How Ele.me paired a Shanghai Metro exhibition with Xiaohongshu posts for Spring Festival

From February 5 to 10, 2024, Ele.me staged the “饿了么春节倡议展” (Ele.me Spring Festival Initiative Exhibition) at Xujiahui station on the Shanghai Metro. Its central line, “祝你过年不用饿了么” (May you not need Ele.me this New Year), put family reunion ahead of ordering in. Copy such as “什么也不管，做回爸爸妈妈的孩子” (Forget everything and be your parents’ child again) and “这回饿了是真的可以喊妈” (This time, when you’re hungry, you really can call for Mum) addressed homesickness and the wish to set work aside. The smaller line “但如果你需要，饿了么春节热情值班中” (“But if you need us, Ele.me is warmly on duty throughout Spring Festival”) kept the service present without overturning the wish. The offline installation doubled as a check-in setting for predominantly image-and-text Xiaohongshu coverage.

The campaign spoke primarily to urban white-collar women working away from home and preparing to return for the holiday, with gift buyers also in the stated audience. It drew on emotional value, relaxation, family warmth and nostalgia rather than product features. There was no discount, urgency device or explicit conversion call to action: the emotional proposal and exhibition visit were the activation, alongside store-direction traffic.