The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2024–2025
DiDi Qingju turns shared bikes into Black Myth: Wukong clouds — 790M exposures
DiDi Qingju dressed its bikes as Black Myth: Wukong's Somersault Cloud and timed city drops to the game's launch — 790M exposures.
DiDi Qingju (滴滴青桔)
What it had to solve
China's shared-bike market had hit slow growth, heavy homogeneity and weak rider loyalty, and DiDi Qingju lacked a distinctive identity with young users and gamers. Black Myth: Wukong — the country's first homegrown triple-A game, with enormous pre-launch hype — offered an IP moment; the challenge was to bind a virtual game world to the dull, functional act of commuting.
How it works
Chinese shared-bike brands were competing on price and placement while users saw the bikes as interchangeable tools, and DiDi Qingju had no identity that mattered to young riders or gamers. Black Myth: Wukong, China's first homegrown triple-A game, was about to become the country's biggest cultural event of 2024 — a launch moment with attention no media buy could match.
Qingju signed on as the game's official riding partner and made the vehicle itself the canvas. The bikes were redesigned around the game's Somersault Cloud: cloud-shaped saddles, Monkey King staff handlebars, headband motifs and unlock sounds quoting the character, in Qingju's signature cyan over the game's gold-and-black palette. The campaign opened quietly in the subculture at Bilibili World, then landed on city streets in eight cities the day before the game's August 20 release.
The insight was that commuting and gaming share a young, urban audience, but the two experiences never meet. Putting the game onto a bike riders already use every day let the fantasy travel into ordinary life — no one had to go anywhere special to touch the story, they just had to unlock a bike. Douyin clips of the themed rides spread the novelty far beyond the game's own fans.
The final tally was 790 million exposures and two national hot-list entries. The case showed a mobility brand borrowing cultural energy instead of buying it: with a budget reported under 10 million yuan, it made a ride on a shared bike feel like stepping onto a cloud, and won a Silver at the 2025 Golden Eyes Awards.
Why it lands
- The bike itself was the medium, so every ride was an encounter with the campaign instead of an ad to skip.
- Timing drops to the game's launch day let Qingju borrow a wave of national attention it could not have afforded.
- Starting in the subculture at Bilibili World built credibility with the game's real fans before mass rollout.
- Cloud saddles and staff handlebars turned a commodity into a photo-worthy object people shared unprompted.
What it did
The campaign recorded 790 million total exposures and two national hot-list entries, with Bilibili World contributing over 50,000 on-site exposures and a No.1 Bilibili hot-search spot. It won a Silver at the 2025 Golden Eyes Awards in the media-product category, all within a reported budget of under 10 million yuan.
What you can take
When a product is everyday transport, borrow a story that makes one ride feel like an event — a cultural IP can turn functional vehicles into experiences people photograph and post.
Since then
The Qingju x Black Myth: Wukong bikes became one of the reference cases for IP co-branding in Chinese shared mobility, winning a Silver in the media-product category at the 2025 Golden Eyes Awards. Riders kept posting photos of the themed vehicles for weeks after launch, and the campaign demonstrated that a low-cost cultural tie-up could lift a utilitarian brand's appeal with young users. The operator continued to use game and anime IP partnerships as a route to brand youthfulness, treating themed physical products as Qingju's signature form of marketing.
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