How can old brands be revived on Xiaohongshu?

In the past three years, we have witnessed countless new brands emerging through social media marketing. While providing consumers with more choices, the road for old brands has become difficult and the competition among brands is fierce.

If you don’t move forward, you will regress. The old brand "Dong'e Ejiao" saw its sales revenue drop sharply by about 60% in 2019! Net profit loss was 444 million yuan. Afterwards, brands began to embrace young people and started to promote their products on Xiaohongshu. The latest financial report shows that the net profit of "Dong-E-Erhu" in Q3 increased by 140.55% year-on-year, and the number of young consumers increased from 10% to 70%, affecting a total of 230 million people. ”

Young consumers are gradually becoming the mainstream of the market. If old brands want to maintain sustained growth, they must capture the minds of young audiences. However, how to keep up with the trend of "social media marketing", shape a younger brand image, and attract more young consumers is a problem that many mature brands are struggling with.

How did it achieve a seven-fold increase in young users in a short period of time and revitalize and refresh its brand? Taking advantage of the recent health craze on Xiaohongshu, let’s talk about the road to regaining popularity of the health leader "Dong'e Ejiao", and how health care brands can seize this wave of popularity to break through!

1. Dong'e Ejiao's road to regaining popularity

1. Gain new growth points through scenario-based marketing

Playing with scene marketing has become one of the ways for many brands to break through the siege.

Combine products and consumer demands with daily life scenarios such as workers working overtime, young people staying up late, and self-made products at home.

RIO cocktails, for example, capture the solitary life scenes of “empty-nest youth” and create a series of tipsy products as “a small drink for one person”, which resonates with young people and wins their love.

Let’s look at Dong-E E-Jiao.

For Generation Z, the main consumer group in the current market, "staying up late, applying the most expensive facial masks, and taking all kinds of health products" is a true portrayal of many people. According to data analysis, the "life-cherishing people" who love health preservation are gradually getting younger, and are mainly women who are more willing to spend money on health preservation to buy peace of mind.

*/Dong-E E-Jiao brand analysis report (please see the end of the article for the full version)

According to the latest data from the platform, people born after 1990 account for 72% of Xiaohongshu's total users, including a large number of young people who are interested in health care. Given the demand and the high acceptance of new things among young people, the entire community naturally has a strong atmosphere of health and wellness.

Demand breeds economy, and the strong health and wellness atmosphere not only drives the growth of content in this category, but also demonstrates the huge business opportunities for "health and wellness" brands in Xiaohongshu!

Dong-E-Erhu seized this business opportunity, saw the rapid growth in the scale of young people's health care and their health needs, made full use of young people's anxiety, combined product visualization with various life scenarios, and continuously output content that can touch their hearts, establish emotional connections, and achieve a renewal of the brand image.

①Focus on healthy life scenarios.

By focusing on various health life scenarios (after staying up late, working overtime, in the gym, insomnia), we can visualize the product effects and accurately reach the needs and interests of young people.

② Extend from “health” and explore scenarios.

Extending from "health" to all aspects, we continuously explore usage scenarios, enrich content forms, and create multiple scenarios and practicality for products , including health and leisure afternoon tea, bag-turning implantation, health products transformed into fashionable items , and combined products with "fancy eating methods" : novel combinations of "yogurt + donkey-hide gelatin", "milk tea + donkey-hide gelatin", and "coffee + donkey-hide gelatin" to form unique memory points and spread by word of mouth.

③ Create new node marketing scenarios.

Against the backdrop of traditional Chinese culture and customs, various festivals carry the public's strong emotions and connotations. For example, the Spring Festival, Women's Day, 520, Mother's Day, Father's Day, etc. People usually use gifts to express their emotions. Coupled with the rapid development of e-commerce and the preferential policies of various major promotion nodes, these festivals have become a good opportunity for brands to leverage their marketing momentum.

As a time-honored brand of health care, Dong'e Ejiao has a strong sense of "health care" attributes. It is through the Mother's Day gift-giving and 66 promotion marketing scenarios that it shares the efficacy of Dong'e Ejiao, hits the pain points of users, and takes advantage of the booming demand for health care consumption to quickly detonate its voice.

2. Packaging is becoming more trendy, food is becoming more fast food, and supplements are becoming more snacks

For time-honored brands, the most important issue they face if they want to capture the young market is to create a younger image, cater to young people's consumption habits, and renew the brand.

Judging from the topic of "health and wellness" in Xiaohongshu's health category, most of the health care brands searched out, without looking at the selling points and effects, the intuitive feeling is: the packaging is brightly colored, visually impactful, girly, cute, and exquisite!

As for Generation Z, which is the main consumer group of Xiaohongshu, their consumption concept does not care about the product effects. First of all, we pay more attention to the visual and usage experience, and the appearance is exquisite and beautiful, at least leading more than half of similar products!

*/Dong-E E-Jiao brand analysis report (please see the end of the article for the full version)

According to survey data, purchases of ready-to-eat health products increased by 96.3% year-on-year, indicating that young people’s awareness of health and purchasing power have increased, and also indicating that young people prefer health products in the form of snacks.

As an old brand, Dong'e Ejiao is naturally more traditional in terms of packaging and taste. In order to attract young consumers, it has also made new changes.

*/Dong-E E-Jiao brand analysis report (please see the end of the article for the full version)

We have launched a new product, the "Shanhai Peach Blossom Gift Box", which is both healthy and satisfying and has beautiful packaging.

In terms of taste, in addition to classic flavors, innovative flavors such as lotus seeds, red dates and cashews, and strawberry are also introduced to cater to the preferences of young consumers.

In terms of packaging, it uses IP and national trend innovative design, and has a "photogenic" attribute! To meet the needs of young people to “build and raise” at any time.

