Pepsi hangs new push on rising Chinese pride

The J. Walter Thompson campaign, which involves 30-second and 60-second TVCs as well as a full-length music video for the Chou song "Dragon Fist", is being run across China and Taiwan.

Erica Kerner, business director with J. Walter Thompson Shanghai, said the project was aimed at Pepsi's traditional teen market, focusing on their growing pride in being Chinese. "Pepsi and JWT collaborated with Chou to develop the TV copy and song in a style that showed Chou's unique interpretation of 'Ask for More' (Pepsi's current tagline), she said.

"Dragon Fist was first conceived as a song to capture the spirit of the new generation of Chinese who are increasingly proud of their heritage and confident about their future on the global stage."

The Pepsi 2002 'music campaign' follows the Pepsi football season effort.

Chou joins pop idols Aaron Kwok, Sammi Cheng and Britney Spears who have featured in Pepsi's mainland promotions. Chou has, in the past year, become one of the most successful Mandarin performers in the region. The TVC draws on his personal interest in kung fu and shows him and his friends playfully and cleverly devising a new style of kung fu which he calls Dragon Fist.

"Pepsi's 'Ask for More' brand idea is captured in how Chou and his 'brothers' get the most out of life by training hard and partying even harder when opportunity presents itself in unexpected ways, Kerner said. The song Dragon Fist includes the lines (translated from Mandarin): "My 'Ask for More' dream continues to turn; grasping the light-blue sea, the wind and clouds churn. Between heaven and earth, the image of a dragon returns; hundreds of successes, millions of goodwill earned."

The second TVC in the 2002 music campaign will feature Chinese boy-band F4.