In February 2026, Team Vitality launched an exclusive apparel line for the Chinese market, a tactical activation designed to coincide with the Chinese New Year celebrations. To understand the strategy behind the release, The Esports Radar spoke with Amélie Canet, the organisation’s Strategy & Brand Development Director.
The organisation was careful to frame the release not as a permanent collection shift, but as something more tactical. “Our objective was to build a bridge between Team Vitality’s identity and a major pillar of local culture: the Chinese New Year,” explains Canet. The result was a hoodie designed to incorporate symbolic references to the celebration—happiness, luck, and prosperity.
“The design features the animal combined with the Vitality logo on the back,” Canet details. “Embellished with our players’ signatures, this piece offers our fans an exclusive product, symbolising this cultural celebration.”
Developed in collaboration with local production and distribution company Onwear, Team Vitality’s licensing partner, the activation forms part of a broader geographic expansion strategy that has seen China become a key focus since the Shanghai Major in 2024. With a community now exceeding 600,000 fans across Bilibili, Weibo, and Douyin, Canet emphasises the importance of market-specific offerings. “To establish a long-term presence in such a massive market, it is essential to offer ‘market-specific’ products. This hoodie represents just one step within a broader roadmap that includes dedicated merchandising, digital items, and other customised assets.”
The reception from Chinese audiences has exceeded initial projections, validating the approach. “With each new lifestyle release in the Chinese market, we continue to refine our understanding of our fans’ expectations,” Canet notes. “The success of this hoodie confirms that our local community is seeking products that combine Team Vitality’s ‘performance’ DNA with their own cultural codes.” Beyond direct sales, a targeted influence strategy saw products seeded to key content creators, amplifying visibility across social media and streaming platforms.
Timing, too, played its part. “The icing on the cake was our Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) team winning a major title earlier in the month at IEM Kraków,” Canet adds. “Our CS2 players were the faces of this campaign, and this victory created a perfect synergy, instantly increasing both the desirability and sales of the hoodie.”
While designed exclusively for China, the activation unexpectedly resonated further afield. “The massive enthusiasm from our international fans came as a pleasant surprise,” Canet admits. “It is striking proof of Team Vitality’s global resonance, particularly our Counter-Strike team, showcasing firsthand how a local activation can generate global demand.”
Looking ahead, Canet distinguishes between two complementary approaches to geographic development. On one hand, the organisation pursues a globalisation strategy, exporting its core European identity to markets like North America, where success at IEM Dallas and the Austin Major saw the United States become its second-largest source of global traffic, resulting in an apparel collection with direct inspiration from the aesthetics and tradition of American Ivy League universities. On the other, it implements vertical localisation in markets with distinct cultural codes, such as Asia and Indonesia, where it owns local organisation Bigetron.
“In summary, we globalise Team Vitality’s image where cultural codes align, and we adapt our offerings to cater to all our fans worldwide. This dual approach allows us to remain a premium global brand while staying relevant to fans in markets worldwide,” said Canet.
For the Chinese New Year hoodie specifically, the design process balanced in-house creative oversight with local authenticity. “This is a true co-creation process, where our creative team at Team Vitality maintained constant oversight,” Canet explains of the collaboration with Onwear. “Every visual and detail of the product is approved in-house to guarantee perfect consistency with our premium brand identity. This allowed us to preserve our European DNA while accurately adapting to Chinese cultural sensitivities.”
The partnership with Onwear also addresses the logistical challenges of producing for the Chinese market, enabling local production that reduces international logistics costs and lead times while ensuring products meet local fit preferences and quality standards. “This ‘short-circuit’ production model allows us to be much more reactive during key moments, such as the Chinese New Year or following a tournament victory,” Canet concludes.
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