Looking Back at the 2026 New Year Campaign: Highlights From Real Connections

1. “Home” — Old but not outdated theme

The past three years ago, it is slowly returning to being a familiar New Year with Doan Vien-Sum Vien and becoming the biggest topic of discussion. On the user side, Reunions are still familiar stories like family rice, cleaning the house together, the ride home. And this has also become a dilemma for many brands: How to effectively connect with users through a saturated theme? Therefore, many campaigns have opted for safer messages to convey, such as An Khang Thanh Vu or Happy New Year's Day. However, there are still brands that stick to the message of Home but with new storytelling to conquer users.

It can be said that the story of Home this year is narratively and empathic. With Lifebuoy's New Year campaign, this is accompanied by reconnecting with old memories, opening with the exhibition “It's Someone's New Year” that takes users through the family's cherished spaces. Meanwhile, the What's More Than This Moment Together campaign focuses on the present moment, with meaningful activities such as the New Year calendar with no specific year, only today or a contest calling for people to make a New Year's wish list. With the Plus One Smile Subtract a Thousand Distances campaign, the sum goes hand in hand with the effort to bridge the gap between generations, creating a bridge between tradition and modernity. Even more unique is Viettel's Ferry to the Shore, which “reverses” the usual journey home, swapping roles between waiter and returner.

BSI Top 10 January 2026 noted that 3 out of 5 Tet campaigns focused on the message Home. This suggests that an old message if reasonably refreshed still has a positive influence on social networks.

2. The golden stage and the art of hitting the drop point

One of the interesting changes of the 2026 New Year season is the time for discussion to explode. In recent years, the discussion of the New Year will accelerate about 1 to 2 weeks before the 1st. However, with this year's Tet, discussions have begun to be lively from the third week of January, that is, almost a month before the New Year. This “hangover” of users is not accidental, but yes. Previous reportsBuzzmetrics has pointed out: “Soot Tet” was the most prominent discussion topic in the first five days of 2026. In other words, users have fallen into a state of “New Year's soot” very early on.

Therefore, this year's featured campaigns are all early launch campaigns, even as the Tet atmosphere has just crept in on social networks. Appointment Tet campaigns come home: In the first three weeks of the month, organize minigames, introduce KOLs, interpret messages to maintain presence. Then launch strategic assets such as music MVs or short films to connect user emotions. Overall, this year's New Year campaigns show that not only message selection, but adherence to discussion stages - identifying landing points for key activities is also important in the dialogue journey with users.

3. Rigorous screening of true connection

Looking at the overall picture, the 2026 New Year shows a slight drop in the number of campaigns compared to 2025, with the number dropping from 162 to 146 campaigns. The average discussion of campaigns in the BSI Top10 ranking was also lower than in the same period. However, it is worth noting: Discussions from Qualified Users are higher than last year. This means that while the total amount of discussion may not have skyrocketed, the people who are truly involved in the brand's story have a deeper and more meaningful connection.

This can be a positive signal for a shift in the trend of social media marketing, from being as loud as possible to building real connections with real people. The above trend also leads to a large divergence between the top campaigns and the rest. It is rare that a campaign can reach more than 10 thousand discussions from quality users. In contrast, a large number of “fateful” campaigns, with less than a thousand discussions. This level of competition, this level of differentiation is forecast to be even stronger in the 2027 New Year. If a campaign doesn't have enough insight, a novel enough implementation, or doesn't choose the right platform to access, it will quickly become engulfed in the vast sea of information of the New Year season.

4. Threads — “Small” platform, “big” potential

Threads, in terms of noise alone - Buzz Volume, is still a relatively modest platform compared to older platforms like Facebook or TikTok. However, this is currently where the rate of natural discussion is so high, less led, so the “real connection” value that Threads brings to this year's New Year campaigns is undeniable. Examples are Lifebuoy's Tet Tet campaign, the most influential campaign of January 2026, and Viettel's To the Shore campaign - one of the Tet campaigns that received much discussion from users (according to Buzzmetrics statistics as of January 20).

So to speak, Threads has brought a completely different discussion space: more real shares, more truthful images. Viettel's Landing to Shore campaign is a case explored thanks to Threads. It all started with a few single posts, a positive evaluation of the creative and “retrograde” idea of the campaign, and the selection of NSND Tu Long as the main KOL. From there, discussion spread strongly on Threads. 94% of quality user discussions of the To Bun To Shore campaign came from Threads. Another notable case is Lifebuoy's “Tet Tak Tak”, with Threads accounting for almost half of discussions from quality users. Lifebuoy's success comes from the implementation of many meaningful activities with a high level of diligence. In addition to the music of Tet Ta Do, there is also a night of music by Jun Pham and the exhibition Is the Tet Of Someone. Users find themselves in Lifebuoy's narratives and naturally discuss the campaign.

The success of several pioneering campaigns on Threads has sent a signal: There is a “move” to a newer, more in-depth discussion space. This could be the springboard for more groundbreaking, cross-platform Tet 2027 campaigns.