10 classic marketing planning cases!

When doing marketing planning , there are three things you must do:

First, understand the market, stay close to users, and go deep into the front line;

Second, accumulate excellent experience inside and outside the circle and learn classic cases;

Third, practice repeatedly, continue to try and error, and summarize methods.

Today, Lao Zei will share with you some very wonderful marketing cases. The wonderful things may come late, but they will never be absent.

01 Burger King VS McDonald's

Speaking of classic marketing cases, we have to mention the good friends McDonald's and Burger King. This pair of old enemies have been loving and hating each other in marketing for nearly 60 years. Whenever we talk about "tearing each other apart" brands, we will definitely not forget these two.

They always promote themselves through some marketing events, and then take advantage of the situation to criticize each other. They have a fight every now and then, and each time they have a wild imagination and are more cunning than the other. Although they fight each other most of the time, it is always a win-win situation.

KFC must be thinking in its inner mind: Why don’t these two ever take me with them?

In the 1970s, Burger King targeted McDonald’s automated but inflexible machine assembly line and launched the “Have it your way” ad. They focused on the changing tastes of customers, so there was such a video scene:

Even McDonald's uncle couldn't resist the delicious taste, so he disguised himself and secretly went to Burger King to buy Burger King.

Just ask you if you are cruel or not!

During the long-term mutual criticism, Burger King always emphasized that its food was truly flame-grilled and was very proud of it, and always took the opportunity to disparage McDonald's by saying that it was not truly flame-grilled.

Not only did Burger King launch the "grilled instead of fried" advertising campaign in 1982, but in order to disgust McDonald's, Burger King also filmed a video called "Burger King's Gift to McDonald's" :

Burger King had a grand display. First, the food was airlifted and loaded onto trucks, and then a motorcycle cleared the way. The King of Burgers even went to the door of McDonald's and gave them a giant gift box, which turned out to be an oven when opened. In other words, if I give you an oven, you can also make delicious burgers like me.

They also arranged a choir to sing, "We have been grilling hamburgers since 1954, and you are still frying them. Now we have sent you this oven, so you can grill delicious hamburgers in the future. Please give it a try. This is our most sincere and friendly advice!"

What a dramatic actor! Unbeatable cheek.

It is said that using real fire in the store is prone to fire accidents. Coincidentally, Burger King has experienced such disasters several times.

But Burger King was tough enough and didn’t panic at all. Before McDonald’s could respond, Burger King actually made its own fire scene into an advertising poster, with the slogan “flame grilled since 1954”.

My knees went straight up to it!

02 A small jewelry store owner's big gamble

In Wilmington, North Carolina, there is a small jewelry store. In the winter of 2010, the owner of this store launched an explosive promotion:

If you bought jewelry in our store within 2 weeks after Thanksgiving. On Christmas Day, if another small town, Asheville (about 500 kilometers from Wilmington) , has more than 3 inches of snow, you can keep the jewelry and get all your money back, all back!

The news spread quickly in the neighborhood, and even local residents of Asheville drove more than 500 kilometers to this jewelry store to buy jewelry.

As a result, on Christmas Day, Asheville, which rarely snows, actually received 6 inches of thick snow. The store was lined up with people applying for a full refund. The owner did not say a word and really refunded the full amount, refunding more than 400,000 US dollars that day.

If you think this was a complete failure, you'd be wrong.

Because the boss had already purchased weather insurance based on his sales during that period.

Locally, this type of insurance is mainly aimed at some businesses that rely on the weather for their livelihood, such as a small shop owner selling umbrellas, who can only make a profit if it rains for more than 15 days a month. In this way, the shop owner can buy a policy that it will rain for more than 15 days. If it really rains no more than 15 days, he will receive compensation sufficient to spread the loss.

The jewelry store owner made full use of this weather insurance and used this highly contagious promotional activity to bypass old-fashioned methods such as discounts and free gifts, thereby increasing sales and greatly improving his visibility.

03 A marketing campaign that changed Japanese people’s habits

In the 1970s, Japan's economy was booming and Nestlé hoped to open up the Japanese market with coffee.

However, Japanese consumers at that time preferred to drink tea and had no habit of drinking coffee.

Therefore, before entering the market, Nestlé first conducted a test on consumers of all ages, asking them about their opinions on Nestlé coffee.

Unexpectedly, the feedback made Nestlé extremely excited! Because after testing, Japanese consumers indicated that they really liked the taste of their coffee.

Nestlé immediately invested huge amounts of marketing expenses to allow its coffee to enter the Japanese market in a big way.

