Chief Creative Officer of W+K APAC
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Nike: CNY Hongbao Contest

It’s a long-standing Chinese tradition for the older generation to give the younger hongbaos – a red envelope with money inside, during Chinese New Year. The receivers are supposed to politely decline such offers out of courtesy while the givers would keep insisting. And sometimes the receivers will go out of the way to refuse the hongbao. So the team came up with this idea of turning this funny practice into a contest across two decades. 

In Nike’s first Chinese New Year film, this tension explodes into a years-long chase across China, with the hot potato hongbao passed between the film’s two main characters – an aunt and her niece - telling the Nike spirit of ‘hold nothing back’.

The Chinese endline tells the audience – 

The finest etiquette in a game is giving your best effort.

The grandest gesture of politeness is not holding back.