For 2026, Carlsberg launched its sixth regional Lunar New Year campaign across Asia, marking the Year of the Horse with a platform designed to balance regional consistency with local cultural nuance.
At the center of the campaign was a collaboration with Chinese artist SKAI ISYOURGOD, whose track “Blueprint Supreme” was reworked into a sonic anchor that travels across markets through film, social media, retail activations, and events.
The campaign also continues Carlsberg’s tradition of releasing zodiac-themed packaging for the holiday. This year’s design draws on the Gilding Lacquer Art technique, a historic craft associated with luxury and permanence, while incorporating contemporary tools such as artificial intelligence to refine visual details across both physical and digital touchpoints.
To learn more, we spoke with Jeff Chong, Director, International Premium Brands at Carlsberg Asia, about the challenges of building a regional Lunar New Year platform that still resonates locally, the role of music as a unifying creative device, and how the brand approaches tradition, design, and cultural relevance during one of the region’s most significant celebrations.
Lunar New Year is shared across the region, but celebrated differently in each market. How do you approach building a regional platform that allows for local nuance while keeping the core message intact?
It starts with a clear framework: we define what must remain consistent versus what can flex.
The non-negotiables are our brand identity and strategic anchor. Carlsberg’s logo and colour, our premium positioning, and the core festive occasion itself—these do not change. Every market must feel that this is unmistakably Carlsberg celebrating Lunar New Year.
Everything else is designed for adaptation. We build what we call a “creative ecosystem”—a suite of assets that markets can draw from and tailor to their specific cultural contexts.
This year, that ecosystem included two layers:
First, the visual identity. Our limited-edition primary and secondary packaging features the galloping horse, hop-leaf clouds, and the dark green-red-gold palette. These elements remain consistent across all markets.
The hook “有嘉士伯樂” and the remix of “Blueprint Supreme” travel across borders, creating instant brand recall whether you’re in a mall in Kuala Lumpur or a club in Singapore
Secondly, the sonic identity. Our collaboration with SKAI ISYOURGOD gave us a unified musical anchor. The hook “有嘉士伯樂” and the remix of “Blueprint Supreme” travel across borders, creating instant brand recall whether you’re in a mall in Kuala Lumpur or a club in Singapore. But markets can choose how to deploy it—as a TVC soundtrack, a TikTok video, or in-venue background music.
The result is consistency without rigidity. The consumer in Singapore and the consumer in Ho Chi Minh City both recognise the same Carlsberg celebration, but they experience it in ways that feel native to their own traditions and behaviours. That’s how we maintain regional scale while respecting local nuance.
You’ve said Lunar New Year is a regional story lived locally. What makes executing that at a regional scale particularly challenging during a compressed festive window?
The primary challenge is the convergence of a hyper-compressed timeline with intense competitive clutter. The festive window spans mere weeks, yet consumer expectations for relevance and authenticity have never been higher. You cannot afford a misstep, nor can you afford to be generic.
Our solution is to anchor the campaign in a culturally authoritative hook that travels effortlessly. SKAI ISYOURGOD’s music provided that anchor—a pre-viral cultural asset that required no introduction. By creating modular assets (TVC cuts, social snippets, in-venue audio), we enabled markets to localise rapidly without recreating the wheel.
The festive window spans mere weeks, yet consumer expectations for relevance and authenticity have never been higher. You cannot afford a misstep, nor can you afford to be generic.
The results speak to the efficacy of this model: we activated over 800 outlets across five markets, generated over 300 pieces of campaign coverage, and achieved a combined media reach exceeding 1.52 billion—all within a compressed window, while maintaining a premium, unified brand presence.
This is Carlsberg’s sixth Lunar New Year zodiac release. How does the brand approach interpreting tradition alongside more modern design elements?
For our sixth consecutive zodiac release, we approached the brief with a commitment to progressive heritage—the idea that tradition must evolve to remain relevant. We deliberately moved beyond surface-level motifs to create a dialogue between craftsmanship and innovation.
Where modernity enters is through AI-driven enhancement. We used AI not as a replacement for artistry, but as a collaborative tool to refine intricate details, optimize colour vibrancy, and ensure the design pops across digital and physical touchpoints.
