It’s going to be Chinese New Year next week; in fact, the Year of the Metal Tiger. Not just any metal tiger, but the Gold Tiger.

We wanted to wish everyone an upbeat year ahead. In fact, that was the brief to the guys.

The Challenge

Let’s do an unconventional Chinese New Year greeting, something that will bring a surprise, if not a smile.

The Idea & Execution

What I got was a Lunar New Year microsite of a different stripe.

One made of hard rocking, heavy metal music of traditional Chinese New Year favourites performed by a heavy metal band. The lyrics were given a ferocious bite.

We produced souvenir CDs in leather-jacket material with metal-studs that were delivered as greeting cards.

Online, a band of guitar playing, drum thrashing tigers were in performance. A motion-aware game allowed visitors to “head-bang” to the music, to get their fortunes told. And true to Chinese tradition, there were 4-digit lucky numbers given to would-be punters.

The site went live on 1 Feb 2010. It was featured on the Chinese pop radio station 93.3FM this week. The blogs caught on to it.

In less than 5 days, the Metal Tiger has roamed across 54 countries, reaching as far as Spain, Argentina and the Isle of Man.

The Results

Some clients loved it; some absolutely hated it. It was too edgy, too upbeat, eh … too metal rock!

Thankfully we had the other idea: The Chinese New Year ang pow. It comes in purple, with a friendly cat with upturned ears (The kids will love it!)

Either way you like it, have a Happy Chinese New Year!