CNY 2025 or Chinese new year 2025 is shorthand often used as a hashtag on social media to circulate songs, sales promotions and advertisements from across China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. I started off this post into gathering some of the best examples of CNY 2025 advertising just after Christmas and there was a poor range of adverts just a month out from CNY 2025. Imagine if there were no Christmas adverts appearing by the third week in November?
Small businesses like the Davely Bakery Café in Malaysia had started promoting organic social content on their Facebook page by November 19. (In markets such as the Philippines, Hong Kong and Malaysia, Facebook is still big business.)
But where were the large company promotions this close to the festival? Brand campaigns only really started to appear from the second week in January onwards.
CNY 2025 themes that I took away from researching this post:
- Increased emphasis on demand generation and sales promotions.
- Less big brands advertising than previous years.
- Campaigns were run over a shorter period. Roughly half the six weeks I would have expected for successful brand building campaigns.
- Less of a focus on storytelling and deep emotional cues than previous years.
- Lower production values as a whole than previous years.
- A move towards bus wraps in Singapore for CNY 2025 campaigns. These were replicated in ‘bus simulator’ games popular amongst transport fans in Hong Kong and Singapore. This replication was less about a ‘brand gaming strategy’ and more about fan curated bus skins for absolute fidelity to their favourite bus routes.
- Less emphasis on creative consistency than in previous years.
- Shorter ads, each with a lot of 15-second edits.
- Increased use of humour.
- Increased use of songs, presumably to gain earned and shared media support – very hard to do successfully as a strategy when there are so many songs to choose from.
- Lazy use of celebrities – I hadn’t see this in previous years doing this.
As a marketer, I saw things in CNY 2025 that I thought was good and things that I worried about in these changes between CNY 2025 and previous years:
- Smarter memory structure building: fluent objects such as Kevin the First Pride nugget, the use of jingles and ear worm songs, the use of humour
- Red flags for brand mental availablility: a lack of creative consistency, shorter ads and lazy use of celebrities. Shorter ads can, if done right be used to build brand, BUT, there are a number of factors to consider when doing it successfully. These include variety of formats, reach / marketing penetration, repetition, single-minded creative execution and the thumb-stopping factor.
Reading the ‘tea leaves’ I suspect that marketing budgets have been cut, and brands might not be expecting as much of an uplift this year as China’s poor economic performance affects its neighbours.
China
Apple
Apple continued its shot on an iPhone series. The Chinese New Year film is run in lots of markets but primarily made for China. I am surprised that this got past the censors. Time travel is usually a a no-no. It also reminds China’s currency economically challenged consumers of the 1990s go-go years of year-on-year double digit growth. The core aspect of the creative is the direct questions that younger family members receive.
CNY 2025 is the first time that Apple didn’t have a Chinese film maker shot its film. Finally, Apple’s film comes in at a whooping 11 minutes 59 seconds although a good minutes is the credits.
Bottega Veneta
Bottega Veneta’s Chinese New Year film is all about vibes. There were some interesting styling choices in the film. The older guy with the women’s hand bag. That most of it seemed to be around older alleyways that have been refurbished. The lady in the 1980s era Jaguar. Pre-1997, a number of more anglophile Hong Kong businessmen used to get driven around in Jaguar and Daimler cars with a large V12 engine – that spoke to old money in this film.
I was stuck by the lack of explicit references to new year, which you can also see in the Miu Miu film – what there is are more subtle cues.
All of which is a world away from many luxury brands slapping a snake on everything this year.
Gucci
Gucci taps into the traditional multi-generational party and memories of ‘snake’ new years of the past. It’s probably the strongest bit of storytelling and the most cinematic of all the films that I have looked at this year.
Miu Miu
Prada sub-brand Miu Miu is one of the few stand out brands in a tough 2024 for the luxury sector. This Chinese New Year film is playful, borrowing from Asian mid-century set design and 1990s era Chinese electronica to tell a small story.
