SHANGHAI, CHINA — Beverage corporation Coca-Cola has ushered in the Lunar New Year with the launch of a multi-touchpoint campaign that celebrates the magic of togetherness and cross-generational connection synonymous with the holiday season. Created by creative agency Ogilvy Shanghai as part of the OpenX by WPP team, the regional campaign features a short animated film launched across eight markets in Asia, supported by an interactive AI-powered mobile activation, as well as limited edition packaging incorporating interactive AR elements.
Lunar New Year is one of the most important holidays of the year, involving numerous traditional rituals and practices around food, housecleaning, decorations, gift-giving, and more. In recent years however, the festival has gone through a transformation of its own, with younger generations reimagining some of these century-old traditions to fit their busy lifestyle and the hyper-digital world they live in. This shift has accentuated the generational gap between today’s youth and their elders, with a lack of shared Lunar New Year rituals.
This Year of the Rabbit, Coca-Cola aims to be the common ground and show that while traditions define families, it is their evolution that magically brings people together.
Lunar New Year may change but celebrating together is magic
Food is an indispensable component of the New Year festivities. Over time, the family reunion dinner has evolved, with quintessential Lunar New Year dishes full of symbolism and contemporary, urban-inspired flavors both finding their way onto the dinner table. This evolution is the one depicted in the campaign’s main film, “Grandma’s Jiaozi,” which tells the endearing story of a family of rabbits coming together despite their different approaches to traditional rituals and celebrations.
The film celebrates how the Lunar New Year table is big enough to accommodate every generation’s preferences and desires, with the rabbit family’s grandson reserving the most important place on his modern New Year dinner table for his grandmother’s traditional dumplings. The grandmother and grandson then celebrate this gesture by raising a toast with Coca-Cola. It is a symbolic common ground always bonding the two, that has remained unchanged over the years. All produced in Shanghai, the one-minute spot and a series of shorter versions will be available in markets including but not limited to China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and Cambodia, online and on TV.
Outdoor, the rabbit family made its way to billboards across major cities in Asia.
In China, the campaign is enriched with a digital experience that turns every can of Coca-Cola into a portal for families to reimagine existing traditions and connect in playful, interactive ways.
Among the long-standing Lunar New Year traditions is organizing a family photoshoot. But when family members live apart, gathering everyone in one location can prove difficult, and the final photograph often fails to fully capture the cheery atmosphere of the holidays. Coca-Cola’s Magic Capturer adds an interactive layer to traditional group photo-taking, turning it into a real magic experience with joyful connections for families to immortalize priceless festival moments, no matter where they are. By activating the camera, the mini-program’s AI tracks faces, allowing the virtual rabbit family to interact and give cues to the real-world participants to make fun family portraits in interesting and novel ways. The portraits can then be shared to extend the magic of togetherness for those who cannot physically be together over Lunar New Year.
To amplify the magic even further, Coca-Cola added a unique twist to the usual gift-giving practices, with an AR animation integrated into the Year of the Rabbit festive gift pack. When scanning the QR code on the packaging, users can see Coca-Cola’s rabbit family come to life in 3D and generate a customizable virtual greeting card that they can share with loved ones.
Charlotte Sng, Creative Director for Coca-Cola in Greater China and Mongolia said, “For the Year of the Rabbit, we wanted to recognize the generational differences and shift in celebration rituals, and inspire families across the region to rediscover meaning in traditions. This year’s Lunar New Year campaign continues to embody Coca-Cola’s “Real Magic” philosophy, celebrating the extraordinary moments of connection that happen when we come together despite our differences and create new shared rituals.”
Wei Fei, Group Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy Shanghai added, “We are incredibly proud of this Year of the Rabbit campaign with Coca-Cola, which once again pushed new creative boundaries at the intersection of culture, innovative technology, and storytelling. It is an invitation to come together through highly engaging mobile experiences, and appreciate the special moments that make the Lunar New Year so magical.”
CREDITS:
Client: Coca-Cola
Ella Liu – VP of Marketing
Cynthia Huang – Head of Coca-Cola Category
Creative:
Charlotte Sng – Creative Director
Elsa Gu – Senior Creative Manager
Brand Team:
Jason Wu – Brand Director
Design:
Steve Llewellyn – Design & Production Excellence Lead
IMX:
Bassam Qureshi – Integrated Marketing Experiences Lead
Dexter Chen – End-to-End XP Design Strategy Lead
Iris Yu – Shopper Connection Planning Director
Ana Ni – Consumer Connection Planning Manager
Marketing Technologies:
Fran Yang – Marketing Technologies Lead
Qiuyi Xu – Marketing Technology Project Manager
Creative Agency: Ogilvy Shanghai
Strategy: Arvind Srivastava – Chief Strategy Officer of Ogilvy Asia
Arjun Vedanayagam – Strategy Director
Creative:
Wei Fei – Group Executive Creative Director
Jimmy Wang – Creative Director
Tommy Tang – Creative Director
Neil Nand – Director of Creative Technology
Eve Liu – Creative Group Head
Dorothy Han – Associate Creative Director
Jaye Wu – Senior Art Director
Lynn Wang – Art Director
John Daly – Senior Copywriter
Client Service:
Ole Luk – Vice President
Queenie Shou – Senior Account Director
Yanky Zheng – Associate Account Director
Hal Chan – Account Manager
Adrian Xing – Account Executive
Production:
Eric Lai – Head of TV
Lily Li – Senior Project Director
Lili Guo – Senior Project Manager
Eric Xuan – Senior Project Manager
Kelly Yang – Senior Print Producer
