In 2024, we introduced Choctaw to the North Texas Asian community by showing up where no casino brand had before. Inside an art exhibit.

We collaborated with Dallas-based artist Dan Lam to reimagine Lunar New Year through “The Dragon’s Throne,” an immersive pop-up at NorthPark Mall. Her signature drippy sculptures transformed tradition into a visual spectacle, offering guests an Instagram-ready throne that teased a bigger celebration at Choctaw. A soft launch into a new cultural space.

Choctaw: Lunar New Year | Creative + Brand Strategy

2025: Lunar Sense-ations

Building on the energy (and insights) of 2024, booth foot traffic, voucher redemptions, and brand sentiment, we scaled things up. Way up.

For the Year of the Snake, we created “Lunar Sense-ations”: a campaign designed to engage all five senses. Off-site activations gave North Texas a taste, smell, and sound of what was coming. Then we pulled them into Durant for the full experience.

Off-site

Snake sculptures. Red envelope pulls. Tanghulu. Tea. Origami. A sound bath in a glowing booth. We dropped into North Texas with a campaign built to hit all five senses — and then some.

On-site
Guests arrived in Durant to find the full experience waiting: cocktails, calligraphy, incense, collectibles, and a 9-course dinner hidden behind it all.

My Contribution

I led strategy for Choctaw’s Lunar New Year across both years, start to finish. In 2024, I helped the brand show up in a space it had never touched before, through an art installation that reimagined tradition without flattening it. In 2025, we built on that foundation and created something guests could taste, touch, and carry home. I worked across both campaigns, driving the thinking, shaping the story, and making sure it all felt less like a brand activation and more like a celebration worth showing up for.

Why It Mattered

Most brands show up for Lunar New Year with a red envelope and a dragon dance. We built something that actually meant something. For a lot of guests, especially in North Texas, this was the first time they saw a casino, or maybe any brand, meet their culture with care, creativity, and curiosity, not a checklist.

It was small things done with real thought. And that’s what landed.

Awards: 3AF—Marketer of the Year Award for Intertrend x Choctaw Casinos