Giving Chinese youth permission to troll New Year traditions in Converse's Chinese New Year special-edition campaign
Brats Trolling the Chinese New Year
Converse was launching a Chinese New Year special edition and needed it to actually matter to young Chinese consumers during the country's most crowded cultural moment.
Research into how Chinese youth actually feel about the holiday surfaced something brands weren't saying out loud. Beneath the surface of family and tradition, young people dread it. The chaos of Spring Festival travel rush (春运), the same relatives grilling them with the same invasive questions at the banquet table (七大姑八大爷), a week stuck at home with nothing to do. CNY had become an obligation dressed up as a celebration. What they wanted was a version of the holiday that felt like theirs, closer to how they treat Halloween: an excuse to dress up, act out, and have fun on their own terms.
That gap became the strategy. Instead of celebrating tradition, we gave young people permission to mess with it. The idea was Brats Trolling the New Year (兔崽子闹新年), a campaign built on spoofing New Year customs rather than honoring them. We brought in creatives from skateboarding, photography, and music to give the concept real texture and rebellious energy, then built the visual world around Converse's CNY special-edition product, using fun, interactive imagery that let the shoes live inside the joke rather than just sit next to it.
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