Chinese new year CNY 2026 also known as lunar new year, spring festival or Tết festival. 2026 marks the year of the fire horse. In the same way that the Super Bowl and Christmas are the stand out times of the year for advertising in the US and Europe, CNY 2026 will be the same for much of east Asia and Southeast Asia.
There has a large amount of tradition and rituals around celebrating the festival, which are rich seams of inspiration for strategists and marketing moments.
I featured an advert from Brunei for the first time.
As with previous years, Malaysia had a lot of campaigns running, many of which were partnerships with local musicians to collaborate on a seasonal song. One of the advantages of partnering with local musicians is their ability to cross post on their own channels broadening the videos reach.
In the Malaysian adverts that were storyteller driven, coping with aging relatives suffering with dementia came through as a common social theme.
Social video has been a great leveller. I have a featured a few videos from small businesses this year which were nicely executed despite operating with minimal budgets.
Coca-Cola in China was notable in that it showed strategic thinking closer to what we now see in the west with social-first ‘Instagrammable’ tactics.
Australia
Godiva
Anywhere up to 8 percent of Australia’s population have some connection to China, which explains why Godiva have done a Chinese new year themed range of chocolates.
Brunei
Flower Journal
Flower Journal is a florist shop based in Brunei, yet they have created a cinematic advert with great storytelling. The craft is arguably better than a number of the big brands featured this year. The work by local agency Cinekota really impressed me.
China
Adidas
Adidas made a film about a school football team and focuses on how the team is a ‘football family’. Reuniting with family is an important part of lunar new year. It’s also about looking forward to the future, hence the children’s wishes.
Apple
TBWA\ Media Arts, Shanghai teamed up with film director Bai Xue for Apple’s CNY 2026 advertisement. The film joins Apple’s series of ‘shot on an iPhone‘ mini movies.
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola China took a social and experiential approach focused around togetherness. A drone show in Chongqing paired with fireworks that are considered part of China’s intangible cultural heritage was supported by social video clips of a famous father and daughter.
All of this was to address young adults dual sense of togetherness during spring festival as mainland Chinese call CNY 2026. Being together with friends a la Friends and This Life, as well as more traditional family connections.
Valentino
Valentino put relatively subtle lunar new year symbols into a Chinese take on an American diner. The galloping horse zoetrope and red accents throughout the restaurant from neon signs to red floor tiles. As for the film itself, it’s basically a video lookbook.
Hong Kong
Hang Seng Bank
Hang Seng Bank ties into the the importance of welcoming good fortune into your life at Chinese New Year. Celebrities dress as the god of good fortune giving wishes for flourishing prosperity to different neighbourhoods across Hong Kong.
Malaysia
AEON
Japanese supermarket chain AEON did a Malaysian market specific film featuring a mix of well known entertainers. The giddy up line telegraphing its horse related theme and the cultural impact of K-pop is evident in the whole video.
Affin Bank
Affin Bank is consistent in their lunar new year campaigns. Each year they tell of how a famous business customer battled adversity to succeed. This time it was Malaysian book retailer BookXcess.
Affinity
Affinity is a Malaysian estate agent. The video creative is a pretty run of the mill reenactment of Chinese new year with the horse head mask hinting at the CNY 2026 theme. The song itself is a bit an ear worm.
Air Selangor
Air Selangor hits you with a gut punch of an emotional Chinese New Year story that felt like it came straight of the Thai advertising agencies rather than Malaysia. (Thai agencies are famous for wringing you through an emotional shredder leaving you drained after an insurance ad).
Alpro
Malaysia’s largest prescription pharmacy chain put together a humorous new year film based around the mechanic of three wishes.
AmBank
The film melds together traditions around fabric sharing and lion dance to tell a Chinese new year story of a community coming together.
Astro
Astro is a Malaysian holding company that has a mix of linear TV, connected TV and radio assets. Think the reach of the BBC, but a private enterprise.
Bamboo Green Florist
Bamboo Green Florist is a single shop business based in Penang. For a small business their Chinese new year advert punches above its weight.
Coca-Cola
The first of two appearances in this list by Malaysian group 3P.
GVRide
GVRide is a Malaysian ride hailing app, they sponsored a new year song music video by Namewee alongside other brands.
IJM Land
IJM Land is a Malaysian property developer (part of a larger conglomerate). They position themselves as “one of Malaysia’s property development”. The film sits at the tension between the love of heritage, accumulating wealth and the non-monetary aspects of CNY 2026 – coming together, family, building memories and legacy.
JinYeYe
JinYeYe sell seasonal hampers, so lunar new year is their peak sales time. Their advert is targeted at the global Chinese diaspora and they partnered with Tourism Malaysia alongside local musicians. A bee is considered to a symbol of blessings and represents sweetness, hope and companionship.
Lee Kum Kee
Hong Kong’s Lee Kum Lee were the inventors of oyster sauce and have a place in every Asian kitchen cupboard. But their advert is weak sauce (pun intended) that could have been knocked out on PowerPoint.
Listerine
Listerine just straight up sponsored the video of Malaysian producers 1119 for this new year themed music video.
Loong Kee
Loong Kee is a Malaysian food company who makes everything from processed meats to baked goods. This is at least the third year that they have partnered with local musicians who are internet-famous to collaborate on a new year themed song.
Lotus
Lotus supermarket was formerly part of Tesco’s international footprint before the UK brand divested itself of its international stores to Thai conglomerate Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group. This advert taps into family friction and a couple of nice wushu cinema referencing touches. It reminded me a lot of SingTel’s films from previous years.
It handles the diversity of Malaysia well, without the awkward approach that Malaysian Airlines went for.
Malaysian Airlines
Malaysian Airlines focuses on Malaysians coming home. Given that the airline is a government company. While ethically Chinese, and speaking Chinese at home – the woman is a devote muslim.
In reality that’s about 1-2% of the ethnic Chinese population – for ethno-political, social and cultural reasons that I don’t want to get into on this post. The video is as much about a government approved theme as it is about the airline.
Marrybrown
Marrybrown is a Malaysian quick service restaurant. It is really nice how the story moves through time with relatively small but important cues on screen.
Maxis
Malaysian broadband provider took an unusual angle bringing together two erstwhile business rivals in a spirit of shared community.
McDonalds Malaysia
Great storytelling but with a serious topic as middle-aged siblings deal with an aging parent with signs of dementia.
Nescafé Gold
Instant coffee brand Nescafé Gold goes down the sponsored music video route. But with a few noticeable differences:
Better product placement that articulates the customer moment.
A more diverse cast than most of the other adverts.
The video title Gongxi Kemeriahan – is a mix of mandarin and malay – gongxi meaning best wishes or congratulations and kemeriahan means excitement.
All of which are likely to because of Nestlé being a western multinational and the marketers are looking to target all Malaysians rather than just ethnic Chinese.
PMG Healthcare
PMG Healthcare is a regional provider of pharmacies, medical and dental clinics to private health insurance customers.
Mr Potato
Mr Potato is a local potato chip brand in Malaysia. Their CNY 2026 advert is a spoof of the Jackie Chan kung fu film Drunken Master.
Public Bank
Public Bank is a Malaysian headquartered bank. This year they have done an AR-based activation. Each Chinese new year you can go into your bank and get a pack of red envelopes and crisp new bills to give out to family, friends and junior colleagues. So this execution makes sense.
RHB
Malaysian bank RHB continued its theme of inspiring stories told in previous Chinese New Year campaigns through to its CNY 2026 campaign. This year tells the story of Komuniti Tukang Jahit, a small tailors shop that empowers women through sewing skills and fair income opportunities.
