Sponsors have adjusted accordingly, swapping passive trackside logos for immersive experiences. In that shift, Heineken has been one of F1’s most enthusiastic players. Since partnering with the event in 2016, the Dutch brewer has been a big part of turning race weekends into social occasions.  

It’s done this through limited-edition packaging, special fan zones and city activations in a strategy that basically blends racing culture with nightlife and entertainment. For the 2026 Chinese Grand Prix, the brand has pushed that strategy to near its zenith, effectively turning Shanghai into a week-long F1 playground. 

Shanghai becomes an Formula 1 fan city 

Instead of keeping the excitement inside the Shanghai International Circuit, Heineken is spreading the race across the city. If you’re a commuter in the city, you’re probably already noticing it.  

Shanghai Metro Line 11, which connects the city to the circuit, has been wrapped in F1-themed visuals, while large promotional screens have popped up in high-traffic locations including Jiangsu Road, Xujiahui and People’s Square, as well as Hongqiao Airport Terminal 2 and Pudong Airport. 

And then there are the social events. The 2026 Chequered Flag Carnival is at the heart of that. Rather than staging one central event, Heineken has linked multiple districts into a network of racing-themed celebrations – a sort of rolling party where people can let loose, check in and splash the glamorous image F1 is chasing across their social media.  

It’s not all any-hour Heinekens though. At a venue on Shanghai’s West Bund, fans can explore a motorsport-themed playground complete with race broadcasts, interactive games and exhibition displays. You can even pose with an F1 trophy.  

Celebrity guests dial up the spectacle. Actors and racing enthusiasts Jimmy Lin (林志颖), Li Ruiyun (李瑞昀) and Daniel Wu (吴彦祖) have all appeared as F1 star friends, adding further chances for glamorous photo ops.  

And glamour is what this is all about. F1 is fast becoming the kind of sporting event you want to be seen at. It’s a vibe shift that’s taking the event much closer to that of Wimbledon or the Super Bowl: a high-status calendar spot for the international leisure class. 

Heineken F1: Why Shanghai matters to the grand strategy 

Shanghai has long been a strategic foothold for Formula 1 in Asia. The Shanghai International Circuit opened in 2004 and was designed as one of the sport’s earliest expansions into the region.  

Today the Chinese Grand Prix still functions as a gateway to the world’s largest automotive market – a major draw for carmakers, tech brands and lifestyle sponsors looking for a slice of the pie. But Shanghai offers something else: visibility. 

The city remains China’s most internationally oriented metropolis and a magnet for affluent consumers. Campaigns staged there tend to ripple across social platforms like Xiaohongshu, Douyin and Weibo, turning local events into national conversations. Add to that a city government keen to promote tourism and large-scale events, and the result is fertile ground for ambitious activations. For F1 and its sponsors, Shanghai is the ideal place for a race that wants to spill beyond the circuit and take over the city. 

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On paper, the deal looks like a conventional automotive tie-up. BYD will supply vehicles from both its core brand and premium line. One of the cars will lead the men’s first-team bus into home fixtures. Branding will appear on training kit sleeves and across LED boards at Man. City’s home ground, the Etihad Stadium.  

But the substance runs deeper. BYD will also install EV charging points and battery energy-storage systems at the team’s football academy, embedding its tech into the club’s operational infrastructure.  

For the car maker, the Manchester City BYD partnership fits into a broader football strategy. The company has already aligned itself with major tournaments like UEFA EURO 2024, using sport as a high-vis bridge into European markets. Football offers what auto shows cannot: weekly global reach, emotional equity and cultural relevance.  

And the football club? Well, Man. City has long positioned itself as a data-driven, innovation-first type club. BYD’s emphasis on engineering supremacy gives this partnership credibility, rather than it being a superficial badge swap. 

The Manchester City BYD partnership: Why Premier League football? 

There is geographic logic at play too. Europe remains a key battleground for Chinese EV brands facing regulatory scrutiny and tariff headwinds in other markets. This is important because BYD has struggled in the past with a reputation as a cheap knock off of Tesla vehicles. 

