The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2017
CMB 2017 Study Abroad Card Ad Goes Viral
Midnight video of parents teaching tomato-egg dish boosted WeChat Index nearly 200%.
China Merchants Bank (招商银行)
What it had to solve
China Merchants Bank wanted to promote the Visa Study Abroad Credit Card: target customers were study-abroad families, and parents and children jointly decided study-abroad matters, so the ad had to hit both generations.
How it works
On Nov 1, 2017, CMB ran a microfilm in WeChat Moments: a student in the US asked parents how to cook tomato-egg dish, but it was midnight in China. Parents got up, filmed a demo, sent it; he succeeded. The line 'The world may be big, but no bigger than a plate of tomato and egg stir-fry' went viral.
The scene came from an employee's real story. CMB spent six months interviewing students and parents in the US, UK, Canada, concluding parents and children weigh 5:5, so one ad had to move both.
WeChat Index for 'tomato and egg stir-fry' hit 350,000 on Nov 1, up nearly 200%. CMB won awards like 2017 Outstanding Brand Construction Bank. The ad sparked controversy but the copy became a phenomenon.
Why it lands
- Use interview data to confirm the target audience's dual identity (parents + children), giving the creative direction empirical support.
- Choose the national home-cooked dish tomato and egg stir-fry as an emotional symbol; almost every Chinese family understands it.
- Turn details of study-abroad life such as time difference, late night, and video calls into a reversal, which is more shareable than directly talking about credit-card benefits.
- Launching first in the WeChat Moments feed matched the scenario of browsing the phone late at night, turning the feeling of 'being hit' into immediate shares.
What it did
That night it went viral on social media; the WeChat Index for 'tomato and egg stir-fry' rose to 350,000 in a single day, up nearly 200% day over day, and the topic triggered discussion across the internet; China Merchants Bank won awards such as '2017 Outstanding Brand Construction Bank' for this case, and it drove many young people to pay attention to the Study Abroad Credit Card.
What you can take
Insight first: six months of interviews showed parents and children each weigh 50% in study-abroad decisions, so the ad moved both generations.
Since then
After the viral spread, discussion about 'the child being selfish and the ad being a mama's-boy ad' lasted for a week; Jiemian News, China Business News (中国经营报) and other media published articles reviewing Chinese-style family-affection ad formulas. During the same period, multiple brands followed up with family-affection narratives. China Merchants Bank won awards in the year-end 2017 annual selection for brand communications, but did not later replicate the same hit, which also shows that a single emotional ad is hard to automatically form brand equity.
Sources
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