Bottega Veneta joins the slew of designers utilising The Great Wall of China’s marketing potential.
With the Chinese Lunar New Year coming up in February, Bottega Veneta has taken its marketing strategy to the Great Wall of China. The brand has projected its name and “Happy New Year” in Mandarin along the Great Wall using a digital screen. For the collection, Bottega Veneta paired its signature bright green hue (adopted by previous Creative Director Daniel Lee) with tangerine orange, which shares a close resemblance with the color gold, which symbolizes great wealth and good luck in Mandarin. The project is intended to promote the brand’s Year of the Tiger capsule collection.
Unsurprisingly, this is not the first time the fashion industry has effectively co-opted the Great Wall. In 2007, Fendi held their Fall/Winter fashion show there. As one person does not own the Great Wall, events and promotion on the wall have been traditionally challenging to approve or deny. Fendi contacted 47 different entities to grant approval for the show, yet only received ‘non-rejections.’ Another time models walked down the ancient stones of the Great Wall was in 2018, when French designer Pierre Cardin celebrated his 40-years of presence in China with a fashion show. He was the first foreign designer to showcase his work on the Chinese mainland after the country’s reform and opening-up policy in 1978.
This time around, Bottega Veneta has taken the installation to new heights by pledging a donation to support the renovation and maintenance of The Shanhai Pass, also known as the “First Pass Under Heaven,” the Great Wall of China’s easternmost stronghold along the border of the Shi River. This projection is not the only geographically-strategic publicity stunt executed by Bottega Veneta of late. In September 2021, the brand installed an ad on the rooftop of LAX, where arriving passengers could see the “Bottega Green” from their plane seats. However, the house’s most calculated marketing strategy was in the termination of their Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts in January of 2021, in favor of promoting their products elsewhere, using grand statements rather than social media posts. We can expect that with a new creative director (Matthieu Blazy was appointed head of the house late last year), a new marketing strategy, and a New Year, Bottega Veneta’s bold promotion tactics will only increase in scope.
Images courtesy of Bottega Veneta