Setia
Malaysian house builder Setia takes a lighter comedic approach telling the story of a family’s new year celebration through the eyes of its youngest member. Its lightness of tone is in contrast to other adverts this year which are more of an emotional rollercoaster.
Shopee
Singaporean e-commerce platform Shopee partnered with local act 3P to a Chinese New Year song for its Malaysian ad campaign. Thoughout Asia lunar new year songs and playlists are all over TV, films, Spotify and YouTube playlists. This leans right into that trend.
SPD Racing
SPD Racing is a small workshop that service motorcycles and sell after market parts. This short video is really nicely executed, replacing parts on the motorcycle with red fittings in the same way that people would wear new red outfits on Chinese new year for good luck.
Tenaga
Tenaga is a Malaysian electrical utility. There is a nice bit of storytelling about a lion dance troupe. This could be rerun in future years given its lack of specificity to CNY 2026.
U Mobile
U Mobile is a Malaysian wireless operator. Their advert focuses on on the travel use case over lunar new year as more people travel rather than staying at home.
UCSI University
USCI is part of Malaysia’s private education system that sprang out of the positive discrimination of successive Malaysian governments towards Malays in comparison to Chinese and South Asian Malaysians. This was enshrined in article 153 of the Malaysian constitution, New Economic Policy, National Development Policy, National Vision Policy and the concept of Ketuanan Melayu which continues to be a pillar of government decision-making.
In common with several other films here this year it focuses on the treasure of memories built over the festival and also has a dementia plot line.
Vida C
Vida C is kind of like an energy drink, in a number of Asian countries high vitamin C content is used in the same way that taurine and caffeine are in western energy drinks. They did a relatively subtle product placement in this comedic music video. It’s much less PC than western multinationals would allow.
Watsons
Watson’s is the Boots of Asia. Like previous years it tells a story of family coming together with the joy and chaos that usually ensues. It features Maria Cordero – a Macau born entertainer, radio and TV personality with a famous cooking show based in Hong Kong – but known throughout the region.
Singapore
Carlsberg
Carlsberg launched a pan-Asian campaign with a mix of horse themed packaging design and having it promoted by SKAI ISYOURGOD – a popular Malaysian rapper with appeal across Asia.
FairPrice
Singapore supermarket chain FairPrice focused on the small family moments of the new year celebrations and their ability to build lasting memories. The advert was created by TBWA\ Singapore.
Grab
At first I thought that this ad was aimed at the Malaysian market, but I think it’s aimed at both Singapore and Malaysia. It would work in either, even though some of the brands are Malaysia only like JayaGrocer. It’s unusual because of the amount of brand collabs in it, count them:
Vinda tissues
7Up
GXBank
Jasmine SunWhite Rice
JayaGrocer
Kyochon Chicken
Oriental Kopi
Subway
Secondly, there was the filming of an ad within the ad concept that Orson Welles would have enjoyed.
LVMH
LVMH’s drinks portfolio has been suffering from declining sales. Family get togethers are an ideal consumption moment, so it makes sense that Hennessy leant in with special packaging and a Singapore family reunion ‘kit’.
SIMBA
Australian owned mobile network SIMBA did a very simple sales promotion which is very much in keeping with its value proposition , but the horses are nicely done.
Singapore government
A comedic short film with relatively light social engineering aiming at harmonious relationships and community during CNY 2026. The family were framed as being salt-of-the-earth Singaporean Chinese living in old HDB flat. The universal food photography was very on point.
Taiwan
Coca-Cola
Coke did a really simple sales promotion with a giveaway competition attached to each purchase.
United States
Panda Express
Panda Express is an American fast food chain that specialises in American Chinese food. It kind of sits outside usual lunar new year traditions becoming a Roald Dahl style fantasy.
Vietnam
Coca-Cola
Really simple creative by Coca-Cola. They missed a trick by not creating something as iconic as the US Coca-Cola truck adverts. Instead they phoned in the creative with this spot.
Ensure Gold
Abbott Health’s Ensure Gold is a Complan-type drink designed to fortify health and restore strength. The film uses family union traditions to focus on the past, recover during the Tết festival and look to the future with a shared sense of resilience. The theme is even reflected when the family does traditional ancestor worship and we hear the wishes of their departed family.
Home Credit
Home Credit are an online financial services company. They provide credit cards, vehicle loans, pre-payment accounts and instalment payments for consumer products. The advert focuses on everyday people and how they prepare for Tết, including decorating the home, getting new clothes and a new karaoke machine for the family gathering.
Mirinda
Mirinda is a Vietnamese soft drinks brand similar to Tango. Their adverts were noticeable for their shortness. They were running 3 five-second spots and two 15-second spots. No real story, but there is energy, brand colours feature heavily and it gives off a joyous vibe.
MyKingdom
MyKingdom is a Vietnamese toy retailer similar to Toys R Us. Their mobile first content focuses on the challenges of parents looking to buy toys that will last longer than the spring festival.
Sunhouse
Sunhouse is a home electronics brand. Everything from kitchen appliances to to cookware.
In the advert, they focus on starting the new year healthy, there is a belief in starting the new year as you would like it to go on.
Viettel
Wireless carrier Viettel subverts the idea of a family reunion storyline during Tết. Instead when the family can’t come home, an uncle visits his family members around the country.
As I find more CNY 2026 campaigns I will add them here.
2025 started warmer, but windier than normal. I had just published a similar post and had a days break before thinking about drafting 2025 as it happened, how it was seen at the time tends to be missed out when we look back with the benefit of hindsight.
I haven’t written much about the Trump administration, mainly because everything kept changing, so it wasn’t apparent at the time what was really important. Every day felt like a burning platform.
January 2025
Small and medium sized business confidence at new low. Japanese convenience store operator Lawson used offshore workers to help customers via digital avatar. Chinese property developer VANKE CEO was detained to help authorities with their enquiries. VANKE, alongside Country Garden, is one of the better ran companies known for corporate transparency. Meanwhile Guangzhou FC (formerly Guangzhou Evergrande) was ejected from China’s professional football league. Amazon announced UK drone delivery service.
HSBC shut down their first attempt at competing in the ‘fintech’ space. Zing competed with Wise and Revolut in global money transfers.
Circana research found that GLP-1s weren’t responsible for long term sales declines in snacks and other consumer packaged goods sales.
Rolex raised their prices across their models by 1-to-3 percent. Louis Vuittonrevisited its 2003 collaboration with Takashi Murakami. LVMH Watch Week leaned hard into novelties and featured Bvlgari, Daniel Roth, Gérald Genta, Hublot, L’Epée 1839, Louis Vuitton, TAG Heuer, Tiffany & Co. and Zenith.
Porsche sales dropped, mostly due to 28% drop in China during 2024. Louis Vuitton launched an early 2000s streetwear throwback for its autumn / winter 2025 collection by Nigo and Pharrell Williams.
While generation cohorts are no better than horoscopes, they have prominence in marketing discourse; Gen Beta started. Publicis Worldwide & Leo Burnett merged to form Leo. Kellogg’s returned to British TV screens with mascot Cornelius the Cockrel in the ad ‘See you in the morning’.
51% say that overall, they like the ad, while only 26% disliked it. That’s a good score, you’d expect an average campaign to roughly take 40% like to 20% dislike.
UK institution, the BBC shipping forecast turned 100. Half of banned UK crypto ads remained online.
The earliest iterations of cartoon characters Popeye and Tintin went into the public domain in the U.S – but his likeness and name is still trademarked. STEM content creator Zara Dar made 3x more revenue per video on Pornhub vs. YouTube.
