Double 11 is marketing, not promotion

Tmall Double 11 just ended, generating sales of 498 billion yuan. In addition to being a national consumption feast, it is also a marketing feast.

For all brands participating in Double 11, this is not just a big promotion, but also the most important marketing opportunity of the whole year.

We can see that many brands have completed a series of brand goals such as product iteration, brand upgrading, and consumer expansion at this point in time.

In the first half of the year, we talked about the strategy of a Taobao brand and how Taobao brands can be upgraded to mass brands. Their annual sales are in the billions, and they have everything that traditional brands have, such as spokespersons, TVCs, content collaborations with internet celebrities (KOLs), etc. However, consumers still don't seem to approve of this and still think it's just a business selling goods.

At the end of the discussion, the idea I proposed was to seize the Double 11 event to launch a big project, including new product launches, store-wide promotions, and brand communications. Concentrating 90% of the annual marketing budget on Double 11 may be a feasible strategy with a chance of breaking the circle.

This year’s Double 11, I can see many similar strategies. For example, before Double 11, many brands officially announced their spokespersons and carried out large-scale marketing. Leading brands not only do promotions on Double 11, but also focus on brand marketing.

Next, let’s talk about why we should build a brand on Double 11, how to leverage Double 11 to build a brand, and our outlook for the future.

Below, Enjoy:

Big day for commercial consumption traffic

There has never been a time when the public has shopped so intensively.

Double 11 has become the world's largest shopping festival. The record-breaking sales and number of participants every year prove one thing to people: Double 11 is the largest commercial traffic pool.

There are two types of Internet traffic: one is content traffic , such as Weibo, WeChat, Kuaishou, Douyin, Bilibili, etc. One is commercial traffic , and Alibaba is a giant in commercial traffic.

For marketing communications, the two have different values. Commercial traffic carries the circulation of goods, while content traffic is used for dissemination, and consumers will eventually return to commercial traffic consumption. It can be understood that commercial traffic is 1 and content traffic is 0. The 1 must come first before the subsequent 0 has value.

The Double 11 shopping festival is the big day when commercial traffic explodes, which is centralized commercial traffic. For marketing, centralized traffic is the best moment.

The consumption characteristics of Double 11 are: non-targeted shopping.

Every year on Double 11, besides the shopping list you have prepared, what else do you want to buy? Which product is the cheapest? Waiting for other people's recommendations and the official list of best-selling products. As far as my friends are concerned, non-targeted shopping accounts for the majority of their Double 11 shopping carts.

This shopping feature means a very important expansion opportunity for brands. People will place orders for products they have never consumed before, which means consumer expansion for brands.

Now the opportunities are clearly sorted out. First of all, Double 11 is the big day with the largest consumer traffic. Alibaba creates momentum and brands take advantage of it.

Then there are consumption habits. People must buy things on Double 11, but there is uncertainty about what to buy. Most people visit venues, look at recommendations, browse charts, and use various channels to determine the composition of their shopping carts. When these two factors come together, it creates a huge marketing opportunity.

Next, what can brands do with this marketing opportunity?

In the past, when we talked about the integration of brand and effect, we meant first having the brand and then filtering it down to the effect. Now it’s the opposite. Double 11 is first and foremost about the effect, building the brand based on selling goods.

No communication or interaction is as real as the experience gained by consumers. The marketing of Double 11 is to build brand based on effect, or it can be understood as the moment when the brand is closest to the effect.

The view I have always held is that any new brand concept and consumer selling point will not be truly established until consumers get their hands on the product and experience it. Seeing it 100 times is not as good as experiencing it once.

It can be understood in this way that Double 11 is to implement the previous brand concept into specific products and use new products to support the brand concept.

Brand upgrade, landing on Double 11

Next, let’s talk about a case study on how to leverage the Double 11 shopping spree to complete a brand upgrade.

What we want to talk about is not any other brand, but Tmall Global. Although Tmall Global does not have an independent APP, it is an independently operated platform brand that is responsible for Alibaba's import business. It has two models: flagship store and self-operated. Some people may not know this.

In July this year, Tmall International underwent a brand upgrade, which was also an adjustment in strategic direction. The positioning has been upgraded from "Original Imports from All Over the World" to "My New Global Discovery". At the same time, top stars Victoria Song and Fan Chengcheng were officially announced as brand ambassadors.

From selling point positioning based on product attributes to consumption positioning based on consumers.

The new brand positioning places more emphasis on the "sense of discovery". My personal understanding is that there are two levels: one is the product composition of Tmall International, which places more emphasis on the sense of discovery, meaning more "non-standard products".

There is not much sense of discovery for international brands that have already opened flagship stores on Tmall, but the good things in every corner of the world that have not yet become big brands and are not yet well-known in China are more worth exploring. Therefore, the sense of discovery of Tmall International is to discover those niche good products.

The second level is the consumer’s sense of discovery. From shopping with strong purposes, to shopping with weak purposes, and then to the sense of discovery like "shopping".

