Lunar New Year also known as Chinese New Year marks the beginning of a new year for many of our users in APAC and the diaspora of Chinese communities around the globe. Festivities of this deeply traditional occasion spans across multiple days and include sacred celebrations coordinated to the cycles of the moon. For many, it’s an important holiday that centers around reunions with family and friends and observances of cultural traditions.
For many brands, CNY is also a key time of the year to engage with their best customers and prospects and if done right, can drive sales and yield incredible results. In 2021, the CNY holiday consumption in China alone grew up to US$127 billion. This year, with economies and consumer purchasing habits returning to normalcy post the pandemic, we’re set to see this trend grow more. Since most stores are closed during the festival days, digital purchases are at an all time high during this period.
This makes it much more important for brands to cut through the frenzy of and be visible and relevant to the customer during this festival. To help our users and brands better connect with their audience celebrating the Spring Festival over the next two weeks, the Data Sciences Team has come up with some quick tips to ensure your marketing campaign encapsulates the essence of the Lunar Festival this year.
- Extend the Impact of your Brand’s Message Beyond the New Year Day
CNY is one of the few festivals that spans across two weeks since celebrations are coordinated to the moon cycle. Many activities take place before and after the new year day. This creates a massive opportunity for brands to really develop a full body of messaging with creativity that addresses the full range of holiday activities, from preparation to celebration.
DMC can add a layer of context to CNY in your market by breaking down what are the words or topics associated with this festival and what content is currently generating a buzz around the festival. For example the image classifies themes like ‘delicacies’ ‘opportunities’ and some more. As a brand, this gives your creative team a data-driven direction to create new and different content before and during the festival.
- Embody the Spirit of the Animal
The Lunar Year celebrations brings with it a wave of change to set the tone for the coming year filling it with hope, positivity and various beliefs and emotions channeled through an animal’s persona. 2021 was the year of the Ox, and 2022 is the year of the Tiger. The year of the Tiger symbolizes bravery, wisdom and strength. Finding unique ways to embody this spirit in your marketing campaign can go a long way in creating a presence for your client’s brand.
- Connect With the Right Audience in Your Region
We know that CNY is not restricted only to China, and that there are several countries in APAC and the diaspora of Chinese communities around the globe who immerse themselves in celebrating this beautiful festival. Every region is filled with a number of cultural communities with different ethnicities. To connect with the audience that is celebrating CNY is essential to be able to identify where these people are located within your region.
You can leverage DMC to identify cities and provinces you should be targeting for your brands CNY marketing campaigns. By adding a language filter of the appropriate languages, DMC can easily identify cities or provinces where CNY will be relevant within your market. You will be able to get a detailed understanding of the audiences by their size, demographics and behaviour helping you create a perfect marketing campaign to people celebrating this festival within your market.
- Understand the Audience’s Mindset
It’s important to remember that CNY is more than just zodiac themed festivals with red and gold decor and packaging. It’s a festival that holds a lot of cultural and historical significance to the communities of this heritage. Chinese New Year is celebrated differently across countries. Although the ethos of the festival remains similar, the traditions and customs do vary across countries. Hence, it’s important to understand the mindset of the audience celebrating CNY within your country.
Audience Interests breakdown for Indonesia
DMC helps marketers delve deeper into the psyche of your audience by giving insights into their interests. For example, in the image above you can see that while the CNY audience has interests around ‘Fashion’ and ‘Shopping’, they largely lean towards being ‘Healthy& Fit’. This can translate into many things, but DMC lets you deep dive further so that marketers can understand that the audience is largely interested in dieting. As a brand, this insight can be a lead insight in how creative a definite and relevant media plan for the relevant audience.
5. Identify the CNY Shopper Persona in Your Market
Chinese New Year is a public holiday across most East-Asian Countries. Shopping is pretty much part of the tradition while preparing for the festival as well as gifting during the festive days, much like Christmas in the west. In 2021, the CNY holiday consumption in China alone grew up to US$127 billion. To tap into this shopping audience, it’s imperative to comprehend the persona of the shopper in your market. To help you with this, we have put together essential insights on the shopper persona for some key CNY markets, you could give it a quick read here.
With this we’d like to wish a very happy and prosperous Year of the Tiger to our colleagues, partners and clients within APAC and across the globe celebrating the Spring Festival.
Reach out to us at dmcsupport@dentsu.com to learn more on how you can resonate your brand’s message with deeper audience insights.
