A Global Valentine’s: Cultural Variation behind Love-Themed Campaigns

In France, and especially in cities, it’s commonplace to see people driving beaten up cars and mopeds. This stems from a number of factors. Cars are less likely to be seen as a status symbol and more as a functional transport commodity, the streets can be narrow and prone to scrapes, the wayward parking tactics of locals lead to frequent fender bending, and not to mention a certain famous roundabout in Paris that requires its own insurance opt in. 

Last year, Heech jumped on this cultural insight, creating an integrated campaign asking people not to collect their dates in their battered up vehicles, featuring a TV spot, guerilla sticker slap activations on damaged cars in Paris, and a free month on the app for anyone who posts a picture of their broken motor on social. 

In Japan, valentine's day is celebrated, but it’s generally used as a day for women/girls to confess their love to men/boys. Honmei Choco (true love chocolat) is an important decision made by women, and so the best adverts tend to tell stories of secret love of a girl, as per this advert from APAC confectionary giant Lotte.  

There are five other types of gifts on Valentines, Giri choco (obligation chocolate) are given to family members as seen in this Godiva Ad from last year and Cho-giri as a sympathy gift. And don’t worry, the ladies only have to wait for a month for ‘White Day’ (14th March) in order to receive something back, or to buy a Jibun-choco, a chocolate to themselves. 

Valentines day in Italy was historically celebrated as a spring festival, with couples spending time outdoors, strolling in parks, sitting under trees, listening to music and talking. While contemporary Italian couples may present each other with small chocolates or padlock their love to bridges, there is a resistance to the capitalist gifting experiences compared to many other western European markets. 

As a result, successful campaigns tend to focus more on the aspects of time spent together, as seen with last year's ITA advert produced by We Are Social, which encourages couples to spend the day disconnected from the internet, as if they were in flight mode. 

It’s an oldie, but a goldie. The PUMA ‘Hardchorus’ is a top tier example of how to take a singular creative concept and transcreate it for a number of local markets. Referencing the fact that Valentine's Day was falling on Saturday, a day that clashes with football fixtures, Puma and Droga5 built a comical World Cup campaign that kicked off on the 14th Feb, designed to help get men all over Europe 'off the hook'. 

Not only did they pick powerful local language anthems for each market, including Savage Garden’s ‘Truly Madly Deeply’, Umberto Tozzi’s ‘Ti-Amo’, and ’Ein bisschen Frieden’, they managed to capture ‘authentic’ representations of football fans from each country. Extra points for the production team using Hoxton’s Lion and Lamb pub and retaining their camera equipment. 

In another campaign with an internationally resonant concept at heart, Heineken looked to address the gender stereotypes involved with ordering a drink, a bias that exists in most countries. A simple idea to produce and execute for local markets, the campaign feeds into the master brand campaign ‘Cheers To All’, while adding a nice Valentine's twist brought to life with various local contexts. 

Gucci launched a dedicated line for Valentine’s Day using the symbol of the apple, linked to the biblical phrase ‘the apple of his eye’. Although China was a key market for the campaign, the translation of the phrase and the symbolism of the apple made little sense, where the tagline concept is foreign, and apples (translation: ping guo) are associated linguistically with peace (translation: ping) and not love. Gucci were lucky the local market loved the designs and storytelling of the advert, and so the campaign was semi-successful regardless. 

Working with local copywriters, voice over artists and producers is key to successful localised campaigns, however working with sensitive concepts requires an extra level of background research, concept testing and cultural considerations. 

D&G are still trying to recover what famously became a disastrous Valentine’s campaign in China, with a voice over doused in a ‘superiority’ tone, trivialising Chinese awareness of Italian foods, and depicting Chinese women in a stereotypical way. This led to their products being banned on core platforms T-Mall and JD, and had a significant long term impact on local market sales.