Hennessy · 2021

Hennessy X.O OX

A digital Lunar New Year for a global Asian audience — built on seven tasting notes.

Hennessy X.O OX Lunar New Year

A first-of-its-kind virtual Lunar New Year celebration — connecting Asian artists across the globe, anchored in cultural resilience, broadcast at scale during the height of the pandemic.

Creative Direction Art Direction Production Design Cultural Strategy
ClientHennessy
AgencyAdmerasia × International Secret Agents
RoleCreative Director · Art Director
TalentHenry Golding, Jay Park, Eddie Huang, Dumbfoundead, MILCK, Year of the Ox, Kinjaz, AtomicMari
DirectorLJ Kim
ProducerTony Kim
DPAndrés Solórzano
AnimationVin Kim
Year2021

46M+

Social impressions across the campaign

375K+

Digital engagements

175K+

Views of the live event

$250K

Pledged to AAPI-owned small businesses

When the world couldn't gather in person, the question wasn't how to replicate a celebration — it was how to design a new one that only made sense now.

Recognition

The Telly Awards

The Event

Hennessy X.O OX Lunar New Year Celebration.

Hennessy's annual Lunar New Year celebration — reimagined as a fully virtual event for the first time in the brand's history. Hosted by Henry Golding with AtomicMari, featuring live performances, a cocktail demonstration with Eddie Huang and Cari Hah, and curated stage worlds for each artist.

The Brief

Reimagine an annual cultural ritual for a year that wouldn't allow one.

For decades, Hennessy's Lunar New Year celebration had been an in-person event for the Asian American community — a gathering held in family kitchens, restaurants, and reception halls across the country. In 2021, with the pandemic at its peak and AAPI communities facing a rising wave of anti-Asian violence, that gathering wasn't possible.

The brief was to bring it online for the first time. Not as a livestream of what would have happened. As something authored for the moment — something that could connect a global community at the exact time they needed each other most.

Hennessy X.O Lunar New Year — food pairing

The Approach

The Year of the Ox as cultural anchor — and as a quiet act of resistance.

The ox is the symbol of strength, diligence, and perseverance through difficulty. In a year defined by exactly that, leaning into the animal of the year wasn't decorative — it was the thesis. The campaign was designed to mirror the values of the community it celebrated: resilient, working, determined, and not asking for permission.

The creative concept took its cue from Hennessy X.O's seven tasting notes, translating each into a visual world and a moment of the evening. The event was structured to flow through these notes — bright fruit, spicy edge, oaky depth — with each performance, each cocktail demo, each interlude designed inside a stage world built for that note.

The talent strategy was equally deliberate: a roster of AAPI artists who embody the resilient spirit of the ox in their actual lives. Henry Golding hosting. Jay Park, Dumbfoundead, MILCK, Year of the Ox, Kinjaz performing. Eddie Huang cooking. The cast was the message.

Hennessy X.O — animated packshot

The Visual System

Seven tasting notes. Seven worlds. One evening.

The visual system was built directly from the X.O liquid itself — its tasting profile became the structure of the night. I designed each segment of the event as a distinct stage environment embodying one of the seven notes: candied fruit, fresh fruit, spicy edge, flowers, chocolate, hot wood, oak. Different colors. Different scales. Different energies. One coherent world.

The stage design work covered everything from spatial layout and material palette to lighting direction, projection content, and the gestural language of how each artist would move through their environment. Henry Golding's hosting lounge, Eddie Huang's kitchen, the individual performance stages for Jay Park, MILCK, and Year of the Ox — each was designed from the ground up as a built world rather than a backdrop.

"The product wasn't sponsored in the evening. The product was the structure of it."

Alongside the stage design, I directed the on-screen graphics system that carried the audience between segments — motion treatments, gradient transitions, the projected Hennessy bottle silhouette, and the typographic system that anchored each tasting-note transition. The graphics weren't an overlay on top of the event. They were how the event connected to itself across four hours of live broadcast.

On-Screen Graphics System

Color palette system Countdown clock animation
Lower-third animation Outro animation

Stage Design

Stage design for MILCK Stage design for Year of the Ox

The Program

Four moments. One continuous evening.

The event was structured as a four-part journey — moving between hosting, cuisine, performance, and toast. Each segment was its own designed environment, but the night was paced as a single story, with the seven tasting notes acting as the connective rhythm.

My role was to author the visual concept for each environment — designing color, lighting direction, stage geometry, motion treatment, and the gestural language of how the camera and audience moved through the space.

Henry Golding hosting

Act 01

Henry Golding · Hosting

A warm, modern lounge environment built around the Hennessy X.O bottle — designed to feel like a private New Year's gathering. Henry Golding hosted alongside special correspondent AtomicMari.

Eddie Huang Lunar Feast

Act 02

Eddie Huang · Lunar Feast

A kitchen and dining environment for Eddie Huang sharing his favorite Lunar New Year dish, paired with X.O and V.S.O.P Privilège cocktails designed and demonstrated by mixologist Cari Hah.

Act 03

Performance Worlds

Custom-designed stage environments for Jay Park, Dumbfoundead, MILCK, Year of the Ox, and a dance routine from Kinjaz — each tied to one of X.O's seven tasting notes through color, light, and graphic motion.

The Toast

Act 04

The Toast

The closing toast moment — a designed pause that brought the evening's threads together, inviting audiences at home to raise a glass with the cast in real time.

Community

A celebration that asked something of itself.

The ox represents perseverance through difficulty. The event was designed to live up to that — not just to celebrate the community, but to use the platform on its behalf. Hennessy pledged an additional $250,000 to support small businesses impacted by the pandemic through the brand's Unfinished Business initiative, building on the $5M+ already distributed to Asian, Black, and Latinx-owned businesses.

The event also partnered with Tammy Cho of #HateIsAVirus, using the platform to address the rise in anti-Asian violence and amplify community-led responses. The Lunar New Year became a moment to reflect on the present and look toward a future without that hate.

Hennessy Unfinished Business initiative Community moment

Press

Coverage that earned the cultural audience.

HYPEBEAST

"Hennessy X.O is celebrating Lunar New Year 2021 with a star-studded virtual charity event featuring Henry Golding, Jay Park, MILCK, Eddie Huang and more."

Read the article →

Result

A digital event that reset the brief.

46M+

Social impressions — making it Hennessy's most-watched Lunar New Year event to that point.

The Hennessy X.O OX Lunar New Year Celebration earned Gold for Digital Event of the Year and Silver for Cultural Campaign of the Year at the Telly Awards — recognition not just for the visual work, but for what the work did culturally.

The event delivered 175K+ live views, 375K+ digital engagements, and 46M+ social impressions across the campaign — exceptional numbers for a virtual-first event in a category where in-person had always been the gold standard. It also set the structural template for Hennessy's subsequent multicultural celebrations, including the 2021 Mid-Autumn Festival and the brand's continued partnership with our team for years following.

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