:: netizens in China have a wealth of online choices for obtaining information about cars. Prospective buyers and auto enthusiasts alike can find news and reviews of the latest models on blogs and in special-interest BBS forums, and if they want to make a purchase, there are sites to help them find both new and used cars that suit their requirements. Once they’ve bought a car, they have ample space to discuss their car owning experiences or, should something go wrong, seek help and advice. And a number of brands have taken advantage of blogs and online games to increase their exposure among netizens.

cars on blogs ::
Moyan Qingfeng is an auto commentator associated with Sina’s Auto Channel. He blogs about new models and keeps an eye on industry trends. Recent posts have followed the decline of the mainland’s auto market, which he says is nothing to be surprised about. He’s also associated with Way of the Car, an auto community website that features BBS boards, blogs, and auto analysis. Li Xiang, founder of community website PCPop and car portal Autohome, keeps a blog that’s mostly about cars, although he does muse about entrepreneurship and other unrelated topics from time to time. Xiao Cheng is a Dandong-based auto commentator. His blog is mainly concerned with reviews of new models, and his posts are widely redistributed across the Internet. In blogging-related activities, Sina’s own blogging platform features an application called “I’m Car Crazy” that allows netizens to put up a widget on their blog that displays a car they’ve “purchased” through the system. New users are given a certain number of credits to start with, and they can accumulate credits by posting in Sina forums, answering surveys, or completing other tasks. With more credits, they can purchase better cars. The “Auto Mart” section contains real-world specifications of the different vehicles that are available for “purchase.” Once netizens have purchased a car, they can take part in online games like racing against their blog friends. Popular SNS app Kaixin has a similar game called “Parking Wars” (requires registration) that features lots of different car models.

general auto BBS discussion forums ::
There are lots of places to find information about cars online. All of the major web portals have auto channels featuring the latest news, ads, and pretty pictures, and a number of major standalone sties are devoted to car information. Autohome. One of the biggest auto-specific websites on the mainland. Has its own stable of reviewers and commentators, one of whom, Meng Qingjia, went along on a press tour of China’s Antarctic research station. His trip was sponsored by Nissan X-Trail.  PCAuto claims to be the second-largest auto-related portal on the mainland. One interesting feature, in addition to comprehensive BBS forum and blog offerings, is a fuel economy blog that aggregates netizen data to come up with the most fuel-efficient cars. XCar is another major portal with sub-forums for practically every (sometimes random) interest imaginable. The self-guided holiday sub-forum has over one hundred users, and is a popular venue for people to share experiences about their own travels to faraway places such as Kunming, Tibet and Xinjiang. Several threads are started each month and generate frequent replies. China’s auto-related websites include organic communities and small startups as well as major sites operated by large media companies: CBS Interactive runs the buying sites Cheshi and Go Car, as well as the XCar portal, by virtue of its 2008 acquisition of CNET Networks. PCAuto belongs to Pacific Online, which owns a network of special-interest websites.

making a purchase ::
Che168 is a forum designed to be a comprehensive buyers’ guide to the auto market. It’s part of a network of online buyers’ guides that includes IT website IT168 and has connections to Autohome and mainstream portal PCPop. A clever search function that lets netizens weight the importance of various traits (such as safety, efficiency, economy, brand, and power) on a sliding percentage scale. GoCar (购车网) is a no-frills car buying website. Front and center is a search box for country, make, price range, and style. There are sub-sites for Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shandong, detailed information on a wide range of models, and tools for figuring out loan and payment numbers. Data comes  from a selection of online partners as well as relationships with offline dealers like Oriental Foundation International Auto Mall. The site is connected to XCar forums, so it does not host a local BBS. Cheshi (车市), which belongs to the same company, is more focused on information and buyers’ guidance, and features an active BBS which hosts sub-forums devoted to popular makes and models. The site also has a list of expert agents who are available to answer buyers’ questions. Judging from the response rankings, visitors to Cheshi are interested in new cars: the repair, rental, and second-hand experts have very few questions directed at them. Taotaocar (淘淘二手车网) is a website founded in 2007 to facilitate the buying and selling of used cars. It’s set up like an automotive version of the online auction house Taobao, and offers model- and price-based searching options and special sub-sections organized by location. Advertisements (or partner links) are from various used car dealers. Another technique for buying cars is group purchasing. Prospective buyers seek volume discounts by approaching car dealers as a group, and they frequently organize themselves using the Internet. Netizens find other interested purchasers on web forums, but the actual discussion mostly takes place off the web using tools like Tencent’s QQ messaging software (see this CIC narrative for details).

