Potluck – Détails, épisodes et analyse

In this episode of Potluck, hosts Scott and Drago discuss Chinese New Year 2026 with Olivia Plotnick, founder of Wai Social, a Shanghai-based agency helping global brands navigate China's unique social media ecosystem. Olivia's insights regularly feature in the Financial Times and Jing Daily, and she's become a go-to voice on what it actually takes to connect with Chinese consumers.

Olivia unpacks the defining shift of this year's CNY campaigns: a move from collective celebration toward self-nurturing. She explains how brands like ON Running and Nike are validating holiday fatigue and positioning restraint as a premium value, while local brands like Semir are harnessing co-creation to let consumers shape the narrative.

We also explore why younger consumers are skipping the trip home, how gifting is becoming more about "me" than "we," and what foreign brands can learn from domestic players who compete on speed, quality, and cultural fluency.

Our listeners will learn about:

• The shift from family obligation to self-nurturing — and what's driving it
• Why ON Running's quiet, cinematic approach stood out in a noisy CNY landscape
• How Nike reframed sport as a psychological tool, not a performance metric
• Apple's CNY film and the power of learning to say no
• Semir's UGC-driven "What Kind of Horse" campaign and co-creation as creative engine
• ToSummer's nostalgic, handcraft-led approach to slowing down
• The new gifting mindset: buying for yourself, not others
• Top advice for foreign brands navigating China's CNY moment — and when not to force localisation

Stay tuned to hear more from Olivia next month.

Campaign links:

• Apple CNY 2026: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/fnfFdy9LlAHg3V-lkZ-JAA
• ON Running CNY 2026: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Fsukf-CKiikqlCI873aO-w
• Semir "What Kind of Horse is Semir?": https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/4jKN49jLfjnVbel_E4Y8cg
• ToSummer "Bamboo Horse, Youthful Journey": https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/E920qeTMl0SvzzzmB3avYw

Follow Olivia and Wai Social:

• Substack: https://substack.com/@oliviaplotnick

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In this episode of Potluck, hosts Scott and Drago discuss Tet, the Lunar New Year in Vietnam, with Dinh Cao, Associate Strategy Director at Leo Burnett Vietnam. Dinh highlights the cultural significance of Tet, noting it as a week-long public holiday for renewal and family gatherings. 

She explains how younger generations, particularly Gen Z, are reshaping Tet traditions with modern twists while maintaining cultural roots. Brands like Coca-Cola and Samsung are leveraging these changes to connect with consumers. 

Dinh also discusses the emotional and logistical challenges of homecoming, the rise of local pride, and the evolving gifting practices during Tet.

Our listeners will learn about:

- The historical and cultural significance of the Lunar Year in Vietnam

- The three big cultural shifts related to Tet now

- The commercial impact and opportunity of Tet for brands here

- How brand strategies are evolving - and staying the same - to reflect the importance of Tet and the changing landscape

- Standout brand case studies - a mix of foreign and local players such as Biti's Hunter, Kinh Do, Coca Cola and Samsung

For updates on Tet campaigns and broader Vietnam trends, Dinh suggests following:

https://www.brandsvietnam.com/

https://www.buzzmetrics.com/

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https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/potluck/id1491720768

https://open.spotify.com/show/15I5xbuwJn0bq8MsPD616n?si=4a5b40d9ca164c63

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Potluck returns for our 3rd season, and the first episode of 2022.

Pei Ying Loh is Head & Co-Founder of Kontinentalist, an organisation dedicated to telling data-driven stories about Asia.  As a collective of writers, designers, developers and data-visualisers, they tackle topics connected to Culture, Politics, People and History through various creative approaches.

Our discussion charts:

- The parallels between Pei Ying’s background in History and storytelling, and Kontinentalist’s origins

- Cartography of culture: how maps have played a pivotal role in taking readers on a journey, and building empathy for the issue at hand

- Bridging the gap between research and the public: with much of the work being cause-driven, we discuss the need to turn heavy data into digestible stories for a wider audience 

- Asia misunderstood: the motivations that lie behind debunking myths and being sensitive to the region’s data and cultural contexts

- Data-visualisation: lessons on what makes it effective,  and avoiding the trap of style-over-substance 

Plus Drago and I share our views on how brands are approaching the War in Ukraine.

Check-out some of the stories we discuss:

http://v1.kontinentalist.com.s3-website-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/stories/the-rohingya-in-myanmar-a-refugee-crisis-at-sea/

https://bri.kontinentalist.com/

https://kontinentalist.com/stories/a-cultural-history-of-han-chinese-names-for-girls-and-boys-in-china

https://kontinentalist.com/stories/sexual-assault-and-abuse-in-singapore-need-more-than-the-law

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Before Scott and Drago hang their aprons and ladles for the year, they sit down to stir the pot one last time in 2021.
The two hosts discuss their favourite parts of the conversations they've had throughout the year with Katie Dreke, Ambrish Chaudhry, Charlotte Wilkinson, Ajay Jilka, Jocelyn Tse, Simon Chadwick, Vasuki Shastry and Peter Smyth.

