How Brands are Celebrating Chinese New Year
This Saturday, Chinese New Year festivities kick off around the world, predominantly celebrated across South-East Asia. The holiday is centred around removing the bad and the old and welcoming the new and the good.
It’s biggest, of course, in China, where it’s one of the year’s biggest celebrations, but the smaller markets in South-East Asia have really made a splash with their Chinese New Year marketing in 2024.
Singapore
Sharim Gubbels, executive creative director at Leo Burnett Singapore, said the festival presents a unique opportunity for marketers.
“Every year, the presence of Lunar New Year is felt across a wide array of brands in APAC in all shapes and forms,” Sharim said.
However, the occasion isn’t just an easy win for any brand looking to cash in.
As Sharim explains, “While it isn’t necessarily an expectation to dive deeply into the spirit, lore, or customs of Lunar New Year, Western brands have to be careful in how they take part in Asian culture. They need to have a genuine role to play, respectfully and authentically.”
For Bowmore specifically, with whom Sharim collaborated on for a spot with Glenfiddich, Leo Burnett saw a parallel between the perseverance of the creation of their single malt scotch and an old Chinese proverb of a carp and its story of transformation into a powerful dragon.
“To us,” he said, “this was a perfect entry point to create a thoughtful gift that brings these two rich worlds together.”
Vietnam
Special attention is a theme for Chinese New Year content. Just ask Heckler Singapore producer Jasmine Tay, whose team animated a dragon for a Vietnamese “Tet” campaign for Coca-Cola.
“We had to pay special attention to the dragon's animation as there were cultural rules on how Vietnamese dragons appear and move on screen,” Jasmine said. “For instance, a dragon should always enter the frame from the screen left, and the head of the dragon should always face upwards at the end of its movement.”
The final spot incorporates the Dragon, the zodiac animal of this year, in its packaging artwork and the TVC campaign.
China
The quintessential theme of Chinese New Year is reunion. But as times change, so too does this meaning. For Ogilvy Shanghai, this meant a challenge in uncovering timeless themes and mixing them with contemporary insights.
Wei Fei, group executive creative director at Ogilvy Shanghai, said extensive research is always needed to understand the current macro environment affecting traditional celebrations.
“Some questions brands can explore are things like: How does Gen Z approach family gatherings, and how can we tap into evolving parent-children dynamics and bridge generational divides?” Wei said.
Ogilvy worked with Coca-Cola on marketing for the festival, and their resulting year of the Dragon campaign, “The Dragon Dance Feast” incorporated a new storytelling approach inviting Chinese families to come together to perform a large-scale traditional dragon dance, to connect through a shared activity.
“The campaign showed that Coca-Cola isn’t just a drink but a common ground for every family to bond, successfully amplifying the brand’s Real Magic proposition,” Wei said.
