It is always interesting to see what attacker brands will do to try and cut through the clutter. This past week there was a half-page ad in the New York Times from the Chinese cell phone company Meitu, in English and Chinese, in the form of an “Open letter” to IOC President Thomas Bach.
The letter asked President Bach to consider making “selfies” an Olympic sport, and mentioned the company’s just-completed “Selfie World Championship” and massive engagement of people using cell phones to take pictures as evidence of the recognition of “selfie-taking” as an Olympic sport.
Interesting attention getter for a brand not yet known in the US mainstream, especially in sport, but one willing to find a way to start cutting through the clutter in a simple way to get attention, or at least start to gain some attention in the massive space.
Now there is no doubt that “selfies,” even though some have said they have jumped the shark a bit, are still an ongoing phenomenon. The selfie’s around sport that surfaced in the World Cup, during The Boston Red Sox visit to the White House (where David Ortiz caused a stir with a selfie with President Obama), with the Stanley Cup and in thousands of other places are still being taken and shared around the world. Instagram has become the sharing service of choice for consumers, and sport has taken notice and continues to work in ways to engage fans through genuine fan generated images. This weekend there will be thousands of photos, many “selfies,” generated and shared through the MLB Playoffs, college football and the NFL, all showing various levels of fun fan, and sometimes brand, engagement.
So that brings us back to Meitu and their ad, the “Olympic” tongue-un-cheek outreach, and what it could mean. It was simple; no pictures, no hashtag, no website mention for fans to engage. The facts were clear, the message was there, albeit probably tongue in cheek. Why no call to action at all? Furthermore a search, at least an English language search, for the selfie world championship yielded…one blog post mention. That’s it. A 2013, Selfie World Championship did have posts but wasn’t tied to Meitu in any way. All of which leaves the strategy for the upstart cellphone company as a bit of a mystery, but maybe that’s the goal.
Now because there is no English language engagement doesn’t mean that Meitu’s engagement in China or other parts of Asia to this point was not effective; there are massive social media sites in China that are not yet English-language or western friendly, so it could be that this was a first step, with not a lot to offer the American sports consumer yet. Maybe the ad was meant to be provocative as a start, with more to come; see what engagement or interest comes from American brands, or even sports organizations looking to engage with an attacker brand in the space, and go from there. Still without any call to action, how would one track or engage that easily? And what if you missed the ad? Almost none of the twitter chatter about the brand is in English, which leads to even more mystery as to the strategy.
Maybe in the end this was a one-off, some kind of outlier play by an ad agency looking to spend some money; large money for a New York Times ad, and leave it at that. That would be hard to believe. What will be interesting to see if there is a follow-up, a viral advancement in English-language sports and an escalation of marketing and spending for the brand with new partners in this country. Is this some kind of play for the Olympic space? Is it a way for an attacker brand to find a way in with athletes?
It certainly is curious; whether it worked, whether it gains traction, is all up in the air. Did you see the ad? Were you curious or confused? I was…or should I have said “meitu?”
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