Sponsors have adjusted accordingly, swapping passive trackside logos for immersive experiences. In that shift, Heineken has been one of F1’s most enthusiastic players. Since partnering with the event in 2016, the Dutch brewer has been a big part of turning race weekends into social occasions.  

It’s done this through limited-edition packaging, special fan zones and city activations in a strategy that basically blends racing culture with nightlife and entertainment. For the 2026 Chinese Grand Prix, the brand has pushed that strategy to near its zenith, effectively turning Shanghai into a week-long F1 playground. 

Shanghai becomes an Formula 1 fan city 

Instead of keeping the excitement inside the Shanghai International Circuit, Heineken is spreading the race across the city. If you’re a commuter in the city, you’re probably already noticing it.  

Shanghai Metro Line 11, which connects the city to the circuit, has been wrapped in F1-themed visuals, while large promotional screens have popped up in high-traffic locations including Jiangsu Road, Xujiahui and People’s Square, as well as Hongqiao Airport Terminal 2 and Pudong Airport. 

And then there are the social events. The 2026 Chequered Flag Carnival is at the heart of that. Rather than staging one central event, Heineken has linked multiple districts into a network of racing-themed celebrations – a sort of rolling party where people can let loose, check in and splash the glamorous image F1 is chasing across their social media.  

It’s not all any-hour Heinekens though. At a venue on Shanghai’s West Bund, fans can explore a motorsport-themed playground complete with race broadcasts, interactive games and exhibition displays. You can even pose with an F1 trophy.  

Celebrity guests dial up the spectacle. Actors and racing enthusiasts Jimmy Lin (林志颖), Li Ruiyun (李瑞昀) and Daniel Wu (吴彦祖) have all appeared as F1 star friends, adding further chances for glamorous photo ops.  

And glamour is what this is all about. F1 is fast becoming the kind of sporting event you want to be seen at. It’s a vibe shift that’s taking the event much closer to that of Wimbledon or the Super Bowl: a high-status calendar spot for the international leisure class. 

Heineken F1: Why Shanghai matters to the grand strategy 

Shanghai has long been a strategic foothold for Formula 1 in Asia. The Shanghai International Circuit opened in 2004 and was designed as one of the sport’s earliest expansions into the region.  

Today the Chinese Grand Prix still functions as a gateway to the world’s largest automotive market – a major draw for carmakers, tech brands and lifestyle sponsors looking for a slice of the pie. But Shanghai offers something else: visibility. 

The city remains China’s most internationally oriented metropolis and a magnet for affluent consumers. Campaigns staged there tend to ripple across social platforms like Xiaohongshu, Douyin and Weibo, turning local events into national conversations. Add to that a city government keen to promote tourism and large-scale events, and the result is fertile ground for ambitious activations. For F1 and its sponsors, Shanghai is the ideal place for a race that wants to spill beyond the circuit and take over the city. 

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Yep. Tofu. The stunt was part of a promotional tour for his new film Marty Supreme in which he plays an ambitious table tennis player chasing championship glory. It’s already picked up nine Oscar nominations.  

Instead of sticking to premieres and press junkets, Chalamet spent much of the trip checking out the local culture. His tour kicked off in Chengdu where he wandered the streets in a jacket bearing the movie’s Chinese title, sampled hotpot and drank tea the traditional way.  

At a stall selling fermented tofu (霉豆腐) – a southern Chinese delicacy – Chalamet jokingly shouted the famous vendor lines in Chinese and used a table-tennis paddle to slice the tofu, sending Chinese social media into fits of laughter and the hashtag #甜茶卖霉豆腐# (Sweet Tea [a Chinese nickname for Chalamet] sells fermented tofu) hurtling into Weibo’s hot search list.  

The actor also joined locals for a game of table tennis in a park – a game, which by his own admission, didn’t go to plan. In a country where ping-pong is serious business, Chalamet didn’t fare well. Even elderly players got the better of him.  

The trip continued in Beijing, where Chalamet bought a poster of Olympic table-tennis star Sun Yingsha and praised her as an ‘amazing champion.’ He also played a friendly match with world champion Ma Long, who later gifted him a signed paddle. 

Timothée Chalamet in China: Why it worked

The charm of the tour lies in its informality: a Hollywood star happily eating street food, mispronouncing Chinese and losing at ping-pong. The photo-ops, red carpets, and autograph signing were relegated to second position. What fans took from the stunts was a promotion that looked less like your well-groomed Hollywood movie push and more like a charming cultural crash landing.  

