The marketing secret behind Lancôme’s nationwide popular promotions!

Recently, Lancôme's Spring Festival Garden Party landed in Shenzhen, where visitors can enjoy lanterns, paste paper-cuts, welcome blessings, send wishes... The bright red color is full of the atmosphere of the Chinese New Year. In short, the New Year atmosphere is particularly strong and particularly attractive, and it has become a popular check-in spot for the annual party; many passers-by and people who come here for the sake of its reputation flock to the place. My friends and I saw the long lines and couldn't control our curiosity, so we ran over to take a look (human nature, hahaha...). This time, we discovered some marketing tricks that I would like to share with you.

1. Activity Overview

Lancome's Spring Festival Garden Party, connecting 6 cities, is popular across the country

Lancome's marketing campaign this time is mainly carried out by entering shopping malls and taking the form of a real garden party. Overall, the garden party is very unique. As their copy said, "The creative inspiration comes from Chinese New Year customs, giving it new and modern creativity and expression." The main style features are still biased towards the classical characteristics of the "Chinese New Year."

The garden party mainly consists of six interactive projects, namely sending new wishes, refreshing the look, enjoying new gifts, watching new art, appreciating new lanterns and playing new ideas. These interactive games also have different styles and meanings.

1. Send new wishes

2. A new look

3. Enjoy new gifts

4. See new art

5. Enjoy the new lanterns

6. Try something new

7. Gift Station

2. Activity Analysis

We can divide the Lancome New Year Garden Party marketing event into event creative planning, visual + interaction + copywriting and event promotion channels. The former can be divided into five parts: event theme, event gameplay, event scene, event rewards and event rules. Let's analyze them one by one below.

1. Creative activity planning

(1) Activity theme

Lancome's marketing campaign this time is mainly based on the opportunity of the 2020 New Year. It is a holiday marketing activity. It is integrated through time, content, theme and overall cultural characteristics, which is particularly in line with the operation mode of New Year activities.

Generally, marketing activities have a certain threshold. New Year activities are very popular, and the target audience of this type of activities is also very broad. Therefore, in normal activities, we put in enough effort to create Chinese-style New Year activities to resonate with and attract users' love.

(2) How to play the activity

The creative features of the garden party are not only in its design, but also make people feel particularly excited. The six creative New Year projects are also the highlight, which you can enjoy and reminisce about. Follow my rhythm and play it again.

(3) Activity scenes

From the picture, we can see that the activity scenes of these small activities are different. It is precisely such scenes that attract most people in the mall and make them want to participate. I was

1) Sending new wishes

The central circular screen is the most central area of ​​the garden, where wishes and blessings are constantly displayed. Every visitor can offer the warmest blessing and take photos together. This point also makes extreme use of the "sense of participation".

Analysis and summary: The overall design and creativity are still very strong, and it is also very interesting. However, in terms of operability, I did not find the operation of hanging it on the wall, and there was no waiter to guide me. But it should also be an innovative point.

2) New look

This counter looks very much like the shops in ancient times. I really love this design, it is full of Chinese style. There are also many people going to take a look, so the flow of people is pretty good.

Analysis and summary: However, there is one thing that I think needs to be improved. It may be too similar to the previous shop. There are no stools in front of the shop, and it lacks a bit of interaction.

I have also heard feedback from some people that when they were trying the product, they couldn’t see the effects because the light was too red. Others said that there were too many people in the park and there were no benches, making it inconvenient to try the product.

3) Enjoy new gifts

This [Good Luck from Heaven] is somewhat similar to the gameplay of QQ Good Luck from Heaven, a popular online event at the beginning of 2019, except that Lancome's [Good Luck from Heaven] is slightly different in details. By combining the usage and gameplay of offline game consoles, it can have a better self-propagation and promotion effect.

Analysis and summary: Immersive experience, awesome

When I played QQ to increase my fortune before, it was mainly an online experience. But when I was offline, the feeling was actually different. When I was standing there, the people queuing behind me were urging me. When I was playing by myself, I was nervous and the waiter next to me kept reminding me, "Press lightly..."

4) View new art

The colorful lanterns provide a shocking visual experience.

