Harbin, China’s northernmost city, is famous for its frigid winters and sprawling snow-covered terrain. With over 50,000 km² blanketed in snow, it attracts millions of tourists each year. In 2023, Harbin Beer—known for its ice-cold taste—decided to turn this natural phenomenon into a media opportunity. With “50,000 km² Snow Billboard,” the brand transformed the city’s snowy landscape into a massive, ambient advertisement. It wasn’t just big—it was breathtaking.
Campaign Overview
Developed by Party A Shanghai and directed by Jody Xiong, the campaign launched during Harbin’s peak winter season in 2023. Instead of buying expensive billboards, Harbin Beer used snow stencils and drone photography to imprint its logo and brand messages across vast snowy fields, rooftops, and frozen rivers.
The campaign was supported by aerial footage, social media amplification, and earned media coverage. It also coincided with Harbin’s rise as China’s top winter destination, drawing over 70 million tourists.
Campaign Objective
Harbin Beer aimed to:
Reinforce its brand identity around cold refreshment and regional pride
Compete with bigger-budget brands dominating traditional ad spaces
Leverage Harbin’s winter tourism boom for organic reach
Create a culturally resonant, low-cost media innovation
The goal was to turn snow into storytelling—and make nature the medium.
Execution
Snow Stencil Branding: Harbin Beer used large-scale stencils to imprint its logo across snowy surfaces.
Drone Cinematography: Aerial footage captured the scale and beauty of the snow billboards, turning them into shareable content.
Ambient Media Innovation: The campaign bypassed traditional ad spend by using nature as its canvas.
Social Media Buzz: Tourists and locals shared sightings, amplifying the campaign organically.
Cultural Resonance: The campaign celebrated Harbin’s identity, making the brand feel native and proud.
Brand Impact
The campaign positioned Harbin Beer as a bold, locally rooted brand that thinks big. It resonated with tourists, locals, and marketers alike—elevating the brand from beverage to cultural icon.
Results
50,000 km² Snow Billboard by Harbin Beer turned the frozen landscapes of northern China into the world’s largest outdoor ad — a breathtaking fusion of nature, culture, and creativity. The campaign generated over 23.8 billion earned impressions and 70 million tourist impressions during the winter season, transforming Harbin’s snowfields into a living brand experience.
It achieved a +13.6% lift in top-box consideration, a +20.8% increase in spontaneous brand awareness, and an impressive +70% surge in O2O (online-to-offline) sales volume. The campaign earned a Bronze at Spikes Asia 2024 and was shortlisted at Cannes Lions 2024 in Media, celebrated for redefining outdoor advertising at a massive scale. With high engagement across Weibo, Douyin, and travel platforms, Harbin Beer successfully elevated both brand sentiment and regional pride, proving that sometimes, the coolest media space is snow itself.
Lessons Learned
“50,000 km² Snow Billboard” teaches us that media is mindset. The campaign also shows the power of environmental storytelling—when your brand blends with the landscape, it becomes part of the culture. And finally, it proves that scale doesn’t need spend—it needs vision.
