Mysterious letters from five countries of four continents covered 13.74 million readers. A Silk Road Flower Messages Puzzle Setter became a hit in the WeChat friend circles of Guangzhou locals. Guangzhou: A Millennial Global Flower City went viral in over 400 mainstream media across the world.

 

On the occasion of The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, Guangzhou, the pioneer city for the millennial Maritime Silk Road, conveyed its good vision of teaming up for interconnection and sailing out in the construction of the 21^st century Maritime Silk Road through the interactivity of Silk Road Flower Messages. The voice of Guangzhou was heard all over the world in the languages of Chinese, English, France, Spanish and Arabic.

 

Flower city’s puzzle setter became a hit in WeChat friend circles

On the evening of May 18, the WeChat and Microblog friend circles of many Guangzhou citizens were dominated by a colorful Puzzle Setter. It applied an interesting magic cube design and contained the whole story of the Silk Road Flower Messages. It was released through @Guangzhou of China and other representative channels. The microblog Five Countries from Four Continents Sent Flower Messages to Guangzhou, Have You Received The Mysterious Letters? release by Topic #Guangzhou Time# alone covered 13.74 million subscribers in total.   

 

As a pioneer of Silk Road, Guangzhou sent Flower Messages to the world, conveyed its brilliant history as “the oriental cradle of Maritime Silk Road” and “the millennial commercial capital” and showed its unique charm of “openness, beauty, vitality, inclusiveness and friendliness” as a modern central city for international communications and an international hub-type network city.

 

The Guangzhou Story spread across the world started from May 14 when the eye-catching The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was held in Beijing. Within the several days from May 14 to May 17, mainstream media from global seven countries had focused on Guangzhou, issued special pages on the theme of Silk Road Flower Messages and made up a complete story on Maritime Silk Road.

 

To echo with the Flower City from afar, five letters from Argentina, Pakistan, Egypt, the UK and Singapore snowed to Guangzhou in the languages of their national flowers of kapok, jasmine, lotus, rose and orchid, respectively, and extended their good wishes for the re-sailing of Guangzhou in the construction of the 21^st Maritime Silk Road.

 

Guangzhou replied through the Silk Road Flower Messages of “Flowers Bloom in Guangzhou and across the World”, realized global interaction of urban images with flower as the media and shared the stories and vision of the Belt and Road with the whole world.

 

Domestic and foreign media interacts with each other to convey buzzwords of Flower City

Then how about the International communication effect of the Silk Road Flower Message?

During the progress of The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, Swiss 24 heures introduced Millennial Commercial Capital Guangzhou. The Wall Street Journal, and French Le Monde issued Xinhua Agency’s special report The Belt and Road Initiative Injects New Power for Guangzhou’s Development. The Wall Street Journal’s China Image Micro-website released Silk Road Flower Message: Discover Guangzhou’s 2,000-year-long Maritime Silk Road Stories and Maritime Silk Road’s Cradle Guangzhou: An Emerging International Modern Commercial Capital. Global mainstream media alliance (Asianet) launched illustrated report Guangzhou, the World Flower City for Two Thousand of Years and Counting and attracted the forward release of over 400 media and websites home and abroad. Finally, the interaction of Silk Road Flower Message: International Spread of Guangzhou’s Urban Image across time and space achieved an urban image global interactive with flowers as the media and caught the eyeballs of people home and abroad.

 

Relying on high-end international communication resources, focusing on the global communication node The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, and with Silk Road Flower Message as the originality theme, mainstream paper media, such as Clarin of Argentina, The News International of Pakistan, al-Ahram of Egypt, The Daily Telegraph of the UK, The Straits Times of Singapore and The Wall Street Journal of the US, arranged special pages to showcase Guangzhou’s image of World Flower City and its development layout as the pioneer of the 21^st Century Maritime Silk Road.

 

The analysis of the key case on the international publicity of a domestic city indicated that the Silk Road Flower Message gradually pushed the topic popularity to the culmination by means of interactive, stage-based and progressive communication. From May 10 to 18, Asianet and the official website of The Wall Street Journal successively released the reports Guangzhou, the World Flower City for Two Thousand of Years and Counting, Maritime Silk Road’s Cradle Guangzhou: An Emerging International Modern Commercial Capital and The Belt and Road Initiative Injects New Power for Guangzhou’s Development. Xinhua News Agency’s NEW CHINA overseas social account released the reports in English, French, Spanish and Arabic to global netizens and created great influence.

 

Centering on the reports of overseas media, Silk Road Flower Message created the H5 Riddle Game and designed Silk Road Flower Message Puzzle Setter based on the colorful city and the inclusive magic cube. The H5 micro video gives a complete presentation of the Silk Road Flower Message story. The interesting communication mode shortened the distance with the audience and formed a comprehensive online and offline coverage.

 

Data:

Guangzhou, the World Flower City for Two Thousand of Years and Counting

Covering 100 million readers across the world;

After a hot event, statistical numbers are the most objective standard to measure its effect.

On May 14, You Have a Letter from Silk Road Flower Message, in the form of online interactive H5 game, attracted 20,000 participants in total.

On May 17, Silk Road Flower Message Magic Cubic swept the WeChat Friend Circles, aroused secondary spread fever and several hundred thousand times of discussions in social media.

@Guangzhou of China released on weibo.com the microblog Five Countries from Four Continents Sent Flower Messages to Guangzhou, Have You Received The Mysterious Letters? covered 13.74 million subscribers in total.

Asianet issued Guangzhou, the World Flower City for Two Thousand of Years and Counting in Asia Pacific, America and Europe in English, Japanese, Urdu, Germany and Spain, which was immediately forwarded by the local mainstream media, portal websites and key news and information service platforms, including Kyodo News Service of Japan, PPI of Pakistan, Mainichi Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, American City Business Journals, yahoo.com, Notimex, ABC, NBC, CBS, homepages of local TV stations in FX Networks, DPA and La Agencia EFE,S.A, for 400 times in total. The media were from major countries in Asia Pacific, Americas and Europe and covered audience of about 100 million.

 

 

Source: Translated from Invest Guangzhou, May 22, 2017