Why was the 2020 GUCCI x DISNEY Chinese New Year Campaign a Success?

July 16, 2020 Fête Chinoise

Written by Lily Yang · Photography Courtesy of GUCCI

Simply put, the Gucci x Disney 2020 collaboration was a marketing success on all fronts. It attracted overlapping target audiences while maintaining a clear emphasis on celebrating Lunar New Year. The collaboration’s flexible marketing attracted three main demographics: millennials, individuals who celebrate Lunar New Year, and individuals who simply adore Disney.

For the past century, Disney has been the iconic entertainment franchise for children. In recent years, the company has expanded its marketing through collaborations with skincare, beauty, lifestyle, and luxury brands. In 2020, Gucci teamed up with Disney once again to celebrate Lunar New Year. Alessandro Michele, the creative director of Gucci, utilized Mickey Mouse as the central focus to celebrate the Year of Rat. And on January 3, 2020, Disney pushed out a short campaign video titled “Gucci Chinese New Year Campaign: #Disney x Gucci.” The short one-minute clip clearly set the foundation for the campaign’s success.

Millenials

The clip was shot at Disneyland and featured Ni Ni, a Chinese actress and also a Gucci ambassador since 2017, and other actors spending a day at Disney. The campaign video was filled with vibrant energy as the actors wore the new collection apparel, which would instantly attract millennials because they are of similar age to the actors and the style of the actors fit the millennial demographic. The actors embodied the millennial fashion trends such as bucket-hat, fanny back, oversized jackets and oversized dresses.

Chinese Audiences

Ni Ni, as the spotlight of this clip, naturally attracts the Asian market as she is a Chinese representative of the campaign. But this was not the first time she represented Gucci. 2020 marked Gucci’s second annual partnership with Disney. Gucci pushed out the Three Little Pigs collection for The Year of Pig in 2019. The Three Little Pig launch was not as popular as the Mickey Mouse collaboration. Reasons for this were arguably narrow target demographics for Three Little Pigs coupled with the fact that the Three Little Pigs are not as well-known as Mickey Mouse in China. This collection was well-received in both Asia-at-large and North America. Other luxurious brands adopted an even more narrow marketing strategy where they focused on presenting Lunar New Year elements. Burberry focused on adopting the “good-luck” red color, decorated with the lucky Lunar New Year flower peach blossom. Bottega Venta and Fendi came out with the red leather edition bag for the Lunar New Year collection. Longchamp had a cheese logo stamp. These selected brands were not able to attract a wider range of audiences in comparison to Gucci because it focused on incorporating and emphasizing Lunar New Year elements only.

Gucci, on the other hand, successfully merged the most iconic Disney character and its Gucci monogram, creating a vintage yet playful sentiment to this collection. It strategically did not limit itself to target Lunar New Year celebrators. This international character reached the North American market successfully as well. The line of collection embodied the trendy millennials style: bucket-hat, fanny packs, oversized shirt, and so on. This childhood figurine on Gucci apparel can be easily curated for stylish and casual outlooks. The official website of Gucci, Canada and America, advertised the collection more heavily as Disney X Gucci. The title of the collaboration is Disney X Gucci, there is no mention that this collection is for Chinese New Year. However, the URL link emphasized that this collaboration is for Chinese New Year, where it notes as “disney-x-gucci-c-gifts-chinese-new-year.” This childhood icon brought out childhood memories that the North American market can relate to as well. Notable fashion magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Elle also praised the success of Disney X Gucci for embracing the lively nostalgic sentiment of a variety of audiences. This collaboration ignited childhood fantasy back into the designers’ brand sphere.

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Still, in Hong Kong and China, Gucci also made sure to maintain a clear position to celebrate Lunar New Year. As previously mentioned, Gucci collaborated with Disney in the previous to celebrate the Year of Pig. Being able to get Disney’s patent to utilize the most famous character showed the dedication of Gucci’s intention to celebrate the Year of Rat.

The campaign video also clearly attracted the Asian market; the video is titled as Gucci Chinese New Year campaign. Ni Ni, as a well-known actress in China, clearly illustrated Gucci’s intent to attract the Asian market. In addition, many well-known Chinese celebrities such as He Jiong and Yang Mi wore this collection to warmly welcome the upcoming Lunar New Year. Vogue Hong Kong also noted that using Mickey Mouse brought out the emphasis on celebrating the Year of Rat. Asian markets also had more pieces in the collection, in comparison to the North American market. There are 69 items on the United States Gucci website and 85 items in total on the Hong Kong website. Despite having the same collection, Hong Kong and the United States carried their own unique pieces.

Disney Lovers

In addition, the board marketing label also attracted individuals who enjoy Disney. Undoubtedly, Disney channels, Disneyland and Disney fairytales have been heavily influenced and embedded in our childhood memories. The campaign shot at Disney once again rekindled the reminiscent of Disneyland magic. This successful strategy clearly allured Disney lovers to collect this refreshing Disney collaboration. Nonetheless, the target audiences for this collaboration is limited to luxury consumers as the price point for Gucci products are fairly high.