Got Feng, No Shui
- Client
- Spritzer
- Industry
- FMCG
- Market
- Malaysia
- Strategy and script
- Kingdom Digital
- What we did
The challenge
Chinese New Year is the most saturated advertising moment in the Malaysian calendar, and the most valuable. Every brand is fighting for the same few weeks because those few weeks are where the sales are. The films arrive in the same shape every year. Someone comes home, someone forgives someone, the reunion dinner lands in the final thirty seconds.
Kingdom Digital’s answer for Spritzer was to be funny. The idea came from wordplay too good to leave alone: feng shui is wind and water. Most homes at CNY are full of feng, all energy and ritual and superstition. Spritzer is shui. So the Feng family invite Master Ong to bless the house and discover they have all the feng and none of the shui.
The script was sharp and the wordplay was clever. The remaining question was a production one. Comedy that works on the page does not automatically work on screen.
Most homes at CNY are full of feng: energy, ritual, superstition. Spritzer is shui.
The production
Where the jokes are actually made
Comedic timing comes from the performances, and then the edit either keeps it or kills it.
Casting was the hardest part. A funny line does not survive an actor who is trying to be funny, so the Feng family had to be played straight, by people who could hold a character while the absurdity happened around them. Getting each performance right is one problem. Getting them to work together is another, because comedy between characters depends on chemistry that no audition can guarantee.
Then it has to reach the screen. What is funny in the room does not always survive the camera, and knowing when a take has it is judgement built over years, made in the moment. The film is full of decisions like that.
In motion
The film
The outcome
One of the best CNY ads of 2021
#GotFengNoShui was named by SAYS as one of the best Chinese New Year ads of 2021.
Independent editorial recognition, in a season stacked with work from far bigger budgets. The campaign also gave Spritzer a comedic voice in a category that defaults to emotional storytelling, which the brand has kept since.
“Get ready for a good laugh with Spritzer’s CNY video, featuring the superstitious Feng family.”
SAYS, Best Chinese New Year Ads of 2021
