You’d have to live under a rock to not notice. If you’d told me in 2024 that Western brands would be planning LNY campaigns nearly a year in advance, I wouldn’t have believed you. But Lush just released an entire mandarin and camphor collection. Stanley sold out a limited-edition red tumbler. Dior and Burberry treated it as part of the marketing calendar worldwide (not just for Asian markets). What started as TikTokers using Gua Sha in their GRWM has turned into a full-blown cultural movement. For brands that want to get in on it, here’s how to do it right.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

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Well, not Russia, who has decided it’s over it, officially banning the nation’s access to WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.

The knee-jerk response will always be to call it "authoritarian overreach." But it’s probably worth asking why any country would let foreign-owned platforms operate freely when those platforms are basically extensions of American soft power. Meta isn't neutral. None of these companies are. They work with U.S. intelligence. They shape narratives. They've been used to destabilise governments before.

Why would you let a geopolitical rival's communication infrastructure run wild in your country? Especially when it’s become a full circus of misinformation, culture war sludge, and algorithmic radicalisation? Banning these apps might actually be a form of protection, not from information, but from a very specific kind of chaos that these platforms export. It's easy to frame this as censorship when you're on the side that benefits from the platforms staying open. But if the roles were reversed, we'd probably be doing the same thing. Wait, we did, with TikTok.

There are those for social media bans, and those against. It’s not hard to imagine why the CEO of Snapchat would be against Australia’s ban for teens, when 60% of 13-17 year olds use the platform globally. And the company has spent years building features specifically designed to keep them glued to the app. Australia recently passed legislation restricting social media access for anyone under 16. Snap's position is that bans don't work, and that education and parental controls are the real solution.

Which is technically true. But it also conveniently aligns with Snap's business interests, considering teens are a massive part of their user base. The CEO is framing this as a free speech and access issue. But it's hard to take that seriously when Snap has also rolled out AI-powered surveillance features for parents and aggressively monetised teen attention for years. If platforms actually cared about teen safety they'd redesign the algorithms, not just lobby against regulation while selling the problem back to parents as a premium feature.

And in today’s episode of “I f*cking knew it”: in a leaked email obtained by 404 Media, Ring founder Jamie Siminoff told his employees the AI powered Search Party feature (revealed at the Super Bowl) is not intended to always be limited to dogs, and would be expanded to “zero out crime in neighborhoods.”

A surprise to literally no one. 

-Sophie Randell, Writer

Let me explain.

It’s like a small private joke that the entire internet caught on to. And everybody all of a sudden wants in; they want to be Chinese.

At first, it felt like just another meme. Internet humour doing its weird, inscrutable thing. It started with actual Chinese "good fortune" content, “send this to yourself to affirm” type stuff.

I thought it would be a niche trend. But the more I watched, the more I realised: this isn't just jokes. This is genuine cultural adoption happening in real-time.

And it's one of the most fascinating marketing and cultural phenomena I've seen in years. Maybe even in my entire life.

Gua Sha has gone from niche traditional Chinese medicine to something your friend's mom does while watching Netflix. Lymphatic drainage techniques are all over beauty TikTok. Chinese cooking styles - the teas, the broths for collagen, the specific ingredient combinations - have all become mainstream wellness practices.

Even the superstitions. Last week's Lunar New Year was genuinely celebrated by Western brands, and basically everybody online. People who've never even observed it before were posting about the Year of the Fire Horse. They were talking about lucky colours, warning not to wash your hair or take out the trash in fear of washing or throwing away wealth, sharing traditions, recipes, the whole shebang.

What I thought was surface level trend hopping is actual cultural integration happening through social media. Mind you, at a scale and speed we've never seen before.

Stanley - yes, the viral tumbler brand - released a limited-edition Quencher with a red stallion specifically for the Year of the Fire Horse. It sold out, of course.