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This is not a gala show. It’s only timed as such. Nor is this a one-off stunt. Zhiyuan has been clear about its intent. Robot Wonderful Night is not a one-off stunt but a long-term IP, with plans for touring and commercial licensing. Robotics, in other words, is being repositioned from industrial capability to cultural product.  

The show was streamed live across multiple Chinese platforms including Mango TV (芒果 TV), the official AGIBOT channels and  the channel of Peng Zhihui (稚晖君), a prominent figure behind AGIBOT and something of a whiz in the Chinese tech world. Short-vid content and livestreams went to mobile through Bilibili, Douyin, and others. 

The show itself involved more than 200 robots in 12 performances spanning martial arts, magic, dance and sketch comedy, streamed across multiple platforms and quickly fuelling what netizens called a wave of ‘cyber New Year vibes (赛博年味).’ 

The AGIBOT all-robot variety show: a wider picture

But AGIBOT aren’t the only ones putting out cyber New Year vibes. Days earlier, NetEase Cloud Music and NetEase launched their own AI Spring Festival Gala – a 15-minute, mem-dense ‘short gala’ powered by generative tools, from songwriting to animated cultural relics.  

Taken together, these parallel productions suggest something larger. Spring Festival remains China’s most emotionally loaded media moment. It’s always been so, and the story of brands using that time to push message or product isn’t new. But cyber new year vibes are – and they look like they’re here to stay. 

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The reference is immediately legible to young Chinese consumers. In recent years, digital muyu apps have quietly gone mainstream, letting users tap their screens to ‘accumulate merit,’ often punctuated by tongue-in-cheek pop-ups like ‘merit +1.’ What began as meditation aid has evolved into a form of low-stakes emotional self-care – and sometimes a way to jokingly offset bad behavior or workplace frustration.  

Pucky Knock Knock translates that logic into physical form. The lineup includes six standard figures themed around abstract rewards – luck, wisdom, happiness, wealth – plus a hidden edition linked to success. The series sold out rapidly through official channels, with the secret figure reportedly reselling at several times its original price. On social media it’s already being framed as the next breakout hit after Labubu.  

The character itself isn’t new. Pucky was created in 2018 by Hong Kong artist Pucky and has long occupied a softer, more whimsical corner of Pop Mart’s universe. What’s changed is context. Today’s consumers aren’t just buying cute collectibles, they’re buying rituals. A knock between meetings. A moment of calm after a bad interaction in the corridor. A joke that doubles as self-soothing. 

The trend fits neatly into a broader wave of stress-relief consumerism in China – from desk bananas tied to anxiety-reducing wordplay, to endless squishable toys and apps that digitise incense burning and prayer wheels. Pop Mart’s bet on this being the new frontier for their next wave of collectible toys is sharp and simple. 

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Her aesthetic is a mood board of Chinese wuxia culture. She’s styled like a martial arts heroin and her attitude matches the look. But she’s a pre-packaged digital character – one that comes with a single, a music video and a ready-made persona.  

Asia has spent a decade or more building fandom economies around digital idols, from Japan’s Hatsune Miku to China’s long-running virtual singer ecosystem. But generative AI is raising the ceiling. Instead of relying on pre-built voice banks and animations, labels can now generate vocals and visuals at speed, and scale them across platforms and markets.  

Wu Ai Hua as IP gold

That scalability is already showing up in the west. AI-created bands and signers have begun appearing on major streaming services, pulling in listeners by the millions before many realise they’re not human. For labels, the appeal is obvious. Your digital band will never split. The AI singer isn’t going to crash out in a scandal. She’ll sing in multiple languages, transform at your command, and have no retirement in sight. She’s a pipeline of pure, controllable IP and marketable content.  

Wu Ai Hua is Warner Music’s first big push into AI artists. Because of Asia’s familiarity with digital idols, and China’s ever appealing market size, the Middle Kingdom makes an ideal testing ground. Their move can also be viewed from the reverse. With China’s soft power star rising, and martial arts epics a popular touchstone for western audiences, Warner has a side-bet that Ai Hua doesn’t have to restrict herself to the east. Afterall, with no physical form to bind her, she could be in any number of places at once.  