Among other things, they're discussing...
- If Asia's not overhyped, then what is it? ...and some words of caution about the future of Asia in a digest of what people see when they Lift the Lid on Asia..
- A summary of our guests' strategies to learn about people and cultures in the region: the top Human Hacks
- ..and finally, the top peeves that people shared - in a summary of Brand Burns

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Hear the full feast of our conversation with Peter Smyth, a man of many talents, analogies and stories! We follow his cycle from Toronto to Hong Kong, onwards to Tokyo – and now back. Where his career has spanned both big agency life (BBDO) and the world of luxury marketing with Louis Vuitton and latterly Van Cleef & Arpels.

We lift the lid on Asia and particularly Japan via his deft tips for navigating Japanese culture (it’s all about finding your role in the play), the Darwinian approach to biz and marketing strategy and a comparison between Western and Japanese strategic thinking.

With the pot fully boiling, part 2 sees us uncover Peter’s modus operandi for understanding people and culture, whether it be ‘thinking in bets’, the role of insight to illuminate (vs validate) and balancing gut instinct with ‘what the data is saying’.

Before we finish with an eclectic flurry – from Honda motorbikes and the bullshit of ‘linear’ strategic thinking, to the quirks of young ad executive life.

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In the third and final part of our conversation with Peter Smyth, we have the usual conversation for this segment around three main areas:

Flavour of the Month, where we travel back in time to Honda motorbike's entry into the US in 1962.

In Brand Bullshit, Pete takes on the linearity of decision making in business and marketing strategy.

Fortunate Failures draws the curtain on Pete's experience as a young account exec carrying boards for the BBDO creatives in Toronto and how that experience had taught him to embrace randomness.

Another title Pete mentions:
Call Sign Chaos, by Jim Mattis

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In Part 2 - ‘Hacking Humans’, we fold in the next layer of our conversation with Peter Smyth.

This time, Drago and I enjoy hearing his modus operandi for understanding people and culture…

·       ‘Thinking in bets’, and how life is far more poker than chess

·       How great insight boils down to great people illuminating the opportunity ahead…

·       Balancing gut instinct vs. ‘what the data is saying’, both-ism and the art of integrated thinking (why the separation between art and science?)

·       Case-study writing: how the reality of the work isn’t captured by a template for linear thinking

·       Managing people: applying parenting principles, the importance of encouraging ‘self-agency’ and instilling not only motivation – but creating opportunities to initiate change

 Plus a selection of thought-provoking books, namely:

·       Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts,  Annie Duke

·       Cognitive Surplus, Clay Shirky

·       The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell

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Drago and Scott are stirring the pot - with Peter Smyth, Head of Marketing & Comms at Van Cleef & Arpels Japan.

A strategy legend in Japan, Peter is with BBDO for 16 years - in Toronto, HK and Tokyo.  He then moves to client side to become VP of Comms and Marketing at Louis Vuitton Japan before joining Van Cleef. Peter has been in Japan for 16 years until his recent move to Toronto with his family.

In part 1 Lifting the Lid on Asia you can hear: 
- How far Pete can take a dish analogy - being Canadian and all
- His shorthands for navigating Japanese culture and learning the script of the Japanese 'play'
- The Darwinian approach of Japanese business and marketing strategy
- The Japanese concept of choice: is it a good or a bad thing?
- Differences and similarities between Japanese, French and American approach to strategy
- What the responsibility of the marketer is in telling the brand story (Pete doesn't mean to sound grand!)
...and more

A few books mentioned: 
Annie Duke's Thinking in Small Bets
Maria Konnikova's The Biggest Bluff
Barry Schwartz's The Paradox of Choice

Tune in for part 2 Hacking Humans where we hack into Pete's brain to learn about learning.

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Settle down to hear the full feast of our conversation with Vasuki Shastry, author of 'Has Asia Lost It? Dynamic Past, Turbulent Future'.  
Vasuki is an inspiring writer, thinker and leader; formerly of the IMF and Standard Chartered Bank, building on his earlier experience in journalism and academia. Today  he’s an Associate Asia Pacific Fellow at the thinktank Chatham House, and Senior Fellow for the US Chamber of Commerce.

We discuss his book through our usual three segments...

Lifting the Lid on Asia:  the inspiration and premise behind his book,  defining the 'dysutopia' of Asia, his concerns for the future of developing markets, especially around social mobility, and how it his argument has been received in the West. Plus the crucial role that the market research community can play in bringing the realities of people in the region to life.

Hacking Humans: how human stories power the narrative of his book, and an exploration of two key of the 'circles of hells' it portrays: The Middle Class Trap and 'To be a Teenage girl in a Rising Asia'

Brand Burns:  must-read literature, the struggles between China and America and how a false start to his career in advertising and film set Vasuki up for success.

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From Dante's inferno, to Brand Burns...rounding off our conversation with Vasuki is our quickfire segment... 

Flavour(s) of the month: on a lighter note, we touch on the eclectic range of literature that’s on his summer reading list, and how fiction can play an important part in grasping cultural realities.

Brand bullshit: how the decoupling of the US and China markets is far from inevitable, and why the related talk of conflict is thrown around with too much abandon.

Fortunate failure: how fledgling careers in the worlds of advertising and cinema paved the way for a truer calling in the form of journalism…

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