Cetaphil Turns the Year of the Dragon Into a Skincare Moment in Malaysia
Cetaphil's "Shine Like A Dragon" campaign is a Malaysian Chinese New Year 2024 film that positions the brand's three-step cleanse, moisturise, and protect routine as the path to festive, healthy skin, anchored by the brand's first-ever exclusive CNY music video and a consumer promotion tied to the Year of the Dragon.
The campaign launched publicly on 23 January 2024 in Kuala Lumpur, published across Cetaphil's Malaysian channels and documented on Ads of the World on 31 January 2024. Its full title, rendered in both English and Mandarin as 龙光焕发 Shine Like A Dragon with Cetaphil, makes the cultural alignment explicit from the first frame. The dragon — the most auspicious sign in the Chinese zodiac — becomes a direct metaphor for radiant, luminous skin, a creative logic that required no translation for Malaysia's Chinese-heritage communities celebrating the new year.
Three Malaysian radio announcers, Jack Lim, Mei Yan and Emely Poon, front the campaign as relatable everyday users rather than aspirational celebrities. Each demonstrates the brand's CMP routine — Cleanse, Moisturise, Protect — across three Cetaphil product families: Cetaphil Core, Bright Healthy Radiance and Optimal Hydration. The campaign's promotional mechanic reinforces purchase intent directly: consumers spending a minimum of RM88 on any Cetaphil products in Malaysia entered a Buy and Win contest with prizes valued at a total of RM38,888, as detailed in the campaign press release published on PR Newswire. The film accumulated 1,341,690 views and 218 likes across its public run, reflecting meaningful reach for a market-specific personal care activation. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 63 out of 100.
Cetaphil operates in a competitive dermatological skincare category in Malaysia where festive moments represent concentrated purchase windows. Chinese New Year is one of the highest-traffic retail periods in the country, making it a natural arena for personal care brands seeking to link skincare habit formation with emotional celebration. By framing the CMP routine as a gift to oneself before the festivities, Cetaphil addresses the real consumer tension between wanting to look their best for family gatherings and feeling overwhelmed by complex multi-step regimens.
The sensitive skincare market within which Cetaphil competes is a growing global category. According to Grand View Research, the global sensitive skin care market is on a sustained growth trajectory, with significant momentum across Asia-Pacific. In Malaysia, dermatologist-recommended skincare brands have expanded their retail presence as consumers increasingly seek clinically credible options over conventional beauty products. Cetaphil, owned by Galderma following its acquisition of Nestlé Skin Health in 2019 as reported by Cosmetics Business, holds an estimated sixteen percent global share of the sensitive skin care segment, according to Global Market Statistics, placing it directly behind La Roche-Posay at an estimated nineteen percent share per the same source. In the Malaysian market, both brands compete for the same dermatologist-endorsed consumer seeking gentle efficacy.
The radio personality casting reflects a deliberate localisation strategy. Jack Lim, Mei Yan and Emely Poon carry established trust with Malaysian Chinese-speaking audiences, as reported by Marketing Interactive. Their existing parasocial relationships with listeners lower the persuasion barrier that a celebrity endorsement might raise, lending the CMP routine demonstration authenticity rather than spectacle. The decision to build the campaign around a jingle — a format with proven memorability in Southeast Asian advertising — reinforces the three-step message through repetition rather than instruction.
Cetaphil's "Shine Like A Dragon" film marks a first in the brand's Malaysian history. The campaign represents Cetaphil's first-ever exclusive Chinese New Year music video, as confirmed by the press release distributed on PR Newswire on 23 January 2024. That distinction signals a deliberate escalation in creative ambition for a brand whose global identity has historically prioritised clinical credibility over cultural entertainment.
The creative structure organises around the mnemonic of CMP — Cleanse, Moisturise, Protect — delivered through a catchy jingle designed to make the three-step routine memorable and replicable at home. According to marketing-interactive.com, the jingle format was a conscious production choice to teach rather than merely demonstrate, embedding the brand's product logic into the festive soundtrack of CNY 2024 celebrations. The use of music as the primary narrative vehicle is notable in a category that more commonly defaults to before-and-after testimonial formats or dermatologist voiceover.