That perception is changing though. Now, in many markets outside China, their popularity and reputation are growing. In 2025, BYD outdid Tesla to become the world’s highest selling EV manufacturer. Aligning with a high-profile Premier League powerhouse offers legitimacy in connection to a brand known for elite performance. 

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The Fly and Run Park (HOKA 飞跑公园) functioned on four bases across Shanghai’s Yongyuan Road for two weeks in the build-up to the marathon. Each base offering something essential to runners: warm-ups, gear and number-bib pick-up, casual hangout areas before and after the race.  

Hoka also pulled local business into the mix, arranging discounts and perks for marathon runners at cafes, restaurants, bars and shops. Once the race was over they threw a party where merch giveaways took place alongside run-recovery pop-ups and music. By doing all this they plugged an angle they’re always keen to highlight: lifestyle.  

In China’s sportswear industry, brands with high-price tags like Hoka are positioned as luxury items. To sell this position, a lifestyle angle helps. With it, Hoka becomes a shoe for the urban cosmo-elite, not just for runners.  

Hoka have been big on this outside the Shanghai Marathon too. At the latest Shanghai Sports Expo, the brand turned up with the HOKA LAB for pro-level gait and fitness testing, an extension of the services offered at their ‘global brand experience centre’ in Xintiandi, one of Shanghai’s high-end shopping districts.  

Stores like this tap into another core element of the Chinese shopping experience: experience itself. Increasingly brands look to draw customers in by offering a shop that has more than just stock on the shelves.  

The Fly and Run Park allows Hoka to run two races at once. They’ve linked experience and lifestyle, all while tying themselves to a key event in the sports calendar, and one that matches the prestige Hoka wants to project. 

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In this way the episodes are highly localised. The first three episodes have all focused on the riverbanks of Shanghai, taking listeners on a lengthy running track that cuts through the most dramatic parts of the city. It’s not gone unnoticed. So far the three released episodes have amassed over 65,000 listens.  

The podcast is something of a double down for On. Asia Pacific was its fastest-growing region in 2024, with sales more than doubling year-on-year for Q3. That turns the mainland into a high-priority market. On know they’ll need to do more than drop products and score the praise of influencers. 

While short-video remains the dominant fitness channel, it is also heavily saturated. Podcasts, by contrast, are far less crowded yet increasingly popular among young urban professionals looking for focused, screen-free content. And so podcasting makes good sense: the format gives them a way to occupy the workout itself, rather than simply talking about it. They’ve put their brand in the ears of listeners right at the moment of effort. 

The launch also extends On’s experience-first positioning into a new medium. The brand has traditionally leaned on run clubs, city activations and performance storytelling. Here, the experience is delivered when the user wants it, in a format with a far longer lifespan. If the format scales, we may see more local voices, more city-specific routes, and perhaps co-produced episodes with Chinese platforms. 

This will all depend on whether the podcast is a hit. But On don’t mess about. Last time we wrote about them they’d refurbished a set of tennis courts. The marketing aim was longevity. There’s no reason to believe they’re going for anything less with this podcast.  

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The film centres on Guangdong sprinter Su Bingtian, whose career has long been framed around quiet accumulation and improbable breakthroughs. Instead of competition footage, Nike drops him into a Guangzhou wet market, selecting symbolic ingredients that map neatly onto his journey: the chicken leg that reflects his decision to switch starting foot, the bitter melon standing in for injury, the aromatics that nod to discipline and repetition. Each one is an ‘ingredient’ in Su’s bowl and, by extension, his career.

Supporting the film is a set of Full-Flavour Formula posters fronted by six Guangdong athletes, from fencer Pan Jiajie (潘家杰) to hurdler Pan Ruiyan (潘睿彦). Each offers their own recipe for progress – discipline, breakthrough, accumulation, consistency – turning the campaign into a catalogue of what putting in the work looks like across sports.

This Nike Cantonese campaign didn’t stop at metaphor. The brand set up a Cantonese soup pop-up in Guangzhou, serving herbal bowls to runners who completed a set mileage and showed proof at the venue. The activation, complete with a Swoosh-shaped soup spoon, folds the creative neatly back into the running community and echoes the timing of the 15th National Games, hosted across Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau.