State laws based on Louisiana’s Act 440 require age verification for adult entertainment sites. In response, Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, had blocked access in 20 states. This included Florida, a major centre for porn production. Meta launched machine learning powered accounts, it wasn’t well received. Meta pivoted from fact checking to be more combative with the EU, Brazil and China.
Some US TikTok users signed up to Chinese Instagram analogue Xiaohongshu in protest to TikTok restrictions.
Why did the US take action against TikTok? Rutgers University affiliated research from 2023 was the best public reason given. TikTok returned in one news cycle thanks to President Trump’s patronage.
Donald J. Trump became U.S. president again as typhoon-speed winds drove fires in Los Angeles.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau resigned. Edelman’s trust barometer survey marked new societal nadir with a crisis of grievance.
Oliviero Toscani, the photographer behind Bennetton’s iconic advertising campaigns and work in the fashion label’s COLORS magazine died.
Film director David Lynch died.
Over the past decade ‘children’s cafeterias‘ which offer free or low-cost meals have grown in Japan from a standing start to over 10,000 venues. (Similar to the UK’s food bank expansion.) 2025 saw 1,794 cafeterias open.
The majority of cafeterias have no age restrictions. Out of an estimated total 18.9 million annual users, 70%, or 13 million, were children while the other 30% (5.9 million) were adults.
Across Asia and in diaspora communities around the world, the lunar new year was welcomed in on January 29th. In the Chinese horoscope, it was the year of the wood snake.
Cellular mobile services in UK turn 40. UK government announced improved atomic clock that will help in more precise, jam-proof navigation. CES was all about generative AI. OpenAI continued to lose money on ChatGPT. Irrational exuberance in LLMs deflated by popularity of DeepSeek.
How January 2025 memed
Streetwear’s pivot to avant garde all-black influenced by Rick Owens and Raf Simons with dark eye shadow, was popularised by hip-hop and trap artists out of Atlanta. Playboi Carti was associated with the look. The look got a name inspired by Carti’s Opium record label – opiumcore. Jing Daily claimed that gender fluidity and opiumcore looks were going to trend in China luxury and streetwear.
It’s at odds with Chinese government guidance. They deplatformed ‘excessively feminine’ male models and those who ‘slavishly worship’ western culture. Even opiumcore’s name is problematic.
February 2025
Donald Trump tariffs announced against Canada, China and Mexico. Samsung head Lee Jae-yong cleared of fraud and stock manipulation charges. Clothing store Forever21 went bankrupt again. Bybit had $1.5Bn of etherium stolen from its ‘offline’ cold wallet – biggest crypto theft to date. Nike collaborates with Skims. Unilever changes their CEO.
Robert F Kennedy Jr promised to ‘Make America Healthy Again” or MAHA, crystalised the name of a movement that brought together wellness and the political right.
Language learning company Duolingo, shared their new brand book, which was held up as an example of how to capture a brand’s culture, positioning and market proposition. Liverpool Football Club refreshed their brand identity. R3 published their 2024 new business league table. Key takeaways:
Interpublic lost 500,000 USD in business more than they won, what they won in creative, they lost in media.
Fuji TV screens tentpole anime show Sazae-sanwithout sponsorships, an advertising boycott over a sexual assault allegation cover-up. Lidl sold out its TikTok shop debut in 20 minutes. Post-production and video FX business Technicolor shut down.
Simon Kemp launched this year’s Digital 2025 compendium of global online behaviours. YouTube turned 20 on Valentine’s Day. Cory Doctorow’s Pluralistic turned five.
David Webb announced plans for the end of his iconic financial website which covered the Hong Kong market. Webb was in the final stages of his battle with cancer. Fiverr launched FiverrGo – a generative AI art-working service.
Taiwanese TV actress Barbie Hsu (pronounced Shu) died aged 48. Hsu was a popular actress across East and South East Asia. The Democratic Party in Hong Kong disbanded.
HKTaxi – which pioneered taxi-hailing apps in Hong Kong, announced April closure. The Washington Post alleged UK government demanded global backdoor on Apple services. Apple removed protected cloud encryption from UK users. Humane AI has its intellectual property bought by HPE. Humane is shuttered including its AI pin device. Apple launched its iPhone 16e, it featured Apple’s first custom wireless modem. Amazon announced closure of messaging and video app Chime. Promised to continue supporting the Chime SDK, which allows the underlying messaging and video service to be integrated directly into apps. Microsoft announced Skype service closure.
How February 2025 memed?
Credit due to Dan Lambden: *LinkedInsincerity (noun)*: A phenomenon observed on LinkedIn characterised by interactions that appear inauthentic, exaggerated, or lacking genuine sincerity.
These interactions may include overly enthusiastic endorsements, insincere congratulatory messages, and inflated descriptions of professional achievements, often driven by the desire to network or gain visibility rather than foster true professional connections. In essence, LinkedInsincerity represents the façade of professionalism masked by the pursuit of personal gain.
March 2025
March started with cold sunny days and the first snowdrops in the park by my house.
But in comparison to the weather, economic indicators weren’t great. Hong Kong slowed down its retail sales decline. HSBC celebrated the 160th anniversary of its founding.
Launched in 1953, JCB built their 1,000,000th backhoe loader. Volkswagen announced move away from touchscreen-only car controls. AstraZeneca bought cell therapy company esoBiotec. 23andMe declared bankrupt.
Going upmarket, Moët & Chandon & Pharrell Williams collaborated on a €30,000 limited edition champagne bottle. It was to demonstrate ‘ collective spirit, optimism and human connection’. Lewis Hamilton became a Lulu Lemon ambassador. Willy Chavarria collaborated with Tinder on a small collection with the theme ‘How we love is who we are’. Rolex opened London flagship managed by Watches of Switzerland. Maker’s Mark launched Fielden Rye whisky – their first new recipe in 70 years.
Starbucks launched a collaboration with Snoopy to reboot sales.
In media, Sesame Street started shooting its 56th season. But had no distribution partner in place. Yahoo! sold TechCrunch to private equity buyer. The Federal Trade Commission looked into Omnicom’s takeover of Interpublic. Apple loses $1 billion / year on streaming. Medical drama Grey’s Anatomy turns 20 years old. The Grateful Dead celebrated their 60th anniversary with a 60 CD boxset Enjoying The Ride featured live sets recorded from 1969 to 1994.
In online, old was gold as Yahoo! turned 30 and has enjoyed a mild comeback. (Disclosure, I worked there earlier on in my career.) Digg relaunch announced. Discord planned for IPO.
Manus, a Chinese ‘general AI agent’ launched beta release that outperformedOpenAI. Deliveroo announced plan to exit Hong Kong operations in April.
Mobile World Congress saw Xiaomi & Realme show concept smartphones with detachable lens. Apple delayed more personalised aspects of Siri in its Apple Intelligence rollout. Alphabet bought security start-up Wiz for $32Bn. Microsoft turned 50 years old. Oracle systems were breached and health records stolen.
In other news, Japan marked 30 years since the Tokyo subway sarin attacks. Author and former KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky died. Irish crime fiction author Ken Bruen died.
How March 2025 memed?
Geopolitical disruption: The Daily Star is a UK tabloid newspaper with a right of centre, populist editorial voice. It would be a natural ally of the Trump administration; yet the headline on front page of the paper was ‘JD Dunce‘ on the March 5th, edition.
Research firm YouGov showed a sharp decline in how UK people saw the US.
April 2025
The end of March 2025 was the height of sakura season in Japan and in the UK. The sun greeted the start of April, so did the Trump administration with global tariffs in ‘Liberation Day‘ announcement.
Another thing went up in the US as well as tariffs, preventable disease-related deaths. Pertussis (whooping cough) and measles increased in US compared to last year. Pertussis infections doubled, measles infections grew even more. Spain and Portugal suffered countrywide electricity blackouts.