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Ever keen to connect with the everyday consumer, these developments come in the form of a new initiative called 999 Ways AI Brings Joy to Football – a multimedia push that positions artificial intelligence as a tool to bring fans closer to the game. The backbone of the initiative is a campaign film called Chasing the Joy of Football. In it, we see the changing attitudes to football support in China through slogans scrawled and banners waved. The picture is one that positions Chinese fans as in it for the love of the game, not just the win.  

It’s a neat point to raise. By doing so Lenovo can deftly introduce another key element of their initiative: the Lenovo Tianxi AI Football Agent (联想天禧 AI 足球智能体). They say it’s the first full-cycle AI viewing companion. If that’s too much of a mouthful to get your teeth around, understand it as an agent can answer real-time match questions and provide data insights.  

Offline activations have been rolled out too. At Guangdong Super League football matches, Lenovo has introduced a robotic dog to do traditional lion-dances and perform intelligent inspection tasks. Recently large crowds were drawn to an event in Shenzhen where Lenovo hosted AI-aided shoot-out challenges and showcased a ThinkBook laptop with an extendable screen, perfect for watching the game.  

Lenovo’s back-of-the-net moment in all this is not how they’ve landed a very high-profile partnership, or even that they’ve been able to tie their brand to very real feelings of joy. It’s in uniting these wins with activations that treat AI less as a gimmick and more as participation infrastructure. In doing so, Lenovo’s AI-powered products have earnt their pitch-side place. 

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The film’s China release has been rolled out with an enormous marketing push. Over 60 brands ranging from sectors as diverse food and beverage, mass retail, toys, fashion, tech and automotive, have been bought on board to trumpet the movie’s arrival.  

It’s hard to ignore. That’s probably the point. But from a marketing perspective it looks a bit like betting every number on the roulette wheel. So what should you be paying attention to, and why?  

Zootopia 2 X MINISO  

MINISO (名创优品) is one of the largest Zootopia 2 partners. The retailer released more than 100 co-branded SKUs across toys, accessories and home goods, while also converting landmark locations –  including its Hangzhou MINISO LAND store – into immersive Zootopia spaces. 

The strength here is not novelty but density. MINISO’s nationwide footprint ensured the characters were encountered repeatedly and casually, reinforcing familiarity rather than hype. Reports that MINISO signage appears inside the film further elevated the partnership, marking an uncommon instance of Chinese retail IP entering a Hollywood animation’s on-screen world. 

POP MART and TOP TOY 

This is an obvious win for the Zootopia’s marketing minds. No one is hotter than POP MART at the moment and TOP TOY has similar appeal. That appeal is anchored the collectible side of the rollout, releasing blind-box figures, plush toys and character-led series tied to the film. 

This plays directly into an existing consumer habit rather than creating a new one. Cut characters like Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde are ideal IPs for collectibles and collectibles extend financial returns well beyond the time the film spends on screens.  

Luckin Coffee 

Among food and beverage partners, Luckin Coffee stands out for scale and visibility. Luckin has rolled out themed drinks, packaging and a wide range of peripherals across its stores. The collaboration worked not because any single item was exceptional, but because coffee is habitual.

By embedding the IP into a daily purchase, Luckin helped turn Zootopia 2 into something encountered repeatedly. Sure, the kids that watch the film aren’t likely to be buying coffee, but their parents are – and that’s who’ll also be buying the tickets and the merchandise.  

So why Zootopia 2? 

Disney’s decision to mobilise Zootopia 2 at scale in China rests on one basic fact: the original film was a commercial outlier. When Zootopia was released in mainland China in 2016, it generated roughly RMB 1.53–1.54 billion (about US $236 million) in box office receipts.  

Within two weeks of release, cumulative box office had passed RMB 1 billion (about US $140 million), indicating strong word-of-mouth and repeat viewings rather one-off ticket sales. It remains one of Disney Animation’s most successful titles in China to date.  

What made Zootopia stick with Chinese audiences is arcane knowledge, but its track record matters. Movies aren’t cheap to make, and these days big studios rarely walk into a project without a guarantee of good merchandise and perhaps a theme-park ride or two – take a look at the Marvel Universe for another case in point.  

Zootopia offers perfect familiarity. Its characters have circulated continuously through re-runs, merchandise, and yes, those theme-park integrations for nearly a decade, maintaining recognition well beyond the original theatrical window. 

Serious brand equity, right? The blizzard of marketing around no.2 is Disney drawing water from that well. Commercially, Zootopia 2 is the kind of highly proven asset and movie studio would kill to reactivate – not just in order to get bums in theatre seats, but to sell the merchandise that drives up a big studio’s profit margins. 

