Tet 2027 campaign music: keep one brand sound, not a new song

For Tet 2026 (Vietnamese Lunar New Year), YouNet Media's “Winning Tết 2027” report counted 151 Tet campaigns, up 14.39% on the year before, while total online discussion fell 8.9% (Brands Vietnam, citing the report). YouNet also found 31 standout music videos and songs on social media in the first half of 2026, and 15 of them were brand-owned or brand-sponsored. More brands are speaking, and fewer people are talking about them.

As marketing teams plan Tet 2027 campaign music, the usual question will come back: do we make a new Tet MV (music video) this year? Our view at 126Insights: a new song every year is a cost that resets to zero the next season. A sound reused over many seasons slowly becomes a brand asset. Three Vietnamese examples below show this at three levels: reusing an old melody, holding one melody from the days when the brand was unknown, and taking the sound from the product itself.

We have also written about what Red Bull and Tiger's Tet 2026 campaigns teach about verbs and about Prada and Levi's hand-drawn ads for Tet 2027. This piece covers one thing only: sound.

Home Credit reused an old melody and only changed the verb

For Tet 2026, Home Credit (a consumer finance company) brought back a melody it already owned. According to afamily, the melody of the MV “Tết Nhà Là Vô Giá” (“Home at Tet is priceless”) played “once again” across platforms, while the message moved from cherishing family values to a concrete action: “Góp nên Tết Nhà Vô Giá” (roughly, “Chip in to make Tet at home priceless”). CafeF wrote that the campaign resonated with “emotional values that had already become familiar.”

Read as a content person: on its first release, the song did the hardest job, which is introducing itself. On reuse, the brand does not have to introduce itself again, and it spends that free space on something new. The melody stays, only the verb changes. Think of the regular bún (rice noodle) stall at the end of an alley: you hear the owner's greeting and know you're in the right place. If there's a new dish today, she adds one sentence. Nobody needs to reread the signboard.

The numbers need a careful read. According to afamily, total views of the 2026 film across online platforms passed 38 million. According to Tiền Phong, the campaign reached 25 million people. Views count how many times the film was played, reach counts how many people saw the content, so the two figures can't be compared or added. Both were released by Home Credit itself, through the same PR piece republished by several outlets. The 38 million figure also covers only the 2026 film. What the data shows is that an old melody did not stop the new film from drawing large view counts. It does not prove the song produced any business result.

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

KFC: the brand sound was already in the chicken

According to Advertising Vietnam, Tet 2026 was the first time KFC ran a Tet campaign. The MV “Tết Nhai Rộp Rộp” (“Crunchy Crunch Tet”) takes its cue from the crunch of fried chicken and uses the brand's red and white palette (Advertising Vietnam). It features Chi Xê (a Vietnamese singer), the image of Colonel Sanders, and the “nhai rộp rộp” chewing sound worked into the lyrics (Thanh Niên, Kenh14).

Also per Advertising Vietnam, after 7 days the MV passed 10 million views, then reached 30 million views on YouTube alone and 85 million impressions on Facebook. According to the BrandComms VN newsletter on Substack, the MV launched on 19 January 2026 on Chi Xê's YouTube channel and reached 30.4 million views as of 19 October 2026.

The lesson is in where the sound comes from. KFC did not invent a melody and then look for ways to attach it to the brand. The crunch is the sound of the product itself: you hear it and know the chicken is crispy. Every time a customer bites into a piece, they replay that sound without any ad reminding them. According to Advertising Vietnam, KFC also released a CapCut template (a video editing app) so users could make their own “nhai rộp rộp” clips, which invites customers to play the brand's sound for it.

Still, KFC has only done one Tet. The “rộp rộp” sound has potential to become an asset, and that potential is only real if KFC keeps using it at Tet 2027 and beyond.

Photo by Kevin kevin on Unsplash

How long does a brand sound last?

Dien May Xanh, a large Vietnamese electronics retail chain, is the clearest answer in the market. According to CafeBiz, the catchy melody of the TV commercial “Bạn muốn mua Tivi đến Điện Máy Xanh” (“Want to buy a TV? Go to Dien May Xanh”) and the “blue man” character helped a then little-known brand get widely recognized. The lyric holds the brand name and the directions in one line. For us, that is the test of sonic branding: after listening, people must be able to name the right brand.

In April 2026, MWG CEO Doan Van Hieu Em announced a US$1 million budget, about 27 billion VND, to invite the creative community to refresh the brand (CafeBiz, Marketingtrips).

Vietnamese elders say “nước chảy đá mòn”: constant dripping wears away the stone. A melody played long enough etches itself into the listener's memory, and Dien May Xanh held on to its melody from the time it was an unknown name until it was widely recognized. Yet by 2026 even its owner felt the brand needed refreshing. So a commitment of 2 to 3 seasons should be treated as the minimum for a sound to start becoming an asset. Don't promise your boss it will last forever.

How to measure a Tet MV beyond view counts

The three big numbers in this piece measure three different things: 38 million views and 25 million reach, both released by Home Credit, and KFC's 30 million YouTube views per Advertising Vietnam. Even counting campaigns doesn't line up: YouNet recorded 151 Tet 2026 campaigns, up on the previous year, while Buzzmetrics counted 146, down from 162 in 2025. None of these answers the question a marketer needs answered: next season, will people recognize us by sound?

YouNet doesn't stop at counting volume either. According to YouNet Media, in Tet 2026 the number of campaigns rose and discussion fell, but the quality-user index still increased. From 2023 data, when 22 brands made Tet MVs across 10 themes, Buzzmetrics advised that a Tet MV should be part of a bigger story to make it easier to recall.

We suggest a test before approving the budget: play 3 seconds of the audio, cover the logo, and ask listeners which brand it is. If they guess right, the sound is working as an asset. If they only find it pleasant, the money bought a song. The order of questions here mirrors what we wrote about what percentage of revenue marketing should cost: be clear on the job first, then work out the money.

Photo by Surprising_Media on Pixabay

Tet 2027 campaign music: where should a small brand start?

You can do this without a budget for a singer. Four steps:

1. Find a sound already inside your product: pouring, a lid popping open, crunching, the grinder at the counter. Sounds like these replay every time a customer uses the product.
2. Commit to at least 2 to 3 seasons, and write it into the annual plan so new team members don't quietly drop it.
3. Next season, make only a new version of the same sound: a remix, a cover, or open it to customers for UGC (user-generated content), like KFC's CapCut template. Don't write a new song.
4. Measure the sound's life by the share of listeners who recognize the brand. Keep tracking views, but rank them second.

Suppose you run a small bubble tea shop. The shaker rattling at the counter is what customers hear every day. At Tet 2027, the shop builds its own few-second shaking rhythm and puts it at the start of every video. At Tet 2028, it invites customers to film themselves shaking to that same beat. At Tet 2029, it folds the rhythm into a short piece of music. Three seasons, one sound, and no season starts from a blank page.

Before the budget meeting for Tet 2027, try answering one question: if customers hear three seconds of audio and can't see your logo, which sound will tell them it's you? If you don't have an answer yet, the money should go into finding that sound, then keeping it through many seasons.