The US National Science Foundation got rid of most external advisory panels and the FDA announced move to phase out animal testing.
On a lighter note another thing going viral was pistachio cream filled chocolate.
At Watches & Wonders, Rolex launched the Land Dweller, a watch design that is similar in concept to the Oysterquartz, Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and the Vacheron Constantine Overseas. Just as important was the new high-beat movement design rolled out in the Land Dweller. Prada bought Versace. LVMH fashion and leather goods sales fell 5% year-on-year. Added to luxury sector woes were Chinese factories claiming to offer consumers better deals on luxury goods by going direct. One bright note – Highsnobriety found that 40% of American respondents found that sustainable fashion was fashionable. This compared to just 25% of young people (gen-z) globally.
Advertising Week Europe was held in London. Key topics of discussion included retail media and connected TV from Uber, Carwow and Disney. Adobe provided generative AI designed conference bags. UK marketing spend fell for first time in four years. Hostess Brands became first mainstream brand to promote their products on April 20th – informally 4.20 day that celebrated cannabis use. McVities celebrated the 100th anniversary of the chocolate digestive and Wired magazine celebrated the 30th anniversary of its original website.
Bluesky announced its plans to verify accounts. Nike sued over the closure of its NFT business.
In other news, it was 50 years since the end of the Vietnam war. Reggae star Max Romeo died in Jamaica, Pope Francis died in Rome and it was the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald’s ending to the novel was widely quoted and captured the zeitgeist of April 2025 well.
“They were careless people . . . they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
I had started a project engagement at Google. This was 20 years to the day when I started my in-house gig at Yahoo! less “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” more “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes”.
The Apple iPad turned 15 and AirTags turned 4 years old.
How April 2025 memed?
An article in WARCcaptured April’s mood for me with the acronym VUCA. The phrase has its origin in the US Army War College during the mid-1980s, who were looking to describe a post-cold war scenario.
Volatility: Rapid significant change with little to no warning as to the size of change.
Uncertainty: Unclear outcomes as are the causes.
Complexity: Multiple factors in play with complex inter-related aspects to them which makes finding a way forward challenging.
Ambiguity: the information that is available is open to misinterpretation.
May 2025
May started with the warmest day of the year, 26 celsius in London.
Warren Buffett announced plan to retire from Berkshire Hathaway. The UK and US outline shape of a limited trade agreement. The CIA launched a high production value ad campaign on western social media to recruit Chinese agents.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer celebrated 20 years of his Mad Money show. While 2024 was was the year of semaglutide, Novo Nordisk seemed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It was still a surprise when Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen stepped down as CEO. Unilever discovered a correlation between a particular type of skin microbiome bacteria and positive mental health measures. Consumer DNA testing company 23andMe was sold to Regeneron.
Alex Mashinsky sentenced to 12 years for fraud related to 2023 collapse of cryptocurrency business Celsius.
Monocle announced a new book shop and café in Paris. Business Insider laid off over 20% of staff and announced shift to AI. Amazon announced Prime Day to be held in July and did its first brand refresh in two decades. Google refreshed the big G icon. Mozilla announced closure of bookmarking service Pocket. Wikipedia took five years to go from six million articles to seven million around May 28, 2025. DoorDash agreed to buy Deliveroo. Hong Kong congee restaurant chain Ocean Empire closed down abruptly. Nutella announced a new peanut-based variant.
Dior Coutureadmitted a successful cyber attack. US telecoms company Charter announced it was buying Cox Communications.
McDonald’s Restaurants saw a decline in sales. This was down to low income consumers spending less, while middle class earners still weren’t going into McDonalds. Normally when there is a recession, McDonalds should benefit from the more well-off trading down to McDonalds. Instead, fortunes have diverged into a ‘k-shaped’ recession. Lower income earners are hit, while middle classes aren’t. What Axios called the ‘McRecession‘.
How May 2025 memed?
The conclave to select a new Pope shined a light on all things Vatican related. President Trump got in on the act via his social media feed. Robert Provost was elected pope in a relatively fast conclave. His election surprised prediction markets. Recent film Conclave became a must-watch film as it was a good guide to the process of electing a new Pope.
June 2025
June started with changeable spring-like weather with rain from London to Tokyo. The UK government published its Strategic Defence Review. A Ukrainian operation destroyed Russian aircraft deep inside Russia using small drones concealed in containers. Israel launched attacks on Iran.
CEO Mark Read announced he was leaving WPP at end of 2025. Apple’s ‘Shot on an iPhone’ campaign won at Cannes. Apple launched a new ‘shot on an iPhone’ film featuring Stormzy.
US Vogue editor Anna Wintour moved to more hands-off role as chief content officer at Condé Nast.
Unilever bought ‘chemical-free’ direct-to-consumer men’s personal care brand Dr Squatch for $1.5Bn. UK discounter Poundland was sold for a pound.
Hong Kong legalised basketball betting by Hong Kong Jockey Club. This will attract mainland gamblers where basketball has a huge following in comparison to soccer or horse racing. Asian currency arbitrage opportunity indicated a problem in US finances.
Bill Atkinson who was part of the original Mac and General Magic teams died, as did soundtrack composer Lalo Schifrin.
Meanwhile Apple’s WWDC felt like Mac-orientated conferences of years long past. AI was sprinkled in features with a focus on on-device AI models. Oakley and Meta collaborated on smart glasses. Flickr roles out creative commons 4, giving creators greater control over their image rights.
Chart of the month June 2025
Podcast advertising showed signs of maturing with slowing growth according to WARC.
How June 2025 memed? – TACO
From US foreign policy to trade negotiations the TACO trade dominated. TACO was shorthand for ‘Trump always chickens out’ – markets bet against the Trump administration’s commitment to a course of action – which starts to become a dangerous bet to make when this viewpoint becomes sufficiently visible. OperationMidnight Hammer being the exception that proved the rule.
July 2025
July started off with a heatwave. The Big, Beautiful bill passed in the US senate and congress. In the UK, on of the biggest things that happened in 2025 was that 16 and 17 year olds got the right to vote. The Communist Party of China turned 104, the United States celebrated its 250th anniversary of its founding. It was the 40th anniversary of Live Aid – so Live Aid was the equivalent distance in time from us to what the end of the second world war was to Live Aid.
Perplexity AI touted a nascent advertising offering around media agencies. Chinese multi-modal AI model Kimi launched. One of the more interesting aspects was the ability to upload up to 50 documents for reference. But it didn’t deliver as well as promised, I will let the Web Curios newsletter tell you the rest:
…when I played with it earlier this week it quickly became apparent that this is a mendacious little fcuk and will spit out completely-invented material with a glee unmatched by any of the actual, paid-for, top-end models; as such I can only recommend it as a fun thing to poke around with rather than a free alternative to the big players.
Apple supported the cinema launch of its film F1, with a haptic trailer, which used the vibrating motor on the smartphone alongside the speakers. The film did well at the cinema, so Apple bid for formula 1 streaming rights in the US.
K-pop band BTS announced return with news music and global tour. The Observer laid bare lies and deceit behind bestseller The Salt Path. Media executive Linda Yaccarino resigned from Twitter (X).
In the same way that in the mid-1990s onwards to 2000, the internet became part of culture as much as a technology people used, AI has been having a similar movement since 2023 onwards. When you combine AI with highly memetic training content and accidents ensue, so it was with Grok AI becoming ‘Mechahitler‘ and edgelords around the world rejoiced in their childhood bedroom or parent’s basement. Grok is considered to be an AI without a ‘woke ideology’.
