Spring Festival is the most important marketing period for many Chinese condiment brands. Household consumption, family banquets, and gift demand converge, but the concentration of activity also creates extensive creative sameness.
Lee Kum Kee built its 2026 campaign around a simple pairing: good flavor and good fortune. It connected the practical role of condiments with the emotional language of the holiday, then adapted that idea across stores, instant retail, e-commerce, social platforms, and a bakery partnership.
The campaign shows what omnichannel coordination looks like when every channel performs a different job.
One Theme, Multiple Product Meanings
The core line linked Lee Kum Kee products to New Year dishes and auspicious expressions. Premium oyster sauce was associated with prosperity, reduced-salt soy sauce with wellbeing, garlic chili sauce with a vibrant new year, and seasoned soy sauce for seafood with continued progress.
The wordplay gave each product a role in both cooking and celebration. A gold-themed consumer promotion added participation, but the durable asset was the connection between product use and cultural meaning.
The brand did not leave the idea in advertising. It translated it into a different operating model for each retail environment.
Hema: Turn the Store Into an Experience
Lee Kum Kee created immersive New Year activations in six priority Hema stores, including dish sampling, interactive activities, recipe demonstrations, and prize participation.
The program used checkout screens, fresh-food-area displays, app placements, and Hema's New Year shopping hub to connect store discovery with online conversion.
Lee Kum Kee reported that sales in the Hema channel increased nearly 30% year on year, while the six participating stores grew more than 90% compared with the previous period.
The result illustrates the conversion value of an experience located close to ingredients and purchase. Consumers could see the product, understand a dish, taste the outcome, and buy within the same journey.
Pupu: Connect Cooking Content to Immediate Fulfillment
With delivery-first retailer Pupu, Lee Kum Kee created a family-banquet livestream featuring chef Lu Yichi. The chef demonstrated New Year dishes using fresh ingredients and Lee Kum Kee seasonings.
Viewers could watch, select products, place an order, and receive the ingredients quickly. The chain from instruction to inspiration to purchase was unusually short.
The brand reported that viewing and interaction substantially exceeded ordinary platform livestreams, with user engagement close to doubling.
The strategic role of the channel was not broad awareness. It was immediate conversion from meal idea to fulfilled basket.
Maxim's Cakes: Extend the Product Into a New Occasion
Lee Kum Kee also collaborated with Maxim's Cakes on a char siu bread range inspired by its oyster sauce.
The partnership moved the condiment from the home kitchen into ready-to-eat bakery. More than one hundred bakery locations provided physical exposure, while samples and joint promotions helped the brands exchange traffic.
This was more than co-branded packaging. The partners created a product that allowed consumers to experience the condiment in another category and occasion.
E-Commerce: Capture Demand Created Elsewhere
Online marketplaces provided the transaction layer for attention generated through social content and physical retail. Lee Kum Kee used dedicated New Year shopping pages, platform events, and commerce livestreams.
The company reported e-commerce growth of nearly 30% during the Spring Festival period.
The important point is attribution of roles. Social platforms generated discovery and participation. Stores created physical experience. Delivery retail compressed the path to purchase. E-commerce captured planned demand at scale.
Social Co-Creation: Let Consumers Make the Theme Their Own
On Douyin, Lee Kum Kee connected with a New Year chef program and invited professional creators and consumers to publish auspicious dishes. The campaign reportedly generated more than 200 million views and a large volume of user-created content.
On Xiaohongshu, food and lifestyle creators presented family cooking in regional New Year traditions. The platform helped make product use specific, personal, and locally recognizable.
The campaign did not ask every creator to repeat the same advertisement. It gave them a common cultural frame in which to show different dishes and stories.
Three Lessons for Holiday Marketing
First, a holiday idea must combine elevated meaning with concrete product use. Good fortune provided emotional relevance, while recipes and tasting made the product role visible.
Second, omnichannel does not mean copying the same activation everywhere. Lee Kum Kee kept one theme but allowed each channel to use its own strengths: experience at Hema, speed at Pupu, category extension at Maxim's, conversion on e-commerce, and participation on social media.
Third, short-term attention should add to a long-term cultural asset. Product quality provides the base, channels convert demand, content creates reach, and culture makes the brand easier to remember.
When these layers work together, a seasonal campaign can generate sales without disappearing when the holiday ends.