, entitled MWeb.com (www.mweb.com.cn). Countering the constraints of China's Web-bound minority - which constitutes only one per cent of the entire population - hinged on localising the brand name to make it relevant to Chinese users; while using it as the core focus of the US$10 million campaign. "MWeb means nothing to the consumers we're talking to, so we had to come up with some local identification," said Megavision director Allan Chou, who masterminded the burst. Re-naming the portal "Pulse 'Net" - with "mai bo" standing for pulse and "wang" for 'Net in Mandarin; also signified "pulse of the times", he added. Ramping up interest for MWeb's Easter launch, an outdoor teaser burst featured the tagline "what's your type?" above the MWeb.com URL. "You really need to be clever in China with advertising messages - because the people you're talking to are largely university students who, in a few years, will be high-income, white collar individuals." Running the pulse theme throughout the campaign, the TVCs - entitled Vase, Basketball, Ice-cream and Kung-fu - feature a mercurial "M" throbbing on each protagonist's pulse-point. In response to China's current outdoor scrum, Mr Chou said the TVCs were a "call-to-action"; inciting user individuality via an intriguing storyline where protagonists stated "I don't want to talk about it ..." when queried about their throbbing "M". "We want people to identify with the site personally," said Mr Chow, stressing that the agency has gone to great lengths to quash similarities between the "M" pulse and tattoos, which held strongly taboo connotations in China. The creative team consisted of acccount director, Allan Chou, account manager, Koji Watanabe and account executive, Roy Xu with strategic planning by Dean Sciole. Creative director was Trefor Thomas, with creative group head Steven Cheng and Eugene Cheok. Magie Tan featured as copywriter, backed by Farouk Jaffrey in the director's seat and production house Planet Films Malaysia.

Sign In

Trouble signing in?

Reset Password: Click here

Contact Customer Support at

Customerservice@campaignasia.com