AI advancements are transforming our digital advertising landscape with ad spending projected to reach an impressive $3.23 billion in 2025. This surge positions Lunar New Year, widely celebrated as Imlek as a golden opportunity for brands to shine in a rapidly changing market. Explore cutting-edge insights on evolving consumer behavior and innovative advertising strategies to embrace this opportunity as a powerful catalyst for success!

Shift in Consumer behavior 

When holidays approach, consumer behavior undergoes significant shifts, influencing how advertisers should strategize their campaigns. Understanding these changes becomes imperative for advertisers to craft highly effective ad campaigns that resonate with their evolving preferences. 

Key Insights: 

Last year, the period showed a notable shift toward practical and health-focused FMCG choices. (Kantar Report)

Indonesia’s E-commerce market is the largest in Southeast Asia with a 40% share and gains popularity as consumers embrace online shopping and discounts heavily during festivities. With a focus on family and gift-giving, shoppers sought products to share with loved ones. Statista

Short video ads also gain significant traction as consumers with shorter attention spans gravitate toward quick, engaging content like Rich Media innovations. In 2025, the short video ad spend stands at a solid $ 111 billion, making it the key driver during festive sales. Statista 

According to data.ai report, Indonesians spend an average of 5.7 hours on mobile apps making in-app a great portal of connection. 

With a massive audience base of 139 billion, social media sees an increase in messaging and time spent, serving as an effective engagement tool.  Statista Gen-Z has verified the platform to be most influential for their generation. 

Personalized storytelling ads related to Lunar New Year resonated more with passive audiences scrolling online with the AI market centered at $1.8 billion pushing its demand in the sector.

Rise of Cultural Resonance in Advertising 

85% of brands have shifted to personalized experiences that resonate with their audience preferences. Stats  With consumers exposed to new and improved experiences more and more of them are inclined to brands that deliver innovation through their ads. 

Sentiments in this case play a priority role in understanding the values and behavior of specific communities that brands intend to target. With AI-powered sentiment analysis, they leverage insights into target audiences’ content consumption and seamlessly tailor ads to align perfectly with their streaming journey. It provides a two-level filtration including video analysis based on likes, views, and interests followed by a second analysis based on user-generated/sponsored content to ensure ads are aligned with the right context and emotion. Moreover, crafting narratives that reflect the genuine needs of the audiences can create a more personal connection and help amplify consumer lifetime value.

Targeting Effectiveness 

Lunar New Year being a time rich with tradition, with families coming together, experiences increased buying activities with people buying gifts for loved ones. Targeted ads tailored to reflect the traditional values and interests of the consumer can cut through the cluttered web and catch consumer attention more effectively. Utilizing targeting metrics like location, time, interest, content, context, device and demography can help brands deliver ads with 10x efficiency and surety of reverts. Moreover, it is also necessary to time ads to coincide smoothly with key moments when viewers are ready to purchase, leaving them with good brand perception and meaningful experience.

Take targeting to the next level with real-time data insights into consumer behavior and tailor ads to meet their evolving interest. To gauge viewers in the highly competitive holiday advertising market, insights play a significant role in tracking and keeping up with their preferences. Thus improving the quality and effectiveness of targeting for more seamless ad delivery and broader reach that evaluates needed brand outcomes. 

To wrap up, the Lunar New Year 2025 holds immense potential for advertisers who leverage the right strategies and advanced ad tech. Also, google reports show partnerships can significantly boost returns, with 93% of marketers supporting this claim.

By Edo Fernando, Country Head Indonesia, Xapads Media