The Lunar New Year is something of a sporting season for Chinese brands. Businesses compete for attention in every way possible: wordplay, chaos, cultural remixing, and offline experiences built for Douyin and Rednote.
From malls turning bathrooms into galleries to beauty brands going full abstract meme mode, this year’s campaigns show one thing clearly: the Year of the Horse isn’t about symbolism. It’s about shareability.
Five Chinese brands and their Lunar New Year campaigns
Xixi Incity (西溪印象城): Turning the mall into an art scavenger hunt
Hangzhou’s Xixi Incity mall is an interesting case for offline-to-online marketing. To get people through the doors and spending, they’ve turned the mall into an art gallery. Its Lunar New Year project scatters installations across escalators, corridors, and even bathrooms. The centerpiece: a 20-metre spring couplet draped across the atrium.
They’ve designed all of this with social media in mind and added to the obvious photogenic appeal by setting the stunt up as an easter egg hunt: head out into the mall and see what you can find. Pop-ups are coming too. The idea is to turn the mall into a content machine, then make sales off the feet it brings through the door.
Kans (韩束): Beauty advertising goes unhinged for Ma Sichun
Kans has crowned actress Ma Sichun its Year of the Horse global partner – then refused to act like a normal beauty brand. Instead of luxury vibes, it dropped an absurdist short video built on rapid-fire puns and a catchy soundtrack.
The ma (吗, horse) wordplay turns sensory attack, engineered for reposting. The campaign also comes with a Suzhou museum tie-in gift box, using heritage-inspired design to give the chaos a premium aftertaste.
Yili (伊利): ‘Searching for Ma Yili’ turns gift giving into a punchline
Yili – a well-known Chinese dairy brand – have taught a Lunar New Year’s masterclass in leaning into the internet’s suggestions. They literally hired actress Ma Yili after online hype demanded it. Their CNY short film follows Li Xian and Ma Sichun on a comedic mission to find Ma Yili.
Wrapped up in the film are all sorts of messages about Yili being the perfect gift for Lunar New Year: supermarket scenes and on-set gags keep the tone light, but strategy is sharp: activate dialogue between consumer and brand, then let social media do the talking.
Wugumofang (五谷磨房): A soap-opera wellness drama
Wugumofang has wrapped their health food in drama. Literally. They made a mini-drama titled A 70-year-old CEO hands the family business to me, the farmer (70 岁霸道总裁把家业交给了种地的我). The plot centres around an iron-fisted chairwoman as family members fight over an inheritance. The twist is the inheritance turns out to be a Wugumofang wellness gift box.
They don’t take themselves too seriously. They bake in nutritional claims and crack jokes. In the end, it works because the ad doesn’t pretend to be subtle. The closing frames even feature a fourth wall break: ‘Wait, this was an ad?’
LABELHOOD (蕾虎): ‘Fresh clothes, furious horse’ as fashion philosophy
LABELHOOD’s New Year campaign takes the Year of the Horse in a more poetic direction, but keeps things modern. Built around the phrase ‘Fresh clothes, furious horse,’ (鲜衣怒马) their push channels youthful momentum.
The visuals blend ink-wash aesthetics with AI-assisted imagery: sharp red-white contrasts, deliberate negative space, and clothing captured in motion. It’s less about festive clichés and more about identity, movement and ambition – a message aimed squarely at China’s design-forward youth.