Grok didn’t magic the name ‘Mechahitler’ out of thin air, it is a character from the Wolfenstein series of games based on various alternative history scenarios of world war two. It’s emulated by cosplayers and a film had been in development for over a decade.
Mechahitler as a meme beat out BURRITO – Bold Unilateral Retaliation Regardless of Inflation Trade or Order, which came from the TBOY podcast.
August 2025
July bowed out wetter and cooler than much of the month and August opened with winds that made it feel more like spring. It was the 80th anniversary of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the 250th anniversary of Daniel O’Connell. Indonesians protested their government by flying the pirate flag from manga and anime franchise One Piece.
Vogue saw an online backlash against its first AI model photo shoot. A French livestreamer died live on broadcast – in a manner eerily reminiscent of the David Cronenberg’s Videodrome.
Adidaslaunched a collaborative sneaker with Lufthansa. The Ford Transit celebrated its 60th birthday. Nike leans into its ACG technical outdoor brand to drive growth. Seiko celebrated 60 years of making dive watches in a low-key manner with enthusiasts. McDonald’s in Thailand allegedly demanded damages and fired a restaurant manager for having previously been a go-go dancer – who was pictured on her former bar’s social media. It wasn’t clear if it was a franchisee or the Thai McDonald’s partner McThai Co. Ltd who was involved.
Intel CEO was asked to resign by The White House because of his ‘connections‘ to China. Later on the US government takes a stake in Intel. The Pakistani energy sector suffered from renewed cyber attacks.
https://flic.kr/p/2rmo6o8
NASA Jim Lovell who was famous for being part of Project Apollo died.
How August 2025 memed?
In the same way that Che Guevara was a touchstone for rebellion against established authority in the 20th century – the internet has found its own icon. Ibrahim Traore is a coup leader and Burkinese army officer. Traore has become famous beyond the Francophone region, becoming an icon for protestors from Micronesia to the New Zealand Parliament.
September 2025
Autumn weather started in the last week of August, with the rain arriving too late to help out arable farmers in the home counties.
China, Russia and India met as part of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation).
China and Russia sign an initial agreement to develop a new high capacity gas line called Spirit of Siberia 2. Oracle’s Larry Ellison becomes the world’s richest man.
ITV celebrated its 70th birthday. Long time online blogging service Typepad closed down. Online news aggregator Techmeme turned 20. Google Docs turns 20 and Google Chrome browser market share exceeds 70 percent. AOL discontinued dial-up internet services in the US and Canada and was put up for sale for $1.5 billion. That’s still less than $1.50 for every disk and CD that AOL ever sent out to consumers in the US and Europe. The UK security services launched the Silent Courier portal to aid leaks by Russian and Chinese sources. Mastodon launched new services for corporates and marketers. Specialist interest online video networks Playeur and History of Weapons and War (think History Channel meets YouTube documentaries) both closed down, subscription based video platforms are hard.
Apple continued to lose key engineers to Meta and launch iPhones. Training LLMs sloppily in one aspect of their roles can make their behaviour malicious in other areas. Chinese company makes world’s fastest production car.
Concerns about an AI bubble started to show up in rate of change in search volume.
In the face of smartphone bans, American school children dug out iPods, Discmans and Walkmans to still have music while they study or just hang out in class. The UK government tested its emergency alerts system prompting a siren sound and this screen shots on smartphones across the country. There was no corresponding SMS text message to feature phones.
Ron Carroll, a Chicago-based singer, producer songwriter died leaving a body of house music behind. Italian film actress Claudia Cardinale died, she was famous for Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Leone’s Once Upon a Time In The West. Giorgio Armani died a week after his last interview with the FT was published. Robert Redford died aged 89, a day after the FT wrote a style article about the tweed blazer he wore in Three Days of The Condor. It didn’t take long for some wags to talk about the ‘curse of the FT’. Yahoo! News covered off Redford’s ‘role‘ in the nod of approval GIF, which made me a bit sad, given for many people that clip of Jeremiah Johnson was all they’d seen of his career as an actor / director.
How September 2025 memed?
Operation ‘Raise The Colours’ saw St George’s flags spring up across England from homes and lamp posts to painted roundabouts. Whilst many of the displays were well meaning, the initative was apparently driven by far right groups. This seemed to be designed to build momentum for a Tommy Robinson rally in London.
October 2025
There was a downpour overnight as September rolled into October. The Labour Party conference had finished, leader Kier Starmer had historically low approval ratings. Storm Amy hit the UK that weekend. Britain lost control of its borders. Data analysed by David Webb showed that Hong Kong had a revenue problem from tax avoidance / evasion of tobacco products. The cause was less clear, it may be cross-border shopping trips, smuggling gangs or more likely both. Webb’s website was shut down on Hallowe’en.
Barclays bought US consumer loans business Fresh Egg.
The FT claimed that the UK government demanded a backdoor to British user data. The Labour Party conference had finished. Ireland elected a new president in a process marred by a large amount of spoiled votes and low turnout. Scandal dogged Labour decision to abandon China spy case – or as former British ambassador with Chinese experience put it ‘appeasement’ and a ‘masterclass in ineptitude’. Chinese conglomerate BYD sells record number of electric cars in UK as Jaguar Land Rover flounders from cyberattack by suspected ‘state actor‘. Mercedes Vision Iconic concept car unveiled in Shanghai, looked like the vehicle the relaunched Jaguar brand would want to build. The grill design mimicked a vintage Mercedes 600 ‘Grosser’ and was a world away from the current nadir of the car brand.
Apple released upgrades of three products with its M5 processor. LVMH offered hope of business growth. Adidas unveiled its football for the next world cup called Trionda which looked like a shanzhai Poké Ball (used for catching and storing Pokemon). Toyota won its ninth manufacturers championship competing in the FIA WRC (world rally championship). 2025 marked their fourth back-to-back championship win.
Indonesia blocked TikTok and then unblocked it when the platform provided user information. Analytics suggested the world usage of social media may have peaked. Amazon hit 200 million US shoppers using Prime. Alphabet celebrated the 25th anniversary of Google Ads.
OpenAI had teething troubles while developing a new consumer hardware product, and seemingly does deals with everyone for $1 trillion+ of infrastructure – by mid-October it’s easier to list who they hadn’t done a deal with. By the end of October, OpenAI announced for-profit business. Concerns about an AI economic bubble became mainstream. EU looked to promote AI digital sovereignty. Amazon Web Services had an outage, Gigabrain announced the shutdown of their Reddit search tool and pivot to Aire AI video. NHS announced major productivity benefits from Microsoft Copilot trial.
Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar criticised Jensen Huang and Nvidia (at the head of a vanguard of large American multinationals) on their continued investment in China. The title was subsequently changed on the digital edition of the op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to a more generic ‘Why the China Doves Are Wrong.’
Actress and director Diane Keaton died leaving behind a diverse body of film and TV work. I thought her role in The Little Drummer Girl is her most underrated performance.
How October 2025 memed?
My favourite one of the five ‘core’ trends Jing Daily on Chinese social media ‘fits’ was goblincore.
The name tells you everything that you need to know. The looks seems to be inspired by video games and cosplay that borrows heavily from Tolkien, who in turn borrowed from European folklore.
Escapism with a hint of darkness made a good deal of sense in a time of high youth unemployment, economic uncertainty and technological upheaval in China.
November 2025
The end of October was wet and blustery. The Economist came out and said that western government debt was at levels unseen since Napoleonic times. Donald Trump threatened to sue BBC. Vaping overtook smoking in the UK. Starbucks sold the majority of its China operations to a local private equity investor. Sony launched a cheaper Japan-only Playstation 5. Funko announced that it would struggle to continue as a going concern due to its high debt level. Celebrations for the 85th anniversary of Bruce Lee got underway.
