The most discouraging Spring Festival marketing campaign in the Year of the Snake! Major brands are rolling up their sleeves

As the Spring Festival of the Year of the Snake approaches, major brands have launched a unique marketing war. From Wanglaoji's "Surname Changji Tube" to the joint gift box of Xiangpiaopiao and "Calabash Brothers", to the intangible cultural heritage of Be & Cheery and the "Xiaoyaoyou" concept of Guanxia, ​​brands have not only shown their creativity, but also made great efforts in cultural inheritance and emotional resonance.

The dragon leaves and the snake comes.

As the Year of the Dragon draws to a close and the Year of the Snake is about to take over, we can see that more and more brands are beginning to do marketing around the zodiac IP of the snake - some brands are refreshing their eye-catching packaging, some brands are playing with intangible cultural heritage collaborations, some brands are playing with IP collaborations, and some brands are playing with abstract ideas.

Today, let’s take a look at some high-scoring Snake Year marketing cases and see how these representative brands interpret the “Chinese New Year”?

1. Wanglaoji "Year of the Snake Surname Changji Tube" conspicuous bag

If a brand wants to stand out in the market competition, it not only needs "language nails" but also "visual hammers" to form the important assets of the brand.

Brand assets are invisible and intangible, but their lasting influence will shine when product categories become homogenized. Wanglaoji is clearly well aware of this.

The creative expression of Wanglaoji's 2025 Year of the Snake Spring Festival limited edition products fully explores the characteristics of the zodiac snake and launches the Wanglaoji "Year of the Snake Surname Changji Tube" series of new products, giving Lilaoji, Yanglaoji, Zhoulaoji... a personalized, super long, long, long, long, long... auspicious blessings for the Year of the Snake!

In terms of product packaging design, Wanglaoji Snake Year Longji Can is innovative in length, quantity and luck, with the main feature of a conspicuous package. This Longji can, which is long enough to be carried on the back or across the body, makes consumers who carry it out of the house immediately become the most eye-catching in the crowd, and it is also a "social currency" that consumers are happy to share.

In terms of conveying the meaning, nine more "Ji" are added to the original can body, totaling ten "Ji", implying a long and auspicious year of the snake with perfect blessings. This way of integrating surname culture with Ji culture not only continues the brand symbol of "Ji culture" that has been accumulated by the brand, but also gives the product different New Year blessing meanings, which is quite a sense of New Year ritual.

At the same time, Wanglaoji’s “Snake Year Limited Skin” also swept the main landmarks of the six major cities of Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Changsha, Kunming and Nanchang. From subway stations to Liziba Station trains, Wanglaoji’s New Year advertisements were eye-catching in red, creating a great New Year atmosphere.

Back to the advertisement itself, when communicating with the audience in a scene, the integration and adaptability of the advertisement to the environment become particularly evident.

2. Xiangpiaopiao x Calabash Brothers jointly launches a limited edition gift box for the Year of the Snake

Speaking of the Year of the Snake, the story between the protagonist Calabash Brothers and the snake spirit in "Calabash Brothers" is deeply rooted in many people's childhood memories, especially the plot in the cartoon where Calabash Brothers fights the snake spirit, which has made this image a cultural symbol.

The zodiac co-branded marketing carried out by the classic snake IP in cooperation with brands may enhance the IP's pan-circle influence by enriching the IP content form and conducting cross-border co-branding. It may set off a "nostalgia wave" and bring a different emotional experience to young consumers. It is of great significance to the inheritance and innovation of traditional culture across generations.

Xiangpiaopiao collaborated with the animation "Calabash Brothers" to launch a limited edition Spring Festival milk tea gift box for the Year of the Snake, marking that the classic childhood animation character "Snake Spirit" has officially joined the ranks of IP marketing for the Year of the Snake.

This gift box product uses images of snake spirits in animations as design elements, creating milk tea products with themes such as "Golden Snake" and "Full of Blessings". It also launched peripheral products such as stickers, and put forward promotional slogans such as "Snakes are all good" and "Blessings and Luck" are coming to your door, which fits the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival.

The reason why it is put on the high score list is mainly because the ultimate goal of all marketing is promotion, and compared with other "euphemistic" marketing methods, the form of New Year gift box is more direct and easy to convert.

3. Be & Cheery x Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritance Writes "The Taste of the New Year"

The 2024 Chinese Spring Festival has been successfully listed as a World Heritage Site, and the Year of the Snake will usher in the first "intangible cultural heritage" version of the Spring Festival.

Be & Cheery has submitted a high-scoring answer on how to redefine the taste of the New Year through intangible cultural heritage customs, allowing consumers to feel the "flavor of the New Year" while promoting products through cultural and emotional resonance.

Focusing on the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage, Be & Cheery specially selected three intangible cultural heritage New Year customs: Yingge Dance, Fish Lanterns and Iron Flower Making to create a unique atmosphere and flavor for the Chinese New Year.

