6 ways to ignite the 2022 Spring Festival marketing!

2021 is finally over!

However, the annual brand Spring Festival marketing is already underway or is about to begin. As the Spring Festival approaches, how should brands carry out Spring Festival marketing?

Before I start, let me first look at the definitions of the Spring Festival among consumers; (gift giving, reunion, gathering, auspiciousness, New Year atmosphere, good expectations), etc.

The Spring Festival is a traditional festival for the Chinese nation to gather together. It is a big day for common people to get together after a year of hard work.

It is a holiday for migrant workers to return home to visit their children, a wonderful time for families to enjoy family happiness, and an anticipation for making good wishes for the coming year.

Let us now start by talking about the important factors that brands need to consider in their Spring Festival marketing campaigns. We will discuss them one by one.

How to use the festive occasions of the Spring Festival to launch your brand’s Spring Festival marketing campaign? The following will analyze several key factors for brands to succeed in Spring Festival marketing from multiple aspects.

If you haven’t done it yet, you can take a look at it. If you have already started, you can check if these crucial factors are missing in your marketing campaign. The following are suitable for all large, medium and small brands!

1. Crowd

Similarly, before planning brand marketing. Let’s first sort out the categories of people who can participate in brand marketing activities during the Spring Festival.

1. Returning home after working away from home

Workers who return home from working in big cities, and professionals who are busy in high-rise buildings in first-tier cities all year round. They have worked hard in a strange city for a year, and as the Spring Festival approaches, returning home has become a long-awaited wish. They are also the main force in the Spring Festival marketing campaign of major brands.

For example, my hometown is a fourth-tier small tourist city.

In recent years, real estate development in urban areas has been thriving. Major real estate projects want to sell houses to people who return home from the front lines during the Spring Festival. They launch various "return home to buy property" activities which are Spring Festival marketing activities for front-line workers. The marketing target of the activities is migrant workers who return home from outside.

2. Middle-aged people in rural areas

In third- and fourth-tier cities, most families have parents who stay at home while their children work away from home. Parents take care of their children at home 365 days a year. The responsibility of purchasing daily necessities for the family and supplies for festivals and holidays naturally falls on middle-aged people in towns and villages.

The consumer groups of some brands nowadays are not young people, but middle-aged people in third- and fourth-tier small cities and towns. For example, purchasing New Year's goods, giving wine as gifts, visiting relatives, etc.

Jingdong Appliances "Farewell to Uncle"

In rural areas, although the consumption prices of middle-aged people are not as high as those of young people in first-tier cities, their consumption frequency is high, and they have to spend the necessary expenses all year round to maintain the basic expenses of the family.

Moreover, middle-aged parents in some families know that it is not easy for their children to work away from home all year round, and they wait until the New Year to buy new household items. Giving their children a delicious meal during the New Year and other holidays is also a way for middle-aged parents to show their love for their children.

In summary, migrant workers returning home from first-tier cities and middle-aged people who stay at home all year round will become the main consumer groups during the Spring Festival. Therefore, the brand’s Spring Festival marketing campaign needs to understand the pain points of the holiday consumption needs of the above groups and carry out the campaign in combination with the unique attributes of the Spring Festival.

The above analysis is the main consumer groups during the Spring Festival. Next, let’s analyze the consumption scenarios and consumption paths of consumers during the Spring Festival. In what scenarios do they complete their consumption behaviors?

2. Scenario

1. Visiting and giving gifts

Giving gifts to relatives during festivals is a tradition of our Chinese nation. It is also a bond for neighbors, distant friends, and relatives to maintain exchanges.

At this stage, gift giving becomes a form of social communication, for example, "I won't accept any gifts this year, the only gift I'll accept is Melatonin", to celebrate an auspicious year, drink a red can of Wanglaoji, Pepsi-Cola to bring love home, and to go home for the Spring Festival with Jinliufu.

