Lunar New Year - Fido, Rogers | Clapboard Ad Archive

Fido and Rogers’ Lunar New Year campaign in 2025, crafted in partnership with Ethnicity Matters, positions both brands as culturally astute mainstays within Canada’s competitive electronics landscape by fusing the symbolism of the Lunar New Year with technology’s evolving role in fostering connection. Anchoring this work during one of the most widely celebrated moments on the East Asian calendar, the campaign frames smartphones and digital services as modern conduits for tradition—showcasing scenes where family members, friends, and broader communities across Canada use their devices to bridge generational, geographic, and cultural distances as festivities unfold. The campaign’s creative approach is solidly rooted in what Clapboard’s taxonomy would classify as FORMAT#10—Associated User Imagery, placing relatable and aspirational consumers at the visual and thematic core to reflect the aspirations and daily realities of its multi-ethnic target audience. Within a crowded market where Bell, Telus, and regional players each jostle for distinctive positioning—Bell as premium provider, Telus on reliability and human touch, Freedom Mobile with affordability, and Videotron leaning into local insight—Fido and Rogers use the occasion of Lunar New Year to meaningfully differentiate by signalling not just product competency but cultural alignment and social belonging. This is a critical lever in the Canadian market, where successful mainstream brands demonstrate their understanding of consumer identity narratives and credible inclusivity, moving beyond functional messaging to build durable emotional resonance. The campaign’s film asset, tailored for national appeal, leverages vivid domestic settings, coded gestures—gifting, digital well-wishes, shared virtual meals—and authentic casting to underscore how technology supports rituals of connection without overtly positioning the devices as protagonists, instead letting the stories of modern Canadian families do the persuasive work. Presented in English, the campaign ensures accessibility across language groups while retaining the specificity of its cultural reference point, further reflecting the balancing act required by brands operating in Canada’s pluralistic advertising environment. In its creative restraint, Lunar New Year avoids the trap of superficial multicultural signposting, embracing a nuanced performance genre that highlights lived experience rather than mere product feature sets. The campaign earns 59/100 in Clapboard’s global creative archive. The work signals to the category that authentic alignment with consumers’ lived moments—rather than thematic appropriation or spectacle—remains a powerful driver of loyalty and relevance for electronics brands in multicultural markets.