Palantir had great sales results, but spooked investors. Microsoft admitted that its efforts to build out computing power for LLMs was limited by access to data centre electrical power.
Some of the major studios in the porn industry including Aylo who runs Pornhub came together to establish a code of conduct. Why now? China’s equivalent to Grindr have been withdrawn from local app stores.
Shein keelhauled by the French government due to it selling ‘child like’ sex dolls online. Israel gets rid of Chinese cars in its vehicle fleet as it can’t the vehicles against espionage. An executive at L3Harris was jailed for selling secrets to the Russians. BYD announced UK launch date for Porsche 911 rival.
RTÉannounced a new daytime line-up for its week day daytime programming on RTÉ Radio 1 to take it through the end of 2025 onwards. Christmas advertising arrived even earlier than last year. WARC claim that advertisers were following consumers who were starting Christmas shopping research earlier. John Lewis’ effort seemed to be a ‘homage’ to the imagery of Charlotte Wells’ film Aftersun. Nick Asbury wrote the best (all be it over the top) analysis of the advert.
Early research on generative AI produced ad creative had lessons on the best approaches to get effective creative. IPG UK revenue dropped 8.4% quarter-on-quarter in advance of its purchase by Omnicom. Omnicom completed purchase of IPG, a critic described the deal as ‘two drunks leaning on a lamp post‘.
Nigo’s streetwear brand Human Madelisted on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Private equity company Vista claimed job cuts were due to AI automating tasks. One in five UK companies expected to follow Vista’s example in 2026. Law firm Clifford Chance let go of 10% of back office staff due to automation and offshoring.
Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po caught fire with the flames spreading from tower-to-tower. The whole of Hong Kong went into mourning. At least 146 people lost their lives. The Chinese government was concerned that the tragedy might spark protests.
How November 2025 memed?
6-7 featured ambiguously on a rap track and was then picked up by teens to mean everything and nothing.
December 2025
The US government published their 2025 National Security Strategy on The Whitehouse website. December started off with rain and Omnicom-IPG related firings playing out in near real-time on Reddit. The share price was up 0.14% by the close of the market in New York. More job cuts were expected as Omnicom hadn’t reorganised its own portfolio of agencies. A presentation that captured the zeitgeist of social media marketing for 2025 was published.
Jimmy Lai, who founded Giordano and The Apple Daily was convicted on two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign powers and one count of conspiracy to publish seditious materials. The UK government response was weak, the US one slightly stronger.
UK consumer spending dropped at fastest rate in four years. UK arms of discount supermarket brands Aldi and Lidl sold Christmas vegetables including brussels sprouts, turnips, carrots, parsnips and potatoes for 8 pence / bag, (or 84 – 94% discount).
WARC has research to show that global advertising spend is growing faster than the economy – but that incremental gain is accruing only to the major online platforms.
Prada closes its acquisition of Versace. Nike announced more changes in the boardroom. Superdry and Nike got called out for greenwashing claims. Toyota launched the GR GT sports car. Unilever ice cream spin-out ousted independent board chairwoman of Ben & Jerry’s.
Netflix moved forward with a $72 billion bid for Warner Studios and HBO Max. Paramount intervened. Vanity Fair ran a tell-all interview with The White House chief-of-staff. President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the BBC moved forward.
Facebook sunset Messenger apps for Windows and macOS. PayPal applied to become a bank. The Pax Silica Declaration was signed by nine nations—the United States, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Australia to bolster the semiconductor supply chain from Chinese pressure.
How 2025 memed?
YouTuber This is Antwon nailed in his description of the year as The Slop Era to capture how generative AI had captured culture in a similar manner to all things internet in culture from about 1994 onwards as the dotcom era kicked off through to the millennial bust.
404 Media discussed the phenomenon at SxSW, specifically why slop content happens.
Much of it was created by more technically-oriented people in the Philippines, the Middle East or South Asia who were looking to go viral. The reason why they did it was not to become famous per se but to gain vitality and get paid by Facebook’s creator programme.
In essence, the slop wasn’t for you or me, but designed to directly target the algorithm and then the creator gets a small share of the subsequent ad revenue. The model worked as a side hustle only because venture-backed AI models are providing a surplus of free tokens to these creators through farmed trial accounts.
By October, ‘AI slop’ was used as a pejorative for any artwork developed with the help of generative AI including a large public art mural in Chicago.
The FT worried about what it was doing to our online experience and work lives.
I have finished my strategy engagement at Google’s internal creative agency and am now taking bookings for strategic engagements. I can start immediately – keep me in mind; or get in touch for discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
Hong Konger Andrew Tse explained the complex history of Eurasians in Hong Kong and the role of compradores. Eurasians were the offspring of Europeans and middle Eastern Jews with local women.
During the 19th century, Hong Kong was segregated. Mixed race couples couldn’t marry. Eurasians didn’t easy fit in with either the Chinese community or westerners. This segregation also had its advantages. Information didn’t flow between the communities.
Eurasian families looked more towards the Chinese community and over time built up status within it.
The compradores were people who acted as an agent for foreign organisations engaged in investment, trade, or economic or political exploitation. They even helped finance deals when there was low trust. The compradore was a valuable person for western trading houses based in Hong Kong and the families built multi-generational wealth.
After the second world war, Chinese community understanding of English increased with education. China became closed off with the civil war and Hong Kong itself became a manufacturing hub. With the rise of Hong Kong manufacturing there would be a further decline in the need for compradores to help navigate business deals. Hong Kong also had the common law legal system for contract disputes. The compradore role faded away. Instead of becoming compradores, Eurasians worked within the major companies rising to senior positions. Mr Tse’s own career in the aviation sector is empirical evidence of their success.
They became prominent business people and philanthropists in their own right. The Tung Wah Group of Hospitals benefited from their philanthropy. Tung Wah Group of Hospitals is the oldest and largest not-for-profit organisation in Hong Kong.
Over time, mixed race marriage was no longer restricted and Hong Kong had its native-born entrepreneurs like Li Ka-shing to govern the old Taipan businesses like Hutchison-Whampoa.
A century after the Eurasian community had first formed in Hong Kong and became compradores their identity was still a sensitive subject. Peter Hall’s book In The Web that outlined this history was restrained from being published until after the death of certain prominent community members who didn’t wish to be ‘outed’ as Eurasian.
As a synopsis of the book puts it:
Peter Hall’s book, ‘In the Web,’ brings to light the mysteries that lay behind his family and the other Hong Kong Eurasian families intertwined with it. Because it attempts to lift the stone firmly left in place for over a century, this work will not be welcomed by those who prefer conjecture to be left to outsiders.
Hall himself came from a Eurasian background, was interned by the Japanese and worked for prominent property developer Hongkong Land.
The prominence of the Eurasian community has dissipated, for a number of reasons:
Some of them moved overseas, in common with many richer Hong Kongers in the run up to the handover.
Some family lines have became re-assimilated in the Chinese community.
Many of them died defending Hong Kong during the Japanese invasion.
Branding
Q&A: Juanita Zhang on How Chinese Brands Can Win Globally | Branding in Asia – One critical insight is the power of unapologetic differentiation, especially as Chinese brands move beyond the ‘outbound 2.0’ era. The initial wave of success often rode on e-commerce efficiency, providing commodity-level products and leveraging vast data insights. However, we’ve observed that many brands then dwell too much in ‘end-user insight,’ optimizing for existing demand rather than proactively building aspirational gravity. The brands that truly succeed don’t try to be all things to all people; they identify a unique, compelling value proposition and own it fiercely.