Nike have a good track record of campaigns in China. The Nike Cantonese campaign lands because it trades spectacle for familiarity. It’s a campaign built not on heroics but on the everyday logic of putting something in to get something out – a distinctly Guangdong reading of Just Do It, and a reminder that cultural fluency often hits harder than a voice with global mass appeal.

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The Xuhui project, part of On’s Thanks for Playing initiative, saw the brand and its co-entrepreneur/tennis titan Roger Federer partner with local sports authorities and veteran court engineer Liu Yunzhi to renovate a set of aging school courts. Liu, now 83, is a quiet legend in Chinese tennis, a former national athlete who has spent decades building and restoring more than 4,000 courts across the country. By spotlighting her story and inviting her back to the same school where she once trained, On reframed what could have been a standard sponsorship into a tribute to the unsung figures who literally built China’s sports foundations. 

The symbolism was deliberate. Federer’s ceremonial first serve was watched by a group of young players from the Xuhui school, a local training ground for the next generation. The presence of Shanghai’s district sports bureau underlined that this was more than a marketing event: It was a civic gesture served with a healthy wallop of CSR.  

Federer helps On close the attention loop in China

For Federer and On, the court refurbishment plays to the tune of multiple layers of China strategy. It roots the brand’s culture of community and fitness in an unmistakably local story. On’s China expansion has so far been defined by its mix of premium retail and grassroots activation. They’ve both opened their first mainland flagship store in Chengdu this year and have taken to producing Chinese-language running guides and community events across the country. The Xuhui renovation extends that narrative from running to tennis, positioning the brand not only as a lifestyle label but as an enabler of physical culture. 

Secondly, it turns some very powerful corporate social responsibility into content with emotional weight. Rather than a one-off donation or fix up, On embedded a local personality in Liu Yunzhi, and a specific location in the Xuhui youth school into the storytelling.  

The brand later partnered with Chinese podcasts to discuss the ‘hidden heroes’ behind the country’s tennis boom, drawing digital audiences into the human side of sport infrastructure. That content loop, from offline action to online storytelling, is a great example of the power of offline to online activation. And it doesn’t stop there.  

Also important is that the court refurbishment stunt extends the Federer association beyond glamour. In China, where western sports icons often function as fleeting campaign faces, On’s use of Federer as co-creator carries more credibility. He is not merely endorsing the brand but embodying its social-sport ambition. He lends both star power and sincerity. His visit to On’s IAPM Mall store in Shanghai later that week bridged the community activation back into retail, creating a seamless circle of publicity, purpose and product. 

On the power of memory

What makes this moment significant is its grounding. China’s young consumers are increasingly drifting away from imported brands that were all the rage in the previous generation. Because of this, foreign brands need to do more to stand out. On’s intervention is quiet. It only affects one district of a very big country. But importantly it’s tangible: a set of courts that will be played on, maintained, and remembered by people who live there.  

By investing in memory, not just influence, On shows how foreign brands can build resonance in China’s crowded sportswear landscape. Its model shows that offline marketing isn’t just about having a physical presence, it’s about creating a memorable one. Federer’s serve in Xuhui was a fleeting symbol. The real power of On’s campaign lies in the trainer tracks and tennis ball scuffs that will stick around. 

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At the heart of the collaboration is the New Balance 471 retro runner, now reimagined in Songmont’s vision, leather-clad and looking extra sleek. What’s being hailed as an east-meets-west collaboration takes inspiration from Chinese culture with handwoven traditional knots that symbolise stability and inner strength and tiger-tooth motifs. Songmont has also matched the shoes with a handbag in the same earthy, vegetable-tanned leather. 

The collaboration’s launch was announced with photographs of the shoes on the feet of a ballet dancer, emphasising the design goes beyond style and sticks to New Balance’s practical roots.  

Songmont’s star is very much on the rise. Since its founding in 2013 the brand has become well-respected in the Chinese luxury market with flagship locations in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chengdu. In spite of having not yet taken their stores global, they have attracted global attention. Most notably when the CEO of LVMH, Bernard Arnault, chose Songmont as one of the luxury brands to check out on his recent China tour – the attention of a man like this is tantamount to a blessing from on high in the fashion world.  

