With the Year of the Snake just around the corner, most brands have already launched their Chinese New Year (CNY) campaigns, which has become the norm each year. This is especially true with luxury brands, who generally have more budget for cultural localisation during CNY.
However, it is especially challenging this year because in China, the Snake, in an everyday sense, holds a similar negative connotation as the West due to its slithering and sometimes venomous nature. This has caused brands to dig deeper into traditional symbolism or divert focus to the Spring Festival celebrations and push the Snake aspect to the background. Interestingly this is the opposite of last year, when the dragon provided almost too many angles for marketers to choose from due to its cultural importance in Chinese communities.
Brands are digging deeper into traditional symbolism or diverting focus to the Spring Festival celebrations
How Loewe tamed the Snake
Spanish luxury brand Loewe has continued to release Chinese culture, especially traditional craft-inspired collections while working with local artisans on collaborations. From its monochrome ceramic-themed handbags in 2023 to the jade collection last year, the brand collaborates with local specialists and master craftspeople to discuss the cultural heritage of each year’s chosen form of craft. This type of partnership fits Loewe like a glove because of the brand’s emphasis on its own craft and artisanal tradition.
This year, Loewe tackled the Snake element head-on with a campaign that is two-pronged, like the forked tongue of the serpent. On the one hand, it continues to team up with craftspeople to pay homage to traditional Chinese art and craft, this time with Chinese Cloisonné ceramic and metalwork wares, known in China as “Jingtai Blue” (景泰蓝), due to its vivid colour and the “Jingtai” mark. Loewe partnered with the third-generation master enameller Xiong Songtao for a limited-edition jewellery collection with Jingtai Blue pendants that feature artworks of a snake, a monkey or auspicious clouds. The same motifs appear in the other items in the CNY capsule collection.
The brand, at the same time, created a short promotional video which predominantly features the Snake, and combines the art of shadow puppets, kite-making and contemporary dance. With shadow puppet-inspired and kite-based props (from artist Shen Xintong and Weifang kite intangible cultural heritage inheritor Zhang Xiaodong, respectively) in the shape of snakes, dancer Xie Xin and her company perform snake-inspired moves in both shadow and light.
Other brands that have dug into the Snake symbolism in China include Versace and Bulgari. Versace released an animated short video to show the folktale of how the Snake was included in the Chinese Zodiac. The animation style resembles traditional Chinese ink wash painting. Meanwhile, Bulgari, launched an exhibition in Shanghai’s Zhang Garden between 9 and 16 January to pay tribute to not only its iconic Serpenti collection but also the Year of the Snake.
Is the Chinese Zodiac necessary?
On the other hand, some brands have managed to shift the emphasis away from snakes and focus on the lore and customs of the New Year in the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar.
Some even forwent the festival and instead uses the occasion to pay tribute to Chinese culture in general. For example, Kering, the group that owns brands such as Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga teamed up with Chinese contemporary artist Jiang Miao for a special installation project that incorporates Taoist philosophy and auspicious signs.
Miu Miu, the sister brand of Prada, released its 2025 CNY campaign video on 7 January, featuring actresses Liu Haocun and Zhao Jinmai, both Miu Miu’s brand ambassadors, as well as music from singer-songwriter Lexie Liu, who is also a brand ambassador. The video is set in a nostalgic Cantonese/Hong Kong-style club called “Chinatown”, where the two actresses sit with their drinks while the band plays soft R&B music. Then, the band disappears with the other customers, leaving Liu Haocun and Zhao to explore however they want, from mixing their own drinks to playing the instruments. Titled “Encounter”, the campaign also includes events in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, as well as a listening party and signing event with Lexie Liu in Shanghai on 10 January. On Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, the Chinese version of the topic “Miu Miu Encounters” (#MiuMiu如期而遇#) garnered an impressive 25.99 million views.
German luxury brand Montblanc, released a Meisterstück fountain pen for the Chinese New Year, honouring the materials of bamboo, gold and jade to pay tribute to traditional Chinese culture. However, it was not very well received by Chinese netizens on Weibo, as many found the product thematically vague and to be a mash-up of oriental motifs.
In fact, had Loewe not incorporated the second prong with the dance video into its campaign, the Jingtai Blue-inspired collection would have already served as an adequate CNY campaign for other luxury brands with a capsule collection paying homage to traditional Chinese craft and culture. This, conversely, showed that the Spanish brand went the extra mile to include the Chinese Zodiac as part of its concept.
Brands such as Ami and Tiffany, on the other hand, simply used snake motifs in their design for the CNY exclusive collection as a minimalist, special edition. These lower-effort attempts to relate the Snake to some well-wishing symbolism can be a safe way to avoid unexpected backlash. Prada’s CNY campaign video, for example, is considered a flop by some with its unclear messaging of its celebrity ambassadors queuing in a serpentine line with silhouettes.
Sometimes, simpler ways of shifting attention away from the animal might be the safest approach
With tricky zodiac years such as the Mouse and the Snake, digging deeper into traditional Chinese culture and symbolism like Loewe and Versace are of course, the best way to show respect to the local consumers for luxury brands during CNY. But sometimes, simpler ways of shifting attention away from the animal might be the safest approach, as Miu Miu has demonstrated with its celebratory campaign.
