Those who were "driven mad" by a simple but long TV ad during the Spring Festival had better turn off their televisions during the Lantern Festival Thursday, as the ad is set for a festive return.

The one-minute TV advertisement by the Shanghai-based Hengyuanxiang Group Co., Ltd, China's leading textile enterprise and an official Olympics sponsor, stunned audiences with a still picture of the Beijing Olympics logo, red characters "Hengyuanxiang" and black smaller ones saying "Beijing 2008 Olympics Sponsor" on a white background. This childishly simple ad then had 12 animals appear, from the Chinese animal zodiac, which jumped out as children intoned the animals' Chinese names.

The ad was televised during the Spring Festival golden week from Feb. 6 to Feb. 12 on six domestic channels, including the influential Shanghai-based East TV and entertainment-oriented Hunan Television.

The ad drew wide criticism.

"At first I thought to myself, has my television been infected with a virus?" said a netizen nicknamed Cinderella.

"Facing a white screen with 12 little animals hopping at me, I really wanted to knock my head against the wall...was it a nightmare?" said another netizen.

But officials with the world's largest woolen yarn producer had their own interpretation.

"Our intention is to send New Year greetings to all the Chinese people, who were born in the year of the 12 animals, and to make people laugh," said Ding Xiuwei, media consultant with the company.

Hengyuanxiang used a similar ad in 1991. In the 15-second ad made by the company's CEO Liu Ruiqi himself, the name of the company was repeated three times, each followed by a cute child's voice intoning "sheep, sheep, sheep", which implied Hengyuanxiang's major products were made of wool.

"It was the ad that inscribed the brand on Chinese people's minds, thus saving the old brand," recalled Bai Hai, manager with a multinational company in Beijing, whose name he declined to reveal.
 
Later Hengyuanxiang tried other ads, but the change didn't seem successful. "Even I couldn't remember those ads. Do you think they have a big influence?" said Li Wei, controller of the company's brand center.

Hengyuanxiang developed the original ad in 2005, when it became a Beijing Olympics sponsor. A "Hengyuanxiang, cow, cow, cow" ad was televised by China Central Television (CCTV) for eight days. Cow, or Niu, means excellent in Chinese.

The short-lasting ad did not incur much criticism, but was not popular either.

Another reason why Hengyuanxiang made such an ad this Spring Festival was financial.

"The company paid off all its debts by the end of 2005. This time we sponsored the Olympics, it was like buying the company again," said Chen Zhongwei, Vice General Manager with the Hengyuanxiang group.

"Each cent should be spent well," he said, "our aim is to have the brand remembered. Condemned is better than forgotten."

Privatized in 2001, Hengyuanxiang saw its sales totalling four billion yuan (about 563 million U.S. dollars) in 2005 and 4.5 billion (about 634 million U.S. dollars) in 2006.

Officials with the company didn't disclose the cost of the ad, but according to an estimate by Yuan Fang, associate professor with the Advertising School of the China Communication University, it might be between 10 million and 20 million yuan.