Setting the Tone for Spring Festival
During the 2024 Chinese Spring Festival, NetEase Cloud Music seized the opportunity of the Spring Festival travel rush to participate in CCTV News’s special Spring Festival program, The Gift of Going Home.
As part of this collaboration, NetEase Cloud Music launched a new song, I’m Fine, performed by renowned Chinese pop singer Mao Buyi, as the theme song for this special program. Across more than ten CCTV News Spring Festival trains, user-generated music reviews were displayed on train windows, accompanying travelers on their journey home.
These reviews were curated from the comment sections of songs related to “family,” “love,” and “kinship” on the NetEase Cloud Music app. The ads were shown over ten trains traversing China, carrying tens of thousands of people with dreams of home.
Pictures above all from:https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/pAwpkSMfW7XVC-ORngFjtA
Trains, Music, and Marketing
Although this video was featured in a CCTV News program, it does not strictly qualify as native advertising. Instead, it aligns more closely with the definition of collaborative content marketing. Its complexity lies in the fact that while Mao Buyi’s exclusive song for NetEase Cloud Music is presented in the CCTV program, the brand itself is not explicitly mentioned, and its logo is absent. However, on NetEase Cloud Music’s own social media accounts, the content prominently displays both its own logo and the CCTV News logo.
This campaign showcases a new approach to multi-platform, integrated advertising. NetEase Cloud Music utilized its social media channels to amplify the campaign, while strengthening brand association through offline elements like user reviews displayed on train windows, Mao Buyi’s song played on trains, and the sentimental backdrop of Spring Festival travel.
By weaving these elements together, the campaign deepened the emotional bond between the brand and its audience. Centered on the cultural importance of family reunions during the Spring Festival, it prioritized heartfelt storytelling over direct promotion, embodying the warm and relatable nature of NetEase Cloud Music’s brand identity.
“User-generated content (UGC) and social media usage contributed to the declining audiences for and effectiveness of traditional advertising.”
(Hardy.J, 2019)
A noteworthy aspect of this branded content video is its emphasis on UGC—specifically, the music reviews are a hallmark of NetEase Cloud Music’s community. Over the past decade, since the platform’s inception, billions of user-generated reviews beneath songs have become a cultural symbol of the NetEase Cloud Music brand. This unique advantage in branded content, combined with the theme of “returning home” for the Spring Festival, evoked strong emotional resonance among users.
Future Trend of Branding
Just as Hardy argues,“Within the overall convergence of media and communications industries and cultures, the convergence of media and marketing is gathering pace across the various dimensions.”By leveraging CCTV News’s credibility, this campaign blurred the boundaries between news and advertising by embedding its branded message within a Spring Festival special.
Branded entertainment aims to capture the consumer’s attention and elevate a brand’s image by associating it with popular personalities, media brands, organizations or events, All branded entertainment is aimed at consumers, not business-to-business end users.
(Hardy.J, 2019)
I believe future branding is shifting towards emotional storytelling, focusing on connection and resonance over hard selling. This campaign is a successful example that captures the power of heartfelt branded content in building lasting bonds with audiences.