But the final result was disappointing. The Japanese did say they liked the taste of coffee, but they refused to buy it.

In desperation, Nestlé's top management decided to let marketing expert Clotaire Lapaye take charge of Nestlé's marketing in Japan, which was controversial at the time.

Because Clotaire isn’t your typical marketing guy, he’s actually a child psychiatrist who has worked with autistic children for years.

But it was from this experience that he became convinced of one thing: people can't tell you what they really want.

After repeated research, Clotaire soon discovered that Japanese consumers had no fundamental connection with coffee, while drinking tea has always been a lifestyle habit for the Japanese. What needs to be done now is to establish a connection between the Japanese and coffee.

So how did Clotaire do it?

He launched coffee candy in Japan despite opposition.

Suddenly, children all over Japan discovered dozens of different flavors of coffee candy, and they loved the taste, so it was quickly promoted throughout Japan.

Starting with coffee sugar, Nestlé eventually moved on to cold sugary coffee-flavored drinks and then, naturally, to Nescafé.

As a result, as a country that previously did not drink coffee at all, Japan's coffee sales have increased year by year and are now steadily ranked at the top.

A coffee candy is the finishing touch!

04 Intel establishes computer selection standards

In 1991, Intel launched its first slogan “Intel Inside” and proposed the Intel Inside plan. At the same time, what people remember most is the brainwashing background sound of “Light…wait for the light, wait for the light”.

At that time, consumers only considered the brand when buying computers and didn’t care whose parts you used. In order to establish the perception among consumers that “only computers using Intel CPU are good computers”. Intel began to provide huge subsidies to computer manufacturers.

At that time, manufacturers could obtain up to 50% promotion fee subsidies as long as they put the Intel label on their computers, and merchants could make huge profits just by relying on subsidies. Of course, the entire subsidy plan includes many items. For this grand plan, Intel has spent nearly $7 billion in subsidies.

This long-term marketing eventually directly penetrated the concept of "Intel CPU = good computer" into the minds of consumers and established Intel's position in the notebook computer market.

It can be said that this marketing initiative established a new standard for consumers to choose computers, and it has continued to influence consumer perception until now.

05 The best job in the world

In 2009, the Queensland Tourism Board of Australia launched a worldwide application campaign for "the best job in the world". The winner can not only get a high-paying job of 150,000 Australian dollars/6 months, but also enjoy luxurious accommodation in the Great Barrier Reef.

Take a walk on the picturesque island, feed the fish, write a blog, and tell people outside about your "exploration journey" on the island. If you work like this for 6 months, you can get a salary of 150,000 Australian dollars (about 700,000 RMB).

The work location is Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

Recruiting worldwide. The job application method is to record a video and send it to the Queensland Tourism Bureau's email address.

In the end, the event received nearly 35,000 job applications from 202 countries and regions, and the recruitment website received more than 8 million hits. The Queensland Tourism Bureau went to so much trouble just to recruit a caretaker, obviously for the sake of the Great Barrier Reef tourism industry.

700,000 RMB is a very small promotional expense, but they were very successful. According to media reports, this event brought the Great Barrier Reef a publicity effect equivalent to 200 million US dollars.

In addition to finding channels for advertising, marketing really requires bold thinking and daring experimentation, and not just focusing on direct conversion.

06 Sell the element that is least in short supply on earth to the one that is most in short supply

Diamonds first emerged in Europe, where royal families and nobles used diamond jewelry to show off their wealth and status. At that time, the production area was fixed and the output was extremely low, so it could only be used as a special supply for the royal family.

But at the end of the 19th century, an enormous diamond mine was discovered in South Africa, with reserves ten times the world's original reserves. At this time, the British company De Beers bought this huge diamond mine. At its peak, De Beers controlled 90% of the world's diamond shipments.

However, large-scale mining caused the price of diamonds to collapse, and people discovered that diamonds, which were thought to be extremely scarce, were not so scarce after all. In addition, the only element made of diamonds is carbon, which can be said to be one of the most abundant elements in the world. Therefore, the mass market consumption of diamonds at that time was not high and people did not need them.

So how can you sell worthless diamonds to others at a high price at that time, and at the same time make the customers who buy your diamonds willingly not to resell them?

At this time, De Beers used its big move. They tightly controlled the export volume of diamonds. At the same time, in order to impress the world's demand for diamonds, they launched the classic slogan " A diamond is forever ."