Hong Kong
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola has a dominant position in the soft drinks market thanks to its dominance in distribution. The only places I could buy Pepsi was in my local Pizza Hut when I lived there. This year they focused on out of home posters to reinforce memory structures. The unusual aspect to the campaign was that it went up in early February at the end of Chinese New Year. That’s a bit like launching your Christmas advertising on New Year’s Eve. Not sure why that’s happened.
Giordano
Multinational clothing brand Giordano promoted a CNY 2025 collaboration featuring the Kung Fu Panda character on its social media accounts. The preponderance of red in the clothing isn’t only about it being a seasonal colour, but also you are supposed to wear new red clothing for the new year.
This social media film was run on channels in Hong Kong, Malaysia and other countries where Giordano has a presence.
Malaysia
100PLUS
100PLUS is an isotonic drink similar in function to Gatorade or Lucozade Sport popular in Malaysia and Singapore. Its advert for Malaysia promotes the drink as alternative to colas during new year celebrations. A secondary aspect is the opportunity to win a free prize draw. The blue in the outfits is to presumably signal the blue in the brand and packaging.
It’s slightly unusual in that it doesn’t feature multi-generational family members, which I suspect is down to a single-minded focus on teens and young adults.
Aeon
Japanese supermarket Aeon highlighted their CNY themed collaboration with Italian artist TokiDoki as a music video format that you could sing along too. It’s a little too mild to be an aggressive earworm of a tune.
Aglow Clinic
Aglow Clinic is an aesthetics clinic in Malaysia that treats a range of skin conditions including sun spots. They partnered with social media personality Roderic Chan to make this film. Considering the small size of the brand they hit well above their weight in terms of production values.
Aiken
Aiken is a Malaysian based beauty brand. The creative was done by the media buying agency and features Malaysian influencers as the talent in the advertisement.
Aiken wishes you Double the Brightness for a Brighter Year! is clever word play that implicitly links feeling beautiful and the promise of good fortune. This advert went out very late into the market for 2025.
Carina
Carina is a household tissue brand in Malaysia, similar to Kleenex in the UK and Ireland. It has gone down the ear worm route with its song. The montage of footage feels crowdsourced.
Eu Yan Sang
Eu Yan Sang did separate creative for Malaysia. There are higher production values than their Singapore creative and storytelling that ties back to creating memories and tradition being a key part of Chinese New Year. The advert sought to show that the family weren’t wealthy, but had food on their plate, good manners and retained their cultural roots. As a first-generation emigrant myself this one spoke to me.
First Pride
Tyson Foods First Pride range of processed chicken product including chicken nuggets and satay slices featured a simple sales promotion with a sweepstake format. The advert also introduced a fluent object ‘Kevin’ the chicken nugget on a TV advert.
Kevin had previously been shared only on out of home formats. It would be interesting to see if and how they make future use of Kevin.
Guardian
Guardian is the Malaysian brand of the better known Asian pharmacy retail chain better known as Mannings in Hong Kong and China. A UK analogue would be Boots. It has higher production values and evokes togetherness, good fortune and memory-making for our young protagonist. Click here to see on YouTube.
Haier
Chinese white goods manufacturer took an unconventional storytelling approach. it’s the kind of creative concept that could be used year on year, just changing the product line-up.
Harvey Norman
Electrical retailer Harvey Norman ties into the fact that bargains are a constant discussion around the table during Chinese New Year (and any other family gathering). The production feels rather low rent compared to other adverts here.
HongLeong Bank
HongLeong Bank took the story of two customers that fitted neatly with the festivities around Chinese New Year. It gives a good old tug on the heart strings.
Julie’s
Julie’s a is a biscuit brand that tries to focus on the human side of food. Given the visiting and gifting culture for Chinese new year – the opportunity is ideal for its brand. I was surprised by the high production values of the advert. The 3d animation is creatively consistent with work that they’ve put out over the past year. As a direction the CNY 2025 campaign is very different from their last festival campaign for CNY 2022.
