“In this festival, we accept no gift, no gift, no gift. However, Brain Platinum is an exception. Brain Pla-ti-num!” (今年过节不收礼，收礼还收脑白金。脑-白-金！) Two funny elderly people sing and dance in this highly annoying TVC, jingle courtesy of Qiu Ye, frontman of the Beijing-based rock band Confucius Sez.

The Chinese people have a long tradition of supplementing their diet with herbs and other natural ingredients in order to maintain a state of health and internal equilibrium, and the genius businessman Shi Yuzhu (史玉柱), who also founded online game company Giant Interactive, caught this niche market with Brain Platinum (脑白金, Nao Bai Jin), a melatonin supplement. The ads gave his enterprise a dramatic boost, and helped turn it into a huge business.

Since 2004, commercials for Brain Platinum have flooded Chinese television networks during every single Chinese Spring Festival holiday. This campaign was heavily criticized for exaggerating the effects of the product and it was voted by Chinese web users as one of the top 10 worst ads on TV.

This may be the stupiest TVC we’ve ever seen, but the series commercials made a sales miracle in mainland China. The advertising tactic was so successful that Brain Platinum’s annual sales grew to over RMB 1.2 billion (USD 176 million) within two years of entering the market.