How brands are unleashing their inner dragons this festive season

Every year, Lunar New Year offers a fresh energy and festive opportunity for brands to connect with people who celebrate. The theme is automatically the zodiac of the year. And this year is no different, with the dragon being woven into design, communication, retail activation, digital, pretty much everywhere. With numerous dragons out there, all treated differently via design, creative styling, and materials, it can be quite challenging to stand out. With familiarity and ubiquity, being distinct is challenging. So, how does one make their dragon soar above the rest?

We looked at several brands, their products and campaigns, and noticed patterns ranging from the conventional to modern, minimalist styles. Often, the dragon is just there, layered over the product or ad in a cursory way. The ones that stood out were the more thoughtful, symbolic, yet implicit representations of the dragon embedded in its wide, nuanced, layered context. These intentional approaches seamlessly integrate the dragon into the broader narrative that feels shared with culture and the brand. Here are a few examples, decoded, to demonstrate how the ubiquitous dragon can connect better with implicit multi-sensory associations.

Marni

Marni's Lunar New Year collection revolves around "Marni Marni Hong"—a playful wordplay on the well-known Chinese ‘magic spell’ phrase "Ma Mi Ma Mi Hong." The dragon design exudes a youthful, playful, and quirky charm, seamlessly integrated into the series. The campaign features traditional activities, including displaying the Fu character, showcasing sugar figurines, and paper-cut window flowers with the dragon motif. The cohesive narrative, from wordplay to set design, reflects a cheerful, playful, and joyous festive season in line with Marni's casual, retro spirit. The dragon element not only adds but also elevates Marni's distinctive identity.

Beauty dragons

Moving beyond animated dragons, brands like L’Oréal, La Mer, and Shu Uemura zoom in on the dragon's scale. La Mer collaborates with an intangible cultural heritage artist inspired by ancient Chinese bookbinding techniques, conveying the transformative rebirth of the skin through vivid and splendid dragon scale bookbinding. L’Oréal draws inspiration from traditional craft of paper-cutting art, featuring a blossoming dragon with the skillfully cut-out scale. Shu Uemura introduces lipsticks with 'Dragon Girl' shades, adorned with scale designs and presenting 'Dragon Girl Red' makeup that highlights the scales. This is associated with a dragon lady, referencing a fictional character from a wuxia novel—a skilled martial artist who is graceful, alluring, and enigmatic.

All three brands employ saturated colors, especially red, leveraging the symbolism of the dragon—elegance, vibrancy, and majesty. These resonate with the brand’s image, with the scale touch adding texture and the zooming in angel, meeting the expectations of skincare and makeup enthusiasts.

Ganni

Ganni's Year of the dragon collection takes a unique approach with the absence of dragons in its product, but presence of it via cultural artefacts in the background. They infuse distinctive prints and bold red hues into their iconic and classic pieces, injecting the auspicious, hopeful sentiments of prosperity for the New Year. The campaign features three dragon boat girls rediscovering the charm of traditional dragon boat racing, highlighting this ancient, highly recognisable, and entrenched tradition. In the campaign, these girls unite, driven by their passion, energetically paddling the dragon boat with enthusiasm and determination. Ganni, rather than presenting Ganni with cliched dragon designs, uses elements of it to tell the story of authentic dragon boat girls, unleashing the power of femininity while wearing festive Ganni.

This shows us how brands that understand the nuances of culture, meaning and significance can use a ubiquitous, yet powerful symbol like a dragon to infuse meaning, nostalgia, a sense of one-ness, belonging and pride during the festive season.

Meaning creates relevance and when you find shared meaning with culture, that makes your brand distinctive, especially significant to stand out in cluttered spaces.

Maya Madhusoodan is the managing director for APAC at Space Doctors, a globally-recognised cultural and creative consultancy. Dr. Greenie Lei is also a project manager at Space Doctors.