Shenzhen firm awards medicine brand to JWT

The Shenzhen-based company has awarded the relaunch assignment to J. Walter Thompson Shanghai, deepening a relationship it forged a year ago when it appointed the agency to handle its skin cream and top-selling stomach medicine.

JWT's Northeast Asia area director, Tom Doctoroff, said compensation was comparable to multinational client arrangements.

Zenith Media, which won 999's media planning brief a year ago, will take on the headache medicine assignment, with buying handled internally.

The pharmaceutical category is the most active in China, with local brands accounting for the lion's share of spending last year. The 999 Group is billed as one of the country's top 11 brands, with its brand value estimated at more than Rmb8.1 billion (US$980 million), by a Beijing Brand Estimate study.

The group's three brands were previously handled by its inhouse agency, which has since been relegated to working on below-the-line assignments as mounting competitive pressures prompted 999 to look outside the corporation for international marketing expertise.

Chen Tian Wan's relaunch marks the end of a lengthy dry spell when 999 provided little marketing or distribution support for the headache medicine, according to sources.

In a separate development, JWT is preparing to launch a television and print campaign for San Jiu Wei Tai, its first since taking over the creative assignment for the stomach medicine product last year.

The campaign, backed by below-the-line activities, will break in early February.

JWT group account director Margarette Sun, said the product, like most Chinese medicine, was hindered because it did not prove its efficancy and relevance to a new generation of users.

Although Wei Tai was one of the first local brands to adopt an emotional approach in its advertising eight years ago, Sun said it had yet to achieve a unique positioning for itself in the Chinese stomach medicine category.

Wei Tai's main rivals are Si Da Shu and Li Chu De Lee.

The aim of the upcoming campaign is to stimulate trials among a new generation of users, by positioning Wei Tai as a Chinese medicine that is gentle and mild, but one that also provides fast relief. In pursuing a new generation of users, JWT had to ensure that it did not alienate older users.

"The new generation of stomach discomfort sufferers prefer to use Chinese medicine, but are concerned that its efficancy is not fast for an emergency,

said Sun.

Doctoroff added: "The campaign is a blend of Chinese 'reassurance', which is important for local brands, cut-through executional style as well as a powerful efficiency message - what people look for in Western medicine."