• Take photos - like traveling through the starry sky
• Novelty - light and shadow move, unpredictable

Analysis and summary: There are a lot of people queuing for this project. First, when the lanterns are moved, the light and shadow on the wall will move with it, which is a very novel way to play. Secondly, it is inevitable to take pictures of the beautiful scenery, because you can only go in one by one to take pictures. If there are too many people, you can't take good-looking pictures. Often waiters are needed to maintain order and guide. In this operation, if one person takes pictures for a long time, the people behind will urge him, so this experience will have some impact on the service.

5) Enjoy the new lanterns

This lantern is similar to the "Viewing New Art" project and is mainly used for taking photos.

• Photo-Dreamtime Realm
• Novelty - Mirror Light Reflection

Analysis and summary: There are a lot of people queuing for this project. First, when the lanterns are moved, the light and shadow on the wall will move with it, which is a very novel way to play. Secondly, it is inevitable to take pictures of the beautiful scenery, because you can only go in one by one to take pictures. If there are too many people, you can't take good-looking pictures. Often waiters are needed to maintain order and guide. In this operation, if one person takes pictures for a long time, the people behind will urge him, so this experience will have some impact on the service.

6) Try something new

For a long time, the most popular game of playing with the word "Fu" has been Alipay's "Qi Wu Fu". I don't know when this year's "Qi Wu Fu" will be launched, but Lancome has already played with the calligraphy art of "Fu". Scan the QR code to start the game, select the "Fu" font, fill in the "Fu" character on the screen, complete the operation, and you can bring your own blessing home.

7) Gift Station

Give away trial packages to lock in target users

There were long queues at the two automatic gift stations at the entrance. There were about two waiters in charge of each station, one for replenishing goods and the other for guiding. Overall, it was very popular.

(4) Activity Rewards

As for the rewards of this marketing campaign, the design is very clever. It uses Maslow's hierarchy of needs to realize the user's needs, introduce people into the garden party, and then participate in each activity. Each activity has different rewards. For example, the prizes for the "Enjoy New Gifts" activity are lucky roses, New Year's paper-cuts, Spring sugar paintings, and happy candied haws. These are all ancient Chinese style items. For example, "Watching New Art" and "Appreciating New Lanterns" are actually free photos. Why is it set up like this?

There are several main points:

1. The target users are different;
2. Reflect the strong flavor of the New Year;
3. Render the atmosphere of the event.

Walking in the park, you can see all kinds of people coming in to browse, including old people, children, women, men, etc., walking around. A large number of people are attracted by the designs, activities and games. Therefore, the prizes are not just made up of various prizes, so the design is based on the logic of considering the people.

(5) Activity Rules

There are a total of six activities in the garden party, each with different features and different rules. In the "Enjoy New Gifts" activity, there are only two chances to play the game. If you pass, you will have a chance to draw a lottery, but if you fail, you will not.

There are no specific rules for other activities, but they are mainly moral/disciplinary rules (for example: don't cut in line, don't deliberately destroy, etc.)

2. Visual + Interaction + Copywriting

(1) The visual design of the “Chinese Red” garden party creates a new frontier of beauty

Overall, the garden party is very unique. As their copy said, "The creative inspiration comes from Chinese New Year customs, giving it new and modern creativity and expression." The main style features are still biased towards the classical characteristics of the "Chinese New Year."

1) "Chinese red" as the main tone, with a strong sense of refinement

In terms of design, the classic color of "Chinese red" is never out of date and represents joy and reunion. The design elements include Chinese red lanterns, the word "Fu", candied haws, paper-cuts, etc. In order to avoid the disturbance caused by multiple colors, we can see that the designer chose "blush", "gold" and "chestnut" from traditional Chinese colors as the color scheme for the entire garden party. Every detail is perfectly and exquisitely matched.

2) Garden decoration style, excellent experience

From the decoration style point of view, it is really a highlight. The most striking thing is that it feels like visiting a garden like that of Suzhou, and every space is equipped with eye-catching things; when I walked in, it was a bit like Granny Liu entering the Grand View Garden, with everything I saw full of novelty. I have to praise Lancome, a French brand, for blending Chinese New Year elements together without any sense of incongruity.

3) Creative door features, thoughtful design

The creativity of the garden party really took a lot of thought. In the limited shopping mall space, the entire garden party was designed with six doors, two main doors in the front and back, and the other two sides were occupied by four side doors. Even with limited space and a large crowd, it can still ensure that entry and exit are very convenient, and serve users through each door. It is really a grand operation.

