Vancl masters the viral ad: Who do you love?

Chinese Internet users have always had an appetite for messing with pop culture. Think back to 2003 when a photo of middle school student nicknamed 小胖(xiaopang, Little Fatty) was uploaded online and digitally transformed into various alter-egos, including the Mona Lisa. 

So when Vancl, a Chinese e-commerce clothing brand, launched its latest ad campaign starring Han Han, China’s most famous public intellectual and Shanghai native, and actress Wang Luodan, netizens took notice and got their got their Photoshop programs up and ready.

The ad featured a simple white background with celebrity on the left and copy that reads “Love xxx, Love xxx, I’m xxx.” It was well received by Chinese netizens who began to sub their own celebrities and 'loved ones' into the ad, from Lady Gaga to the popular Paul the Octopus and lots and lots of people's own pets. 

The Vancl ad has stuck a chord with the online masses, spurring a “recreation movement” where netizens create their own narratives with commercially available material. 

Chinese Internet users need a channel to express themselves. Vancl’s copy provides one better than anything in a long time.— Makesiwupusi, Chinese netizen

The popularity

On Douban.com, one of China’s largest online creative communities, a page has already been posted called 全民调戏凡客 (Let’s All Tease Vancl) which has gained 12,000 members in less than two weeks. Members of the group get together to do one thing: express what and who they love -- ironic or real -- through the Vancl ad campaign. The group members have already loaded 2,821 (and counting) variations of the ad campaign.

Not merely restricted to Internet-addicted youth working out of Internet cafes, variations of the camaign have been covered by a number of mainstream Chinese media and have been posted on major Chinese forums such as Tianya.cn. Even Chinese director Jiang Wen has joined this nationwide virtual spree. 

Jiang made his own Vancl ad variations based on his new thriller "Let the Bullets Fly" set to be released at the end of 2010, starring Jiang Wen, Ge You and Chow Yun-Fat and posted them to the Douban group’s page, reports Sina.com. 

With such a far-reaching campaign, some online are beginning to suspect that Vancl itself is behind the distribution of the ad, although there’s little evidence to support the allegations.

“This Douban group has nothing to do with Vancl company,” says Kang Jinhuan, one of the founding members of a the group on a Douban discussion board. "The first several Vancl recreation copies were made by someone who has an advertising background. But I’m the one started this online activity to express what I love."

Behind the popularity

The basic question people are now asking is, what’s all the fuss about?

“It’s just fun. I don’t think people should take this seriously though,” says Internet user Makesiwupusi, who was allegedly one of the first to recreate Vancl’s ad, to Nandu Daily. “Chinese Internet users need a channel to express themselves. Vancl’s copy provides one better than anything in a long time.”

Vancl has tolerated, and even encouraged, these extra-curricular recreations. “We will learn and pay all due respect to all recreation copies,” says the Vancl PR department in a press statement. “No matter how people alter the ad, it shows fun creativity or true self-expression that is China.”