The Wall Street Journal Europe had an article by Geoffrey Fowler (interesting, this is they guy who wrote an article on SVP in the Far Eastern Economic Review a few months ago) about the Chinese [OE]Economic Olympics[base '], the bidding process for the top commercial ads on CCTV. This auction is shown on TV every year, and during the event the nation[base ']s businessmen bid to buy ad shots for 2005 and in the process become instant celebrities. This year[base ']s main celebrity was Li Jia of Monarch Lubricant Oil. He won this year[base ']s top spot: the 15-seconds right after the weather report. The weather report is probably the most watched program worldwide, in terms of audience. It follows right after the 7 PM news, and is shown not only on CCTV but also on many regional stations. If you happen to be in China and zap around the TV channels between 7 and 8 PM you will notice that most channels air the same news program & weather report. So the weather ad might be the most watched add world-wide, and therefore costs some money. Mr. Li spent 4.3 million US$ for 60 15-second ads. Geoffrey descirbed his moment of fame as follows: [base "]Cameramen swarmed around Mr. Li as a television anchor yanked the 38-year-old executive onto a podium reserved for the [base "]Number One[per thou] bidder. Chinese Olympian Luo Xuejuan, winner of the 100-meter breaststroke at the Athens Olymic Games, gave Mr. Li a medallion, and Tian Liang, winner of the synchronized 10-meter diving contest, crowned him with a a wreath.[per thou]
The show was kicked off with a pistol shot by CCTV[base ']s adverstising director, Mr. Guo. CCTV put its staff in the audience to clapp and cheer after each bid. The whole process lasts for 4 days, with a 13-hour session to top it off. Hundreds of millions of viewers watch the final night on TV. Multinational companies for a long time did not participate in it, because they did not understand it or did not see the value of it. But this year Proctor & Gamble participated as well, and even became [base "]Bid King[per thou], after spending over US$ 46 million for several timeslots. As a thank you Mr. Lai Liangrui, senior media manager at P&G, was allowed to sing a karaoke song with famous Taiwanese popstar Jiang Yuheng, broadcasted all over China.
8:51:03 AM 
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