A case study of brand IPization that achieved great results with little effort

Every brand wants to build itself into an IP, but developing an IP is not an easy task. It often takes a lot of energy and time and still fails to achieve the expected results. This article will take Meituan’s “kangaroo ears” as the entry point and share a “leverage” method, I hope it will be helpful to you.

IP has gradually become the mainstream of brand marketing, but the IPs developed by many companies are not successful. They consume a lot of money, time and energy, but are always thankless.

For example, a first-tier daily necessities brand once launched images and created content on Weibo and Douyin, but it had nothing to do with its own marketing. After people saw it, they did not get much positive feedback about the brand and products, so the company shelved it within less than a year and even changed the names of its Weibo and Douyin accounts.

What is the reason? Lao Xiaoge has examined a large number of cases of corporate IPization and found that the unsuccessful cases are very similar:

1. The IP is too weakly connected to the company’s own marketing system, and only works on the outside;
2. Due to lack of persistence, companies often stop after one or two attempts. This is the case for strong companies. If they are small companies, they will only try briefly.

The above two points are closely related, and the first determines the second.

So when I was doing "corporate IP training", I kept emphasizing that when a company creates IP, it must be closely related to the company's core marketing scenarios in order to achieve twice the result with half the effort.

What is the core marketing scenario of an enterprise?

Product experience research and development, product packaging design, sales channels (both online and offline), long-term and continuous marketing activities, cultural systems for brand building, etc.

Only when the IP developed by the enterprise can be closely integrated with the above-mentioned key scenarios can it save effort and money while achieving good results. This is the case for all successful enterprise IP cases.

If a company does not think clearly at the beginning and just treats IP as external media content without combining it with the company's internal strengths and without truly connecting it with the company's marketing system, then even if it spends a lot of money, it will be difficult for the IP to really add points to the brand and products, and it will be difficult for the company to continue.

An interesting IP case has recently emerged that is worth introducing. It is very simple, easy to operate, saves money, and can even make money.

This case is "Meituan's ears".

Meituan, which has always been low-key and non-advertising, has accidentally accumulated cultural value and emotional power with the help of a pair of bright yellow long ears and is developing into an IP brand.

The specific process is as follows: As early as 2016, Meituan developed a "kangaroo ear" as a helmet for its own deliverymen.

The earliest "kangaroo ears" looked like this (see the picture below). The ears were not long and looked a bit cumbersome, especially the kangaroo head which increased the cognitive complexity. This is probably the reason why it has always been lukewarm.

Over the past four years, Meituan has been improving its design. This year, the "kangaroo ears" are obviously more eye-catching and more cute, especially after removing the kangaroo head, making the person and the ears fit more closely.

Many people thought they were rabbit ears, so much so that they had to be specifically dispelled, saying that they were kangaroo ears, not rabbit ears.

Then, it became popular.

The real popularity started with a video that was captured in February 2020. The video was called "McDonald's teasing Meituan."

A McDonald's guy who was waiting for the traffic light was obviously attracted by the long ears on the Meituan guy's head. He shamelessly approached him, pinched him twice when he was not paying attention, and immediately slipped away, making the Meituan guy very angry.

This video quickly spread on the Internet, with the number of exposures soaring to tens of millions, and it immediately topped the trending search list. Netizens expressed their desire to pinch, rub, pull, and pluck the ears, in short, they just wanted to tease them.

Some people even drew a cartoon image of the couple, which was nicknamed "Scrambled Eggs and Tomatoes CP" because of the red and yellow color combination.

Someone also took a photo of the guy from "Are You Hungry?" teasing Meituan.

Meituan obviously realized the value of this topic and began to actively "hold a grudge" and provoke Maiji on Weibo.

At first, the other party did not respond. In April, when McDonald's launched its new 5G fried chicken, it took the initiative to invite Meituan and Ele.me to go to Bilibili for a live broadcast. Meituan's "long ears" stood out among the three major food delivery groups, further pushing up the popularity.

By May, McDonald's and Meituan officially announced their partnership, and the good pair were officially together.

Meituan also began to openly encourage everyone to tease and pinch ears.

On July 17, Rider's Day, the kangaroo ears appeared in an enhanced version, blooming like flowers. Meituan jokingly called it the "sunflower in the world."

Other deliverymen also joined the helmet war. Both sides used rich imagination on the helmets, from the Monkey King's feathers, the emperor's hat to dreadlocks, which made the Weibo topic #Delivery Brother Skin War# accumulate 290 million voices.