China has a host of sports personalities and brands that would have made suitable collaborators for New Balance, so why choose Songmont? For New Balance, who already have the sports market pretty well covered, this partnership is a chance to step – excuse the pun – into a new market. By doing so they aim to sweep up business that was previously out of their reach. The fact they picked China as the place to do this says a lot about the Chinese luxury market. With attention from notable brands and figures in western fashion, it looks like Songmont’s isn’t the only star on the rise.  

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The 300 sqm store combines retail space, a ReBIRD circular resale and service centre, as well as the titular lounge. The focus is less on the display of merchandise but more on creating an immersive experience inspired by the mountains and the great outdoors. The lounge and ReBIRD together take up more than half the area.

The choice of location is significant as well. As a “departure” themed store, it is hosted in Beijing, one of the first cities you visit when you go to China and home to many Chinese outdoor lovers. The store is located in the luxury Peninsula Beijing Hotel, in the centre of the capital, among many luxury brands. This, of course, is also a point of departure for international visitors to China. Perhaps not by coincidence, both Arc’teryx and the Peninsula Beijing Hotel were founded in 1989.

Arc’teryx, part of Amer Sport, has seen its growth slow in the group’s latest financial report. By doubling down on offline experiences and community building, the brand is focusing on its core consumer cohort, the urban middle class with a passion for the outdoors. The newest “departure” store reinforces the idea and completes the circle with the “destination stores”. However, whether the effort would pay off remains to be seen.

Need to boost your China strategy? Dao Pro delivers bespoke insights on marketing, innovation, and digital trends, direct from Chinese sources. Find out more from our Dao Strategy Team here.

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These bright yellow woven bags are being given away for free at select Decathlon shops, but in limited quantities. Unlike most fashion brands, which take inspiration from bin liners or woven bags and then “fashionise” them in size, materials, or design, the Decathlon urea bags are as close as you can get to real agricultural packaging, the only difference being the slogan messaging.

Eagle-eyed netizens quickly discovered the true origin of these bags. They are a collaboration between Decathlon and Rednote’s Go Wild Festival for outdoor enthusiasts. In fact, for hikers, campers and other outdoor lovers, urea and other fertiliser bags have long been a secret weapon due to their practical size and robustness.

Now, for the “couple of days” of the Go Wild Festival, Rednote continues to build its community of users and brands around shared interests, leveraging its recent rebrand. For Decathlon, it is a great viral moment to earn recognition not only in outdoor wear but also in post-modern fashion.

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Housed in a century-old French-style building, the “experimental retail space” takes inspiration from Salomon’s Marais location in Paris. The Salomon Shanghai concept store spans 479 square metres across three storeys. The ground floor, Le Salon, features a black colour scheme and an exhibition space currently hosting works from artists Chen Wei, Li Xingyu and Liu Yongtai. The second floor, La Galerie, tells the story of Salomon with archival, collaboration and rare pieces on display. The top floor, L’Atelier, is designed as an event space with a French-style kitchen, living room and a workshop.

On the morning of the grand opening, Salomon ambassador actor Bai Jingting made a surprise appearance, sporting a pair of XT-Whispers created by Chinese designers and unveiling the first show of the French brand’s ‘Road to Future’ collaboration programme with Chinese artists and designers. In the afternoon, Zhao Jinmai, the newly appointed brand ambassador, also showed up for a community event, “GO Wild”, inviting visitors to explore the boundary between urban and wild environments.

Founded 78 years ago, Salomon has been evolving, especially in recent years. It has reshaped itself from a functional outdoor wear brand into a lifestyle and fashion house that can be worn indoors and out. Salomon’s parent group, the Anta-owned Amer Sports, praised the brand in its Q1 2025 financial report as a driving force behind the group’s double-digit growth, with revenue of 502 million USD, up 25% year-on-year (YoY). However, whether Salomon will become Amer and Anta’s second Arc’Teryx remains to be seen.

Need to boost your China strategy? Dao Pro delivers bespoke insights on marketing, innovation, and digital trends, direct from Chinese sources. Find out more from our Dao Strategy Team here.

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