2. Get-together

In addition to gift-giving during the Chinese New Year, gatherings have become another major consumption scenario for users. During the Chinese New Year and other holidays, families go out to eat together. Classmates, colleagues and teachers gathered together for a long-awaited gathering. These are all major scenes during the Spring Festival and high-frequency consumption behaviors. For example, "Once Remy Martin is opened, good things will come naturally."

3. Travel

According to Tongcheng Travel statistics, the number of tourists nationwide last year was around 450 million. The national epidemic has subsided this year, and (except for some areas) it is expected that the number of people traveling during the Spring Festival this year will continue to increase compared with last year.

The above scenarios are the main scenarios in which major consumer groups complete their consumption behaviors during the Spring Festival. Let us now talk about the consumption behaviors of consumer groups in specific consumption scenarios.

3. Behavior

The behavior here refers to the user's behavior of purchasing goods, for example; Pepsi's "Bring Love Home" means to bring some gifts to relatives at home after working for a year. The advertising slogan of Melatonin is to satisfy people's gift-giving needs during the Spring Festival and to celebrate a prosperous year, while drinking a red can of Wanglaoji reflects people's good intentions for the new year.

Pepsi-Cola "Bring the Fun Home"

You see, the main advertising slogan of every brand is to meet the user's consumption goals, which will lead to user consumption behavior.

Either it can satisfy the user's gift-giving needs, or it can satisfy the user's beautiful New Year wishes, or it can satisfy the user's party needs.

The core of this is to help people with consumption needs accelerate their consumption behavior, and whether your brand can gain insight into consumers' needs during their consumption path.

Can your marketing be accurately delivered to users with needs? Do your marketing activities shorten the time it takes for consumers to place orders? These issues need to be reflected in marketing communications, and brands need to think about the above issues from the user's perspective.

In the brand marketing war, users will only make purchases if you can show the difference between your brand and competitors' products in terms of users' interests, time, shopping satisfaction and shopping experience, and meet users' needs.

When marketing activities are executed, they are linked together, and reach, dissemination and conversion can be slowly promoted, thus facilitating the most basic factors of brand marketing communication.

4. Resonance

When it comes to resonance, it actually means what most people think during the Spring Festival.

For example, last year there was an advocacy to celebrate the New Year where you are. Although many people wanted to go home, in order not to bring potential dangers to the country, the community, and the family, many people were willing to celebrate the New Year where they are for the health of their families and their parents.

In addition, there are "What's Peppa Pig" which focuses on family affection, "Baier's Spring Festival" which focuses on the changes of the times and the brand history, "Qilidi" which focuses on hometown feelings, children's affection, and beautiful meanings, etc.

Alipay "Qilidi"

The points of resonance should not be too broad. Family, friendship, homesickness, etc. are all points that can attract the audience's attention during the Spring Festival. In the early stage of planning a brand marketing campaign, the resonance points presented in the communication strategy need to be focused. The main nostalgia is nostalgia, and the main family affection is family affection. You can't have everything.

There are also many cases of attracting public attention and spreading the message through a precise resonance point, such as the above-mentioned "What's Peppa Pig?" and "Bayi's Spring Festival."

BMW "Bayer's Spring Festival"

In movies such as "Wolf Warrior" directed by Wu Jing and "Hello, Li Huanying" directed by Jia Ling, the patriotic sentiments and mother-daughter affection are infinitely magnified, which arouses the emotions in people's hearts and leads to user-initiated dissemination.

So what is the point of your brand that can resonate with users during the Spring Festival marketing campaign? Is it family affection, gift giving, homesickness, or good meaning for the coming year?

5. Impact

When it comes to influence, it actually means whether the brand can influence consumers' current perception of the brand based on the brand's past marketing behaviors during the Spring Festival holiday.

For example, when people talk about Melatonin now, they think of giving it as a gift. When talking about Wanglaoji, one would think of reducing internal heat. When talking about Alipay, one will think of Alipay’s Spring Festival Five Blessings Collection event.

