How to interpret Chinese New Year with "dragon content"? Check out these 6 highly praised brand cases!

China is about to usher in a new year - the Year of the Dragon, which is a symbol of auspiciousness, prosperity and blessings. In this special context, many brands are actively launching activities and products related to the Chinese New Year. Among them, six brand cases have attracted much attention. Through the deep integration with Chinese culture, they interpret the auspicious meaning of the Year of the Dragon. Let's take a look.

Dragon and phoenix bring good luck, flying dragon and phoenix, golden dragon brings good luck, dragon soars and tiger leaps... As a mythical animal in traditional culture, the dragon symbolizes strength and auspiciousness, and the Chinese people's worship and respect for the dragon is rooted in their genes. Therefore, at this node of bidding farewell to the "rabbit" and welcoming the "dragon", brand marketing must be full of energy and write a "cultural proposition essay" with a high "dragon content". On the last working day before the New Year, let's take stock of several marketing cases for the Year of the Dragon and see how these representative brands interpret the "Chinese New Year" with dragon elements?

01 Use dragon elements to create a brand super symbol

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.

1. Nongfu Spring "Golden Dragon Water Zodiac Bottle"

After the birth of high-end water, Nongfu Spring has launched a limited edition zodiac bottle on the eve of the Spring Festival every year. This year, Nongfu Spring also released the Dragon Year Collector's Edition "Golden Dragon Water" as expected. This is the ninth zodiac bottle launched in succession after the Golden Monkey Bottle in 2016, the Golden Rooster Bottle in 2017, the Golden Dog Bottle in 2018, the Golden Pig Bottle in 2019, the Golden Rat Bottle in 2020, the Golden Bull Bottle in 2021, the Golden Tiger Bottle in 2022, and the Golden Rabbit Water in 2023. It is only right to say that "zodiac signs come and go, but zodiac bottles never change."

In terms of design, Nongfu Spring adopts a left-right symmetrical double dragon, making the dragon element a part of the product packaging, conveying the brand's consistent concept of harmonious development of the natural environment and ecological civilization, and thereby expressing good wishes for good weather and new things in the Year of the Dragon.

After 9 years of accumulation and sedimentation, Nongfu Spring has turned the Zodiac bottle into a symbolic asset of the brand through the artistic beauty and brand visual communication of the Zodiac bottle, and has also allowed consumers to form a strong associative memory of the Spring Festival, the twelve zodiac signs and the Zodiac bottle.

2. Bananain "Red Project"

Like Nongfu Spring's zodiac bottle, since 2018, top marketing student Bananain has launched the "Red Plan" every year, specially inviting Chinese contemporary artists to customize the zodiac image and bring the red series to users to welcome the New Year.

This year, Bananain once again collaborated with emerging artist Zhu Jingyi and street artist Fansack to reinterpret the new image of the Year of the Dragon with the theme of "Jumping over the Dragon Gate".

In this wave of creative communication, Zhu Jingyi, who "writes strange characters with his brush", incorporates the texture of traditional brush calligraphy into Bananain's modern visual system with majestic brushstrokes and lines, creating a strong sense of "contrast". This innovative interpretation of the zodiac culture through visual art redesigns the basic red New Year style.

Bananain teamed up with street artist Fansack to integrate its own unique aesthetic elements into Bananain's visual system through delicate and rich graffiti and strong colors, reinterpreting the IP image of "Dragon".

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

In addition to the artist collaboration, Bananain also launched a series of gift boxes and specially designed Year of the Dragon peripheral products, such as the "Lucky", "Leaping the Dragon Gate", "Rich FA", and "Red Picture" gift boxes, which give the products different New Year blessing meanings and a sense of New Year ritual.

Finally, Bananain also carefully produced an animated short film with the theme of "Jumping over the Dragon Gate", in which a dragon leaps over every corner of life, pressing the "door" of happiness to life, bringing good luck to everyone and creating a strong sense of the New Year.

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.

Comment: Focusing on a marketing strategy and extending it into a sustainable long-term action for the brand, whether it is the Chinese Zodiac bottle launched by Nongfu Spring or the "Red Plan" of Bananain, from the execution level, it is not only easy to implement, but also becomes a brand asset accumulation.

02 Tell the story of Chinese traditional culture

Not only the dragon, China has many traditional cultural elements that carry beautiful meanings. However, how to bridge the gap between traditional culture and modern culture, and how to make today's young people accept and like them, is a topic that must be focused on in the new media era.

1. Watch the Summer "Dragon Swimming"

As the Year of the Dragon is approaching, Guanxia does not just use the symbolic dragon element superficially, but focuses on exploring the cultural value behind the festival and the totem symbol of the dragon with cultural inspiration. To this end, Guanxia takes "It's not the depth of the water, but the presence of a dragon that makes it magical" as inspiration, creates the theme of "The Dragon Is Magical", collects flavors from all over the world, uses fragrance to outline the soul of the dragon, and explores and reshapes the Eastern New Year.

In terms of products, Guanxia launched three Spring Festival limited edition nude waxes, locking in the three scents of Jinghong, Shishi Ruyi, and Yuanxi Cypress, each with its own meaning, condensing the beauty and blessings of the Year of the Dragon, "prosperity", "smoothness" and "blessings" into the product concept, design and color matching.

In terms of content dissemination, Guanxia also specially invited actors Wu Yanshu, Zhuo Ling, and Yaqi to gather together to perform a three-act play on the Year of the Dragon. Through the performance of a New Year's reunion dinner for three generations of women, they prayed for a good year with courtesy and celebrated a spring garden banquet.

2. Amul "Xi Shuo Qian Long"

Anmuxi did not fall into the traditional three-piece set of talking about dragons, drawing dragons, and acting in dragons. Instead, it started from the value context behind the appearance, constructed the Dragon Year creativity with spiritual texts, chose to tell the stories related to dragons in historical records through traditional shadow puppetry, and joined hands with Shaanxi Donglu shadow puppet master Wang Ke to create the shadow puppet movie "Xi's Talk about Money Dragon". On the one hand, Anmuxi used animation to give a new visual expression to shadow puppet works, and cleverly conveyed the beautiful meaning of "money dragon" image to gather wealth and happiness.