Analysis and summary: Overall, the details are very well controlled; if there is a problem even at one point, there will be no existing effect. For example, if the venue is a little bigger, there will be no such effect. The control of the flow of people and space is a delicate technique, which is amazing!

(2) Smart terminal interactive games, combining online and offline interactions

In the garden party, there are two games that are special features of connecting online and offline activities. [Good Luck from Heaven] and [Getting Blessing Characters] require connecting online and offline. This method is very interactive and particularly attractive to people to participate.

The basic interactive entrance designed is also very simple. You can play by scanning the code. You don’t even need to pay attention to the mini program or QR code. Of course, queuing on site is a temporary interference of uncertain factors.

Analysis of these two activities:

1) Different goals and different activity processes

The goal of QQ's "Fortune from Heaven" is to attract users + increase interaction + improve sharing, but Lancome's "Fortune from Heaven" does not have this sharing operation, but there is a lottery link afterwards. Of course, this is also because Lancome's goals are different.

2) Design strategy, visual and textured

What impressed me about the design of this event is that the overall red tone is very textured. If we look at the following picture, this design is quite story-telling from the inside out.

(3) “Three-word copywriting” reveals new ways to play 6 creative projects

The creative features of the garden party are not only in its design, but also make people feel particularly excited. The copywriting for the six creative New Year projects is also very solid, and the three-character copywriting is really amazing.

The themes of the creative New Year projects are "Send New Wishes", "Renew the Look", "Enjoy New Gifts", "Watch New Art", "Appreciate New Lanterns", and "Play with New Ideas". From the three-character copywriting, it is very interesting. The words "send", "renew", "enjoy", "watch", "appreciate", and "play" are all verbs. Secondly, the second word is new, which implies that there is a new beginning before the Chinese New Year, which is a very appropriate combination. The theme composed of three-character copywriting is also worth chewing on.

3. Event promotion channels

The product promotion path is to ferment online and offline, and the detailed channels are blossoming everywhere to promote the Lancome Garden Party. The publicity channels are reasonable and powerful.

(1) Online Weibo celebrity announcement

Lancome Blue V has more than 1.86 million fans, with a very wide coverage. The celebrity effect of star Bai Yu, as well as the effects of many yellow Vs and amateurs are very obvious.

(2) Local big players work together

From the clues found on the Internet, it seems that local big accounts such as Shenzhen Local Life Accounts and Dianping.com have used their influence to expose this event. Since Shenzhen is the first stop in the country, it seems that the information collected online is not enough. It is estimated that it will be necessary to carry out publicity in other cities later. With continuous efforts, there may be a situation where there is no content and topic. Similarly, the popularity will become less and less as time goes by, and we will have to wait for the subsequent effects!

(3) Six major city matrices, large shopping malls

Lancôme's Spring Festival Garden Party will be held in six major cities: Shenzhen (first stop), Chengdu, Xi'an, Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai, working together to create brand influence. You may have heard too much about WeChat matrix and Weibo matrix; Lancôme's city matrix event this time will be mainly held in large shopping malls.

Linkage highlights:

• The national six major city matrix - linkage continues to exert efforts
• There is only one in each city - creating uniqueness
• Shenzhen National First Stop——Rich Diversity and Compatibility

Analysis summary:

Judging from these points of view, the six major cities in the country are linked together, and with the cities as the base, the urban influence is also very strong. Shenzhen is worthy of being the first stop in the country, as there are so many people here. Secondly, Shenzhen is closest to Hong Kong, and as for skin care products, we have indeed come into contact with many foreign brands, so the acceptance level also requires some degree of acceptance.

There are two reasons why we will only open one in each city for the time being. One is that we want to make a trial site, and the other is that we want to gather the traffic in one place and at one point in time for fermentation. But the ultimate goal is to generate sales targets no matter what.

Further thinking: Why don’t the six major cities make efforts at the same time?

The event will mainly start on January 1, 2020, and the specific time in each city may be slightly different. I have also thought about this question: why not work together? Wouldn’t it be very influential to create a topic like this? But then I thought, there might be these reasons;

• The New Year's activities ended at the beginning of the month and were all completed in a short period of time, which had little impact on the promotional effect of the activities.
• The principle of hunger marketing is to stimulate the expectations and calls of people in other cities by opening up cities one after another.
• Topic upgrade and continuity, gradual opening can lead to different topic content and heat up the activity.
• There is also the asynchrony between each city, and there are also some process operations that lead to the inability of cities to be synchronized.