As the product structure is changing, less well-known niche products require users to take the initiative to discover them, and place more emphasis on the "shopping" attribute. Tmall Global has also become the largest overseas shopping platform.

We did a brand upgrade in July, more on the communication level. During Double 11, we need to implement the “sense of discovery” into products and let consumers really experience the “sense of discovery”.

Tmall Global has done two things: one is the Universal Auction House, and the other is Overseas Shopping 2000. Chat alone:

Iterate on selling points within the site

For most brands, upgrading means the iteration of selling points. The iteration of selling points cannot be achieved by words, but must make consumers feel it truly.

Tmall International’s brand upgrade, how to leverage the huge traffic of Double 11 to implement it.

From hearing and seeing "my new global discoveries" to feeling and experiencing "my new global discoveries". Of course, some changes have been made on the product side in the past few months, from product supply to front-end recommendations. But on the Double 11 event, we need to give consumers a strong memory.

So we set up a "Universe Auction House" on the site to put the world's newest and most unique non-standard products on the shelves. The feeling given to everyone is: this can all be sold!

For example, as the manager of a well-known French winery, he invited spokesperson Victoria Song to be the owner and created an exclusive customized area for the managers in the winery. The auctioneer will also have the right to jointly manage the winery with Victoria Song.

For example, Dubai camel milk was personally recommended by the cousin of the Dubai prince. For example, a whole barrel of single malt whisky, out-of-print Lego, etc. The purpose of searching for new, unique and non-standard products around the world is to allow consumers to experience the magical sense of discovery: "I can actually buy these on Tmall Global!"

Once this understanding is consolidated, everyone’s usage habits will change, from shopping with a strong purpose to browsing Tmall International to see what good things they can find.

Setting the tone of your brand outside the site

Two things were done before: first, the declaration was exposed, and in July it was officially upgraded to "My Global New Discovery" and a spokesperson was invited. The second is to take advantage of the Double 11 event and, with the influence and user scale of Double 11, maximize the "sense of discovery" on the site.

The next step is the third one, which is to set the brand tone and consolidate consensus at the mass level.

On the eve of Double 11, the China International Import Expo also opened. As Tmall Global, which mainly deals in imported products, it is most appropriate for it to set the tone for brand-level communication at this point.

Three videos were shot with the theme of "2000 Years of Overseas Shopping", which pay tribute to the thousand-year overseas shopping culture by telling the overseas shopping stories of three ancient people, Xuanzang, Zheng He and Zhang Qian, two thousand years ago. The videos take users back to the ancient Chinese overseas shopping culture in the form of vlogs and tell the past and present of imported products.

A narrative logic of the past, present and future is constructed in the time dimension. The content is the past, but it expresses the present and the future.

Over the past 2,000 years, the Chinese nation has been brave in exploring the outside world and has received tributes from thousands of dynasties. It has always been an open nation. The current CIIE and Tmall Global allow us to explore and discover the world with a more open mind. Just like what was said in the video, "For two thousand years, the Chinese have never stopped exploring new ways of life. Today, we still want to discover two thousand years ago."

The message given to the public from a marketing perspective is that Tmall Global is the representative of overseas shopping platforms and the most extreme overseas shopping platform. For overseas shopping, go to Tmall Global. This is the tone set by the brand at the mass level.

We have talked about many cases of brand upgrading. This case mainly focuses on the strategy of leveraging the momentum, taking advantage of Double 11 to do marketing and using promotions to drive marketing.

It is divided into three steps: the first is the official announcement; the second is the product landing experience; and the third is the tone set by public opinion. Very stable.

To sum up: Taking advantage of major events

To briefly summarize, why Double 11 is marketing, not promotion. Or, Double 11 itself is a promotion, but brands want to use Double 11 for marketing.

The essence of using Double 11 for brand marketing is to take advantage of the situation.

Double 11 is the largest consumer traffic gathering point, Golden Week is the largest travel traffic, the World Cup and the Olympics are the largest sports traffic... These traffics with different attributes can find marketing opportunities from different angles to achieve brand goals.

The attributes of these major events may be different, but one thing is the same: they are all moments when traffic is extremely concentrated, and almost all of them are the biggest traffic highlights in the country or even the world.

In an environment where attention is increasingly fragmented, centralized traffic will only become increasingly scarce.

For Tmall Double 11, it is simply the best marketing opportunity, because it is a big day for commercial consumer traffic, and marketing is part of business.

Although today’s case is about Tmall Global, it is the best marketing opportunity for the vast majority of consumer brands that open stores on Tmall.

The problem faced by brands that have grown up in the Taobao system is how to expand into mass brands. They can completely regard Double 11 as the most important brand campaign. Winning this battle well in one year is enough to take the brand to the next level.

As for the strategy of leveraging momentum, we can refer to Tmall International’s strategy: announcement – ​​product launch – brand tone setting.

This year's Double 11 has ended. Countless brands and hundreds of millions of consumers participated in it and together created a miracle of 498 billion yuan.

Behind this big number, every brand has its own calculations. It is the Double 11 of countless brands.

Author: Yang Buhuai

Source: Yang Buhuai