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The venue, which includes a terrace and capacity for nearly 250 guests, is less taproom and more experience hub: the real pitch is atmosphere. Heritage architecture, cultural touches and a design brief that blends Mikkeller’s Nordic minimalism with local character are all at play.

That localisation isn’t superficial. The team brought in a feng-shui consultant during the build-out and reworked its branding to feature Beijing’s Lord Rabbit (兔儿爷), something of a mascot for the city. It’s a subtle but pointed reminder that Mikkeller is not trying to transplant Copenhagen wholesale, but rather build a Beijing-specific identity that fits the neighbourhood it now calls home.

The approach reflects a broader shift among international lifestyle brands in China. Instead of rolling out generic storefronts, more are investing in ‘destination’ venues in heritage districts – spaces that do the double work of storytelling and community-building.

It’s a common approach for fashion houses, but also brands in the F&B world. Beijing boasts many good examples, from the Johnnie Walker House to multiple heritage locations for Japanese coffee chain %Arabica.

For Mikkeller, the new bar shows intent to maintain a footing in China’s growing craft beer industry. By some metrics, their Shanghai store was said to be their best performing. In spite of that, Mikkeller was absent from the Chinese market for a while during the COVID pandemic, when high costs and low income put too much of a strain on business.

The flagship gives the brand both visibility and a platform for expansion, with plans for events, collaborations and limited-release brews tailored to China. All of which should put Mikkeller in the right place to snap up some healthy market share.

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• #一饭封神 reached 220 million views.

Through a series of online activations, Safeguard invited people to post their own meal-making videos on Weibo under the hashtag #一饭神 (lit: one meal and you’re crowned legendary), a thread that’s already clocked more than 220 million views.  

Safeguard know the power of celeb engagement, so celebrity chefs Qu Yuyu (曲郁宇) and Yang Yanbin (杨彦斌) who partnered with the brand for short ads, highlighting Safeguard’s oil-control wash and antibacterial soap, the mess, steam and spitting oil of a kitchen their backdrop.  

Offline, the campaign went to four Chinese cities during the Golden Week holiday, launching pop-ups and meet-the-chef sessions. Visitors could sample food, grab autographs, and – of course – wash their hands.  

So, what’s Safeguard doing right here? Well, they’re piggybacking on a hot trend in China at the moment. The meal partner (饭搭子) thing is a popular term among Chinese youth – one splashed across social media and ripe for a company that wants to align themselves with a cultural zeitgeist.  

By leaning into the meal partner trend, Safeguard is attempting to get a seat at the table. By linking its product to the very act of dining, Safeguard turns clean hands into the first course and a signal that the meal can begin. 

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• #蜜雪冰城小票藏连载小说# got 37.9 million views on Weibo
• #网友拼蜜雪小票看连载小说# got 2.63 million views on Weibo

The novel spread like wildfire across Weibo, where posts asking, ‘who has the next chapter?’ quickly snowballed, and comment sections brimmed with users attempting to stitch the story together from other people’s receipts. 

The receipts doubled as a creative prompt. The finale printed on some slips ended with ‘the ending is up to you’, inviting consumers to write their own conclusions and effectively turning low-value paper into a co-creation canvas.

That interaction – fans swapping slips, trading screenshots, and proposing endings – helped push hashtags such as #Netizens piece together Mixue receipts to read a serialised novel (#网友拼蜜雪小票看连载小说#) and #Mixue receipts hide a serialised novel (#蜜雪冰城小票藏连载小说#) onto trending lists. 

Mixue has now looped the stunt, printing the early chapters again so that latecomers can still read the full arc. Chapters have also been uploaded to its official Weibo for a one-sitting binge. 

What Mixue have done is an excellent example of micro-media marketing, a method that’s proving increasingly effective in China. Crucially to all of this, Mixue has also threaded the story into its broader IP machine. At its core it’s about doing small, attention-grabbing stunts as opposed to broad sweeping campaigns.  

The story’s tone and tropes mirror the brand’s short-drama playbook. Mixue has already produced a mascot-led animated series and is planning a micro-drama rollout on Douyin, Biliili and other platforms. The receipt stunt builds character recognition and drives hype for all this IP expansion, but most of all creates massive engagement – and all by turning their tills into a printing press.  

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