Why Emborg leaned heavy into GenAI for its CNY social series

As brands continue to experiment with generative AI (GenAI), Emborg is leaning into the technology this Chinese New Year with a social-first video series that blends cultural storytelling with tech-enabled creativity.

Developed in collaboration with Sticky Rice, the social-first agency under Trapper Group, the campaign marks Emborg’s first GenAI-led social content series in Malaysia and Singapore. The festive push reimagines traditional Chinese New Year dishes through both animated and realistic AI visuals, positioning Emborg’s dairy products as playful yet meaningful additions to familiar rituals.

The four-part series features videos titled "Golden abundance", "Emperor's golden yee sang" (prosperity toss), "Emperor's chef's golden prawns recipe", and "Warrior's chicken bak kwa sandwich" (meat jerky). Each are tied to the brand's tagline for the festive season, "JOY 浓年味" or "Find joy in cooking". Each video begins with an animated scene of olden day China — an emperor being served a golden buttery dish, warriors in the wilderness eating chicken bak kwa sandwiches  — before switching back to the modern-day kitchen where Emborg's dairy products are used in these Chinese-inspired dishes. This includes tossing grated cheese into the yee sang, and slathering cream cheese into the bak kwa sandwich. 

Don't miss: Marrybrown turns to paper cutting to honour heritage in CNY film 

For Sticky Rice, the decision to take a GenAI-supported approach was driven by both speed and creative flexibility. The agency told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, it sees generative AI as a way to streamline production while expanding creative possibilities, particularly for social content where agility is key. While the technology continues to face scrutiny, the team emphasised that the work remained human-directed from concept to execution, with AI used as a tool rather than a replacement for creative judgement. From brief to final execution, the CNY series was conceptualised, storyboarded and produced within a matter of weeks.

From Emborg’s perspective, the campaign represented a meeting of shared ambition between brand and agency. Speaking on the collaboration, Julia Rybalchenko, head of marketing, Asia and Oceania at Emborg, told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that the team saw GenAI as a way to repurpose existing brand assets more efficiently, while opening up new visual territories that would have been difficult to achieve through traditional animation.

“We utilised a GenAI-supported approach to repurpose our existing assets efficiently, as well as bring in a storytelling engine to blend hyper-realistic AI footage with imaginative, stylised visuals impossible through traditional animated production," she said.

At the heart of the series is a creative idea that positions cheese as “edible gold”, a metaphor rooted in cultural symbolism rather than culinary tradition. While cheese is not a conventional Chinese New Year ingredient, Sticky Rice identified gold as one of the most universally recognised symbols of prosperity and abundance. Translating that symbolism into the golden melt of cheese allowed the brand to introduce dairy into festive dishes without undermining cultural relevance.

That insight was reinforced by the growing trend of modernised festive foods, from cheese pineapple tarts to ice cream yee sang, which gave the team permission to play within tradition rather than disrupt it outright. Rybalchenko added that Emborg sees it as its role to expand how cheese is perceived and used locally. Other concepts, such as the "Warrior’s chicken bak kwa sandwich", drew on themes of strength and resilience often associated with Chinese New Year, pairing savoury bak kwa with cheese to create what Emborg describes as a modern expression of tradition.

The campaign has been designed as a digital-first effort, with the GenAI videos running exclusively on social platforms. Rybalchenko described Emborg’s social channels as an “innovation lab”, allowing the brand to test new storytelling formats while engaging audiences in real time. “By focusing on social platforms, we can directly gauge community response to our modern recipe remixes and foster a two-way dialogue with our audience,” she said.

Beyond social video, the “Cheesy CNY” campaign extends into physical touchpoints. Emborg is rolling out in-store cookie sampling and a mobile experience via the Emborg Food Truck, tapping into one of the most culturally significant aspects of the festive season. The brand is also collaborating with a XiaoHongShu content creator, alongside activity on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, to reach different audience communities.

“The core message is to celebrate the joy of festive cooking while inspiring Malaysians to get creative in the kitchen,” Rybalchenko said. “By transitioning cheese from a Western staple to a local festive essential, we are proving that as traditions evolve, Emborg is there to make them even richer.”

Other brands in Malaysia and Singapore have opted for the more traditional route of releasing festive brand films. For instance, Marrybrown has turned to the delicate art of Chinese paper cutting to tell a story about family, legacy and love in its 2026 Chinese New Year brand film, titled “纸为你”, which translates to “Crafted for love”. The two-minute hero film follows the evolving relationship between a grandmother and her granddaughter over the years. Throughout the narrative, paper cutting functions both as a visual motif and a metaphor, symbolising the transmission of love, values and blessings from one generation to the next.

Meanwhile, the Singapore Kindness Movement (SKM) is celebrating the importance of community with the release of its latest short film, Pineapple Tarts, the third instalment in its “Multicultural Mosaics” series. The film centres on Chinese New Year and follows four neighbours as they engage in a friendly pineapple tart-making competition. Amid playful banter and spirited rivalry, the film showcases how festive traditions can transcend ethnic boundaries, highlighting universal themes of kindness, reunion, and harmony that resonate across Singapore’s diverse communities.

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