Two Chinese campaigns caught my eye this month, and together they point at something Western brands rarely think about. IKEA handed out a limited run of free meatball flavoured lollipops, and Ctrip teamed up with Jackie Chan to do a piece of “culture export” aimed at foreigners. Both were praised across Chinese social media. Both did something more interesting than sell a product. They played with identity, humour and national pride, and they got the audience to do the sharing.
These campaigns were highlighted in a weekly roundup on Meihua, one of China’s leading marketing platforms. The lesson underneath them matters for any foreign brand in China, because it is about how to be talked about, not just how to be seen.
IKEA and the meatball lollipop
A meatball flavoured lollipop is a strange thing. That is exactly why it worked. IKEA took its most famous food item and turned it into something absurd, limited and free. Absurd made it funny. Limited made it worth chasing. Free made it easy to say yes to. The product itself was almost beside the point. The real product was a story people wanted to tell their friends, and a photo they wanted to post.
This is how IKEA stays culturally alive in China. It does not only advertise furniture. It creates small, shareable moments that keep the brand playful and present. For a foreign brand, that is a model worth copying. You do not always need a big message. Sometimes you need one weird, generous idea that people cannot resist passing on.
Ctrip, Jackie Chan and reverse culture export
The Ctrip campaign is subtler and, for my clients, more instructive. Working with Jackie Chan, the travel platform built a piece of content aimed at showing Chinese culture and travel to foreigners. It flattered the domestic audience by presenting their culture as something the world should admire, and it wrapped that pride in a face everyone trusts.
Notice the direction. This was not a foreign brand explaining itself to China. This was a Chinese brand exporting Chinese culture outward, and Chinese consumers loved being on the proud side of that story. Western brands can borrow the mechanic. When you help Chinese consumers feel proud, or help bridge their culture and yours with genuine respect, you stop being an outsider selling to them and start being a partner celebrating with them.
This connects directly to how brands reach Chinese travellers, a subject I write about often. If your business touches tourism, hospitality or destinations, these two guides are a good next read: marketing to Chinese tourists and travellers, and for a concrete European example, why Chinese tourists still dream of France.
The common thread: give people a reason to talk
Strip away the meatballs and the movie star and both campaigns do the same thing. They hand the audience a reason to speak. A surprising object. A moment of pride. Something worth a comment, a repost, a screenshot. In China, where paid reach is expensive and attention is short, earned conversation is the most valuable outcome a campaign can produce.
This is the same principle behind the strongest creative work in the market right now. If you want a wider view of what the best Chinese campaigns of the year have in common, I recommend this overview: the top 50 China ad campaigns of H1 2026.
What Western brands should take from this
Most foreign brands in China still lead with information. Here is our product, here are its features, here is why it is good. That approach is easy to ignore. IKEA and Ctrip lead with emotion and play instead, and emotion is what gets shared.
The second lesson is about direction. Chinese consumers respond powerfully to content that respects and elevates their culture. A brand that arrives only to sell feels like a visitor. A brand that celebrates something the audience is proud of feels like a friend. The gap between those two positions is the gap between a campaign that is tolerated and one that is loved.
Five takeaways for your next China campaign
1. Trade one feature message for one shareable idea. Ask what would make a stranger repost this.
2. Use surprise. An odd, limited, generous gesture buys more attention than a polished ad.
3. Respect and elevate local culture. Pride is one of the strongest triggers to share in China.
4. Build for Chinese platforms first. A campaign designed at headquarters and translated later almost always feels flat.
5. Measure conversation, not just impressions. In China the comment section is the real result.
The takeaway
IKEA and Ctrip did not win because they spent the most. They won because they gave Chinese consumers something worth talking about, and they did it with humour and cultural respect. For any Western brand trying to matter in China, that is the whole assignment. Stop announcing yourself. Start giving people a reason to bring you into their own conversations.
Source (Chinese): ๆข ่ฑ็ฝ, weekly roundup “ๅฎๅฎถ้้ๅ ่ดน้่ไธธๅณๆฃๆฃ็ณ๏ผๆบ็จ่ๆๆ้พๅ่ๅคๆๅ่พๅบ่ขซๅคธ.” The piece praised IKEA’s meatball lollipop stunt and Ctrip’s Jackie Chan collaboration as examples of playful, pride driven marketing that earns shares.
About the author. Philip Chen is CEO of GMA (Gentlemen Marketing Agency), a digital marketing agency focused on the Chinese market. GMA has helped more than 1,000 brands grow in China across Baidu, WeChat, Douyin, Xiaohongshu and cross border e-commerce. Connect with Philip on LinkedIn.