The design foundation draws from the Gilding Lacquer Art technique, a historic craft symbolising luxury and permanence—values deeply resonant with Lunar New Year gifting rituals. We reimagined this tradition by transforming Carlsberg’s iconic hop leaf into auspicious lucky clouds, with a galloping steed rendered against our signature dark green, accented by vibrant red and gold.
Where modernity enters is through AI-driven enhancement. We used AI not as a replacement for artistry, but as a collaborative tool to refine intricate details, optimize colour vibrancy, and ensure the design pops across digital and physical touchpoints. This fusion creates a powerful visual metaphor: Carlsberg honours the past while fearlessly embracing the future—a duality that has become a defining hallmark of our Lunar New Year platform.
Music plays a central role in this year’s campaign through your collaboration with SKAI ISYOURGOD. Why was sonic branding the right anchor for this Lunar New Year, and how does it differ from more visual-led festive campaigns?
The decision to anchor the campaign in music was driven by a fundamental shift in consumer behaviour: For Gen Z and Millennials across Asia, culture is now discovered and shared primarily through audio—streaming platforms, short-form video, and social audio trends. A purely visual campaign risks being passively viewed; a sonic campaign is actively engaged with.
A purely visual campaign risks being passively viewed; a sonic campaign is actively engaged with.
SKAI ISYOURGOD was the ideal partner because he is not just an artist; he is a cultural synthesizer. His music blends global hip-hop with deep Cantonese roots, mirroring our own brand fusion of heritage and innovation. His track “Blueprint Supreme” already embodied the Lunar New Year themes of ambition and success. By collaborating on an exclusive remix featuring the hook “有嘉士伯樂,” we embedded Carlsberg directly into the festive soundscape.
Looking ahead, how do you see Carlsberg’s Lunar New Year platform evolving as consumer behavior, media habits, and creative tools continue to shift?
Looking ahead, we see the platform evolving in three distinct directions, all grounded in the changing ways consumers experience the festive season.
First, the fragmentation of attention demands deeper integration.
Younger consumers no longer consume campaigns linearly—they discover through TikTok, engage on Instagram/Xiaohongshu, and gather in person. Our platform must function as an ecosystem, not a broadcast. The SKAI collaboration demonstrated this: the music powered the TVC, drove streaming playlists, fuelled social challenges, and soundtracked offline events. Future campaigns will embed this 360-degree integration from the concept stage, ensuring Carlsberg shows up natively across every touchpoint.
Second, the line between physical and digital celebration will continue to blur.
We see significant potential in hybrid experiences—AR filters that bring the Year of the Horse packaging to life in consumers’ homes, interactive gifting mechanics that bridge online sharing with offline togetherness, and gamified elements that make brand engagement feel like part of the celebration, not an interruption.
Third, our artistic collaborations will become more immersive and long-term.
This year’s fusion of Gilding Lacquer Art with AI was a significant step, but we see even greater potential in moving beyond one-off projects toward sustained partnerships with artists across Asia. This allows for deeper storytelling, where artistic narratives unfold across multiple years and touchpoints—from packaging to experiential activations to digital content.
We will also explore emerging creative tools—AI-generated commissions, interactive digital installations, and limited-edition formats that collectors can engage with across physical and virtual spaces. The objective remains constant: to bring fresh, culturally authentic artistry into consumers’ homes during their most meaningful celebrations, ensuring Carlsberg remains a relevant and cherished part of Lunar New Year for generations to come.
Are there any Lunar New Year campaigns that have stayed with you over the years and influenced how you think about the occasion?
Rather than pointing to a single external campaign, I’d highlight how Carlsberg’s own evolution—rooted in our founder’s legacy—has shaped our thinking. Each year, we’ve pushed ourselves to move beyond traditional playbooks and deepen our cultural authenticity through meaningful artistic collaboration.
This commitment to art is not a recent initiative; it is woven into Carlsberg’s DNA.
Our founder, Carl Jacobsen, was himself a passionate art collector and patron. In 1897, he founded the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek art museum in Copenhagen, donating his extensive collection to the public based on his conviction that art should be accessible to all and could enrich people’s lives. His belief that “art could beautify, touch and enrich the lives of everyone” remains the guiding philosophy behind our Lunar New Year limited-edition work with artists across Asia. When we collaborate with contemporary creators, we are continuing what Carl Jacobsen began—bringing art into people’s hands and homes during their most cherished celebrations.
