Lunar New Year campaigns: who’s got it right – and who’s making a pig’s ear of things?

You would think that only months after Dolce & Gabbana’s notorious “chopstick” campaign, the luxury world would quickly up its game while hopping onto the “Golden week” bandwagon of Lunar New Year, yet not all have quite figured out their way to the Chinese appetite or wallet.

According to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, sales at restaurants and shopping malls reached 926 billion yuan (US$137.19 billion) during last year’s Lunar New Year holiday– a 10.2 per cent jump on 2017. You cannot blame brands for wanting a slice of this lucrative pie – or turnip cake, as it were – but the question is how?

The impact of Chinese spending in the global luxury market is such that brands have long invested in targeted campaigns, with an emphasis on seasonal festivals. As the new generation of luxury consumers gets more sophisticated, however, quick-fix solutions will not be sufficient.

One example of lost-in-translation advertising would be Italian high jeweller and watchmaker Bulgari’s short-lived Year of the Pig campaign. 

The campaign featured wordplay on “JEW” as in “jewellery” which has a similar pronunciation to “Zhu” aka “Pig” in Chinese. While the wordplay was clever in Chinese, the brand retracted the campaign after little more than a day, having realised the implications for Jewish dietary customs.

Another instance of missing the mark was Burberry’s debut Lunar New Year campaign. Shot and directed by photographer Ethan James Green, the ad starred brand ambassador actresses Zhao Wei and Zhou Dongyu and went viral among Chinese netizens, who felt that the campaign visuals were more “creepy” than “auspicious”.