During Chinese New Year (CNY), people love to use auspicious words for blessings, and Bao Ma (BMW’s Chinese name “Precious Horse”) is a key one in Chinese culture. Yet AI, which was the trendiest topic in 2022, made an error when translating Bao Ma into English: every translation app turned Bao Ma into BMW. We turned this error into hilarious memes, a witty video, and a series of merchandise. BMW’s 2023 CNY campaign, “Translating Joy”, helps people realize the cultural good meanings of BMW, and use it naturally for wishes, amplifying BMW’s joy.

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”.

Meanwhile, Chinese younger generations of consumers show stronger cultural recognition, who are also the major buyers of BMW. So, we focused on engaging with them on Bilibili, China’s the most trendy youth culture social platform.

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 launched on Bilibili with a viral video featuring funny translations that connected good wishes contained Bao Ma and BMW. 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 “Translating Joy” campaign was even more influential than 2022’s hugely successful BMW CNY campaign “Nothing but Sheer Joy” and once again made BMW the most iconic and culturally resonant brand during CNY. 


• Campaign impressions: 976M


• Campaign video views: 263M, +2% vs. 2022;


• Campaign engagement: 10.4M, which is 2.6 times than 2022 CNY campaign engagement;


• More than 80 dealers participated the campaign and created +37.9%;
 greater impact on their fans

• NSR reached a new high of 98.2%, which is almost 10% higher than 2022.



Many fans used translation apps to validate the AI error during CNY. The phenomena grew to be so big that the tech giants who own the translation apps finally corrected the error.


Chinese people’s love of using good words to express wishes can be traced back to ancient poetries, in which Bao Ma (BMW’s Chinese name “Precious Horse”) were frequently used already. Among 200+ ancient poetries contain Bao Ma, the most famous one is “Precious Horses and Lavish Carriages Go by Leaving a Scented Trail” (“宝马雕车香满路”) in year 202. It is the heritage carried on until now, especially during CNY. 

We established the connection between BMW and Chinese culture by putting various wish sentences with Bao Ma in AI powered translation app. Although the meanings are twisted, the joy magnified, from ancient poetries to modern usage of language. The poetry created in 202 turns into “I wish you a BMW carving car”, while “I wish my beloved ones arriving home immediately” (“祝心爱的宝马上到家”) becomes “I wish my beloved BMW home”.

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.