Meituan even started selling ear-related products.

At the end of July, the Meituan APP launched the Meituan Gift Store and began selling a series of kangaroo ear peripherals, ranging from helmets to headbands. The poster design style is simple, high-end and classy, ​​just like a symbol of a trendy brand, "redefining the ears."

It was also snapped up enthusiastically by netizens, after all, the price was very cheap, only 6.9 yuan.

Small comic strips also began to be released.

Young people who are into two-dimensional anime have also joined in.

Public welfare themes are also indispensable.

Meituan also self-deprecatingly called itself the "Kangaroo Ear Processing Factory", which made Meituan have a nickname similar to Tencent for the first time, and continuously promoted the creation of a humanized and IP-based brand.

A series of actions and events have led to an increasing enthusiasm among the public for Meituan Erduo, which has continuously entered the hot searches on Weibo and dominated the screens of Douyin and Kuaishou. The reading volume of a single topic has reached 330 million, and it has gradually become a national interest.

This is a case in which users have a strong sense of spontaneous participation, it is very down-to-earth, very humane, and very entertaining. It also has all the characteristics of IPization and fanization: image symbols, user-generated content, peripheral derivatives, etc., and has great potential for future development of IP subculture.

What is very noteworthy is that the cost of this case is extremely low, which can be said to be "a little effort to achieve a great result".

Meituan simply improved the helmets of its own deliverymen, and was able to leverage the huge life traffic of the deliverymen, plus one or two occasional interesting videos, to naturally achieve huge results. The whole process was like flowing water and did not cost any money or effort at all.

The most important reason for this is that Meituan’s IPization focuses on its core marketing channels. Meituan’s food delivery guys are the brand touchpoints that are most easily seen and touched by everyone. They are the most intuitive part of Meituan’s food delivery marketing system and of course the easiest to achieve the effect of “a little effort to achieve a great result”.

What Meituan needs to do is to turn the delivery boy’s helmet into an IP prop and create a different IP situation.

At the same time, throughout the entire process, Meituan always maintained a self-deprecating, self-deprecating and humble attitude, which made people more fond of it and felt closer to it, and this became the driving force behind the development of the entire incident.

Lao Xiaoge summarizes the IP thinking behind this case:

First point: The most cost-effective and efficient method is to inject IP into the company's core marketing process.

Products, sales, after-sales, activities, brands, there are scenes everywhere.

The second point: Any scene that comes into direct contact with consumers is worthy of IPization.

The third point: Three principles for IP application in scenarios:

1. Useful: IP can be used in key aspects of marketing
2. Effective: Directly improve the user experience of products and brands through IP
3. Changeable: Can turn old scenes into new ones

In the case of "Meituan's Ears":

1. It is to use IP on the equipment of Meituan deliverymen who have the most frequent contact with consumers;
2. By designing the Meituan helmet into an IP-based long ear, this kind of animation two-dimensional and symbolic innovation makes the helmet an IP-based prop, improving the user experience and allowing for interaction, teasing, and creation;
3. In this way, the originally dull takeaway scene suddenly became full of interest, directly enhancing Meituan’s emotional attributes and cultural temperament, and becoming an IP-based situation.

I also found the thoughts of the head of Meituan Platform Marketing Department on the development of "Kangaroo Ears":

"Meituan found that in the past, there was no spiritual communication between users and riders. Users only paid attention to the food delivery itself, and riders only cared about whether users received the food. We need a creative idea to trigger interaction, a highlight to promote secondary dissemination and content co-creation, and change the food delivery scene.

The reason for choosing kangaroo ears as the creative point is very simple: first, it is extended from the kangaroo LOGO of Meituan Takeout, and second, it has highlights that can be spread and diffused, allowing users to fully participate in co-creation and dissemination.

Therefore, after more than 4 years of optimization, the kangaroo ear shape was iterated to its current form, becoming a trigger that not only meets the brand tone but also gains user recognition. As expected, after its launch, it created a co-creation marketing that allowed users to fully participate. ”

As I said in the "Corporate IP Training", the IPization of an enterprise is actually about deepening empathy and creating situations, thereby achieving a deeper emotional connection between the brand and consumers.

Finally, another point worth learning is that Meituan’s ears became popular only after four years of iteration and optimization. If they gave up halfway, they would be gone. Therefore, when companies develop IP, they should not expect the first version to be perfect and successful. They must have patience and the spirit of continuous iteration of Internet products to truly succeed in IP development.

Author: Chen Gray

Source: IP Fried Rice (ID: IPCOOK)