Campaign Summary

To drive awareness among Chinese consumers and consideration with its B2B audience, while also showing a dedication to the company's sustainability goals, Qualcomm created a four-part video series that highlighted China's wildlife, with all footage captured using smartphone cameras powered by the brand's processors.

Strategy

Objective

Qualcomm sought to strengthen brand recognition and desirability among end consumers by driving awareness of its Snapdragon processor technology. The brand also needed to build a stronger relationship with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) — the brand's primary B2B customers — to drive up purchase preference.

Context

As a B2B company with a product that is hidden inside smartphones, Qualcomm struggles with brand recognition among end consumers. The reality is that most Chinese consumers' relationship with their phones starts and ends with the phone brand, with little to no awareness of the technology inside the phone that powers their favorite features.

At the same time, Snapdragon's competitors were gaining market share amongst OEMs by undercutting on price. Qualcomm needed a breakthrough marketing strategy to reverse this trend.

Target Audience

To overcome this brand challenge, Qualcomm uncovered three distinct insights about its target audiences:

1. Camera quality is a top feature consideration for Chinese consumers when buying a smartphone. But when they're shopping for quality cameras in a smartphone, what they're really shopping for — unbeknownst to them — is a quality mobile processor, like Qualcomm's Snapdragon product.
2. Chinese consumers now expect brands to show leadership in purpose-led activities such as nature conservation and environmental protection. Fulfilling ESG initiatives has become a crucial driver of affinity amongst consumers.
3. B2B business in China within this industry is heavily influenced by Government relations, and government endorsement for business activities is a key factor considered by decision makers from Qualcomm's OEM customers.

Creative and Media Strategy

Leveraging all three of the above insights, Qualcomm came up with an intriguing idea: Film the very first 8K Ultra HD wildlife documentary in the absence of professional cameras, using only Snapdragon-powered smartphones.

Qualcomm partnered with China's major broadcaster CCTV as well as China National Geographic to release a documentary series entitled, Discover China's Endemic Species, which aimed to showcase to consumers how the cutting-edge HD image processing technology of Qualcomm's chips can capture the unmissable wonders of China's native species.

This rare, beautiful glance into China's natural habitat would also inform audiences about wildlife conservation, helping build long-term brand recognition among end consumers.

Execution/Use of Media

To bring this campaign to life, Qualcomm first formed a strategic partnership with CCTV's livestream app CCTV Mobile to launch "China My Home," a branded livestream focused on wildlife and habitat preservation and featuring prominent figures in the space. Upon launch, "China My Home" was broadcast live in 42 livestream rooms on 22 mainstream media platforms.

After the livestream, Qualcomm debuted Discover China's Endemic Species, releasing it on 12 media platforms. Within 20 days, the four-episode series gained 1.5 million total views with overwhelmingly positive feedback.

Then, on social media platform Weibo — China's version of X (formerly Twitter — Qualcomm created the branded topic #DiscoverChinasEndemicSpecies to encourage users to showcase their knowledge of native animals and plants in China. To raise further awareness on eco-protection, Qualcomm invited mega- and micro-influencers to speak out on pressing environmental issues and offer actionable tips to save endangered species.

Finally, Qualcomm worked with prominent state-owned media, including Xinhua, Phoenix News, and Caixin to call for further action on nature protection. President of China National Geography, Li Shuanke, and VP of Qualcomm, Ren Mingjuan, gave an exclusive interview in Xinhua's special column "From Seeing to Acting: Technology Opens New Vision for Wildlife Conservation," which was broadcast simultaneously during the prime time of Phoenix Focus News and later reposted by the social media accounts of multiple government agencies.

Business Impact

From September 28 to October 17, the total viewership of Discover China's Endemic Species eclipsed 37 million viewers. From September 23 to September 30, the campaign's branded Weibo topic reached 150 million views with over 22,000 discussions and 2,907 pieces of original PGC/UGC.

The campaign wove magic into Snapdragon's fledgling B2B sales, as it was credited for the 5000 percent increase in the amount of domestically manufactured phone models adopting Snapdragon 8K image capture technology. Post-campaign, Qualcomm's brand awareness increased by 11 percent, which was twice as much as its previous campaign. On the day of China My Home's livestream, the WeChat search index for keyword "Qualcomm Snapdragon" increased by 3.769 percent month-on-month.

The campaign made waves within and outside of the industry, receiving praise from multiple media outlets, commenting that this was a prime example of innovative public-private partnerships in China for a good cause. The effort was also very well received by consumers and showed that with the right strategic idea, brands can simultaneously influence B2B customers, end consumers, and government stakeholders, achieving remarkable results with all three.