Lush Cosmetics created an entire collection of bath bombs and body care with mandarin and camphor. And this was planned eight months in advance. Burberry, Staud, Dior - luxury brands that traditionally only acknowledged LNY in Asian markets - went all-in for Western audiences.

They're investing real resources, planning nearly a year ahead, and watching products sell out. And, dare I say it, but I don’t think it’s tokenism. It’s actual appreciation and keenness to participate.

Yu-Nien Chang, Stanley's GM of APAC, told Marketing Brew that LNY isn't their biggest sales holiday. However, it's a moment where the brand can show up in conversations customers are already having. And who are those customers? Increasingly, Western audiences who've developed genuine interest in the culture.

But more specifically, TikTok - with its massive Chinese parent company and algorithmic tendency to surface content across cultural boundaries - has created a direct pipeline for Chinese beauty practices, wellness techniques, and cultural moments to reach Western audiences.

We’re now learning Gua Sha from someone our own age demonstrating it in their bathroom, instead of through a documentary or textbook. Seeing families celebrate Lunar-New Year traditions in real-time on your feed helps us learn the customs. This generates appreciation and interest because there are parts we can relate to or see ourselves doing.

There's an openness to adopting practices from other cultures when it's done with genuine interest and respect, not just aesthetic theft. (For example, it's the difference between your white friend getting box braids and speaking in AAVE, and your friend group holding a reunion dinner (年夜饭, 团年饭) on LNYE to bring in good luck for the year.)

Chinese creators have largely embraced this too. The discourse isn't "stop doing Gua Sha, it's not yours." It's "yes, try it, here's how to do it properly, here's why it matters." Cultural exchange, not cultural gatekeeping.

The difference between celebration and commodification is a thin line, and it's easy to fall on the wrong side of it.

Amanda Lee Sipenock Fisher, Lush's DEIB lead, nailed it: brands that do this well are the ones where "people with an authentic and real perspective were a part of every single part of the process." Not just "consulted" or brought in to sign off at the end. Involved from the beginning.

Lush uses its Co-Create program, calling on employees with personal connections to the holiday to inform everything from product ingredients to names to the stories being told. Stanley follows the lead of its APAC team for cultural insights. The brand treats it as "truly global work" rather than a Western team trying to interpret an Asian holiday.

Globalised digital culture looks like this now. It's genuine, multi-directional exchange where memes become entry points to actual cultural adoption. Not the old model of cultural export where one dominant culture pushes its practices onto others.

"You met me at a very Chinese time in my life" started as a joke. But we lowkey are actually going through very Chinese times in our lives. And we’re all a little better off for it.  

-Sophie Randell, Writer

The trend comes from Tommie Lee's confessional on Zeus Network's Baddies (aka the gift that just keeps on giving). In a moment of pure unfiltered honesty, she looks directly at the camera and says, "Cause I am on medication b*tch, and my therapist is not doing it right, so please tread lightly"- except she actually says "thread" instead of "tread," which somehow makes it even more iconic??

The clip went viral because it perfectly captures that energy of "I'm working on myself but I'm one inconvenience away from losing it." People are using the audio to warn others they're hanging on by a thread and cannot handle any additional stress, drama, or provocation.

My fav examples include:

Use the Tommie Lee "please thread lightly" audio. Add text explaining why you're on edge or what situation is about to push you over.

A few ideas to get you started:

-abdel khalil, brand & marketing exec

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Hey Remi,

Our advice is to always start with viewership. Why? Because if you optimise for views and get millions of people watching your content, the followers and engagement will come as a natural by-product. But if you only optimise for followers and not views, you're kind of stuck, right? So think of views as the foundation. The only exception is if you already have decent viewership and just need to convert viewers to followers. In that case, you can create a separate series with an ask to get you followers (like “I’ll get $10K if we hit 100K followers”). But most of the time, you should go for views.

Remember that organic content is a long-term strategy and isn't meant to be for selling. So if you need sales right now, run ads instead. Trying to make organic content do everything at once is how you end up with content that does nothing well.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.