Jack Lim, Mei Yan and Emely Poon function less as talent and more as dramatised versions of the target consumer. Their roles as radio personalities already position them as voices audiences trust, and the film uses that trust as creative currency. The production deploys festive visual codes — red, gold, dragon motifs — without overwhelming the product story, maintaining Cetaphil's clinical aesthetic within an overtly celebratory register. The bilingual title treatment, presenting 龙光焕发 alongside the English tagline, reflects production sensitivity to Malaysia's multilingual consumer landscape. Production credits for the "Shine Like A Dragon with Cetaphil" campaign are not publicly documented beyond the talent names confirmed by PR Newswire.
Cetaphil's "Shine Like A Dragon" campaign generated 1,341,690 views and 218 likes on its primary public video asset, as recorded on the campaign's documentation and cited by Clapboard. Those figures represent a meaningful organic footprint for a market-specific personal care film in Malaysia, a country with a population where digital video consumption around CNY peaks sharply in January and February each year.
No independently verified conversion data, sales uplift figures, or paid media metrics for the campaign are publicly available. The engagement ratio — 218 likes against nearly 1.35 million views — is modest, which may reflect the film's distribution across platforms where passive consumption outpaces active engagement, or indicate that the primary call-to-action directed users off-platform toward the Buy and Win microsite rather than inviting in-feed interaction. The RM88 minimum spend threshold and RM38,888 prize pool, as detailed by PR Newswire, were structured to drive basket size and retail conversion rather than social sharing.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness rests on three compounding mechanisms: cultural timing aligned with CNY 2024 festive intent, a mnemonic jingle that encodes the CMP routine for long-term recall, and a promotional mechanic that converts campaign awareness into measurable purchase behaviour. The radio personality casting further amplifies earned media potential within Malaysian Chinese-speaking communities. The Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100 reflects competent cultural execution and clear brand logic, with room to strengthen engagement depth and creative distinctiveness relative to the broader personal care category.
Cetaphil's "Shine Like A Dragon" campaign is a Malaysian Chinese New Year 2024 film promoting a three-step skincare routine. Launched on 23 January 2024 in Kuala Lumpur, it featured radio personalities Jack Lim, Mei Yan and Emely Poon and marked Cetaphil's first-ever exclusive CNY music video, per PR Newswire.
Jack Lim, Mei Yan and Emely Poon front the campaign. All three are Malaysian radio announcers, chosen for their established trust with local Chinese-speaking audiences. According to marketing-interactive.com, they animated the spirit of the Shine Like A Dragon campaign by demonstrating Cetaphil's CMP routine through the music video format.
The CMP routine stands for Cleanse, Moisturise and Protect. Cetaphil structured the campaign around this three-step framework, delivered through a jingle format for memorability. The routine spans three product families — Cetaphil Core, Bright Healthy Radiance and Optimal Hydration — as confirmed in the campaign press release on PR Newswire.
Cetaphil ran a Buy and Win contest alongside the film. Consumers spending a minimum of RM88 on any Cetaphil products in Malaysia entered for a chance to win prizes valued at a total of RM38,888. The mechanic was designed to drive basket size and retail conversion during the Chinese New Year 2024 shopping period, per PR Newswire.
The campaign's primary video asset recorded 1,341,690 views and 218 likes, as documented by Clapboard. No independently verified sales or conversion data is publicly available. The Clapboard Score for the campaign is 63 out of 100, reflecting competent cultural execution with room for stronger engagement depth.
Cetaphil holds an estimated sixteen percent global sensitive skin care market share, behind La Roche-Posay at nineteen percent, according to Global Market Statistics. In Malaysia, the Shine Like A Dragon campaign differentiates Cetaphil through cultural festivity and accessible influencer casting, competing for the same dermatologist-endorsed consumer seeking gentle, effective skincare.
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