Merino Sisters commercial promoting Aussie wool in China goes viral reaching 230 million

The revival of the Aussie wool trade is falling on three sheep in a funny commercial for a Chinese audience that’s reached more than 230 million people.

A funny commercial of “the Merino Sisters” has gone viral in China.

The advertisement – in an attempt to make wool popular in China – has been viewed almost 10 million times and has had more than 230 million impressions.

The marketing campaign explains the benefits of wool to a Chinese audience with Chinese celebrity Loura Lou interviewing three Merino sheep.

The video features Chinese celebrity Loura Lou interviewing three Merino sheep.

Funded by the Australian Wool Innovation’s The Woolmark Company, the Merino Sisters campaign is aimed at making “prestigious Merino wool” popular in China in an attempt to increase exports of the Aussie fibre.

The campaign featured on China’s huge online shopping platform, Tmall, and has generated more than 230 million impressions and 9.9 million video views.

The teaser post by Loura Lou ranked up two million views in less than 24 hours on Weibo.

“I’ve met the rich and famous and I’m never impressed … but the Merinos?” Ms Lou says in the video before she talks to the sheep.

The ad was commissioned by the Australian Wool Innovation.

AWI made the call back in March at the height of the coronavirus pandemic to pull out a global campaign as exports of the fibre dropped.

Exports of Aussie wool has dropped to about 2 to 3 per cent in India and Italy, which was previously taking about 5 per cent of the export. However, China takes about 80 per cent of our Aussie wool, according to AWI chief executive officer Stuart McCullough.

“There are not many other alternatives for China in terms of their purchasing of wool, we are the biggest supplier of apparel wool to the world and they are the biggest buyer of apparel wool, so it’s not as if there’s another alternative that they can go to,” he told the ABC.

The commercial featuring Chinese celebrity Loura Lou has been viewed more than 230 million times.

“The clubhouse leader, by a long way at the moment, is China and in April we started working on a marketing strategy as we felt that they would be the first to come out of this”

He added that they are “particularly concerned” about Italy, the UK and the US as importers and added they’re “big, important customers to us”.

“The China campaign is about communicating Australian wool’s natural benefits to a digitally savvy, highly sophisticated Chinese audience,” Mr McCullough added.

“They’re a very unique partner from a manufacturing point of view, but also from a consumption point of view as they are now consuming half of the Australian wool clip they buy domestically now.”