websites for car owners ::
Netizens who own cars have a wealth of online forums to choose from. Most comprehensive auto forum websites have sub-boards where owners of particular models can congregate; some of them also have sub-boards devoted to particular geographic regions. Independent sites cater to specialized interests. Pochezu (破车族), or “Jalopies,” is an auto forum aimed at existing car owners. Rather than focusing on the latest models, information on this site concerns auto maintenance and repair, tricks for keeping a car looking good, and directories of after-market services and destinations you may want to drive to. Car owners interested in tuning their vehicles can visit Modi-Auto, a community devoted to the art of improving car performance. Started in 2004 as a bare-bones BBS by tuning enthusiasts, it has grown into an archive of relevant news and information with an active discussion forum attached where newbies and experts can talk tuning. Another way car owners get together is through driving tours. Car Trips is a specialty forum devoted to organizing self-guided driving tours and sharing experiences and photos. Netizens discuss routes, lodging, and destinations, and sometimes arrange group excursions.

online branding / marketing ::
The Other Blog is a MINI-branded blog hosted on Sina. It features the latest ads for the Mini Cooper S standard and Clubman models surrounding blog posts related to design, art, and other trendy topics the brand wants to be associated with. Blog post contests are another way for brands to increase their exposure in the digital space. In 2008, Toyota held a contest for bloggers on Tencent’s QQ platform to promote its new Corolla model. Owners were asked to write about the joys of Corolla ownership or tell of their experiences with the car, with the winners receiving a GPS system, a netbook, a gas card, or other car- and travel-related prizes. In 2008, Anhui’s JAC Motors partnered with Sina to place its Rein SRV into a driving game. As part of the promotional campaign, net gamers competed in a series of elimination rounds with the ultimate winners getting the use of a Rein vehicle for one year, a laptop computer, or other high-tech prizes.

// AjS

[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]

:: as quick as they may be to call shenanigans on corporate / brand hype, Chinese netizens still enjoy interesting, well-made viral videos even after they’ve realized that they’re being marketed to. The following selection of videos have recently become popular on mainland Chinese video Web sites.

Bruce Lee can do anything with nun chucks ::
Bruce Lee was so awesome at kung fu that he was able to play ping pong with his nunchucks (embedded below, too). Or at least that’s what this wildly popular viral ad for a special Bruce Lee-edition Nokia phone would have you believe. The ad was apparently first deployed in a 10-second version that looked like hidden-camera footage, and it was only later that a longer version was released with Nokia branding attached. A second video suggested that Bruce was even more awesome: when someone tossed matches in the air, he could strike and light them off his nun chucks, or light a match held in someone’s mouth with a flip of his nun chucks…(牛B!)… The videos were well-timed, coming on the heels of a CCTV dramatization of the action star’s life. Bravo Nokia. (Bravo W+K?)

the world’s toughest Chevy driver ::
A woman gets into a fight with a man who’s trying to tow her car. Furious, she gets into the driver’s seat of her Chevrolet Captiva and drives off, pulling the tow-truck behind her, as a bystander films the whole scene with a shaky hand-cam (embedded just below, too). Netizens on a wide variety of forums were quick to identify this video as a hoax, guessing from the truck driver’s strangely subdued behavior and the prominence of the “Captiva” name in the video post’s title that it was part of the car’s marketing campaign. A mainstream media follow-up report that is now making the rounds of the big video sharing sites reveals that the agency that hired the towing company has vanished.

smart clean-up ::
Two graffiti artists are eyeing a long expanse of wall that is currently covered in a mess of handbills and spray-paint scrawl. A young kid watches them: will their actions lead him astray? No, they’ve got water balloons and hoses and are actually there to scrub away the mess, leaving only the silhouette of a car behind (embedded below, too). It’s an ad for Smart, a microcar that’s being launched throughout China in the coming months. The video’s in Youtube’s “originals” section and has since been uploaded to other video hosts and linked from automotive and entertainment BBSs.

“Shanzhai” (山寨) Liu Xiang ::
A valet who looks suspiciously like Liu Xiang chases down a man in an ill-fitting Kung Fu Panda suit who has stolen a kid’s bucket of KFC. When he can’t get the bucket back, our ersatz Liu whips out an “Ai Bang” card to buy the kid a new bucket. It’s a shanzhai version – a knock-off of an ad Liu Xiang did for Visa in which he chases a kangaroo that has run off with a girl’s teddy bear. Ai Bang (爱帮) is a consumer-focused search engine of sorts.

CounterStrike breaks the fourth wall ::
A warrior avoids a land mine and then makes his kill by interacting with the seek bar of the video player (embedded below, too). It’s a promo for a game called CounterStrike Online, and it combines the player-vs-player action familiar to Chinese gamers from the original CounterStrike with the stick-figure fighting from popular animations like the Xiao Xiao series, and other similar shorts where characters interact with the video frame itself.

// AjS

[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]