New brand IP marketing methodology!

The global economy is recovering and growing in 2021. The global economy will grow by 5.5% in 2021, while China's economic growth rate will be 8.1%. China has not experienced a growth rate of over 8% for ten years (9.55% in 2011 and 7.86% in 2012). The shadow of the golden age of growth will reappear briefly in 2021. For seven consecutive years, consumption has become the primary driving force for China's economic growth, and consumption upgrading will remain an unchanging theme for the next decade. New brands will continue to emerge and develop.

New changes in consumption have occurred rapidly in the past two to three years. The rise of a new generation of consumer groups and the explosion of new traffic from e-commerce live streaming, short video promotion, and graphic and text promotion have made consumer brands very popular.

"In the past, a brand company with a revenue of 3 billion might need 5-8 years to mature, but now it only takes 3-4 years to incubate a company with a revenue of 3 billion," said Weng Yino, founding partner of Hongzhang Capital.

How do new brands capture users’ minds step by step? Where does the brand’s traffic come from? Why is user thinking the product moat? How does IP capture the market?

1. Build a brand with user thinking

The more choices we have, the more confused we become. Current brands are in a state of diversification.

The underlying business logic in the Internet era has also changed, from the original "goods-place-people" to "people-place-goods" , and the status of users has become increasingly important.

In the past, due to the constraints of productivity and the scarcity of materials, people looked for goods. Now, goods look for people.

Therefore, brand communication becomes more and more important. We need to make users fall in love with the brand, endorse the brand and spread the brand. This will not only reduce marketing costs but also increase conversion rates.

In a marketing environment with diverse media and rich content, it is difficult for users’ minds to be attracted by fragmented things. If brands want to attract and convert users, they need to have user thinking.

New consumer brands are brands that rely on the Internet, and the core of the Internet economy is users. Because users are the core, "user thinking" becomes the core of brand building.

Every communication is to influence users.

We must learn to stand in the user's perspective, think about their needs, and face their reactions to products and brands in order to carry out product design and marketing.

For example, three and a half meals:

During the product design stage, we put "user perceived value" first. Starting with product packaging, we think about how to get consumers to take pictures, share, and post them, so that the brand can get more free traffic. Sandunban uses the term "image creation rate" to describe the social dividends of user sharing.

Adopting different marketing strategies for different age groups and circles can help brands lock in users.

For example, Luckin Coffee:

There are stores of different styles, mini petty bourgeoisie stores downstairs from white-collar workers, casual image stores in the central area, and convenient take-out stores in residential areas. The location of the stores themselves has circle characteristics, and excellent design will also lead to secondary dissemination through users taking photos and checking in.

2. Make good use of social media

In the first half of the Internet, there are still many opportunities and gaps, and brand marketing mainly focuses on attracting traffic.

In the second half, as the traffic dividend is exhausted, brands are competing for users' time and winning their trust.

In a fully competitive environment, brands need to conduct differentiated marketing to build their own characteristics, attract consumer trust, and better obtain traffic and conversions.

Data shows that recommendations from celebrities and influencers, and advertising on social media platforms are the main sources for users to obtain brand information today, and their influence ratio is far higher than that of traditional media advertising. Content social platforms such as Weibo, Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu have naturally become the main battlefield for brand promotion.

By communicating with consumers through major social platforms, we continuously output the concept and image of products and brands, and ultimately capture the minds of consumers, build word of mouth, and increase brand awareness.

Social media marketing consists of three stages: from “awareness” to “recognition”. Capture minds through content and build trust through endorsements—ultimately leading to purchases and long-term value accumulation. These three interlocking stages of planting grass are the key to a brand attracting users.

At the same time, pay attention to time control. On social media, the golden period from being promoted to being removed is within a week. After a week, as the memory decreases, the possibility of successful promotion will be greatly reduced.

Brand is another way of saying differentiation and user trust. If you want to gain user attention, you must ensure that you have better visibility and better brand communication content than similar competitors. You need to have the dual attributes of social + e-commerce.

Different platforms have different preferences and circles, so the marketing content needs to be changed according to the platform, and the layout on the platform needs to be based on different groups of people.

In social media marketing, brands not only export products, but also values ​​and lifestyles that will have a lasting impact and attract consumers.

Secondly, let’s return to product strength. Every time a product comes into contact with consumers is an opportunity, and good contact will make consumers become fans.

At present, the internet celebrities in the beverage industry, such as Heytea and Yuanqi Forest, and the internet celebrity in the ice cream industry, Zhong Xuegao, are all well aware of this and have successfully stood out from many brands.

The social media marketing of Suxizhiyuan took only 7 months, Kongke took only 10 months, Adopt a Cow took only 15 months, and Sandunban took only 17 months, all of which took less than a year and a half.

These new consumer brands have achieved sales growth in just 2-3 years, which would take traditional brands 5-10 years or even longer.

The reason is that after the product has been tested online and gained recognition from the circle, it quickly seizes the time window, establishes brand awareness through saturated exposure, and opens the best entrance to break into the minds of consumers.

Because only by forming deep cognition in the minds of consumers can we have the opportunity to defeat later competitors.

3. Offline advertising is also a major traffic source

Almost everyone in the city takes the elevator, and elevator advertising is very popular with brands both in the new media and traditional media eras.

Among the TOP10 popular, highly recognizable, and mind-occupying slogans in 2020, 47% of consumer awareness channels come from TV advertising, 56% from Internet media, and 83% from elevator media.