Diamonds represent beauty, eternity and love, and are linked to beautiful love, establishing the perception that "diamonds = beauty + eternity, and love = beauty + eternity, so diamonds = love", which has led to people's crazy demand for diamonds.

This slogan was even selected by Advertising Age magazine as the greatest slogan of the 20th century.

Eventually, De Beers successfully promoted diamonds to the general public, causing the price of diamonds to rise all the way and eventually forming today's highly monopolized diamond market.

07 Golden Arowana's 1:1:1

At the beginning, Golden Dragon Fish introduced salad oil which was already very popular abroad. Although it had a market, it was not fully accepted by the Chinese people. Although salad oil is highly refined, it does not have much oily aroma and does not conform to Chinese eating habits.

Later, Golden Dragon Fish developed a product that mixed peanut oil, rapeseed oil and salad oil, combining the purity and hygiene of salad oil with the needs of the Chinese people, so that product innovation finally met the needs of the Chinese market.

Later, in order to build a strong brand, Golden Dragon Fish launched the new "Healthy Life Golden Dragon Fish". However, despite the huge investment, these vague brand concepts did not trigger more associations except for making consumers remember the brand name of Golden Dragon Fish, and people still did not clearly understand the benefits of blended oil.

Therefore, in 2002, Golden Arowana created a new concept of “1:1:1”. It seems simple, but the rational appeal of the "1:1:1" optimal nutritional formula not only vividly conveys the characteristics of Golden Dragon Fish, which is a blend of three oils, but also makes consumers feel that only "1:1:1" Golden Dragon Fish is the best cooking oil. It’s somewhat similar to Intel’s approach above.

It was through this simple marketing and communication concept that Golden Dragon Fish truly made Chinese consumers aware of blended oil in 2002 and has since maintained its position as the number one brand in the small-packaged edible oil industry.

I know that few people know what 1:1:1 is exactly, but we can all remember 1:1:1 and think that this ratio should be very scientific.

08 Michelin restaurant rating marketing

In 1900, the founder of Michelin was very optimistic about the prospect of car travel. If the concept of car travel could become popular, their tires would sell better.

So they hired people to collect and organize information that would be helpful for car travel, such as maps, restaurants, gas stations, hotels, etc., and published the "Michelin Guide" which was the size of a pocket booklet. They also promoted it vigorously in the Paris World Expo Park at that time.

The original "Michelin Guide" was a booklet similar to the shopping guides distributed in shopping malls today, and gradually it was filled with a large number of advertisements. There was really nothing interesting to see.

The Michelin brothers noticed this problem in time, so they changed the free distribution of the manual into a paid sale, and decided to streamline the scope of the guide. Finally, it gradually clearly positioned itself on restaurant and food reviews around the world, and in 1931 launched the historic "Michelin Three-Star Grading Selection".

Then, after being packaged and improved by countless business planners, it became what we see today and influenced the entire world.

A company that sells car tires, in order to increase the demand for tires, eventually created the "Michelin Red Guide" for restaurants and food around the world. I really have to admire it!

09 Coca-Cola’s crazy expansion

Coca-Cola’s channel construction is definitely a model for all fast-moving consumer goods manufacturers in the world. It is truly ubiquitous! There is a saying within Coca-Cola: Make Coca-Cola within reach, make it everywhere, make it available at any time in dance halls, barber shops, offices, trains and other places.

In order to speed up factory construction and ensure that channels are laid everywhere, Coca-Cola produces and supplies syrup itself and transfers some of the franchised bottling rights to quickly build factories.

And its legend of expanding its territory around the world actually appeared during World War II.

This marketing strategy can be said to be extremely crazy. After the outbreak of World War II, Robert Woodruff, the second chairman of Coca-Cola, proposed:

No matter where our troops are, and no matter how much it costs our company, we will make sure that every soldier can buy a bottle of Coca-Cola for only 5 cents.

The main purpose of this booklet is to convince the soldiers that Coca-Cola can reduce their mental stress and improve their rest efficiency. It is not just a leisure drink, but a necessity of life, as important as guns, artillery and ammunition.

After that, Woodruff immediately imitated the way the US military used dehydrated food, bottled and exported Coca-Cola concentrate, and tried to set up bottling plants in military areas. In other words, Coca-Cola would be available wherever the US military went.

In the end, Coca-Cola sold a total of 10 billion bottles during World War II, and most importantly, it established 64 bottling plants.

10 You have what you like

The last one, please tell me a impressive marketing case!

Marketing planners who like to look at high-quality cases will not have too bad luck.