Julie’s can continue to run this campaign after CNY 2025 is over due to the lack of overt seasonal themes in the advert.
KitKat
KitKat Malaysia have attached the Chinese New Year creative back to ‘have a break, have a KitKat’ for creative consistency. There is enough in here to say new year. But a sufficiently light touch that they could use it year-in, year-out – so long as the brand uses the same promotional packaging design.
If they had used snake imagery, it would be one-and-done.
Knife
Knife are a food flavourings brand from Malaysia. Their main advertising push is for Chinese New Year and they have made a constant effort to bring creative consistency and storytelling into their work. CNY 2025 is no exception to this approach.
Lay’s crisps
Lay’s (known as Walkers in the UK) highlight their role as a snack at new year’s gatherings. The ad promotes a new year themed sweepstake including mahjong sets.
Lotus’s
Lotus’s is a supermarket market chain. In Malaysia, the shops were formerly Tesco Malaysia and sold on to a Thai retail group. This film focuses on the stress of preparing for new year, together with sales promotions. Aside from holding red t-shirts with the ‘Fu’ symbol on them, this sales promotion video could be for any time of the year. The 1970s called and wants it’s ad creative back from this Malaysian supermarket chain.
Melinda Looi
Malaysian fashion designer Melinda Looi came up with a homage to Wong Ka wai’s In The Mood For Love. The advert nails the mid-century elegance but struggles to get the cinematic richness and tension of the original.
I respect that they gave it a good try and love their ambition; but it’s like Ted Baker trying to pull off the introduction to The Italian Job.
Mr DIY
Mr DIY is a hardware chain similar to Lowe’s in the US or B&Q in the UK. Their advert riffs on the heightened tensions of family get togethers and the relative popularity in Hong Kong film making of court room dramas – to add a bit of cultural relevance. It taps into the stressor of very direct questions similar to BRANDS Singapore campaign.
Mr Muscle
Household cleaner brand Mr Muscle had a Korean celebrity record a CNY 2025 specific message for their Facebook page viewers.
The advert features Korean drama and film actor Kim Seon Ho. In common with other Korean celebrities he endorses a variety of brands in Korea and other Asian countries. For some of the brands endorsed, they have had record sales which they attribute to working with Kim. It’s not sophisticated but will appeal to his many fans in Malaysia.
Munchy’s
Munchy Food Brands is a Malaysian snack brand. The advert itself is pretty self explanatory. Like Watson’s they are leaning hard into trying to create an ear worm to aid long term brand recall that’s complete with an EDM-style drop.
Nivea
Nivea looked to promote their men’s products as a way to solve for the stress of direct family feedback on how you look. It has been shot for mobile.
Pantai Hospital
Pantai Medical Group runs a private hospital in Malaysia that caters to more well-off Malaysians. The emphasis on healthy food in the advert relates to the central role that food plays in Chinese New Year celebrations.
Their elective treatments are likely to be quiet during CNY 2025, so they have provided the option for health-focused external catering. It’s an interesting product innovation for those close to their hospital in Penang. The behind the scenes clips at the end draws on Korean and Hong Kong productions. The best known in the West would be the blooper reels that used to appear at the end of Jackie Chan films.
Petronas
Petronas is the Malaysian national oil company. There is a natural fit with CNY 2025 because children go home to see their parents and siblings. Later on during the celebrations they will drive to visit relatives. On the Malaysian peninsula you could be a long time in heavy traffic, so pit-stops for fuel and refreshments are pretty much obligatory.
Ribena
Brutally short creative with the tagline left right at the end. ‘Ooo Juicy Fu’ – the fu is a reference to the Chinese character fu symbolising ‘fortune’. It is creatively consistent with campaigns that Ribera ran for Ramadan and the previous CNY in Malaysia.
