Netflix Lunar New Year 2023 | 

Seasonal Activation

Challenge

Create a Lunar New Year seasonal activation that felt culturally authentic across Southeast Asia and Greater China, while bringing together a curated collection of Lunar New Year movies and series into a cohesive experience across the Netflix product experience and social channels.

Strategy

I led the creative strategy around a simple cultural tension: the symbols of Lunar New Year signal the celebration, but the family rituals give it meaning.

While many festive campaigns optimise for instant recognition through familiar visual cues — lanterns, zodiac animals, and red packets — recognition alone doesn't create emotional connection. People remember Lunar New Year through the rituals they grew up with: the bustling preparations, reunion dinners, children helping to decorate the home, and the joyful chaos of generations coming together.

This became the guiding creative principle for the activation:

Represent what people feel, not simply what they see.

Instead of decorating the experience with festive symbolism, we set out to express the lived experiences that make Lunar New Year meaningful.

Execution

To bring this strategy to life, I identified traditional paper-cutting as the creative medium best suited to expressing our creative principle and sourced Malaysian paper-cutting artist Eten Teo as the ideal collaborator. Drawing from his own childhood memories, Teo created an original artwork that celebrated the warmth, traditions, and togetherness of Lunar New Year.

I led the creative concept from ideation through launch, partnering with Product and Marketing teams to transform the artwork into an integrated seasonal experience across the Netflix product experience and social channels in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Vietnam. The activation also marked the first time a physical artwork was digitised and featured within the Netflix product experience.

Outcome

The activation transformed Netflix's Lunar New Year collection into a culturally rooted discovery experience that reflected how audiences experience the holiday, creating a more authentic and emotionally resonant way to discover stories during one of the region's most important cultural celebrations.