The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2015–2016
Huawei's 'Ballet Foot' ad: one scarred dancer's feet carry a 30-year company story
Huawei's 2015 global ad used a ballerina's scarred feet — 'The journey is hard. And joyful.' — as Ren Zhengfei's image of Huawei's 30-year climb.
Huawei (华为)
What it had to solve
Huawei, grown from a 21,000-yuan startup into a business spanning more than 170 countries, was reaching the top of telecoms but felt its hardships were invisible to the outside world. Ren Zhengfei wanted an image that said success is painful — not a product, but the company's soul.
How it works
In 2015, while Chinese tech founders competed over 'finding the next wind,' Huawei ran a global image campaign built around a photograph by Henry Leutwyler from his four-year series on the New York City Ballet: one foot elegant in a ballet slipper, the other bare and covered in scars. Ren Zhengfei had seen the image in 2014 and decided to buy the advertising rights; he called it the hologram of Huawei's 30 years.
The ad ran with the English line 'The journey is hard. And joyful.' and the Chinese '我们的人生，痛，并快乐着' (our life is painful, and joyful). On January 22, 2015, Ren explained it at the Davos forum: 'Huawei is that worn foot.' The image also appeared in the People's Daily on March 18, 2015. Its backdrop: a company that had grown from a 21,000-yuan startup to operations in more than 170 countries, reporting 2014 revenue of 288.2 billion yuan (up 20.6%) and net profit of 27.9 billion yuan (up 32.7%).
The campaign turned a private corporate philosophy into a public image that Chinese media analyzed for years, and the photograph itself outlived the ad as a widely shared symbol of beauty and pain. Huawei returned to the motif in April 2020 with a 2:17 'mask ballet' film of the Shanghai Ballet rehearsing in face masks — five years after the original — which Ren personally pushed to distribute to employees and partners around the world.
Why it lands
- A documentary photograph, not a staged ad, made the corporate philosophy feel true.
- The contrast — perfect slipper versus scarred bare foot — turned an abstract idea into one glance.
- Tying the image to the founder's own emotional decision gave it authenticity no agency pitch could buy.
- The one-line slogan ('The journey is hard. And joyful.') let the hardship itself be the brand.
- Running it in mainstream newspapers made a corporate value the story, not a product feature.
What it did
The image became one of the most analyzed Chinese corporate ads of the decade: mainstream media wrote it up as a 'hologram' of Huawei's 30 years, the photograph circulated for years as a symbol of beauty and pain, and Huawei kept returning to the motif — most visibly in April 2020, when it released a 2:17 'mask ballet' film of the Shanghai Ballet rehearsing in face masks, five years after the original.
What you can take
One image can carry a company's whole philosophy when the metaphor is already inside the photograph: choose an artifact whose contrast tells the story, then let a single line of copy name it.
Since then
The ballet foot became a lasting symbol of Huawei's culture, still cited years later as the company's 'hologram.' In April 2020 Huawei returned to the motif with a 2:17 'mask ballet' film of the Shanghai Ballet rehearsing in face masks, made after Ren Zhengfei was moved by their rehearsal footage and pushed to employees and partners in more than 170 countries. The image also drew criticism — dancers noted scarred feet are not universal — and by 2019 the picture was familiar enough that business media retold its origin story as standard corporate history.
Sources
- 华为"烂脚"广告折射中国品牌"走出去"努力 (Huawei's 'worn foot' ad and Chinese brands going global)
- 华为："芭蕾脚"撑起联接世界的梦想 (Huawei: the 'Ballet Foot' carries the dream of connecting the world)
- 华为2015年全球主题广告：任正非、孟晚舟以及芭蕾脚 (Huawei's 2015 global theme ad: Ren Zhengfei and the Ballet Foot)
- 上海"口罩芭蕾"何以打动任正非 (Why Shanghai's 'mask ballet' moved Ren Zhengfei)
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