McDonald’s US sales drop by most since height of pandemic | FT – Kempczinski said his company had surveyed consumers in top global markets about their views on the US, American brands and McDonald’s.While there had been no change to public opinion on the McDonald’s brand, he said more people signalled they would be cutting back on buying American brands. The surveys also revealed an 8 to 10-point rise in “anti-American sentiment”, he said, notably in northern Europe and Canada.
The Death of the Amex Lounge: Why the Upper Middle Class Isn’t Special Anymore – There’s something happening to the upper middle class in the United States that no one is talking about. They are going through an existential crisis. I first noticed it at the airport. A line 20 people deep for the American Express lounge. Then, once you get inside, more lines for food/drinks and not an open chair in sight. Then I saw it in the housing market. I have friends with $10,000+ monthly mortgage payments on modest homes. Ten grand a month and they still don’t own a mansion. Today, buying a 3-bedroom apartment in Jersey City (where I live) would cost me anywhere from $9,300-$14,000 a month (all-in). I could rent the same unit for around $6,000-$7,000 a month.
Ethics
The 50something man has a PR problem | Influence Online – “Ageism is the last ‘ism’ we need to tackle. Anecdotally, I’m hearing a lot about the 50+ demographic struggling to find new roles because employers perceive them as being so old that they can’t learn new skills or that their tech isn’t up to scratch. All their knowledge is being lost – and because AI is replacing entry-level jobs – there’s a lack of new people coming in to learn from them. Acknowledging ageism exists would be a great start…”
Finance
Buy now, pay later, in debt forever? – The Face – or how generation Z credit rating is being impacted by Klarna, Affirm et al which are the digital equivalent of the ‘tally man’ of the early to mid 20th century. Reading all this reminded me of working at MBNA as a student and hearing people’s horror stories as they tried to transfer over scorecard debit to pay it down at a more rational rate.
The story of Nongfu water is the story of the wild, wild west of Chinese business. The health claims still shock me, despite everything I knew about the Chinese market.
What Is “Broke Man Propaganda?” | Cosmopolitan & Yes, it is classist to dehumanise ‘broke’ men | Dazed – “Poverty is not the fault of the poor,” she continues. “I find it very cruel to talk about John – a character who loves Lucy, a beautiful character being played beautifully by Chris – in such cruel terms as ‘broke boy’ or ‘broke man’.” She goes on: “I think that is a very troubling result of the way that wealthy people have gotten into our hearts [and convinced us] it’s your fault if you’re poor, or you’re a bad person if you’re poor. So, it doesn’t make me laugh, actually. It just makes me feel very concerned that anybody would talk about my movie and my characters [like that], and think about it in such classist terms.”
Poblacion is the old part of Makati, the central business district of Manila in the Philippines. I have been to Makati for work in the past and to my regret missed visiting Poblacion.
Otherwise Makati is full of anonymous office blocks, business hotels that look the same the world over and Starbucks coffee shops.
September 2025 introduction – (26) pick-and-mix edition
Where has the year gone? I am just thankful that we got a little bit of sun, given how fast and hard the autumn wind and rain came in this year. I am now at issue 26, or as a bingo caller would put it ‘pick and mix’.
When I was a child ‘pick-and-mix’ sweets were a way of getting maximum variety for the lowest amount of pocket money that I earned from chores. Woolworths were famous at the time for their pick and mix section, alongside selling vinyl records and cassettes. Woolworths disappeared from the UK high street during the 2008 financial crisis.
For Mandarin Chinese speakers 26 is considered ‘lucky’ given that it sounds similar to ‘easy flow’ implying easy wealth.
This month’s soundtrack has been a banging digital compilation put together by Paradisco and Disco Isn’t Dead featuring The Reflex, PBR Streetgang, Prins Thomas, J Kriv, Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66.
Right, let’s get into it.
New reader?
If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here.
A post that took me too long to write about the favourite campaigns I had when on the jury of the PHNX awards.
I missed sharing a post I wrote last month that built on the work of Rob Estreitinho on ideas for being a good strategist.
Books that I have read.
I finished Moscow X by David McCloskey. (No plot spoilers). This is the second book my McCloskey after Damascus Station, which I read and enjoyed back in May last year. The book is like a more action-orientated American version of a LeCarré novel. The plot reminded me of LeCarré’s Single & Single and Our Kind of Traitor. McCloskey isn’t afraid to have strong female lead characters in his book.
Your Life is Manufactured by Tim Minshall. Minshall is a professor at Cambridge and heads up the engineering department’s manufacturing research centre. Because of his mastery of the subject area, he manages to provide an exceptionally accessible primer in terms of what manufacturing is, how it happens and what it means. More about it here.
Things I have been inspired by.
Election-winning opacity in influencer relations
I have been following Taylor Lorenz‘ work since she became the beat reporter for online culture and technology at the Business Insider. Her article for Wired magazine on how the Democratic Party in the US is working with paid influencers makes for an interesting read.
What would be the norm in the commercial world about influencer transparency where there is a paid relationship – isn’t happening in politics.
Ok, why does this matter? The reason why I think this matters is that people who do their time in the trenches of a presidential election campaign have a clear path into a number of American agencies.
‘I’ve have won a victory for X candidate and can do the same for your brand’ has been a popular refrain for decades in agencies.
I have been in the room when senior American agency people have tried to convince Chinese companies to buy their services based on their success in marketing a candidate in an election using western social media channels. There was no sense of irony when this was awkwardly delivered as a possible solution for domestic market campaigns to marketing teams in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai.
Bad habits will be brought into agencies and sold on to clients.
Chart of the month.
Kim Malcolm shared a great report done by Zappi and VaynerMedia looking at The State of Creative Effectiveness 2025. Two charts piqued my interest. The change in distinctiveness of advertising by age cohort.
The overall emotion that an advert evokes by age cohort.
Causality of these effects aren’t clear. Empirically, I know that great adverts still put a smile on the faces of people of all ages and can change brand choice, even in the oldest consumers.
I had more questions than answers. VaynerMedia thought that the answer should be cohort-specific campaigns. I am less sure, since brands tend to better within culture as a common point of truth for everyone. Also, I don’t believe in leaping to a solution until I understand the underlying ‘problem’.
I could understand a decline in novelty as people gain decades of life experience and will have seen similar creative executions before.
Are the adverts lacking a foundation in strong cultural insights and cues that would resonate with these older audience cohorts?
What I did notice is a correlation with the age profile in advertising agency staff compared to the general public and the point at which the drop-off to occurs. But correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation.
It’s concerning that advertising effectiveness declines in older audience cohorts as economic power skews older within the general population. This is likely to continue as millennials inherit wealth from their baby boomer relatives as they enter their 50s and 60s. Which makes the old marketer line about half of a consumers economic value is over by 35 seem hollow.
Things I have watched.
Ghost In The Shell Arise: Border 1 and Border 2. In the GITS storyline this is a prequel to the original film. It follows how the eventual team comes together. The technology looks less fantastical and more prophetic each time I watch it. The animation is still spectacular.
Ghost In The Shell Arise: Border 3 and Border 4. Following on from Border 1 and Border 2, this has Togusa and the Section 9 team following the same case from different ends – which eventually has Togusa joining Section 9 as its only unaugmented team member.
I bought up as many of the films I could in Johnnie To’s filmography after he criticised Hong Kong’s national security regulation in an interview, which was likely to be the kiss of death to his film career. I finally got around to watching one of his best known films PTU and the series of Tactical Unit films that came from the same universe.
