Beyond the red and gold: Why lazy Lunar New Year marketing is losing its shine
Lunar New Year (which beings Tuesday, 17 February this year) offers a fantastic opportunity for Australian brands to capitalise on the festivities — as long as they don’t just phone in an offensive, tone deaf advertisement. Rebecca Song, senior account manager at Think HQ, explains.
Rebecca Song - author
As we hit February, most of Australia sits in that strange calendar limbo between broken New Year’s resolutions and the wait for the Easter long weekend. But for more than 1.5 million Australians — including myself — this is when the year actually kicks off.
Lunar New Year (LNY) is a massive, high-energy cultural moment shared by Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and many other communities. As a Chinese migrant living in Australia, my February is always a blur — a chaotic mix of catching up with friends, frantically sending gifts to family back home, all marinated in the hazy blend of nostalgia and excitement that comes with the season.
From a marketing perspective, the opportunity is obvious, right?
Well, not quite. For sure, people are ready to spend, families are gathering, and spirits are high. But as I dive into the season once again, here are some thoughts from LNY frontline. It’s not a lecture on “how to do LNY”, more a bridge connecting my two worlds, showing why some brands become the life of the marketing party — while others are found in a corner with a warm beer and a sad expression.
The number one pitfall I see, year after year, is the “cliché trap.” We have all seen the sea of red and gold washing over social feeds and shop windows. But in a landscape more crowded than a train back home during morning rush hour, does anyone actually care? And while splashing traditional symbols everywhere is usually harmless, it is always a missed opportunity. And sometimes, it’s downright offensive.
One of the most infamous examples is the 2018 Dolce & Gabbana fiasco, which started from an insensitive attempt at “teaching” their Chinese consumers how to eat pizza with chopsticks.
It was an embarrassing ad for sure, and it was also tone deaf. The result was as swift as it was savage, with a 25% turnover drop in the Asia-Pacific market. The lesson? Consumers want to be seen and feel seen, not observed and mocked.
Dolce & Gabbana was forced to issue a grovelling apology and postpone a fashion show in Shanghai after this commercial
The best campaigns I see don’t just paste a dragon on a product, instead treating tradition as layers of a strategy, not the whole strategy. The goal is to fit the brand into what people are already doing.
And for me, gift-giving is the key. Growing up, I was taught you never show up to someone’s home empty-handed. Brands like Penfolds and Koko Black thrive during this time because they get this. It’s not an “LNY packaging” solution for them, but offering a real solution to an age-old problem: “I need a gift that looks impressive and shows I care.”
Then there is social currency. For many of my friends living on Instagram or Rednote (Xiaohongshu), a campaign only matters if it gives them something to brag about. They aren’t just posting for their mates in Australia, but for everyone back home, too. A killer photo booth or a smart sticker that taps into a trendy cultural joke can make a campaign fly. Telstra’s 2019 campaign letting people send messages to families overseas via a massive billboard still sets the gold-standard for me. In a time of separation for many, it fostered genuine connection through killer marketing.
Sometimes, the best strategy is just being useful. I’ve seen banks handing out beautifully designed red packets (Hong Bao) at branches. It is simple, it is practical, and it gets the brand into the home through a tradition that is still very much alive.
But for a younger crowd, the bar is higher. If you can’t be useful, you better be entertaining. I’m seeing a shift where a well-placed laugh beats a formal greeting every time. BMW nailed this in 2023, playing with the mistranslation of trendy Chinese words. It felt like a shared wink with the community. By laughing with us, they avoided the “mockery trap” completely.
And while “Lunar New Year” is a useful catch-all, the real magic is in the details. Too often, brands forget this is a shared date with very distinct cultural identities. In 2023, several brands pushed out “Year of the Rabbit” content to everyone. The problem? For my Vietnamese friends, it was the Year of the Cat. And as every marketer should know, you really can’t pull a rabbit out of a cat. And it’s so easy to avoid with just a little effort.
It’s why I love seeing the shift towards inclusive naming, and I love it even more when brands use community-specific names like Spring Festival, Tết, or Seollal. It shows respect, makes connections – and gives people a reason to tap their card.
As the Year of the Horse approaches, I am excited to see how brands with a natural link to the zodiac – cars, sports, racing – will play things. Will they just stick a horse on a poster, or will they tap into something deeper? Maybe they will redefine “success” or “momentum,” just as Nike did this year. The opportunity is there for the brands brave enough to look past the red and gold.
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Wholeheartedly agree with this piece. It’s an industry wide problem that is only focusing in on the bottom line. It comes down to individuals within organisations who actually take the time to educate and nurture young talent. They are truly, rare to find.