In the design of gift box products, intangible cultural heritage elements are integrated into the original conventional scenes such as "setting off firecrackers" and "pasting Spring Festival couplets", and new year customs such as "New Year fish lanterns", "New Year iron flower making" and "Lion Waking" are added, making the product a natural carrier for the promotion and dissemination of intangible cultural heritage and sharing of topics.

In promoting its New Year gift boxes, Be & Cheery also shot a TVC, focusing on the “New Year atmosphere in the market”, making the intangible cultural heritage truly “come alive”.

In this advertising documentary, Be & Cheery visited and filmed the Chaoshan Youth Yingge Troupe, as well as the inheritors of the intangible cultural heritage of the New Year fish lanterns and iron flower crafts in Anhui and Henan. By recreating the Yingge dance, iron flower and fish lanterns, it showcased the cultural charm of young people from all over the world in the New Year scene, allowing more young consumers to understand the stories of the intangible cultural heritage New Year customs.

Only by applying it can intangible cultural heritage be passed on forever.

Undoubtedly, Baicaowei’s collaboration with intangible cultural heritage has allowed traditional culture to be passed down from generation to generation. It has added the brand’s new mission of practicing the transmission of social values ​​to the emotional resonance of individuals, creating a very beautiful combination.

4. Watching the Summer “Take a Detour = Happy Travel”

To be honest, the difficulty in marketing during the Spring Festival of the Year of the Snake lies more in the zodiac sign of "snake", because many people are afraid of snakes.

Therefore, the visual expression of the snake cannot be too concrete nor too abstract. It is indeed not easy to make people feel pleasing and eye-catching in terms of sensory and allegorical transmission.

But Guan Xia did it. Starting from the image of the snake in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", with its spiritual characteristics of "amphibious, able to transform and leap", and combining it with the mythical beast Kunpeng in Zhuangzi's "Xiao Yao You", he likened the snake's posture to a "detour". As a spiritual beast, the snake can fly all over the world and enter the sea. Compared with Kunpeng's soaring into the sky, this way of soaring freely between heaven and earth is "Xiao Yao".

Simply staying at the interpretation of cultural values ​​is just the transmission of the brand's core for the brand. Guanxia also makes these meanings have a concrete carrier in the products.

At the same time, Guan Xia also launched the new Spring Festival limited series "Snakes in the New Year·Free and Easy Travel". This series includes three products: Fortune Treasure Pot, Yi Si Limited Fragrance, and Limited Perfume, which symbolizes the free and unrestrained spirit snake and the free and easy New Year.

In order to better interpret the "snake-like posture", Guan Xia also went to Jing County, Xuancheng, the hometown of papermaking, and used the most ancient techniques to create a new year's "Classic of Mountains and Seas" for Guan Xia.

At the same time, Guanxia held the 2025 "Spring Garden Party" with the theme of "Snakes Walking Freely", and put auspicious totems on New Year pictures, spring couplets, and flower papers. This bold attempt to break the conventional thinking framework about the meaning of the "snake" image is in line with Guanxia's slow brand tone of exploring oriental aesthetics.

Being a snake, it is inevitable to take detours. "Take a detour = Happy Journey" gives consumers life reflections and New Year blessings, giving users enough emotional value while extending more interpretations and discussions about life. Guan Xia's "Year of the Snake - Take a Detour - Happy Journey" really expresses the meaning of "Year of the Snake - Take a Detour - Happy Journey".

5. Bananain: "Red means luck, snake brings fortune"

Since 2018, top marketing student Bananain has launched the "Red Plan" every year, specially inviting contemporary Chinese artists to customize the zodiac images and bring users a red series to welcome the new year.

This year, Bananain takes "Snake Brings Good Luck" as its theme and once again joins hands with cross-media artist Zhu Jingyi and urban artist Fansack to create the same Snake Brings Good Luck New Year gift box for Wang Yibo, Zhou Dongyu, and Zhao Lusi.

In traditional culture, the "spiritual snake" represents wisdom and vitality, and also symbolizes endless good luck.

Bananain's "Red Plan" series for the Year of the Snake has launched three gift boxes. The "Lucky Gift Box" combines different red items needed for daily life, suitable for every Chinese who wants to wear red and become red, hoping for "continuous lucky luck" in daily life. The "Red Picture Gift Box" means "showing a big lucky picture". The "Snake Lucky Gift Box" means "Snake Lucky". New Year gifts, lucky outfits, and good luck prayers, hoping to put good luck into the gift box and give good luck to a higher level. I wish everyone everything goes as smoothly as a snake and all wishes come true.

Bananain has always focused on the carrier of red zodiac culture and integrated itself with the Chinese New Year. While enhancing the brand value through the "Red Plan" content IP, it also opened up another idea for Chinese New Year marketing for the brand.

So, at the wonderful moment of the Spring Festival of the Year of the Snake! Which of the brands' marketing campaigns in the Year of the Snake impresses you the most? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area to exchange ideas and welcome the Year of the Snake together!