The archive · Content & Film · Marketing decision · 2019
Alibaba Pictures' 'What is Peppa?' — a grandpa hunts the pig, 1.6B Weibo reads
A five-minute CNY teaser: a village grandpa welds a steampunk Peppa from a furnace blower — 300M+ views and a 1.6B-read hashtag.
Alibaba Pictures (阿里影业) · China Mobile (中国移动)
What it had to solve
Alibaba Pictures and Entertainment One were releasing the family film 'Peppa Celebrates Chinese New Year' on Feb 5, 2019. The teaser brief was crowded: it also had to carry China Mobile's video-ringtone sponsorship, and it had to move adults — not just preschoolers — during the most competitive advertising week of the Chinese year.
How it works
In January 2019, Alibaba Pictures and Entertainment One were days from opening 'Peppa Celebrates Chinese New Year' in China. To announce the film, director Zhang Dapeng released a five-minute teaser called 'What is Peppa?' — a trailer that worked as a standalone short film.
An elderly grandfather in a remote village hears his city grandson ask for a 'Peppa' over a crackly phone call. Nobody in the village knows what one is: the dictionary offers homonyms, a shopkeeper guesses a shampoo, a former nanny explains it is a red cartoon pig. He tries painting a real pig red, then welds a furnace blower into a steampunk Peppa as his gift — and the family winds up at the cinema.
The brief was deliberately hard: promote the movie, embed China Mobile's video-ringtone sponsorship, and reach adults and rural families, not just preschoolers. The short went viral within hours — 300M+ views across platforms, 1.6B reads of the #WhatIsPeppa hashtag on Weibo — and turned a marketing trailer into a national conversation about family and homecoming.
Why it lands
- Making the audience share the grandpa's ignorance delays the payoff, so the welded Peppa delivers the product reveal as emotion, not pitch.
- Casting a left-behind rural elder reframes a children's film as a story about family and homecoming, giving adults a reason to share it.
- Every message — film, sponsor, reunion values — rides one narrative instead of competing inside a single spot.
- Ending with the family in the cinema turns buying a ticket into the story's natural conclusion.
What it did
The teaser became the campaign: 300M+ views across platforms and 1.6B reads of #WhatIsPeppa (#啥是佩奇) on Weibo, with Campaign Asia logging 1.3B Weibo views and 800K discussion posts within days. Zhang Dapeng told the Golden Eye Awards (金瞳奖) that the short drew 230M plays and 1.6B Weibo reads; Chinese industry sites ranked it 2019's top viral case.
What you can take
When a launch brief is crowded — film, sponsor, two audiences — give people one human story and let every message ride on it; let the product appear only in the last beat.
Since then
The movie opened Feb 5, 2019 to mixed reviews, but the teaser outlived it: Digitaling's year-end roundup called it an unmatched, era-defining viral case, and later Chinese New Year (CNY) seasons saw brands chase the same human-story formula. Zhang Dapeng became one of China's most sought-after commercial directors, following up with viral shorts in the same emotional register, and discussed the campaign at the 2019 Golden Eye Awards.
Sources
- Chinese 'Peppa Pig' Movie Set to Hit Global Movie Screens
- 'What is Peppa?' trailer injects much Chineseness into British cartoon
- Children cheer superstar Peppa Pig at premiere
- 张大鹏：打造爆款没有方法论 (金瞳奖独家专访)
- 《啥是佩奇》：留守老人的硬核蒸汽朋克佩奇
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