The campaign will be running across all media channels excluding digital until the Olympics, costing US$10 million. Given the dominant position of both players in the Chinese dairy market, competition was set to be stiff leading up to the Olympics.
The new Mengniu campaign is designed to give the Mongolian dairy behemoth an Olympic profile, according to Charles Sampson, managing director at Saatchi & Saatchi, despite the fact that Yili, not Mengniu, is the Olympic dairy sponsor. “This campaign is about ‘Team China’, where everyone has a part to play in supporting the Olympics,” he said.
Mengniu is the market leader in the China dairy space, but not by a huge margin. Its market share is believed to lie at around 30 per cent, while Yili controls about 20 per cent. Studies from R3 about six months ago indicated that Mengniu was widely believed to be an Olympic sponsor, having used the NBA and football to enhance its sporting credentials.
Recent research, however, shows that this lead has slipped, and that Yili has managed to raise its profile. “Yili has been using Liu Xiang and basketballer Yi Jianlian in its campaign,” said Greg Paull, principal at R3.
However, while Liu Xiang is one of China’s most beloved celebrities and Olympic hopefuls, the hurdler is involved in an extraordinary number of campaigns in the mainland.
Sponsored by Nike, Xiang also endorses everything from Nutrilite to Coca-Cola. His extensive endorsements suggest that, by using him, Yili runs the risk of being lost amid Xiang clutter. To avoid Mengniu being overshadowed by Yili, Saatchi & Saatchi has designed what Sampson dubs a “big ad”. “We’ve put together an ad with high production values, filmed across the whole country, with a cast of hundreds of people, for this campaign, to really capture the spirit in China,” he said.
The target audience is equally widespread.
“This is a brand campaign aimed at everyone,” according to Sampson, although he admitted that an important target is primary purchasers, which in China usually translates into women buying milk for their families.