The two biggest roles of brands in major marketing nodes are: one is to increase the number of orders users place for products, and the other is to expand the brand symbol and influence the purchasing behavior of subsequent users.

Hao Kang "Listen to the Sound"

In short, brands must continue to use brand symbols (brand logo, packaging, brand slogan, brand values, and brand functions) in marketing battles. In marketing, brands grasp users’ consumption pain points, achieve users’ purchasing goals, and use the brand’s own symbols to influence users’ purchasing behavior in the coming year or next time.

Then your brand symbol and brand values ​​will be deeply rooted in people's hearts, and the cost of publicity and promotion will be reduced.

The simplest one is, for example, when having a barbecue party, many people will think of buying Wanglaoji or Jiaduobao to go with it; when buying mineral water, most people will buy Nongfu Spring; after the meal, many people will chew Wrigley's gum.

Nestlé and Sunset Roller Coaster collaborate on "Coffee's on Me"

These "common sense" that are deeply rooted in people's minds are all the pain points that brands grasp when promoting their slogans. They use a lot of funds and a wide range of channels to influence users' purchasing behavior through slogans, promotional videos, and marketing activities.

There is also the Mixue Bingcheng song "Mi Xue Bingcheng Tian Mi Mi" that is currently popular on the short video platform, Baidu's previous "What Did You Say", and Nestle and Sunset Roller Coaster's collaboration "Coffee's on Me", which are all brands that have shortened the time it takes for users to choose when purchasing products by creating "brand IP". Next, let’s continue to talk about brand IP creation.

6. IP

Brand IP, as the name suggests, is a brand-exclusive symbol. Users can associate it with the brand as soon as they see the IP. Brand IP can be an advertisement, a virtual character, a song, or even a catchy slogan.

In a year, there are various marketing nodes such as 618, Double Eleven, Spring Festival, etc. Some marketing forms and marketing techniques can be replicated. Simple and easy-to-replicate marketing methods can save costs for companies and help users shorten the time it takes to choose products when purchasing.

IP creation is a great way to help brands continue their marketing methods. For example, this year’s virtual character Liu Yexi and virtual spokesperson “Sister M” on Douyin, Watsons’ Qu Chenxi, and Hua Xizi’s virtual image of the brand of the same name.

The peripheral products jointly created by individual brand celebrity spokespersons and brands, the images of the detective characters in the movie "Detective Chinatown" after it became a hit, etc. are all IP peripherals of a brand and a product.

Brands competing in major marketing nodes face ever-changing user purchasing behaviors and competitors with increasing advertising costs. If you can create your own marketing node IP, you can use the advantage of "a little effort to achieve a great result" to influence users' purchasing behavior and compete for market share.

Alipay-Five Blessings "Wang"

Another company that is able to combine brand IP and influence consumers is Starbucks. Perhaps many people may be confused because the Starbucks ordering counter is often filled with beautiful greeting cards, co-branded cups, etc.

However, these collectible edition cards have attracted many young people. The fundamental reason is to create brand-related products and add more products that influence consumers' brand awareness and purchases.

Conclusion

In my opinion, if a brand wants to build a brand IP in the subsequent Spring Festival marketing campaign, it will be convenient for use in subsequent major marketing festivals. You can try to create a brand IP character that is exclusive to your brand, which is easy to spread and copy and can be used in both channels and terminals.

You can try to create a brand-exclusive New Year's greeting song, brand cartoon image, or new product activities or promotions that are only launched during the Spring Festival. In subsequent publicity, use a series of marketing methods to make users familiar with and accustomed to your brand IP.

Speaking of brand IP, the two dancing old men in the Nongfu Spring advertisement are actually IPs created by the brand. They can be repeatedly broadcast, copied and spread easily. The above are my thoughts on brands’ Spring Festival marketing campaigns. I hope they can help you!

See you next time.

Author: Nan Sujian

Source: Nansujian