Coca-Cola has released a heart-warming short documentary which is dedicated to the joy of the family reunion on the Lunar New Year in China. A great number of parents there have to work and live as migrants in bigger cities to support their kids financially, so the holiday is the only short period of time they can see each other. The “Home Alone Kids” film narrates the story of three families from Longsheng, Guangxi Province that reunite after long months of living apart.
The tear-jerking documentary created by McCann Shanghai is launching ahead of the holiday that arrives on January 31 this year. The project is building on the statistics, revealing that there are more than 60 million of left-behind kids in China, one in three children. Not every parent who is working in other city can come even for the biggest holiday, so some kids especially in rural areas are separated from their moms and dads for years. In the film, the red Coca-Cola trucks bring parents home for a long-awaited moment of connection with their kids.
The film’s message syncs with Coca-Cola’s longstanding philosophy of bringing people together, no matter what differences and troubles there might be. While it focuses on this ubiquitous family drama in China, the film also targets the audience from other parts of the world where one or both parents also move away to earn a living and send money home, where their kids are left with other relatives.
“We wanted to touch on something real, not manufactured, and we found a great cast and had some great discussions when we were casting for them,” commented Richard Cotton, Coca-Cola’s director of content and creative excellence in China, to Ad Age.
The 4-minute spot will be accompanied with a Coca-Cola TV commercial in China that also revolves around the “being together” theme and inspires people to pay tribute to physical connection with family and friends instead of the virtual communication. Coca-Cola created a similar movie about family reconnection in Philippines for Christmas 2011, and for the past several years PepsiCo has been celebrating the Lunar Year with the “Bring Happiness Home” sentimental campaign.