The objective of BMW’s Chinese New Year campaign is to generate brand love by showing that it is a bold and youthful brand. This is essential as the car category is becoming more competitive, with legacy brands being challenged by young local competitors. Consumers already have a strong emotional attachment to BMW, which has kept it the top premium car seller in China. As the purest form of branding, a deeply resonant Chinese New Year campaign is critical.

After two widely successful Chinese New Year campaigns, BMW’s campaign is the most widely anticipated of the season. Each year the brand only has three requests. Be deeply cultural; do something only BMW can do; push the level of creativity beyond the previous year. Given the past success, this was a very high bar.

In Chinese cultural mythology, Jupiter’s twelve-year orbital cycle created the 12 zodiac signs. If BMW could avoid Jupiter’s influence on Earth, it could banish "Ben Ming Nian" misfortune and bring eternal good luck.



To achieve this ambitious goal, BMW officially launches “Project Jupiter”: a mission from BMW China’s CEO, assigning four engineers and scientists who humorously explore solutions. They devise the Red Luck Theory to avoid Jupiter’s influence. This final solution aligns with the Chinese custom of using the color red to ward off misfortune.

BMW’s efforts are joined by real scientists, tech entrepreneurs, inventors, sci-fi actors, a pop-star, film director and more. And everyone who shared BMW’s zodiac year was also invited to participate.

The plot to find a scientific solution was so crazy it needed to find a format to tell the story: The process is documented in the campaign centerpiece, a China industry first 14-minute mockumentary film.

Chinese people tend to refrain from mentioning anything negative during Chinese New Year to prevent bad luck in the coming year. This cautiousness results in homogenous brand campaigns revolving around the themes of reunion and happiness.

To stand out from the crowd, BMW used its bold attitude. After all, what is more bold and surprising than a 108-year-old German brand playing with its Chinese zodiac sign? Instead of shying away from superstitions, BMW bravely confronted its Ben Ming Nian and pokes fun with the campaign hashtag “BMW, born in the Year of the Dragon, wishing everyone good luck in 2024”. 



The campaign sought to maximize its influence with contributions from unlikely celebrities such as physicists and tech entrepreneurs as well as high profile actors and athletes.

Every element of the project was planned to the smallest detail. The success of the project’s mission is based on the “Red Luck Theory”: When combining Newton and Einstein’s equations, it states that lowering the Earth’s energy can change the Earth’s gravitational pull and Jupiter’s orbit. According to the color spectrum, red has the lowest energy. Wearing red also happens to be a popular custom of Chinese New Year! 



After rounds of hilarious attempts, “Project Jupiter” culminates in spreading the color red across the world for good luck. The whole process is documented in a centerpiece mockumentary film.

“Project Jupiter” launched on January 18th 2024 with themed merchandise to arouse interest. Red decoration kits were also distributed across BMW’s dealer network.  On Jan 29th, 10 days before CNY eve, trailers and teaser images were released, followed by the official mockumentary on key owned and paid media social and digital platforms.

BMW’s Project Jupiter disrupted the norms of CNY. Consumers embraced it, as shown by its huge success.

1) The 14-minute mockumentary film was the #1 brand film on Weibo, a platform similar to Twitter. With 1.3 billion impressions, almost the size of China’s population, and 266.6 million video views, Project Jupiter even surpassed previous BMW Chinese New Year campaigns.

2) 3.4 million engagements across all social platforms with 96.6% of buzz coming from UGC.

3) Themed content and merchandise seeding generated 87 posts from advertising, car, fashion and film KOLs, with 11.7 million total reach.

4) This brave, disruptive work was universally embraced, with an NSR of 98.2%.

5) Project Jupiter successfully showed BMW’s bold spirit: The word cloud from social buzz included “innovative”, “surprising”, and “it’s BMW style”.

6) Earned 48+ marketing and advertising media’s publications, with 2.3+ million views.