Right now as I type this Jackie Chan is trending on Facebook for what, his latest martial arts related films? Nope, he is trending on twitter for the surprising guests he brought to this year’s Oscar Ceremony. Generally Hollywood stars have been noticed for bringing their parents or even their children when the norm is to bring your significant other, but Jackie Chan this year takes the spotlight by accompanying two stuffed pandas on the red carpet.
This was no random occurrence; he did not cross-examine his teddy bear collection, see the two pandas and then decide to select them, Jackie Chan who plays the voice of the Monkey in the Kung Fu Panda series of movies, adopted two Pandas in 2009 from China’s Chengdu Giant Panda Research and Breeding Base, and was then dubbed Chengdu Panda Ambassador.
The two handsomely dressed stuffed Pandas known as Chan La and Chan Zy were made in honour of his adopted pandas. On the Red carpet during an interview Jackie Chan described these pandas as his two baby boys, providing him with a platform to discuss in brief, their backstory of how after an earthquake the pandas he adopted were hurt, and he raised them, and how this led him to become Panda ambassador. You will see one of the pandas is also donning a UNICEF pin badge, due to the fact that in 2004 Chan was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF.
I just think what a great thing for Jackie Chan to do, in amidst of all the glitz and glamour, to utilise the 89th Academy Awards as the platform to speak about something you care about, and to gain the attention by use of stuffed animals is a stroke of genius, these actions created conversations not only at the award ceremony but all over the world, through social media channels as people showed their appreciation on Twitter and Facebook.
Being in the promotional product industry you can’t just help to think, this is a fantastic way to gain attention through promotional products, not only is Jackie Chan using a product that is used frequently in many different ways for promotional use like a mascot, but it was also wearing a pin badge which is a beacon for charity merchandise across the world.
Like I said it is not a new thing to utilise mascots to spread a message, in fact in 2015 the BPMA (British Promotional Merchandise Association) used a similar Panda mascot to spread the word of Promotional Products week, a week we have in the United Kingdom dedicated to spreading the word of the value a promotional product has when advertising. Here at BTC Group we played on this by showing the mascot in different areas of BTC HQ, “teaching” Promotional Panda all the unique selling points BTC Group has to offer whilst creating a social media story through posting pictures of different stages of Promotional Panda’s learning experience.