PTU: One of the paradoxes of Hong Kong is the prevalence of triad and corruption dramas, compared to the real life which whilst not crime and corruption free is much more staid. Hong Kong is as different from its cinematic counterpart, as the UK is to Richard Curtis’ films. PTU like Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog is based around the search for a missing police pistol. PTU (police tactical unit) officers look to help out a detective from the OCTB (organised crime and triad bureau). While the film occurs over one night, it was actually shot over three years and is one of Johnnie To’s best known films. Shooting only at night, To provided the audience with a familiar, yet different, cinematic experience. The washed out colours of day time Hong Kong is replaced by vibrant signage and the sharp shadows defined by the street lighting. Officers walking with a street lamp lit Tom Lee music instrument store behind them, look like its from a John Ford scene in composition. Some of his tracking shots, due to the framing of photography and the distortions of the night give an almost Inception like feeling to the geography of Hong Kong streets, warping the horizon between buildings the night sky. PTU was successful internationally and then spawned, five further films from the same universe made in 2008 and 2009.
Tactical Unit: The Code was a one of a series of Tactical Unit sequels to Johnnie To’s PTU. In The Code several plot lines come together. The investigation of CCTV footage of officers beating up a triad , a police officer heavily in debt due to negative equity on his mortgage and a drug deal gone wrong. All this plays out in the Kowloon area of Hong Kong. When this film was made back in 2008, it would have been considered well done, but largely unremarkable. Nowadays it couldn’t be made as it would in breach of the National Security Law. The irony is that this film is available on the iQiyi streaming service from mainland China.
Tactical Unit: Human Nature loses some of the cinematic feel of PTU. It’s not as masterful a film , BUT, the convoluted threads of the plot and the great cast who are now completely comfortable in their characters make it work well.
Tactical Unit: No Way Out. No Way Out starts with an impressive screne shot in Temple Street market. The film explores the Temple Street area of Kowloon and organised crime links to everything from cigarette smuggling to drugs.
Tactical Unit: Comrade in Arms is the penultimate in the series from the PTU universe of films. You still have the main cast of Hong Kong veterans Lam Suet, Simon Yam and Maggie Shiu. Plain clothes officer Lo Sa has been demoted to wearing a uniform and both Mike Ho and Sergeant Kat’s squads are still patrolling the Kowloon side of Victoria harbour. This sees the stars leave their usual urban beat and go into the hills of the New Territories after bank robbers. Much of it occurs in daylight, which sets it apart from the night time beat of PTU. Nowadays it couldn’t be made as it would in breach of the National Security Law. The irony is that this film is available on the iQiyi streaming service from mainland China.
Tactical Unit: Partners. Partners is unusual in that it revolves around the challenges of the ethnic minorities that make up Hong Kong from romance fraud ensnaring filipina workers to discrimination against Indians and Nepalis. While some of the show happens during late on in the day, it still captures much of the night time feeling of the universe
2001 Nightsis a 3D anime. While I admire the ambition and the technical expertise that went into the models, the characters as CGI fall down and distract from the storytelling. Also it felt weirdly like Space 1999 – and not in a good way.
Her Vengeance is a Hong Kong category III revenge movie filmed in 1988 that 88 Films recently release on Blu Ray. It borrows from another Hong Kong film in the early 1970s and I Spit On Your Grave. Despite being an low budget exploitation film it features a number of notable Hong Kong actors, probably because it was a Golden Harvest Production.
I found the film interesting because its opening was shot at Stanley Ho’s iconic Casino Lisboa in Macau. This was unusual because Hong Kong had lots of nightclubs that would have been fine for the protagonists management role without the hassle of the additional travel and government permissions. So we get a rare late 1980s snapshot of the then Portuguese colony.
When The Last Sword Is Drawnis a classic chambara (samurai sword-play) movie. It tells the complex story of a samurai, who unable to support his family on his meagre income as a school teacher and fencing master, turns his back on his clan and leaves to find work in Kyoto. Once in Kyoto he becomes embroiled in the battle between the declining Takagawa Shogunate and the Imperial Royal Family during the 19th century. Whilst the film does contain a lot of violence, it is used as a backdrop to the humanity of the main character and battles he faces between providing for his family and doing the honourable thing.
The plot is told through the recollections of others and finishes with the samurai’s youngest daughter getting ready to leave Japan with her husband and set up a doctor’s surgery in Manchuria (China).
Useful tools.
Playing Blu-Ray discs on a Mac
I have a Blu Ray player in my home theatre that enjoy using in lieu of subscribing to Netflix, which allows to me to explore more art house content than I can stream. Macgo Mac Blu Ray Player Pro gives your Mac the software capability that Steve Jobs wouldn’t.
One final thing, if you prefer to use Substack, you can now subscribe to this newsletter there.
The sales pitch.
I am currently working on a brand and creative strategy engagement at Google’s internal creative agency. I am now taking bookings for strategic engagements from the start of 2026 – keep me in mind; or get in touch for discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
Ok this is the end of my September 2025 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and get planning for Hallowe’en.
Don’t forget to share if you found it useful, interesting or insightful.
Now that the awards have been announced I can share my PHNX 2025 favourites from the categories that I had a the good fortune to judge. It took me a little time to sit down and collect my thoughts. You can find the details of the Grand Prix winners here.
My PHNX 2025 favourites come from around the world. The categories are truly global in nature and you get work from a wide range of agency sizes. Partly because of my time in Hong Kong campaigns from Cathay Pacific and HSBC stood out for me when looking at PHNX 2025. This wasn’t out of a sense of mawkish nostalgia, but because I understand the cultural context and legislative issues lurking beneath the surface looking to sink a campaign for fear of ‘soft resistance’.
Cathay Pacific paraolympics
While Hong Kong has historically had a strong showing at the paraolympics , its para-olympians achievements hadn’t been seen in the past. Cathay Pacific used the new opportunities that generative AI tools allowed these moments to be recreated.
Cathay Pacific had the permission to do this advert because of its position in Hong Kong life. Cathay Pacific aka ‘CX’ is the nervous system that connects Hong Kong and Hong Kongers to the wider world. As importantly, CX also connects the Hong Kong diaspora to the home city. The airline’s loyalty card is the second most common card for Hong Kongers after the Hong Kong ID card.
HSBC – Hong Kong move forward
Hong Kong as a city has been through a lot:
The protests
The National Security Law and the social changes that came after it
COVID-19 lockdown
A battered economy
All of this piled on top of the co-opetition between the city and nearby cities from Guangzhou and Shenzhen to Macau and Singapore.
Move Forward tries to capture the Hong Kong commercial spirit, even as ‘Underneath the Lion Rock’ common identity dimmed and spread around the world.
HSBC took this concept further by using Tony Leung Chiu-wai ‘aka Little Tony’ as a brand spokesperson. Leung as a star is universally liked by Hong Kongers, from Marvel fans to Wong Kar-wai devotees like me. Leung embodies the ‘Lion Rock spirit’. He left school at 15 due to family hardship. Worked in everyman jobs like a salesman in an electrical goods store and built his career thanks the apprenticeship / talent development system that local TV station TVB ran at the time.
Midea white goods
In the 1980s and early 1990s this ad wouldn’t have been notable. It would have been considered a good advert, but not great. But it’s now 2025, Gym Shark clothing and Suri dental health adverts are soul-rotting. So the joy of seeing any craft and conceptual creativity in an advert makes this Midea spot notable.
https://youtu.be/ujpb1o-vlBU
If Diageo made white goods, this is what their campaigns would look like.
Limin’ with Gram
Of my PHNX 2025 favourites, Limin with Gram was my sole pick from the UK based on the categories that I was a jury member for. It warmed the strategist in me for the way cultural insights were applied to a health-related public service announcement style campaign.
