Why is Spring Festival red envelope marketing so popular?

I have to complain that this year’s Spring Festival marketing is not “hot” at all!

Why is it not popular? For this, you can refer to the article published yesterday, "Celebrating the New Year in Place in 2021, How Should Brands Conduct Spring Festival Marketing?" 》. We have anticipated many kinds of brand commercials that will be popular during this year's Spring Festival marketing, but so far, the most popular one, Apple, has also "failed".

Of course, we can’t put all the blame on “celebrating the New Year at home”. What's wrong with celebrating the New Year where we are? Can celebrating the New Year at home dampen the creative enthusiasm of advertisers? That’s definitely not the case!

After all, even if the Spring Festival marketing didn’t work, the WeChat red envelopes did.

How popular is it?

It was trending on the Internet, a schedule was released, the WeChat index rose, and a number of brands followed suit...

Let’s talk about the hot search first. The topic that was sent to the hot search was the Gucci red envelope cover. So far, the topic of the red envelope cover has been read 210 million times. Under the topic, the content of the discussion was also very exciting. Everyone was sharing their status. Many people were swiping the screen to get the product, and some said that they were unlucky. But no matter what, from a brand perspective, this marketing campaign was won.

"Finally one day, everyone will use luxury brands, and the future will be bright."

Another manifestation of red is the schedule. I don’t know if the official WeChat red envelope team has KPIs, but they should have, otherwise why would they come out with a schedule for brand red envelope covers? While the number of red envelopes is limited, a schedule was released at the same time, and the time points for major brands to send out red envelope covers are all fully scheduled. Of course, there is definitely no bad intention behind WeChat red envelopes. The Spring Festival is coming soon, and the New Year’s big sale will bring free limited benefits to users, and also allow WeChat to intercept the “scanning for blessings” flow early.

(Too long to fit, part of the schedule)

(Spending money, 200,000 red envelopes every day, 1 red envelope costs 1 yuan)

Seeing so many brands launching WeChat red envelope covers online, how many brands started copying overnight and working overtime to produce the red envelope covers.

It can also be seen from the WeChat Index that the search index for red envelope covers reached a new peak on February 1, with over 100 million searches. On that day, many brands and celebrity red envelope covers were released, and this day was also the first day of Alipay’s annual Spring Festival event “Sweep for Blessings”.
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Unexpectedly, the position of Chief Atmosphere Officer for the Spring Festival was snatched away by WeChat. Alipay only started the lucky draw this week. Apparently, after 6 years of lucky draws, netizens are becoming less and less enthusiastic (qian) and (money).

In addition, according to the data from Shiqu Insight Engine, netizens on Weibo are also discussing red envelope covers. It can be seen that popular keywords closely related to red envelope covers include "Yi Yang Qianxi, Yang Mi, Wang Yuan, Wang Yibo, Zhang Yixing", etc., as well as "so beautiful, amazing, grab it, arrange, hurry up, ah ah ah" and "good luck in the ox, new year", etc. These keywords can just reveal the brand's WeChat red envelope marketing strategy.

Data source: Shiqu Insight Engine Data period: January 29, 2021 - February 3, 2021

First is the brand + spokesperson Spring Festival red envelope combination. Brands use posters of celebrity spokespersons as red envelope images, such as Estee Lauder & Yang Mi, Tiffany & Yi Yang Qianxi, Shunfeng & Jay Chou, etc.

For brands, on the one hand, this can once again leverage the star's traffic and popularity to gain support from fans, which is a relatively risk-free operation that will not result in a situation where "no one cares". On the other hand, for fans, this is also a new vehicle for cheering for their idols. Fans can gently push their favorite idols into social circles and friend circles by sending red envelopes. In other words, it is a strategy for the brand + spokesperson combination to break the circle.

The second is the brand’s unique creative design red envelope. Brands prefer to use red envelope covers to convey their unique taste and aesthetics, in order to enhance the brand style and sense of luxury, or to consolidate the brand image.

