The darkness peeled back to the snarl of engines, and three silhouettes stepped into the light: a white, black‑roofed, wide‑body A4L on the left; a deep‑black A6 steady as a flagship in the middle; and, on the right, a compact TT whose sharp lines looked equal parts fierce and playful. Daytime running lights snapped on in a choreographed sweep, the matrix LEDs sketching razors through the gloom and hooking every eye. Netizens who had clicked the Weibo splash ad out of habit found themselves leaning closer, naming models in the scrolling comments, arguing over favorites, and falling silent as the scene cut from the garage to city streets.
Traffic and neon reflected in the sheet metal as the three Audis slipped into the flow. The camera climbed the facade of a neighboring office tower and found a young white‑collar worker stepping out after overtime, fishing a fob from her handbag. The lens pushed in. The badge was artfully blocked, but anyone who cared about cars knew the outline: Benma. The barrage of comments flipped from praise to puzzled: Wasn't this an Audi spot? Why show a Benma key? Why did this suddenly feel ominous? The woman paused at the curb. A flash of red rolled into frame—the TT—braked, and its driver's door swung open by itself, the empty bucket seat like a wink: come on, take the wheel. She looked at the graceful coupe, then at the Benma key biting into her palm, jaw tightening as indecision fought with impulse. And then she made up her mind. In a move that detonated the comment feed, she pitched the Benma key into a sidewalk bin, slid into the TT, and left in a clean, eager growl. The message required no subtitles.
What followed made the subtext explicit. The barrage turned to cheers and laughter—"666, savage!" "Audi's driving this ad like it stole it!"—and then predictions that someone at Benma would blow a gasket. The ad continued with two parallel vignettes: a suited executive tempted by an A6, a spirited youth falling for the wide‑body A4L. Each held up a different rival fob—Baolai, then Aotuo—and each, after a heartbeat of struggle, ditched it in the trash before choosing Audi. Three keys, three bins, three conversions. After two heavy thumps like a racing pulse, the four rings filled the screen, and the voice‑over landed: "Audi quality, excellence." Fade out.
The placement was everywhere at once—exactly as intended. With budget be damned, the spot flooded major platforms and ignited the comment fields. People had waited more than ten days, grumbling that Audi seemed to be swallowing an insult after Benma's Daxia chief, Steve Zien, publicly sneered at the brand's leap into C‑class luxury and coupes. The silence hadn't been surrender; it had been production time. The reply was brutal and straightforward when it arrived: if you say we're not worthy, we'll show your keys in a trash can. Netizens called it arrogant, violent, and refreshingly straightforward—and the ad didn't just posture. It spotlighted the cars' real hooks, especially those matrix LED "black‑tech" headlights whose light‑show sequence had already conquered viewers in the opening moments. Appearance fans declared themselves sold on the A6; others vowed to back a homegrown luxury badge on spirit alone.
Across town at a private gathering, glassware stopped clinking. Steve Zien's phone hit the floor. Beside him, the Daxia heads of Baolai and Aotuo read the room and went equally dark. The ad hadn't merely outshouted them but framed their badges as garbage. To leaders of long‑entrenched foreign brands, the symbolism was unforgivable. Voices rose: this was a challenge to German luxury, a declaration of war. Orders went out immediately. Call Legal, draft the papers, and file them in the Daxia court. Demand an apology for "insulting" Benma, Baolai, and Aotuo and seek compensation for reputational damage. The outrage was absolute, but so was the urgency to seize the moral high ground before the meme of "three keys, three bins" hardened in the market's mind.
None of this landed by accident. The day before, after wrapping the third flash sale of Huaxing's phones, Lu Heifeng had signed off on the first cut of the Audi campaign. He'd hired one of Daxia's heaviest advertising houses—organizations that could, if paid enough, punch a message to national television—and then told them not to pinch pennies. Two hundred million yuan went into the cannon; turnaround was just over ten days from his concept deck to a finished film. Because Huaxing's official Weibo had been blocked, Heifeng had quietly bought a small stake in the platform. At noon, the ad sat at the gate: open Weibo, see Audi. The first frame was darkness; the first hook was sound; the first gasp came when the matrix LEDs danced their party routine. By the time the three keys clattered into steel bins, the audience was primed to laugh—and to choose.
Reactions split along a clean fault. Online, the spot was treated like a mic‑drop: clever idea, crisp storytelling, real product advantages woven into spectacle. Offline, inside the villas and offices of the three foreign marques, it read as unforgivable disrespect. But that polarity was precisely the leverage Audi—and behind it, Lu Heifeng—wanted. When a market is used to bowing to imported badges, you don't argue lineage; you make consumers feel, in ten seconds of light and one decisive toss of a key, that choosing you is bolder, cooler, more their era. And if lawsuits come, so much the better—the argument stays in the headlines, and every headline repeats the image of a rival fob disappearing into a trash can.
By night, the we‑media accounts had already cut reaction reels: three keys, three bins; "Audi quality, excellence"; close‑ups of the matrix lenses strobbing like a stage show. Comment sections filled with mock condolences to Benma, Baolai, and Aotuo, and wagers on how fast the lawyer's letters would fly. In boardrooms, calls stacked up to PR and counsel. In feeds, the four rings shone brighter than they had in years. The war Benma had wanted to frame as a lesson in "knowing your place" had, with one creative pivot and a very loud buy, been turned into a street fight over pride—and the crowd, for the moment, was chanting for Audi.