By Lisa Li, Helen Yu, Ryan Zhang

On May 2nd, more than 2,000 young people (mostly university students) gathered at Chaoyang Park, Beijing, for Lining’s ‘Evening Fun Run Event’ that consisted of a 6 kilometer journey of jogging, an open-air live concerts (of pop stars including Soda Green, Xu Wei, Hua Er, Lin Youjia, etc.), and various games and gifts. Watch the video below to get a feel of the event.

China Youthology started to follow this campaign since Apr when we noticed this from an outdoor ad, more specifically:

• Pre-event: online research on online media touchpoints of this campaign and response; in our campus visits we happened to see the in-campus presence and did some intercept interviews (voxpop)
• In-event: participatory observation (we ‘funded’ two university students to participate, observed them through the event, and did an interview with them after the event); interviews with a few participants (voxpop)
• Post-event: a very quick online research on feedback (blogs and forums)

We had a lot of fun at the event, from the gift pack and the ‘evening run equipment’, to the small surprises accompanying us through the 6 kilometer journey (for example a band playing on top of our head on an arch), to the moment when we hailed like crazy to the pop stars… From time to time we almost forgot we were there (at least partly) for research purpose.

We find the campaign an interesting case, and herewith discuss what we learnt from it.

Through the many details, we saw Lining’s understanding of what’s cool and fun to youth:

1. Good choice of pop stars, and a good combination – from mainstream stars (like Anson Hu and Xu Fei) to the popular ‘independent’ bands (such as Soda Green). As a matter of fact, more participants came for their favorite stars than for sports at least at the beginning.

2. Creative design: Lining crossovers with local and independent designers (at The Thing) for limited tees, sneakers, and graffiti wall. Gift package, the tickets-necklace are much liked by participants.

3. Fun and play: the phrases of ‘running at night for fun’ (夜里跑着玩儿) and ‘night owl’ themselves give a more fun and light flavor to jogging. The many small games provide options for people to play.

A good connection with sports culture and category:

‘I want to keep fit but sports are too boring to me. This kind of experience makes running more playful and enjoyable. Sports is not that bad.’

Sometimes it seems harder to create a linkage between the cool and fun stuff and the category than to do something cool and fun itself. However, the event has been crafted to be much relevant to sports. And sports are addressed in a fun and trendy way with the involvement of music, fashion, and games. Although many people came for the concert rather than the running, after the running session people were all excited about the fun experience of running and they really seemed to enjoy the sports.

Young people wrote about this event in blogs/ spaces. One of them says (http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_483cea6f0100ddix.html):

‘I went to Lining Fun Run event during May Day Holiday. I ran the unbelievable 6 kilometers, almost died when I listened to Soda Green, and I saw my dear Lin Youjia, and I got ‘high’ like hell with Hua Er’

Filed under: Music, So What?, Sports, What's Up?, campaign, case, celebrities, China, Helen Yu, Lining, Lisa Li, marketing, Music, Ryan Zhang, Sports, video, youth