The archive · PR & Stunts · Marketing decision · 2025
999 Ganmaoling stages a winter layering fashion show — Weibo topic hit 140M reads
Cold-medicine brand 999 crowdsourced winter-dressing pain points, made real outfits with BIFT designers and paraded them in Beijing — 140M reads on Weibo.
China Resources Sanjiu / 999 (华润三九) · WMY (五米外)
What it had to solve
Cold season is flu season, and every cold-medicine brand is shouting 'stay warm'. 999 Ganmaoling's insight was practical: China spans many climates, so nobody knows how many layers to wear, and commuting, dog-walking and indoor-outdoor swings each need a different answer. The brand decided to answer with clothes rather than another ad.
How it works
Every winter, cold-medicine brands tell people to stay warm; 999 Ganmaoling decided to show them how. It invited people to share their real winter-dressing pain points — commuting in the cold, walking the dog, the indoor-outdoor temperature swing, the huge gap between northern and southern China — and then worked with Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology designers to build clothes that solved them.
The result was '保暖有一套' (Keep Warm Is a Skill), a fashion show staged in Beijing's 798 art district in early February 2025. Garments carried the brand's green medicine-packet visual identity, and models walked looks for temperatures from −25°C to 25°C, turning a health reminder into a wearable, photogenic event; an illustrated dressing guide followed online.
The show scored as a conversation piece: the Weibo topic #保暖穿搭999感冒灵上大分 reached the top 20 of the trending chart with 140M reads and more than 97,000 interactions. The case won a 2025 金瞳奖 Silver in the PR/brand crossover category.
Why it lands
- 999 turned a generic reminder into a concrete, useful answer — actual clothes for real situations — which is why people shared it instead of scrolling past.
- Putting the brand's medicine-packet green on runway garments gave 999 an owned visual moment instead of borrowing a celebrity or cartoon.
- Staging looks by temperature from −25°C to 25°C made a public-health message specific, funny and news-worthy at the same time.
- The online illustrated guide extended the one-day show into reusable content that keeps the brand in winter conversations.
What it did
The Weibo topic #保暖穿搭999感冒灵上大分 reached the top-20 trending chart with 140M reads and over 97,000 interactions. The work won Silver at the 2025 金瞳奖 in the PR/brand crossover group.
What you can take
A brand can answer its own category problem with something useful instead of an ad: the coats and the catwalk carried 999's identity, so the warmth message was worn rather than merely claimed.
Since then
The show ran in early February 2025 as flu season peaked and circulated through the year as an example of a pharma brand doing lifestyle marketing without losing its visual identity. It won Silver at the 2025 金瞳奖 in the PR/brand crossover group and was covered by Chinese marketing media including SocialBeta, which noted the tie-in with the brand's 粒粒 IP merch for visitors.
Sources
- 999感冒灵「保暖有一套」穿搭秀 (999 Ganmaoling's Keep Warm Is a Skill outfit show) — 2025 金瞳奖 Silver case
- 999 感冒灵办了场「保暖时装秀」(999 Ganmaoling held a warm-fashion show)
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