This category is dominated by luxury brands, and is also the most popular red envelope on social platforms, winning because of its appearance, such as Gucci and Burberry. For luxury brands, this is a great opportunity to interact and communicate with young people. Visually, it is not restricted by the Spring Festival theme, but instead expands the scenarios for using red envelopes. It not only conveys the brand's youthfulness and personalization, but also uses the red envelope cover as a carrier to penetrate into the young population. This should be the biggest gain for luxury brands in the red envelope cover war. Although some people say that the red envelope cover worth 0.01 yuan comes from Gucci, it does not affect the fact that the bag worth more than 20,000 yuan also comes from Gucci.

The third type is simple and light style, brand elements & Spring Festival elements + New Year's greetings. Most of these brands are based on the Spring Festival, with the brand as a supplement. Visually, they will highlight the festive atmosphere, the Chinese zodiac sign of the ox and other Spring Festival elements, and then add blessing copy, brand logo or other elements.

Although this type of brand is not visually outstanding, it is more suitable for the Spring Festival scene. While weakening the brand style, it also greatly increases the use of red envelopes. Because red envelopes with too strong brand attributes will inevitably be suspected of advertising, they will reduce the frequency of use and become only a gimmick in brand marketing campaigns. However, the real value of red envelope cover marketing lies in interactive communication and social currency.

“After seeing so many Spring Festival marketing red envelope covers, should brands follow suit?”

In fact, we can see that the Spring Festival marketing in recent years has all taken the emotional route, or in other words, the mainstream of Spring Festival marketing over the years has been emotional marketing, centered around "reunion", "going home", "family", "company" and so on.

However, the ones that can go viral and are truly remembered by the public are all some extremely subtle emotions that are magnified, such as "What's Peppa Pig?". But this kind of film not only tests the technology and filming techniques, but the core that can truly touch the public lies in the real life emotions, and it is only a small group of people, but the public can think from their perspective, which requires very deep insight. Obviously, not all brands can do this, which is also the reason why it is difficult for brands to break out of the circle during the Spring Festival marketing. In addition, under the influence of last year's epidemic, the public has experienced too many emotional touches this year and has seen all kinds of real joys and sorrows. The public's emotional walls have been built high, and it can be said that it is becoming increasingly difficult to take the emotional route for Spring Festival marketing.

The appearance of red envelope covers at this time actually pushed the Spring Festival marketing to the other side: the socialization of entertainment and the younger generation of Spring Festival marketing.

Social entertainment refers to the Spring Festival marketing, which has brought about a wider range of and more active interactive exchanges among users. It not only becomes a carrier for brand exposure, but also a low-cost marketing for brands. The younger generation of Spring Festival marketing has two meanings. One is the innovation of gameplay, and the other is that compared with TVC that takes the emotional approach, WeChat red envelopes seem to be more suitable for young people.

In addition, the red color on the cover of WeChat red envelopes also sends a signal that the scenarios of Spring Festival marketing are not only limited to offline, TVC, e-commerce promotions, etc. The development of social networks is also changing the carriers and channels of Spring Festival marketing. Today, the battlefield of Spring Festival marketing may be WeChat red envelopes, but what will happen tomorrow is unknown.

The "red" of the red envelope cover is unpredictable. Some brands have the ability to "follow the trend" at any time, but some brands do not. The victory of this carnival also depends on the brand's ability to respond quickly and execute quickly. Behind this is not only the capture of hot spots, but also the integration of multiple marketing capabilities such as strategy and creativity. Brands that still do not have this ability are undoubtedly running naked on the social square. All we can say is "Brand, don't follow the trend blindly."

Finally, it is not just celebrities who need to become famous early, but also brands that need to "follow the trend" early. There are really not many that remain until the end and can be remembered.

Author: Shiqu Research Institute

Source: SocialTouch2020