The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2022
Feishu films Luo Yonghao's 'first decision' — run his startup on Feishu; 30M plays
The moment Luo Yonghao announced his AR startup, Feishu released a wuxia-spoof film — his first decision is using Feishu; its first 100K-forward Channels video.
Feishu (飞书, ByteDance)
What it had to solve
Feishu, ByteDance's workplace app, wanted to reach small and medium businesses beyond its existing users. Luo Yonghao, China's most-watched serial entrepreneur, was leaving livestreaming in mid-2022 to start an AR company — a business-news moment millions were already following.
How it works
In July 2022, Luo Yonghao announced he was leaving livestreaming to start an AR company, Thin Red Line. Feishu, the workplace app from ByteDance, needed to reach small-business owners it had never touched, so it did not wait for a quieter day: together with Luo's Friends Media studio it published a Wen Dao (问道)-style film in which Luo's 'first decision' as a new founder is to run the company on Feishu.
The film plays as wuxia comedy. Luo, self-deprecating about the debts of his failed ventures, asks four martial-arts masters how to run a company: a white-haired sage sells a 999-yuan manual, Emei's abbess offers an expensive management 'sword', Zhuge Liang hands over pouches of mission, vision and values, and Monk Tang performs a rap about managing staff. Each answer fails, until a future Luo arrives to say his new company will be 'opened on Feishu'.
Distribution leaned on the news moment itself: the film ran through Feishu's official accounts, Friends Media's livestream account, and Luo's own channels, so the audience that was already watching his comeback became the audience for the ad. The tagline — start a company, and one Feishu is enough — turned a product pitch into the punchline of a public story.
The results made it a reference campaign: 30M video plays, 200M+ total exposure, Feishu's first WeChat Channels post past 100,000 forwards, and brand indexes up to 59x across four platforms. Effie Greater China later featured the case, and it took an IAI 2023 silver award.
Why it lands
- The ad was released into a news story people already followed, so distribution cost almost nothing.
- Self-deprecation about Luo's real failures made the film feel honest instead of sponsored.
- Classic characters and a nonsense rap gave audiences quotable moments to pass on.
- The product claim was the plot — choosing Feishu was the decision, not a feature list at the end.
What it did
The film drew 30M plays and 200M+ total exposure across WeChat, Weibo, Douyin and Toutiao, became Feishu's first WeChat Channels post to pass 100,000 forwards, and lifted the brand's four-platform indexes by up to 59x — exposure the company compared to three product launches. It later won an Effie award and an IAI 2023 silver.
What you can take
News a whole country is already watching is free distribution: borrow the event's moment, make the brand the punchline, and let the audience's curiosity do the media buying.
Since then
Feishu kept the 'open your company on Feishu' story as its small-business narrative and ran a Lingfei plan offering free accounts and training after the film. The spot stayed a staple of 2022 award retrospectives, took an IAI 2023 silver and an Effie Greater China award, and became the example Feishu cited when it later used celebrity moments again. For Luo, the film neatly previewed his own next act, since his Thin Red Line startup genuinely ran on Feishu.
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