83% of popular advertising slogans are created by “elevators”. If we compare it with last year's data, 54% came from Internet media, 50% came from TV advertising, and 81% came from elevator media.

Skin care brand Winona also used elevator advertising in 16 cities across the country, using a storm-like high-frequency advertising format, occupying office buildings, public areas and cinemas.

Since May 2020, Winona has launched a large number of elevator advertisements, which quickly regained the brand's reputation. During the 618 event alone, Focus Media covered more than 170 million Winona consumers, more than 2 times the previous month, and the number of new people with cognitive interest exceeded 150 million, more than 12 times the previous month.

In addition to conducting traffic and content marketing on platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Weibo, Kuaishou, and Douyin, as well as using celebrities to help, Li Jiaqi to assist in bringing goods, and Zhang Yuqi to endorse

Since May 2020, Yuanqi Forest's targeted TVC advertisements have begun to appear in elevators one after another, dominating the screen. Many people have begun to remember the concept of "0 calories, 0 fat, 0 sugar", and have firmly occupied the mental resources of "the expert leader of sugar-free beverages."

In May 2020, Focus Media's saturation attack sold 260 million in the first month, which is the total amount in 2019. The winner was Yuanqi Forest. The advertisements were placed until September. Yuanqi Forest's revenue reached 400 million yuan in just one month.

While planning online advertising and marketing, brands are also fighting for every inch of offline space, because consumers may become aware of the brand and products unintentionally and repurchase them.

4. Shaping the brand IP image value

1. What is IP?

IP is the abbreviation of Intellectual Property, which means "intellectual property" when directly translated.

The most important thing about IP is content. Content is the soul of IP. Content is the communication bridge that connects IP to users' emotions.

Nowadays, many things in society are called IPs, such as movies, TV series, novels, comics, or even a certain person, all are called IPs, and the scope involved is very wide.

2. The importance of IP to brands

IP, as a core element, gives consumers brand warmth.

Brand IPization has become an inevitable trend in marketing in the social media era.

IP can give warmth to the brand, bring it closer to consumers, and has its own traffic and topic attributes, giving it a stronger communication effect.

However, in IP creation, we should focus on the unification of brand image and style, so as to have an integrated brand image.

A complete and unified IP image is conducive to building a link between the brand and consumers. Through this character, the brand's creativity can be continuously output, consumer awareness can be strengthened, and thus the consumer's mind can be captured.

3. Why should brands build IP?

(1) For example, Mixue Bingcheng has IP thinking. It created the character image of the Snow King IP, and when the brand name is mentioned, people think of the little snowman with a red hat.

Jiang Xiaobai’s IP is a playful cartoon character, and these IP images have already been personified in the minds of consumers.

(2) Exist in people’s lives like real people. It feels as if you can touch them, giving people warmth and fun, which is very attractive to consumers.

(3) In addition, just like girls, they need to put on makeup, take care of their skin, and keep it in good condition. In the face of brand aging, companies must also take good care of their brands and upgrade them.

Among them, cross-border fashion and traffic IP can achieve a win-win situation for both parties without too much cost to grab the entrance of young consumers, while at the same time increasing their presence among nostalgic fans. Currently, corporate cross-border cooperation mainly includes two methods: collaboration with film, television, animation, games and other content, and joint products with brands.

Luzhou Laojiao, a time-honored brand, launched the Peach Blossom Drunk item when its dish “Peach Blossom Drunk” became popular in the TV series Eternal Love and invited more than 600 internet celebrities from the internet celebrity factory to jointly support it.

(4) Compared with brand building, IP has more extensive value for enterprises.

The brand is too dependent on one or one type of specific product, while the ultimate goal of IP is to pursue value and cultural identity. What IP provides to consumers is not the functional attributes of the product, but an emotional sustenance.

For example, Perfect Diary is a sophisticated urban white-collar worker, Huaxizi represents traditional Chinese aesthetics, and Pop Mart is a trendy brand. These brands export a set of values ​​and lifestyles while exporting products.

(5) On the other hand, brands need to create cultural value symbols that go beyond products and strengthen their spiritual connection with consumers, thereby converting consumers into fans and helping to build a strong and loyal fan base.

The popularity of the brand is the result of the combination of product strength and marketing.

For advertisers and brands, efficiently combining online and offline, content and scenario, and igniting brands through social media and offline advertising will become the most effective paradigm for future communication.

In people's daily financial management, there is the concept of asset allocation, including stocks, funds, bonds, financial products, real estate, etc. The concept of brand allocation is also proposed here.

4. What effect should be achieved by creating IP?

New brands should diversify their marketing methods, have user thinking in their products and make good use of IP images.

The purpose of brand communication is not only to complete sales, but more importantly to remove consumers' cognitive and psychological barriers to the brand.

Nobel Prize winner in Economics Kahneman believes that the way to make people believe in a concept or thing is to repeat it over and over again.

Because it's hard for people to distinguish between familiarity and truth. Familiar things make people relax their cognition, making them feel comfortable and easy to judge. The essence of marketing is repetition, and the essence of users is forgetting.

Therefore, the inevitable trend is to find scarce centralized scenarios, combine marketing, and establish brand consensus in a fragmented environment.

Author: Ke Ya

Source: "Consumer World (ID: xiaofeijie316)"