We Put Khao Hom on the table every CNY
Client: Khao Hom Singapore
What we made: Limited-Edition Poker Cards Set
Campaign: Gift with purchase
Industry: Food and Beverage
Event: Chinese New year
The Campaign
Most CNY giveaways die the second the ang bao is opened — cash goes in the wallet, the packet goes in the bin. It's the same everyyear isn't it? Khao Hom wanted a gift that survived past the counter. Something that stuck around the house, not just the meal.
The mechanic here is: you dine in and spend a minimum S$88, get a Fortune Red Packet. Spend S$128, bring home a pack of Khao Hom's Limited Edition Poker Cards. Simple tiering, but the detail worth noticing here sits in what's actually printed on the red packets.
Each card carried a different Chinese Idiom:
马到成功: Instant Success
马到金来: Wealth arrives
马当先: Take the lead
马到福到: Fortune arrives
All of these are built around the meaning of the horse, and 2026 is the year of the horse. These weren't just put in for packaging, they're things people already say out loud to each other at family reunions in CNY dinners. Khao Hom just gave the sentiment somewhere to sit.
In a lot of Chinese households, cards come out after the reunion dinner almost as a ritual, everyone testing their luck for the new year before the year's even really started. A deck of cards isn't a random object to hand someone during CNY. It's just an additionl prop for something the family was already planning to do.
It was made to be part of the tradition.
Source - Khao Hom Singapore Instagram page
What we made: Playing Cards deck work dealing with more than once
Our part was the poker cards set — a deck built to sit on the table Khao Hom's diners had just eaten at, not get tucked away with the takeaway menus.
Every face card carries its own horse illustration, tied to the zodiac year, right down to the Joker. The card backs run a Thai-pattern border in gold foil on red — Khao Hom's own call, not something we defaulted to. Foil stamping isn't the standard finish on a deck like this; it costs more to produce than printing gold ink flat, but it's the difference between a design that looks gold and a card that actually catches light when you fan it out that makes it whole level of premium cards from regular playing cards.
Custom Playing Cards made for Khao Hom Singapore
The cards themselves are 300 GSM, generally thicker than what you'd find in an off-the-shelf deck, finished with a gloss varnish so they hold up to actual shuffling under the dinner lights. The deck had to read as CNY at a glance, but it still needed to feel like it belonged to the restaurant that made it, not a generic seasonal freebie anyone could have handed out.
The box carries all 3 outlets locations too- Ang Mo Kio, East Coast and Pasir Ris- so the deck doubles as a small reminder of where to find KhaoHom in whichever part of Singapore they’re in.
Custom playing cards can be used across different industries too. Read more to find out.
Why we think it works
A red packet gets opened once. A deck of cards gets shuffled every CNY after this one — at reunion dinners, at family game nights, long after the meal that came with it is forgotten. That's the whole bet: give people something they were already going to reach for, and put your name on it.
Want a CNY gift that does more than say thank you? Head to custom playing cards to get started.