---
title: "Panda Express Good Fortune Scratcher: $10.2M in Six Weeks"
url: https://stacklist.com/card/0fc6d379-09de-4699-a732-e4e12ba873e5
source_url: "https://shortyawards.com/16th/good-fortune-scratcher"
stack: https://stacklist.com/c/business/stack/5c6cb2ba-38a0-4895-afe1-8d35f8409f07
summary: "Panda Express launched the Good Fortune Scratcher campaign for Lunar New Year to drive sales through interactive code redemptions, targeting 145M redemptions and $780,000 in sales. The campaign aimed to educate audiences about Chinese culture while increasing brand engagement, favorability, and word-of-mouth through recurring game plays and coupon interactions."
tags: "panda-express, lunar-new-year, contest-promotion, digital-marketing, brand-engagement, shorty-awards, gamification"
key_entities: "Panda Express (organization), Shorty Awards (event), Lunar New Year (event), Good Fortune Scratcher (concept), Chinese culture (concept)"
classification: "reference"
content_hash: "sha256:aa80a064da55f9dba757ce2275d578f198ddec67340f17b8a2f8d08a494b89e9"
acp_version: "0.2"
token_counts_approximate: 2736
visibility: public
agent_accessible: true
status: "final"
---

# Panda Express Good Fortune Scratcher: $10.2M in Six Weeks

THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists! 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Goal: 145M redemptions, $780,000 in sales.  Marketing Objective To educate our audience/increase engagement–the Good Fortune Scratcher would likely attract new fans and increase the reputation, favorability, and conversational heat around the brand and Chinese culture.  Communication Objective Get diners to interact with scratchers on a recurring basis by encouraging game plays and coupon redemptions, increasing engagement in organic conversations. Increase word of mouth, reputation, purchase intent and conversation of the brand health.  Panda Express is the fastest growing Chinese food chain in the country. The company's restaurants principally offer Americanized Asian cuisine in a fast-casual setting and are mainly located in high-traffic areas.  The greatest challenge Panda Express faced was making a holiday that’s so much an influence to the brand's background culture and offerings feel resonant to a mass audience that’s unaware of what the holiday entails and why it's important. Most of all, how they can make the holiday something that everyone can partake in. Panda Express had to differentiate from other fast-casual food chains by creating a unique/engaging experience surrounding Lunar New Year—a significant cultural event that symbolizes unity and celebration in China and other Asian cultures.  Another challenge was to effectively integrate gamification into Panda Express' Chinese heritage. The idea was to construct a campaign that would drive significant sales growth through redemptions, especially given the pivotal context of the Lunar New Year. Strategy and Execution Panda Express fans and fast-casual diners were the target audience for the Lunar New Year campaign. Roughly between the ages of 20 and 50, they bridge both tradition and modernity. They see good food as a way of bringing loved ones together. While most have likely heard of Lunar New Year, they don’t have a personal connection to the holiday or think of it as a time to celebrate. To make Lunar New Year more inviting and resonant to a community uninitiated to the holiday, we looked to GOOD FORTUNE as a key unifier of cultures. The giving and receiving of good fortune is a big theme of this holiday. And everyone loves an opportunity to experience good luck—whether they celebrate Lunar New Year or not. We looked for a way we could connect millions of people to the holiday and the concept of good fortune and determined that scratchers were a universal fit. Playing this fun, simple game was a universal experience that provides instant gratification. Since younger audiences were merging traditions with digital experiences, we created a virtual version along with a paper one. Enter: The very first Lunar New Year red envelope that was also a lotto scratcher, a unique blend of tradition and engagement. Our “Good Fortune Scratcher” idea was to take an expression of good fortune known by most and associate it to a holiday known by few. By gamifying—and digitizing—a relatable connection to the holiday, we could create brand new and repeat fans, and drive more sales than ever during this period. Panda Express’ red envelope for Lunar New Year sought to extend that experience to diners, who could play, learn about the dishes they were uncovering with each