Nestlé 8Cube taps quirky anime to woo Chinese millennials

Nestlé Ice Cream China has launched the "#Gr8Debate" campaign designed to drive awareness for the Nestlé 8Cube brand among young Chinese consumers.Teaming up Ogilvy & Mather China, the campaign combines off-beat animation characters and an online debate forum that speaks directly to the country’s post-millennial generation.The new Nestlé 8Cube characters pay homage to “ACGN” (Anime, Comics, Games and Novel), a subculture embraced by young people in China.The characters are portrayed debating unconventional, out-of-the-box and funny topics such as “Your teacher’s zipper is un- zipped. Do you tell him?” that speak to the teenage target.In addition to providing entertaining, humorous contents as teasers, the animated shorts also invite young people to contribute their own quirky topics/ideas and join in on the debate, using the format of forum online hosted on iQiyi, tapping directly into a habit both natural and fun for the target audience.For the campaign finale in July 2016, the best topic will be made into an online TV episode featuring stars from Qipa Debate, one of the most popular online talk shows currently in China.Stephanie Lim, head of marketing and category & channel sales development of Nestlé Ice Cream China, comments: “Our target, young consumers are seeking something unique, both in terms of snacks they eat and content they consume. Our product, Nestlé 8Cube, and our campaign, #Gr8Debate, do just that. O&M creatively brings the sharable spirit of Nestlé 8Cube to social world, connecting with younger generation with some- thing they like, debating, in the format they favor — irreverent, outta-the-box cartoons.”“The best campaigns, regardless of what channels used, are 'social-by-design’, and that’s exactly what we hoped to deliver with this integrated campaign" says Jeremy Webb, national director of social@Ogilvy and the campaign lead. “A social-by-design campaign, to generate natural engagement, needs to tap into existing online behavior and content preference.Post millennials immerse themselves in the virtual world of ACGN and have a desire to share and create their own funny content. This is what we had in mind when we designed the cube characters and the topics aimed at triggering young generations to speak out their thoughts.”