This legacy has informed our recent campaigns:
- 2024 – Year of the Dragon: We collaborated with award-winning designer Ofen Hu to create packaging that epitomised boldness, vibrancy, and beauty, setting a new benchmark for premium shelf standout across Asia.
- 2025 – Year of the Snake: We partnered with 1983ASIA artists Yao (Malaysia) and Su Su (China), blending contemporary art with familial traditions. This collaboration transformed the snake’s intimidating symbolism into something positive, intertwining it with blossoming flowers to represent new beginnings and hope.
- 2026 – Year of the Horse: This year’s campaign fuses traditional Gilding Lacquer Art with AI-driven innovation, creating a dialogue between craftsmanship and cutting-edge technology that honours our heritage while embracing the future.
These internal benchmarks have taught us that the most resonant campaigns are those that respect tradition while fearlessly embracing innovation—a lesson that continues to guide our Lunar New Year platform.
What advice would you offer marketers navigating culturally significant moments like Lunar New Year across multiple markets?
First, lead with cultural humility. Lunar New Year is not a marketing invention—it’s a deeply meaningful tradition for millions. Take time to understand the underlying values: family, respect, collective hope, and renewal. If your campaign doesn’t connect to those values authentically, consumers will see through it immediately. The brands that win are the ones that show up as genuine participants in the culture, not opportunistic visitors.
Lunar New Year is not a marketing invention—it’s a deeply meaningful tradition for millions. Take time to understand the underlying values: family, respect, collective hope, and renewal.
Second, trust your local teams but give them a strong anchor. Consistency doesn’t mean forcing every market to execute the same tactic. It means providing a unified creative core—whether that’s a sonic identity, a visual language, or a brand platform—and then empowering local teams to adapt it in ways that resonate with their consumers. They understand their retail landscapes, media habits, and cultural nuances better than any regional office ever could.
Finally, build flexibility into everything. The festive window is compressed and unpredictable. Design assets to be modular: TVC footage that allows for market-specific edits, music that can be deployed across formats, packaging that works across different retail environments. The more adaptable your toolkit, the faster your markets can respond to local opportunities and challenges. And that agility often makes the difference between a campaign that’s seen and one that’s truly welcomed into people’s homes.
Looking back at the wrapped-up campaign, what unexpected successes or challenges emerged from the regional vs. local executions, and how did they affect overall ROI?
The most significant unexpected success was the organic virality of the SKAI ISYOURGOD remix on platforms like Douyin/TikTok and Xiaohongshu, particularly in China and Singapore. Audio streams and user-generated content exceeded projections, demonstrating the power of sonic branding to drive organic amplification in short-form video ecosystems.
Audio streams and user-generated content exceeded projections, demonstrating the power of sonic branding to drive organic amplification in short-form video ecosystems.
The modular asset approach proved essential in capturing this upside. Markets like Malaysia adapted the platform effectively with CarlsCrib, a youth-focused experiential event, while China drove offline footfall through localized roadshows and a TVC plus roadshow. This flexibility allowed us to capture both online buzz and offline conversions.
We are still currently consolidating the results for the campaign, but initial results were very encouraging and we expect a strong positive impact on overall ROI.
Based on the post-campaign analytics, what learnings will shape Carlsberg’s approach to future Lunar New Year Campaigns, particularly in adapting to shifting consumer behaviours?
First, the shift toward sonic and multi-sensory engagement proved highly effective in capturing digitally native consumers who increasingly discover and share culture through audio and short-form content. The SKAI ISYOURGOD collaboration not only achieved streams and views which validated music as a powerful anchor for emotional resonance in social content during compressed festive periods, especially in streaming and short social dominated markets like China.
Our second insight comes from the regional versus local balance, while modular assets enabled consistent adaptations and brand identity, markets with strong participation in celebratory offline events saw outsized engagement.
Future campaigns will prioritise social trend- integration, hybrid digital-experiential executions and market behaviours to bridge online buzz with real-world togetherness, and greater supply agility. These insights from 2026’s solid performance will keep Carlsberg aligned with evolving consumer behaviours and premium relevance.
