SunRice brings cultures together in Chinese New Year campaign

SunRice brings cultures together in Chinese New Year campaign

by | Feb 8, 2019 | Uncategorized

Mumbrella, 5 February 2019

SunRice has launched a new campaign which attempts to bring different cultures together over rice.

The ad, which has been created for Chinese New Year, features a new migrant family hosting their neighbours for dinner. The long silence is broken with the SunRice is brought out.

Throughout the ad people are seen eating the rice in different ways, including with tomato sauce.

The ad was created by Identity Communications.

Andrew Jeffrey, head of marketing at SunRice, said in a statement: “Chinese New Year is the biggest cultural occasion for the community, and we wanted to be there to celebrate this special occasion with them.

“As a proud Australian brand, we want to show our Asian consumers that we understand the aspirations of modern Asian-Australian families. Our Asian family is proud of their heritage, but they are also eager to be part of the Australian community.”

Thang Ngo, managing director at Identity Communications, added: “here are around one million Chinese speakers in Australia, making this audience highly attractive for brands. Just using red and gold colours or number 8’s in creative doesn’t cut-through anymore.

“It’s not new, doesn’t stand out and doesn’t demonstrate an understanding beyond cultural clichés. Brands need to demonstrate more sophistication and deeper understanding if they want to build an authentic connection with this valuable audience.”

The campaign is rolling out on SBS TV and Chinese and Vietnamese channels including Pay TV, digital, print and online.

Credits

Client: SunRice

  • Head of Marketing & Insights: Andrew Jeffrey
  • Senior Marketing Manager: Shannon Cumberlidge
  • Brand Manager: Peta Thomas

Agency: Identity Communications

  • Managing Director: Thang Ngo
  • Head of Studio: Tobias Young
  • Creative Director: Yasmin Quemard
  • Art Director: Rachel Liang
  • Writers: Yasmin Quemard, Brenda Leung and Sean Zhu
  • Translation Management: Brenda Leung, Albert Han
  • Designer: Rachel Liang
  • Head of Strategy: Thang Ngo
  • Client Services Director: Angelica Naranjo
  • Production Coordinator: Murray Wallace
  • Lead Developer: Dipak Sadaul
  • Production Company: Clockwork Film
Eat your way to a good fortune in the Year of the Pig

Eat your way to a good fortune in the Year of the Pig

by | Feb 1, 2019 | Uncategorized

The team at IDENTITY Communications, Australia’s largest multicultural marketing agency, has a few delicious suggestions for a lucky Year of the Pig in 2019.

the most important festival across Asia, Lunar New Year is celebrated in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea and thanks to the large Chinese diaspora, just about any Chinatown across the globe.

It’s a week-long public holiday in In China, when people head back to their home town to celebrate with family and friends, sparking the largest annual mass migration on Earth, some 385 million Chinese are expected travel during this period (below: image credit IBTimes UK).

via GIPHY

The festival has many names, Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, Spring Festival and Tet (Vietnam). Based on the lunar calendar, new year falls on a different day each year. The coming Year of the Pig starts on Tuesday, 5 February 2019.

Naturally, the New Year is about family and looking forward. It can be a time of great superstition, people act, eat and observe traditions to maximise luck, personally and professionally, for the coming year.  Dragon and lion dancing and fire crackers are popular for a good reason – the noise and vigorous movement are intended to ward off evil and bad luck.

Anything that happens during the first days of the new year will be repeated for the rest of the year. So naturally, the house is spotless before the first day of the year, quarrelling is avoided and given of gifts including money in red packets to younger generations is encouraged.

Everyone wants good luck in the new year in the three main areas of health, wealth and happiness – a common greeting for the New Year. 

LUNAR OR CHINESE NEW YEAR GREETINGS

  • Mandarin: gōng xǐ fā cái is the most common greeting “respectful wishes for your prosperity”
  • Cantonese: gong hey fat choy is the Cantonese equivalent
  • Vietnamese: chúc mừng năm mới
  • Korean: Saehae bok mani badeuseyo

FOOD TO BRING GOOD LUCK IN THE LUNAR NEW YEAR

For good luck in the new year, maybe you should try these 8 lucky foods:

  • Spring rolls, dumplings: are all about wealth, in addition to being delicious, their shapes resemble ancient Chinese gold ingots.
  • Fish: represents prosperity, as it sounds like “abundance” in Chinese, eat whole fish for wealth all year ’round.
  • Noodles: if you want long life, choose dishes with long strands of noodles, don’t cut them before you eat them otherwise you risk cutting short your life!
  • Whole chicken: including head and feet: is symbolic of family reunion, togetherness and happiness. Make sure the chicken is as “whole” as possible, including head and feet.
  • Tangerines, oranges: brings wealth as tangerine sounds like “luck” in Chinese, while orange sounds like “gold”.
  • Mut (candied fruit): is popular with Vietnamese, their sweetness brings a sweet life and candied seeds such as lotus bring family happiness through more children (“mut” is a Vietnamese word).
  • Watermelon: Vietnamese believe good luck comes to the household if a watermelon is cut during New Year and the inside is red, the darker the red, the greater the prosperity.
  • Ddukguk: this rice cake soup is traditionally served on New Year’s Day in Korea. Lunar New Year is a time when everyone has their birthday. Eating this soup celebrates getting a year older in Korean culture.

Wishing you a happy and successful Year of the Pig from the IDENTITY Communications team.