Media and advertiser’s brands were deeply integrated in this campaign - Youku logo is printed at a prominent place on M&M’s packaging. The design of the package opening mimics the progress bar of Youku video player, delighting consumers instantly, and subtly ‘zipping together’ the media brand and the advertiser brand, underscoring the connection of the two strong IPs and their joint marketing effort.

On the ‘’‘M&M’s by your side ‘online video channel we deeply embedded the M&M’s brand for the duration of the campaign. Youku’s player progress bar and player frame were all themed with iconic M&M’s mascots, to reinforce the ‘M&M’s by your side’ experience.

Mars M&M’s partnered with Youku subscription service on promotional packaging from August through November 2016. The packages were available in 2,500 Wal-Mart and Carrefour retail stores, while two major etailers, Tmall and JD.com, also participated to maximize exposure and sales. On the online production side, Youku visualized consumers’ M&M’s eating setting, and created the “M&M’s by your side” video channel. Youku subscribers enjoyed ads free viewing, giving M&M’s exclusive brand presence on the video channel. Youku’s player progress bar and player frame were all themed with iconic M&M’s mascots, to reinforce the ‘M&M’s by your side’ experience. We also placed TVC on Youku subscription service to drive non-subscribers to sign up.

Over the course of the fourth months long campaign, total impressions online exceeded 3.1 billion, registering up to 15 million clicks, CTR was 600%, the refreshing ads achieved 95% recall. In sales term, 12 million packs of M&M’s with Youku subscription service packaging were delivered to the stores.

As a result of the campaign, more than 1 million MM’S & Youku Membership cards were activated. The estimated activation rate was over 8% (Industry benchmark: 3%), resulting in nearly 3 times the average post-advertising sales increase at a global level. (12 million packages carry 12 million cards, assume all of them sold, 1 million cards out of 12 million makes 8%)