Ad Nut’s in the mood for Chinese New Year advertising

Brands roll out Chinese New Year campaigns to usher in the Year of the Dog on 16 February.

It’s that time of the year when the great CNY migration inspires advertisers to focus on mixed, bittersweet emotions of longing, anxiety, joy and gratitude in anticipation of reunions during the family festival. Ad Nut will be adding new lunar-new-year work here as it appears throughout the runup to the holiday.

ABOVE:
Advertiser: Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB)
Agency: Society and Ansible
Many CNY ads tend to get a bit heavy emotionally (see below), but here’s one that instead focuses on a group of siblings rediscovering their celebratory superpowers. Ad Nut tires of advertisers lamenting about excessive mobile-phone use, but in this case it makes a nice lead-in to a fun story.

Advertiser: Petronas
Agency: N/A
The brand that arguably made the annual emotional new year video a thing submits a father-son tale for 2018.

Advertiser: Mudah.my
Agency: Isobar
Ad Nut loves a piece of effective advertising that also makes for good entertainment. After an award-winning stint last year, the philosophical, singing plumber makes a comeback singing praises for the online marketplace. Ad Nut hopes Facebook won’t come after him for the rights to ‘32665’.

Advertiser: JD.com
Agency: 180.ai, with Passion Pictures and directed by Kyra & Constantin
The online retailer splashes out on a high-production-value animated tale that brings its dog icon to adorable, 3D life. The tale of the pup, named Joy, and a worm-thieving heron centres, perhaps unsurprisingly, on giving. The production spanned Melbourne, London and Barcelona, and the brand will be pushing the video out across a wide range of Chinese online channels. Given that it’s going to be the Year of the Dog, Ad Nut is prepared to see even more murderous beasts than usual in advertising. At least this one seems genuinely kind-hearted.

Click here to watch the video

Advertiser: AirAsia
Agency: Dentsu Aegis Network
This is a very cute commercial despite the murderous beast. But wishing people a “pawsperous” new year is unforgivable.

Advertiser: Nissan
Agency: Kingdom Digital
Who said you can’t build hard sells and product benefits right into a Chinese New Year ad? Nissan manages to do both here, with a story of overblown sibling rivalry. Ad Nut particularly likes the pickup truck that doubles as a cool bath.

Read the full article at Campaign Asia