Tag: China

Chery M11: Road M11

Hundreds of people design their own “dream roads” online. Then one of those roads gets built in the real world, and the person who created it ends up navigating a rally run alongside a professional driver.

That is the core idea behind Chery M11’s “Road M11” project by Voskhod, built to tackle a real market perception problem. In Russia, Chinese cars were widely seen as unreliable and unpleasant to drive, so the campaign had to create proof, not promises.

Instead of leading with specs, the brand launches an internet game where anyone can create roads and drive them using a computer model of the Chery M11. People race against the clock and vote on the best road. After a month and more than 800 submitted roads, a winner is selected. The winning road is then constructed in reality for a rally-style event, journalists are invited, a Russian rally champion is chosen as driver, and the road’s creator becomes the navigator.

Turning “prove it” into a participation loop

The mechanic is not just gamification. It is co-creation with consequences. The audience builds roads, competes, and votes. The brand takes the best idea and commits to building it at full scale, then lets independent observers experience the car on a course the public designed rather than a track the brand curated.

In automotive categories where trust is the main barrier, converting digital participation into a real-world test creates credibility that advertising claims cannot buy.

Why it lands

The campaign reframes skepticism as a challenge the audience can test. That matters because the negative belief is about performance and reliability, and those beliefs tend to change only through experience or trusted proxy experience. The road-building game gives people viewer control over what the car is “asked to do”, and the real rally event creates a clean narrative of proof. If the car cannot handle it, the idea collapses publicly. That risk is what makes the demonstration persuasive.

Extractable takeaway: When a category suffers from “untrusted origin” bias, meaning buyers discount the product because they distrust where it comes from, move the claim from messaging into a public test. Let the audience help define the test, then invite credible witnesses to validate the outcome.

What the business intent really is

The obvious goal is traffic and attention. The deeper goal is to earn test drives and journalist coverage by making the car’s capabilities feel observed rather than asserted. The legacy write-up reports strong site visitation and sales impact, which fits the logic of the mechanism. Participation creates investment, investment creates trial, trial creates conversion.

The real question is whether the brand can turn skepticism into a public proof event that feels harder to dismiss than an ad.

What to borrow from Road M11

  • Design a proof that scales. Digital participation can scale fast, but the proof moment must be simple enough to summarize.
  • Let the public set the challenge. Co-creation increases trust because it reduces suspicion of “staged conditions”.
  • Bridge online to offline. The handoff from game to real-world event is where credibility is minted.
  • Invite credible witnesses. Journalists, experts, or known practitioners make the proof travel beyond your owned channels.

A few fast answers before you act

What is “Road M11” in one sentence?

An online road-building game for the Chery M11 where the winning user-created road is built in real life for a rally-style demonstration with journalists and a pro driver.

Why use a game instead of a traditional test-drive campaign?

Because the barrier is trust. A participatory mechanic creates investment, and the game-to-real-world conversion creates a visible proof story that journalists and viewers can follow.

What perception problem is this designed to solve?

That Chinese cars in the Russian market were seen as unreliable and poor to drive, so performance had to be demonstrated rather than claimed.

What results did the legacy write-up claim?

It reported more than 340,000 visitors in three months, sales exceeding plan by 76%, and annual sales growth of 186% versus market averages. Treat these as campaign-reported figures unless you have primary reporting to validate them.

What is the biggest risk in this approach?

If the real-world build and rally experience does not match the promise, the proof flips into a public counter-proof. The execution has to be operationally strong, not just creatively strong.

The North Face: Red Flags in China

The North Face in China turns a simple outdoor ritual into a phone-powered race. You “plant” a virtual red flag to claim a location. You get the bragging rights of being first. Then you try to out-plant everyone else.

A modern take on the oldest explorer move in the book

Planting a flag is a universally understood symbol. It’s the shorthand for “I was here first.” This campaign borrows that instinct and digitizes it, so the only equipment you need is a mobile phone.

The mechanic: claim a place, then defend your status

At the heart of the idea is a competitive map. Participants place virtual red flags on locations they discover, and the campaign keeps score so “firsts” become collectible. It’s a light-touch way to make exploration feel like a game you can win, not just a virtue you should aspire to.

In fast-growing outdoor markets where many people are still taking their first steps into hiking culture, this kind of social competition is an effective on-ramp.

Why it lands: it converts curiosity into a scoreboard

Outdoor positioning often sounds lofty. “Explore more.” “Get outside.” The problem is that those ideas are hard to act on today, especially in cities where “nature” is not a default habit.

Extractable takeaway: If you want behavior change, give people a visible “progress signal” they can earn quickly. A simple status marker (first, top 10, streak, champion) turns vague aspiration into a repeatable loop.

Red flags work because they’re instantly legible. You don’t need instructions to understand what it means to claim something, and you don’t need a long explanation to feel the urge to beat someone else to the next spot.

The real question is how do you turn exploration from a brand line into a repeatable action people want to perform?

The business intent: make “Never Stop Exploring” measurable

This is a smart brand move because it makes “Never Stop Exploring” visible as behavior instead of leaving it as a slogan.

Case-study write-ups describe this as an integrated push that blends mobile participation with on-ground visibility and retail activation. The core goal is to move the brand from “admired” to “acted on”, by making exploration something people can start immediately, then repeat.

What brand teams can steal from Red Flags

  • Use a symbol people already understand: flags, stamps, passports, badges. Familiar metaphors reduce friction.
  • Turn progress into a public artifact: a claimed location or visible marker is more motivating than a private point total.
  • Design for repeat loops: one action should naturally suggest the next one.
  • Make competition optional but obvious: the scoreboard should be there for people who want it, without blocking casual participation.
  • Reward “first steps”: the earliest wins matter most when you’re trying to create a new habit.

A few fast answers before you act

What is the Red Flags idea in one sentence?

The Red Flags idea is a mobile competition where people plant virtual red flags to claim places and earn status for being first, encouraging more exploration through a simple scoreboard.

Why does “claiming a location” work so well?

Claiming a location works because it makes exploration feel personal and scarce. Once a place is “yours”, you feel ownership, and ownership increases repeat behavior.

Is this gamification or location-based marketing?

Red Flags is both gamification and location-based marketing. The location is the proof of action, and the game layer, claims, status, and competition, supplies motivation and repeatability.

What’s the main risk in copying this mechanic?

The main risk in copying this mechanic is overcomplicating it. If placing the first marker takes too long or requires too many steps, you lose the impulse that makes the idea work.

What’s a modern equivalent if you don’t want maps?

A modern equivalent without maps is any “claimable” unit: completing a route, checking in at partner venues, finishing a micro-challenge, or earning a time-bound “first” in a shared feed.