Shopee
Shopee is a mobile marketplace think Shopify, Depop or Uber Eats in an app. Like Watsons Malaysian campaign it relies on a ‘new years’ song. Why a song? Entertainment during Chinese new year features newly composed catchy earworms. These may come from film series put out as family entertainment for the new year like the All’s Well, That Ends Well series of Hong Kong comedies, or television and adverts.
Watsons
Watsons is a Hong Kong-headquartered pharmacy chain with stores across Asia and a strong focus on health and beauty products. It’s parent company AS Watson is a set of diversified retail brands including:
- Superdrug and Savers in the UK
- Rossmann
- Fortress (a PC World or Best Buy analogue)
- PARKnSHOP, Taste, FUSION, GREAT FOOD HALL – grocery stores
- Watson’s Wine
They have been teasing a song related Chinese New Year campaign for Malaysia to embed in your memory structures, but were only showcasing the song 2 1/2 weeks before CNY 2025. Rapid screening of sales promotions drown out the ‘Happy Beautiful Year’ themed brand building effort.
Yakult
The Japanese yoghurt drink brand used some good fortune themed imagery to promote a brand sweepstake. A very simple execution that could be used again in future years.
Singapore
BRANDS
BRANDS is a food and supplement business. Traditional Chinese Medicine often recommends eating particular foods to treat different ailments, which is why BRANDS essence of chicken sits in a kind of ‘wellness’ space.
Their advert draws on the universal experience of very direct questions that people have to field from relatives when they go home for Chinese new year.
Eu Yan Sang
Eu Yan Sang run traditional Chinese medicine and related wellness foods shops and clinics across Asia. This Singapore ad focuses on the challenge of gift giving and the close link between good fortune and good health. Unusually, they’ve also run a second lot of creative promoting their CNY themed hamper designs as well.
FairPrice
FairPrice is a Singapore institution. Like the UK’s Co-op, it is a supermarket owned by the National Trade Union Congress and is the largest grocery chain in Singapore owning both supermarkets and convenience stores.
The ad focuses on everyday Singaporeans with many of the shots modelled on HDB flats – Singapore’s public housing. The colour grading and small moments designed to evoke different types of nostalgia from the rituals of family and the Chinese New Year.
Hockhua tonic
Hockhua is a Singaporean local wellness foods brand who did a simple sales promotion for their hampers to be provided for the new year. The cut-off time then gave the brand a few weeks to assemble to the appropriate amount of hampers.
Lazada
E-tailer Lazada leads with sales promotions. The imagery draws on Fu xing, the god of good fortune who you would pray to in order to get a prosperous new year.
Ministry of Digital Development and Information
The government of Singapore used Chinese new year to reinforce a common Singaporean identity and celebrate the 60th anniversary of the city state. Sing-a-longs are a part of Chinese new year. The video featured a 1980s song that was originally recored by the artists in 1998 re-recorded by them for the government department encouraging t he citizens to look out for each other. The video was published just days before new year and relied primarily on the reach of the former prime minister’s Instagram account. It shares a common theme of small but joyful moments with the FairPrice CNY 2025 advert.
Thailand
This is the first year that I have covered a Thai market campaign. Thailand has a significant ethnic Chinese minority (between 10 – 15% of the population depending on which estimates you reference). Like Indonesia, Thailand integrated them for political reasons and many of them no longer have Chinese sounding family names – but the traditions live on. A second aspect is the increased role in the Thai economy that Chinese expats and tourists now play.
Central
Central is a premium department store in Thailand (think Peter Jones in London) and has a mid-tier brand called Robinsons (think Debenhams or House of Fraser). You have a stylistic version of the new year dinner and a cool grandfather who owes a lot to mature Japanese hipsters and The Sartorialist. The film has high production values and leans on vibes rather than storytelling, but is distinctive.
You can find my previous reviews of Chinese New Year ads here.
