Gan-bei-bei-bei-bei-bei-by! Bei-bei-bei-bei-bei-by!

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By Jim Boyce

Context is crucial with wine marketing in China. Rather than sell the product in and of itself, some think wine should be presented as part of a lifestyle — typically one that emphasizes good taste and sophistication.Thus, it might be associated with luxury cars and watches or placed in scenes involving cosmopolitan characters on a TV show. A little less clear is the impact of its association with a scantily clad woman and a suited man (kind of) singing in English about the sounds made by a particular mammal. We might well pause to say, Hmm.

The video in question is a remake of my favorite from last year, “What Does the Fox Say?“, by Ylvis (official version here). This remake features model / actress Gong Yue Fei / 龚玥菲 — English name: Candy — and a great deal of her unclad body. It also includes a fairly long scene with wine. To those outside China, the video might seem a minor affair, given — at the time of writing — it had only about 6000 views on Youtube since being posted on December 18. In China, it is another story: Youku, for example, reports over 2.5 million views.

That’s a lot of exposure and makes one wonder about its relevance to the fields of wine marketing, lupines and/or linguistics. The obvious point is the producers could have featured beer, the popular spirit baijiu or even something like tequila. Instead, they used wine, and, one might assume, it’s association with wealth and sophistication. You be the judge. The video is here, with the wine scene around the 1:10 mark. Also, using the still shots below, here are a few of my own observations.

The gold candelabra and the pyramid of glasses suggest luxury. The lack of clothing and flowing hair suggest freedom. Pay attention, wine marketers.

Touching the glass lip with the bottle while pouring? Not advised. What would a WSET-certified fox say?

What would that same fox say about filling the glass halfway? That it makes it difficult to swirl the liquid and thus fully enjoy the bouquet.

And remember, safety first when mixing dancing and drinking.

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