(4) Recommended by celebrity Bai Yu, close to the scene and maximizing sales power

According to surveys, consumers of beauty and daily chemicals attach great importance to word-of-mouth and brand effects, and recommendations from celebrities and KOLs are a powerful way for brands to gain word-of-mouth and promote sales conversions. During the Chinese New Year, Lancôme equipped the brand with word-of-mouth marketing mass-marketing packaging, and through in-depth cooperation such as celebrity endorsements and recommendation placements during the Chinese New Year, it successfully helped the brand "call" fans to place orders.

(5) Word of mouth

What I didn't expect was that Dianping was also full of comments. It seems that they also spent some effort to share some publicity traffic on Dianping, inviting some amateurs or big Vs to do picture and text promotion and give five-star reviews. In fact, it is the logic of word-of-mouth publicity. Although this trick does not account for a high proportion, it is also a very effective trick.

3. Other Features

Handsome guys and beautiful girls, the waiters guided us well.

During the entire tour, in addition to the particularly attractive scenery, the waiters were also particularly eye-catching. It seemed that there were nearly thirty waiters, and each of them was very beautiful with exquisite makeup. Even the guy who replenished the goods was very eye-catching.

• Good-looking and attractive
• Beautiful makeup, excellent products
• Good service, many returning customers

Regardless of whether you buy anything or not, as long as you come in, you are my user, and I will find ways to serve you well. The internationalization level of the Lancome brand can be seen from the experience, comparison with others, value instillation, brand image and so on.

IV. Activity Case Summary

——Without a big investment, how could there be such a popular effect?

There are many noteworthy aspects in this event, which is in line with the level and characteristics of many medium and large-scale events. But it also requires a lot of effort. If it is not strong enough, it will not achieve the desired effect.

1. National city resources, at your fingertips

The resources of six major cities across the country need to be linked, and during this period, in-depth analysis is needed to find the most suitable local venue. Analysis and summary are needed from very detailed aspects such as traffic flow, site area, decoration design, time arrangement, etc., and local publicity resources and promotion are linked. The resources and time consumed need to be accurately planned.

2. It requires a large amount of capital investment, and others cannot learn it

Judging from the overall effect of this event, Lancome's investment this time is not small. The venue rental for the garden party, the decoration and installation of the venue, the hardware and software investment in interactive games, the operation of screen lanterns, the investment in prize/experience package details, as well as the investment in waiter salaries, celebrity publicity fees, etc., each of these funds is not a small sum, and the generous Lancome has never been shy about such a scene.

3. Creative features, micro-innovation with great benefits

"The creative inspiration comes from Chinese New Year customs, giving it new and modern creativity and expression." These are also perfectly reflected without any sense of incongruity. This is Lancome's micro-innovation. Most Chinese New Years are based on Chinese characteristics; but not many people actually use these whole sets of styles to do this, and the effect is unexpectedly good.

4. User group design, full of routines

It is actually very difficult to guess people's hearts. Lancome's garden party will lure you into its trap from the moment you enter the door. Segment several user objects;

• Photographing men, women and children
• Game enthusiast
• Free gifts/gifts
• Passerby A spectators
• Lancome loyal fan

There are things that constantly attract these people's attention in the garden, so that they can spend their greatest efforts to stay in the garden and find their own place. Just like the setting of the game levels, an addiction model is adopted, from the four processes of trigger-action-variable rewards-investment, which lays traps step by step for them to jump into.

Further thinking: The product’s New Year discount promotion does not seem to be reflected?

I have read the official announcement, and Lancome has a lot of new products and promotional products for the new year, but these were not reflected, and there was no obvious guidance on the scene. I don’t know the purpose of the event organizer, but this is very unfavorable for offline promotions. Similarly, users reported that too many people were getting samples, so they didn’t want to go anymore.

In general, the brand promotion purpose of this event was achieved. It was very cool, had good participation, and had a lot of traffic. The above is an analysis of the Lancome Spring Festival Garden Party event case. If you have other ideas and suggestions, please feel free to communicate with us~

Author: Shang Huai

Source: Shang Huai