Key takeaways:
- Shang Cheng Shi magazine teams up with Qeelin to bring brand ambassador Lay Zhang to a Dong Village in Guizhou to pay tribute to local culture, arts and crafts.
- The culture and lifestyle magazine has been running a travel and a craft series focusing on intangible cultural heritage (ICH).
- The Dong People have several ICHs, including the Great Song of Dong, which is a UNESCO-inscribed ICH of Humanity.
Shang Cheng Shi, a culture and lifestyle magazine, has launched another luxury collaboration. This time, it’s with Kering-owned Hong Kong luxury jewellery brand Qeelin. As part of both the magazine’s cultural travel series that visits cultural sites around China and its local arts and crafts series, Qeelin has entered Southeast Guizhou Province in Southwest China.
As is customary with Shang Cheng Shi campaigns, this one involves a multi-party collaboration between the brand, the magazine, and a celebrity to pay tribute to local culture. This time, the publication partnered with Chinese actor Lay Zhang (张艺兴, Zhang Yixing), Qeelin’s brand ambassador since January 2024.
The Village Voice
In this episode, Zhang, fully decked out in a Qeelin necklace and earrings, visits a Dong Village, sometimes called a stockaded village in English, in Zhaoxing, Liping County. He sightsees the drum tower of the village and watches local women dyeing their Dong cloth before playing a piano accompaniment for a ritual chorus of the Great Song of Dong (侗族大歌), a UNESCO-inscribed ICH of Humanity (inscribed in 2009). Local ethnic jewellery glimmers alongside the Qeelin pieces.
Interestingly, to bring the ICHs to future generations, Shang Cheng Shi teamed up with a design team, Vorlui, to create an AI-enhanced 3D model of the drum tower in the village as a digital miniature diorama inspired by traditional ink wash painting and wood carving techniques, that can be stored and viewed on smartphones.
What you doin’ uptown?
“Shang Cheng Shi” (上城士), which literally translates as “uptown gentry”, has published 29 episodes of its cultural travel series so far. The series, called “Shang Cheng Shi Views on the Road” (上城士途中风物), often focuses on intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and potential ICHs around the country.
With celebrities as the host, these episodes usually come in a video format accompanied by photoshoots and articles. Magazine covers are also printed for the celebrity host of each episode.
Of course, the magazine also produced Chinese New Year-related episodes this year. Just before the Gregorian New Year, Shang Cheng Shi released its 27th episode of the series, focusing on the lion dance of Foshan, Guangdong. Teaming up with Tmall Hey Box (天猫小黑盒, lit. Tmall Little Black Box), Chinese actor Huang Xuan visits the inheritors of the ritual lion dance in the Southern town. On 27 January, the magazine also collaborated with Yang Mi to explore the Spring Festival, recently inscribed by UNESCO as an ICH of Humanity.
Dong look back
The Dong people (侗族), or Kam people, are a minority ethnic group in China. They live mostly in Guizhou, Hunan, and Guangxi, as well as a small number who live in parts of Vietnam.
Shang Cheng Shi also dedicated an episode of their “Hello, Custodians of Arts and Crafts” (你好，守艺人) series, which explores local arts and crafts, many of which are ICHs themselves.
For the Dong village special, Shang Cheng Shi visits several inheritors of ICHs, from the reed instrument lushing, the Dong cloth fabric, and of course, the Great Song of Dong.
The interplay between the travel and the craft series is not only found in the Dong Village episode
The interplay between the travel and the craft series is not only found in the Dong Village episode. Tmall Hey Box collaborated with brands such as CASETiFY and REDMI to create lion dance-inspired merch such as phone cases and tote bags for the e-commerce platform.
ICH marketing has been going from one high to another since last year. Regional and ethnic minority cultures, arts and crafts are one of the hottest areas within the trend. Last Chinese New Year, Shang Cheng Shi took actress Liu Shishi to Yangshuo, Guilin in Guangxi to ride on a traditional dragon raft. The impactful image of the brightly lit dragon serpentining down the Li River caught many eyes. Last year, the magazine also visited Yunnan for a Miao silver collaboration.
On Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, the topic “Yang Mi on Shang Cheng Shi New Year cover” reached number 17 on the Hot Search list with 23.99 million views. For Qeelin, the campaign is a nice follow-up to last year’s dragon raft. Bringing stars like Lay Zhang also paid off as the topic “Lay Zhang starts New Year with Great Song (Of Dong)” (#张艺兴长歌启新#) made it to number 32 on the Culture and Entertainment list with 5.71 million views.
Brands that bring traditional and regional cultures to Chinese consumers can certainly catch their attention
Luxury brands thrive on culture, not only from their own brand culture or the culture of their countries of origin but also in paying homage to the local cultures of their customers. As Chinese consumers are bedazzled by traditional and regional cultures, brands that bring these to them can certainly catch their attention.