In recent years, functional foods have become extremely popular on Xiaohongshu, especially gummy candies. Dong-E Ejiao has also launched the snack Ejiao Cat's Paw Gummy Candies. It has also differentiated itself from other gummy candies of the same category to cater to the preferences of young consumers by making Ejiao gummy candies in the shape of cat's paws.

In order to meet the consumption needs of young people for "maintaining health at any time", we have launched instant donkey-hide gelatin powder bars, instant donkey-hide gelatin paste, instant bird's nests, etc.

Make health care more daily and convenient, just like eating snacks, no need to make it yourself, targeting sophisticated mothers while penetrating the psychology of Generation Z consumers.

3. Marketing methods resonate with people and boldly cross-border

The consumption demands of the younger generation are not as focused on quality as those of older consumers, but they prefer products with personality and attitude. Therefore, if a brand wants to quickly attract young consumers, it must undoubtedly be novel and fun enough!

Among the directions of Dong-E-Erhu’s Xiaohongshu launch, one of them breaks the conventional health category.

By implanting the "Coffee with So Much Glue" series of drinks jointly launched by Dong'e Ejiao and Pacific Coffee through store exploration notes, the clash between Chinese and Western cultures creates a strong contrast between young people and arouses their curiosity to try new things.

While awakening the brand image, it further breaks the brand user circle, opens up incremental markets and penetrates into the hearts of young consumers.

4. Overall placement layout

① Ratio of cooperating bloggers

Time-honored brands like Dong-E E-Jiao already have a certain voice in the market. The main purpose of joining Xiaohongshu is to create a younger image, build a certain brand influence in the community, create a good UGC atmosphere for the brand, and create an image that everyone is using, thus creating an image of a time-honored brand that keeps pace with the times and updates itself.

Therefore, in terms of the proportion of cooperating bloggers, more mid- and low-level KOLs and low-level KOCs are chosen to enhance and consolidate the community’s reputation, as well as a small number of mid- and high-level KOCs to improve the brand image, endorse, attract the attention of fans and consumers, and achieve full network exposure.

*/Sourced from Qiangua Data

②Creative direction

Dong'e Ejiao's investment layout on Xiaohongshu is mainly focused on three directions: health products, health food therapy, and gourmet restaurant exploration.

*/Sourced from Qiangua Data

a. Health care products account for 56.17%.

Notes on the direction of creating health products, strong associations can reach more precise groups of people. Through scenario-based marketing for insomnia, sleep aid, staying up late, overtime, etc., we can reach a wider range of potential target groups.

Among them, in the past 30 days, Dong'e Ejiao has promoted the compound donkey-hide gelatin paste product by targeting insomnia and sleep aid.

b. The proportion of health and diet therapy is 32.62%.

The health-preserving diet therapy is mainly implemented through some 30+ sisters sharing recipes, tutorials, practical tips and experiences on beauty care and blood replenishment to promote the Dong'e Ejiao product.

Make full use of the blogger's personality advantages to endorse the products and add a sense of authenticity. In addition, through the content of diet therapy, indirectly attract more potential consumers who are interested in health care, maintaining good qi and blood, and beauty.

Because Xiaohongshu users are mainly female, most of them are high-income people in first- and second-tier cities. They pursue quality of life and are prone to impulse buying. They stay up late tirelessly and are afraid of getting sick and getting old. They have consumption power and needs, so they are more interested in health care content and categories, and are more receptive and willing to try!

c. Food exploration accounts for 6.38%.

Dong-E E-Jiao and Pacific Coffee have jointly created notes on store exploration. Notes with social sharing attributes can break the fixed circle of brand users, trigger more natural dissemination on the Xiaohongshu platform, and attract young consumers to explore stores and check in.

2. How should health brands seize opportunities?

1. Find a breakthrough, determine the track, and open up the market with hot products

Whether it is a mature brand with a market base or a new brand, owning a product with core competitiveness is the best way to open up the market and gain widespread recognition from users.

In addition to Dong'e Ejiao, the health care brand Xiaoxiandun has deeply explored the pain points of new consumer groups, solved the pain points of not knowing how to stew and eat dry bird's nests and the problem of instant bird's nests not being fresh, and innovatively launched the fresh stewed bird's nest category. With the help of KOLs, it created a large amount of high-quality content and formed a reputation for expansion, allowing the Xiaoxiandun brand to successfully break out of the circle and grow.

Although the health care market on Xiaohongshu is large, the competition is also fierce. Products that are bound to stand out will be more successful if they start from a niche track and plant grass, rather than just blindly following other people's products.

2. Make full use of traditional festivals and e-commerce marketing festivals

For most people, health care products are not necessities of life. Most of them are used as gifts when visiting relatives during holidays or going home for the New Year.

"Egoism" is becoming increasingly popular and the atmosphere of caring for oneself is strong. This is the time when people are interested in this kind of information.

Moreover, during big sales and holidays, users' consumption desire and budget will increase, and the decision-making path will be shortened. At this time, brands and products that actively promote themselves and appear in consumers' sight frequently are more likely to be selected, thus promoting conversions.

The upcoming Spring Festival, Queen's Day, 520, 66 promotion, Mother's Day and other festivals are the peak periods for gift-giving and self-care consumption. It is also a great opportunity for health care brands to quickly explode and increase GMV by making a layout on Xiaohongshu!

Finally, whether it is an old brand that wants to "connect" with young consumers or an emerging brand that wants to enter the market, it is necessary to find a breakthrough in the track and hot spots that fit the interests of young people, and then activate young people's desire for social sharing through scene marketing, triggering natural dissemination, and the brand voice fission will come naturally.

Author: Bobo Opens Small Kitchen

Source: Bobo's Kitchen