The archive · Content & Film · Marketing decision · 1995–2001
Haier Brothers: a fridge maker's cartoon builds a national IP — revenue up 65% in 1995
Haier spent ¥60M on 'Haier Brothers', a 212-episode educational cartoon on CCTV (1995–2001) — the appliance brand became a national childhood IP.
Haier Group (海尔集团) · Beijing Red Maple Animation (东方红叶动画集团)
What it had to solve
Haier's logo since 1985 was a pair of boy mascots — black-haired Qin Dao for China and blond Liebherr for Germany — but the brand was known for refrigerators, not stories. Chairman Zhang Ruimin wanted to extend corporate culture to children; two earlier attempts with Shanghai and Taiwan animation studios had failed.
How it works
In 1995, a Chinese home-appliance maker began airing an educational cartoon on state television. 'Haier Brothers' followed two boys — one Chinese, one German — on science and geography adventures around the world, 212 episodes in total, produced over eight years for ¥60 million by Haier Group and Beijing Red Maple Animation.
The boys were Haier's own logo. Since 1985 the company's brand mark had been a pair of mascots symbolising the Sino-German Haier-Liebherr venture, and chairman Zhang Ruimin decided the way to extend corporate culture to children was to give the mascots a story. Two earlier animation attempts had failed; the third, a science-exploration series with no product shots or selling, became one of China's most-watched cartoons, running on CCTV from 1995 to 2001.
The commercial record is striking. Haier's revenue grew 65.21% to ¥1.531 billion in the year the show premiered, against 35.05% growth in 1993 and 16.47% in 1994. By the time the series ended in 2001, Haier's revenue of ¥11.442 billion (+136.97% that year) and market value of about ¥7 billion had overtaken rivals Midea and Gree, which had led it in 1995.
The show's real return was cultural: more than 110,000 users have marked it 'watched' on Douban with close to 9,000 short reviews, and the full 212 episodes still stream on Bilibili with over 17 million plays and a 9.7 rating — a brand asset a generation grew up inside.
Why it lands
- It invested in content children actually loved, not in advertising that interrupted them, so the brand entered memory through emotion rather than exposure.
- Keeping the product out of the show made it credible: the brothers were explorers, not salesmen, and the science framing reinforced Haier's technology image.
- CCTV's daily-afternoon timeslot reached whole families, not just kids, making each episode a household brand impression.
- The IP was designed to be endless — geography and science provided 212 episodes' worth of stories, giving the brand years of presence instead of one burst.
What it did
Revenue grew 65.21% to ¥1.531 billion in the 1995 launch year, and by the series' end in 2001 Haier's ¥11.442 billion revenue and roughly ¥7 billion market value had overtaken Midea and Gree. The show became a national childhood IP — over 110,000 'watched' ratings on Douban — and still streams on Bilibili with 17M+ plays.
What you can take
Fund a genuinely good show that embodies your values, keep the selling out, and the brand becomes part of childhood — an asset outliving any campaign.
Since then
The IP kept paying off for decades: a remastered 20th-anniversary version aired on CCTV Kids in 2016, a reboot 'Haier Brothers: Space Adventure' launched in 2018, a stage play followed in 2019, a radio drama passed 10 million plays, and Haier built a media matrix of 179 Weibo accounts and 286 WeChat accounts around the brothers, plus collaborations with Taobao Live and NetEase games. Rivals Midea and Gree launched mascots of their own, but none matched the cultural grip of the cartoon; by 2022 commentators were still asking whether the 27-year-old IP could survive its ageing audience.
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