An advertisement produced by state media China Central Television has been vigorously promoted by mainland media after being released online. The video was created in celebration of the 95th anniversary of the Communist Party of China.
The video, titled “Who am I,” glorifies members of the Communist Party working in different professions. The types of occupations featured include student, street sweeper, medical surgeon, police officer and dock worker.
The advertisement begins with the narrator asking “Who am I? What kind of person am I? Perhaps you have never thought about it.” It then shows a student leaving a deserted classroom with the narrator saying “I am the one who leaves last.” After that, shots of a street sweeper appear to the narrator saying “I am the one who comes to work the earliest.” The video follows the same pattern with regards to all of the occupations and concludes with the message: “We are the Communist Party of China. We are always with you.”
The video was featured on state-owned media such as the People’s Daily on Wednesday.
“Dear friends, have you noticed that our party has recently started issuing advertisements? Lets understand more about the [Communist] party and make more contributions to it and to the country,” said one post on Chinese microblogging site Weibo.
“Today, every media outlet was saying the party had issued an advertisement for the first time… when I clicked on the video it turned out to be an advertisement that has been playing on TV all summer, and yet the response was overwhelmingly positive,” said another Weibo user.
“Advertising is a double edged sword… If the party cannot accomplish what it promises in the advertisement, then the party would put itself to shame,” said another microblogger.
The advertisement was filmed in Shanghai within three days, while the entire production took 20 days to complete, according to The Paper.
