Chinese New Year is the most important time for brands to connect with consumers and demonstrate cultural resonance. However, with every brand investing heavily, it’s critical to be ownable and stand out. For the past two years, BMW has relied on a winning formula: playing with its name in an irreverent way to bring Joy to consumers. In 2021, we hilariously turned BMW into Ba Ma Wo, which means ‘dad, mom and me’. In 2022, we created an interplay between a horse (BMW’s Chinese name “Precious Horse”) with a tiger (2022, the year of Tiger) that got everyone singing and dancing. This year the brief was to continue the “BMW way of celebrating CNY” – timely, joyful and something only BMW can do. So we turned to the topic that everyone was talking about – AI. And we showed how an AI-fail allowed BMW to accidentally hijack Chinese New Year.

In Chinese culture, people love to send each other wishes full of auspicious words rich in meaning. One of the most popular words, common in CNY wishes and ancient poems, is ‘Bao Ma’. Bao (“Precious”) indicates rich and rare, while Ma (“Horse”) indicates ranking and progression. Well, Bao Ma also happens to be BMW’s Chinese name. BMW chose Bao Ma because of its deep cultural meaning. But a funny thing happens when we ask AI what Bao Ma means. Rather than a Precious Horse with deep roots in Chinese culture, AI describes Bao Ma as a luxury car brand from Germany! We boldly turned this AI error into BMW’s 2023 CNY campaign theme: “Translating Joy”.

The campaign was fully social focused. It was launched on Bilibili (the youth culture platform) with a viral video featuring funny translations that connected good wishes contained Bao (“Precious”), and Ma (“Horse”) and its result: BMW. The visual style of the viral video was inspired by machine generated AI content, transforming and collaging the literal translations into more joyful memes that mixes in more car-relevant elements.

When showing the meanings of translated Chinese poetry that includes Bao Ma (BMW’s Chinese name “Precious Horse”): showing “I wish you a BMW carving car” out of “Precious Horses and Lavish Carriages Go by Leaving a Scented Trail” (“宝马雕车香满路”) with a microplane fixed on side window of a BMW that is carving a potato controlled by the window button.



The video ended with a catch phrase “Lucky Money into BMW to Success” (original Chinese meanings: wish you fortune and success). The video was launched on Jan 19th, two days before CNY eve, when everyone starts to send each other New Year wishes. In the next two days, the video was amplified across different touchpoints: on Wechat, where brand fans gather, BMW released exclusive digital red packets, memes and CNY posters that said “Lucky Money into BMW into Success”. On China’s Tiktok, 80+ dealerships participated in a “Lucky Money into BMW to Success” dance challenge. On lifestyle platforms Weibo and RED, we released themed merchandise. And offline, dealerships gave away exclusive gift boxes containing “Lucky Money into BMW to Success” posters, BAVA bears and red packets.

The younger generation of Chinese consumers connect more strongly with their cultural identity. Thus, a brand that shows a strong connection and deep understanding of local culture, especially during CNY, will win their hearts. This group of consumers is especially important to BMW, with 40% of BMW buyers in 2022 born after 1990.