Changing Perspectives... on celebrating Chinese New Year

I’ve written before about Lunar New Year and how I grew up celebrating with my Cantonese family in the U.S.

As the Head of Omnicom Media’s Diverse division, Lunar New Year (or Chinese New Year, Seollal or Tết) has taken on new meaning, challenges and opportunities for me.

It now means that January and February are incredibly busy – a blur of briefs, translations, creative consultation, media plans and PoPs – especially depending on how early the New Year occurs since it’s based on the lunar calendar.

But also, the opportunities have grown enormously: This year, the amount of Omnicom clients who are celebrating and engaging with 2.2m Asian Australians has doubled from last year. Across categories from telco, luxury, alcohol/beverage, banking, entertainment and auto, this major annual holiday is being recognised on the scale it deserves.

So with new clients entering the celebrations this year, I thought I’d share three nuances with marketers who might be encountering their first Lunar New Year campaign. 

Little Red Book/RED Note is an essential consideration and, no, you do not need your own brand account!
It’s common practice for brands to use an agency account to run display ads on Little Red Book/RED Note to enlist influencers to post content from their own accounts.

Most of these agency accounts act like publishers with broad lifestyle names like “MostAus” and “AusLife” and it’s common for Little Red Book/RED Note users to pay little attention to the actual account name.

As diverse specialists, we guide our clients on which publisher account is most relevant to them but, as with other social platforms, paid amplification and your targeting strategy is essential to reach the right people.

Little Red Book/RED Note’s distribution algorithm doesn’t rely solely on the account’s follower base and content is also pushed based on geolocation, relevance, and engagement behaviour.

What you call it matters
We get lots of questions from clients and creative agencies, keen to know what phrasing to use. And depending on the culture and platform we are showing up on, it actually matters greatly.

Chinese consumers tend to prefer “Chinese New Year” (which is what I grew up calling it), with some even going so far on Little Red Book/RED Note to compare which brands are saying “Chinese” vs “Lunar” and sharing if they would consider an embargo on the brand based on their phrasing.

I often explain this to clients by comparing it to those who prefer “Merry Christmas” vs “Happy Holidays.” You’ll always have some who vocally prefer one over the other.

We also ensure clients are extending their good wishes to Vietnamese, Cantonese and Korean communities – using the right language and translations, codes and creative cues.

And this year, if you are overly referencing the “Fire” Horse, it’s a giveaway that your marketing team isn’t from China!

Chinese platforms have limited tracking and reporting
While extremely brand safe, Chinese media works very differently from Western digital platforms and is much harder to track in simple terms. Strict regulations and closed platforms mean advertisers can’t easily follow users across apps or verify results independently. Each platform reports on its own performance, usually in aggregated form, with limited transparency.

By comparison, Western platforms still allow more flexible measurement, clearer benchmarks, and some cross-channel analysis. As a result, advertising in Chinese media is less about precise attribution and more about understanding overall impact, using signals like impressions, reach, engagement, and sales lift rather than detailed user-level tracking.

That said, we are still able to implement alternative measurement approaches to assess performance. For example, we can utilize UTM parameters to track clicks and traffic to third-party landing pages, and leverage Google Analytics to monitor audience uplift and behavioural trends among CALD segments during the campaign period.

Go forth and celebrate with more confidence
With an estimated 2.2m people of Asian descent/birth/language in Australia, Lunar New Year has never been more important to honour and respect as a brand.

It’s understandable that it is literally “foreign” to a lot of marketers, but there is a wealth of specialists on hand to help you navigate it. Like anything else, it takes time, commitment and investment to get right.

The return is worth it.