Luxury brands scale back 520 campaigns as China romance holiday cools

China’s 520 romance holiday is losing its shine as a luxury marketing stage. In a 2024 review of 103 luxury and premium brands, Digital Luxury Group and Re-Hub found that 73 still used the internet-born date on WeChat, but they also said Tmall’s push to expand 618 from 20 May made 520 quieter and forced brands to cut budgets.

That retreat matters because 520 has long been one of the biggest gifting moments in China, a home-grown romance date whose May 20 naming sounds like , or “I love you,” in Mandarin. But the bigger signal now is not how much brands can spend on a glossy love story. It is how carefully they are choosing where to spend at all, in a market where China’s luxury sector was expected to grow only in the low-single digits in 2024 after a 12% rebound the year before.

The pressure is coming from e-commerce reality. Tmall and Douyin launched 618 in early May with a simplified, discount-led playbook, and the shopping festival now runs for more than a month, from early May to late June. In that environment, 520 can look like an expensive sideshow. WWD reported in 2025 that past active participants such as Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga slashed their local 520 campaigns, while some brands switched to pared-back gift lists and heart-themed products. Jacques Roizen of Digital Luxury Group put the tradeoff plainly: “few brands can afford to skip 618 and risk losing the historical 520 full-price revenue peak.”

This year’s tone has turned even less couple-centric. Dao Insights said 520 had entered a self-love era, with younger consumers leaning toward emotional self-maintenance, everyday treats and practical comfort instead of grand declarations of love. Brands are responding by widening the idea of romance to include parents, children and pets, a sharper, more fragmented playbook than the old one-size-fits-all Valentine-style spectacle.

The demographic backdrop helps explain the shift. China recorded 6.76 million marriage registrations in 2025, up 10.8% from 2024’s record low, but falling birth rates and broader worries about the future still hang over the country’s marriage-and-family story. That makes a couple-driven retail holiday feel less automatic than it once did.

The same tension is visible in hard luxury. BoF’s global markets roundup on 26 May also pointed to Bao Tin Manh Hai Jewelry JSC, one of Vietnam’s largest gold retailers, which is preparing a fourth-quarter IPO, expects investor roadshows in June and plans to sell at least a 15% stake. As romance marketing cools, the money is concentrating where the product still feels scarce, valuable and easy to justify: jewelry, gold and tightly targeted gifting.