VANCL (凡客成品) is China’s largest online clothing retailer. It was founded in 2007 by entrepreneur Chen Nian and has quickly risen to great success. A key determinant of VANCL’s popularity has been how it creates advertising to target urban young Chinese seeking distinctive stylish clothing at affordable prices. VANCL’s products are made by famous designers from Europe and America who tailor the garments to the Asian market. The pricing strategy of these garments has proved very popular with the Chinese audience.
In its latest TV commercial, VANCL promotes its 29 Yuan t-shirt range. For those outside China, 29 Yuan roughly equates to US$5 or £3 (pretty dam cheap huh?). In saying that 29 Yuan for a t-shirt in China is nothing spectacular. One of VANCL’s rivals, the famous Chinese high street retailer Meters/bonwe tends to sell its T-shirts at about 40 Yuan per garment.
Watch on Youku
You will no doubt notice that the ad is a blatant rework of the classic Mastercard ‘Priceless’ commercials, but it’s probably ‘different’ enough not to put the Mastercard ad agency’s noses out of joint. The tagline at the end reads, “In this constantly changing world only we are unchanging, 29 yuan = Vancl T“.
Although the commercial is sweet, it is not a scratch on the great viral campaign the clothing giant launched last year with national celebrity ‘Han Han‘, which actually inspired Chinese netizens to create their own versions of the advertisements.
To finish here is probably the best Mastercard parody commercial that has been made to date, it is fittingly titled the ‘Indecent Proposal‘:
Watch on Youku
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