scratch, and win good fortune, prizes, and discounts on dishes with every play. The Scratcher: Our daily mobile and desktop experience was designed as a red envelope that featured Lunar New Year holiday themes, colors and images when opened. To mimic the experience of a traditional scratcher, users swiped a finger to reveal lucky dishes and holiday icons—every scratch offered an opportunity to learn and win. We updated challenges and prizes weekly, and players could engage daily, which encouraged multiple plays and opportunities to earn good fortune. Redemptions and prizes: Specifically designed codes around lucky dishes, family meals, and good luck numbers like 8 could be redeemed coupons reinforced touchpoints to connect to the brand and holiday while driving incremental sales around dishes that bring people together.  Social media and CRM: Designed a suite of assets to run both organically and in paid, giving viewers an accessible portal into the experience enticed guests to interact with our gamified experience and play, learn, and win. Premium creative assets: Designed to blend the traditional symbols and icons of the Lunar New Year with contemporary scratcher elements, offering a visually striking style that emphasizes its digital-first experience. Results The Good Fortune Scratcher exceeded all benchmarks, leading to the brand's most successful redemption campaign and activation in Panda Express’ history. In just six weeks, the activation saw:  $10.2M in sales from redemptions (+1,200% than goal) 1B+ total impressions (+905% than 99,500 goal) 480,000+ codes redeemed (+600% than 69,000 goal) Redemption rate of 10.2% (+400% than 2.04% goal) Average time spent of 1:26 (+300% than goal of 22 seconds) 250M paid impressions (+72% than goal) Business Brand/Results: Word of Mouth (+30%) Purchase intent (+15%) Reputation (+19%) The Lunar New Year campaign aimed to deepen cultural engagement and drive sales through a gamified experience. The "Good Fortune Scratcher" was a strategic move to relate the universal concept of luck and prosperity to the brand, contributing to an astounding $10.2M in sales from coupon redemptions and demonstrating a 10x improvement over the previous year's campaign. Aligning with the strategic objectives, the campaign resonated well with the audience, resulting in a 30% increase in word-of-mouth advocacy, a 15% rise in purchase intent, and a 19% boost in reputation. These metrics showcased the campaign's efficacy in driving not only sales, but also strengthening the overall brand equity. In addition to the direct financial impact, the campaign successfully incorporated Lunar New Year into the traditions of diverse families across the US, marking a cultural milestone for the brand. Media Share this entry Entrant Company / Organization Name The Many, Panda Express Link https://accounts19190.wixsite.com/px-goodfortune Entry Credits Andrea Cherng Chief Brand Officer at Panda Express Fabiola Del Rio VP, Integrated Marketing Communications at Panda Express Diana Huang Brand Marketing Manager at Panda Express Elaine Suh-Bartlett Creative Director at Panda Express Sisi Zhang Digital Marketing Manager (social media) at Panda Express Joyce Chuang Digital Products Associate Manager at Panda Express Sim Randhawa Digital Experience Marketing Manager (Platforms) at Panda Express Robin Kang Sr. Digital Experience Marketing Manager (CRM) at Panda Express Jessica Chao PR and Corporate Communications Director at Panda Express Emily Jitsumasa PR and Corporate Communications Associate Manager at Panda Express Josh Paialii Group Creative Director at The Many Jacque Vavroch Creative Director at The Many Amy Matheu Creative Director at The Many Michelle John Senior Art Director at The Many Jameson Miller Senior Copywriter at The Many Kylie Wu Group Brand Director at The Many John Line Group Brand Director at The Many Maggie Lannon Brand Director at The Many Lucy Campos Business Affairs at The Many Ashleigh Edwards Group Strategy Director at The Many Danny Schotthoefer Associate Strategy Director at The Many Genevieve Whitaker Community Manager at The Many Jorge Andrade Executive Director of Design at The Many Amy Woo Associate Design Director at The Many Robert Diep Designer at The Many Chip Carey Senior Motion Designer at The Many Svetlana Kornilova Director of Project Management at The Many Christina Orozco Sr. Project Manager at The Many Chloe Scott Executive Producer at The Many Brooke Horne Sr. Producer at The Many Agency at The Many Client at Panda Express Share this entry Share this Shorty Awards page  Tweet  Share  Email Share link