Shengui Tonic Wine (lost first Chinese television advertisement; 1979)

Poster for Shengui Tonic Wine.

Status: Lost

Shengui Tonic Wine (参桂养荣酒, Shen1 Gui4 Yang3 Rong2 Jiu3 in Hanyu Pinyin) is a Chinese tonic wine notable for being the subject of the first television advertisement ever aired on mainland Chinese television.

Background

Before the implementation of "joint state-private ownership" in Mainland China in 1956, commercial advertisements had not completely vanished but were almost nonexistent,</ref>, aside from propaganda, though they were not officially banned. However, matters changed in the late 1970s when, for the first time in two decades, advertisements in China began to normalize and spread widely.

This shift followed the death of Mao Zedong and the stepping down of Hua Guofeng, which led to the end of the Cultural Revolution and the gradual restoration of a market economy under the new paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, who took office in 1978. These reforms paved the way for commercial television advertising, and on 28 January 1979, the first television ad in Chinese history aired on Shanghai Television.

A major factor in the government's decision to allow commercial advertising on television was the financial strain of operating so many TV stations across the large country on tight post-Cultural Revolution budgets. Commercialization was thus seen as a necessary evil.

Premise

The advertisement was simple and primitive, especially compared to modern advertising standards in China and abroad. Sources and eyewitnesses agree that the advertisement lasted about 90 seconds and featured a girl and her parents going into a shop to buy a bottle of tonic wine as a gift to her grandfather, with not much else in the way of information on the ad itself.

Aftermath

The ad made an almost immediate impact on Chinese media, proving so controversial that it was nearly pulled off the air after just thirty seconds. It aired during Chinese New Year, attracting a larger-than-usual audience. Many viewers mistook it for a news story, as the concept of commercials was unfamiliar to those who hadn’t lived before the Revolution, leading to widespread confusion. Despite this, the ad was a success, with the Shanghainese public rushing to buy the wine featured on television, even at a high price.

Soon after, other Chinese television stations followed suit, airing their own advertisements. The Shengui wine commercial opened the metaphorical floodgates, paving the way for the heavily commercialized nature of modern Chinese television.

Status

The ad is completely lost, with only storyboards remaining, redrawn from memory by an audience member who once viewed it. Home video recording technology in 1979 China was extremely rare, possibly even nonexistent, so the only hope of the ad resurfacing may lie in STV's modern-day archives.

Artistic creativity

In 2021, the Chinese film "My Country, My Parents"(《我和我的父辈》), directed by Xu Zheng(徐峥), included a segment titled "AD MAN"(“鸭先知”). This segment's plot is centered on the inception of this advertisement, and dramatically reconstructed the storyline of it.

Videos

A Chinese documentary segment discussing the advertisement, featuring shots of possible storyboards or fan recreations.

Images

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  A possible print ad for Shengui tonic wine, very unlikely to be a screenshot from the advertisement.

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  A storyboard of the commercial. Depicts the grandfather happily receiving the tonic wine.

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  Another portion of the storyboard. Depicts the family giving the wine to the grandfather.

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  Another Shengui storyboard of the family entering the store, lower quality.