Xiaohongshu Brand Upgrade Methodology

In the era of universal IP, many brands are trying to build brand IP to make their own brands more vocal and recognizable in the market. However, turning a brand into an IP is not an easy task. By exploring the brand IP positioning strategy, we have summarized 5 more feasible directions for Xiaohongshu 's brand IPization.

01 Emotional positioning, brand IP positioning strategy

With the rapid development of mobile Internet, more and more factors influence users' consumption decisions. In addition to product quality and price, consumers' emotional needs also include appearance, personality, emotional value, identity symbol, etc.

At the same time, traffic is becoming more and more expensive, and brand IP has become an effective means to compete for traffic. It can provide continuous traffic for brands. The significance of IP to brands is self-evident.

Picture｜Network

Brand IPization is actually about building the brand's emotional positioning (similar to KOL marketing). Based on the brand's specific products and services (rational positioning), it outputs its own stories and values ​​to gain users' emotional resonance and recognition. The ultimate goal is to increase actual ROI.

Therefore, the fundamental starting point for building a brand IP is to help products better solve consumers’ actual pain points and spiritual needs. Therefore, the brand IP must be consistent with the characteristics of the product during the personalization process to provide more accurate traffic for the brand.

02 Product IP, the node product characteristics and IP image are highly consistent

By creating IP for products, you can directly enhance the appeal of products and promote sales conversion. What kind of products are suitable for IPization?

Picture｜Xiaohongshu

Sustainable upgrades and recognizable anchor products. To put it simply, most women can directly target specific products without using brand words. For example, the very popular Little White Bottle, Little Brown Bottle, Red Waist, Big Eye Essence, Stay-Up-Late Eye Cream, Magic Water, etc. on Xiaohongshu.

Data source: Qiangua

Secondly, the product must have enough voice. There are more than 4,800 related notes about Shiseido Red Waist on Xiaohongshu from January to March, and the related notes about Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair and OLAY Advanced Night Repair both exceeded 8,000. The total number of related notes about the three brands is equivalent to the number of related notes about the top 20 brands on Xiaohongshu's brand recommendation list.

If you choose these products that already have sufficient recognition and popularity, give them emotional attributes, and build them into IPs, you will get twice the result with half the effort.

03 Brand IP, IP brand with highly integrated nodes

Create corresponding IP characters through brand visualization. A good character will definitely leave a lasting impression on consumers. Then comes the IP’s personality positioning, story, values, etc.

Picture｜Network

From the perspective of IP recognition, the most impressive one is Tmall, followed by Three Squirrels and finally Jiang Xiaobai. This is why most brand IPs choose “like but not like” animal shapes (highly recognizable) and then inject emotional factors.

Of course, an effective brand IP is definitely not just an isolated character; stories and values ​​are the connotation of the character. Just as the success of Jiang Xiaobai lies not in the characters and selling wine, but in the stories and feelings. With heartfelt copywriting, we can awaken the emotional needs of the younger generation.

The role of brand IP is to amplify product power. It is obviously not enough for Jiang Xiaobai to rely on sentiment alone for 10 years. It needs high-quality products to break out of the predicament. Whether it is marketing or IP, they are countless zeros besides the product 1.

04 Personalized IP, injecting personal spirit into the brand

The personal values ​​of the founder or core members create the brand IP. Infuse the founder's personal values, endorse his own products, give speeches, etc. to convey the brand's values. This creates tremendous appeal. Just as Steve Jobs is to Apple, Dong Mingzhu is to Gree, and Lei Jun is to Xiaomi.

Figure｜Qiangua Data-Brand Details

The product strength and brand IP have enough influence to have sufficient popularity even without excessive marketing. Apple, Gree, and Xiaomi do not have many business notes (brand cooperation notes) on Xiaohongshu, but they still have a considerable number of grass-planting notes. Especially for Apple, there were nearly 5,000 related notes from March 27 to April 25, and the interaction volume of the notes exceeded 800,000.

In 2020, Dong Mingzhu and Lei Jun personally participated in live streaming to sell goods, which brought huge exposure to Gree and Xiaomi which were affected by the epidemic and accelerated the recovery of the brands.

Personalized IP requires careful selection. When an individual has too much influence on a company, once he or she leaves or a negative incident occurs, this will also affect the outside world's view of the brand. Since Cook took over from Jobs, there has been constant questioning of Cook by the outside world. Such as Apple has lost its soul, Apple is gradually becoming mediocre from a great company, etc.

05 Virtual idol IP, idols are not people, brands are easy to be people

What if idols are not “people”? From Qingna’s short-lived popularity in 2001 to today’s virtual singers Hatsune Miku and Luo Tianyi participating in live streaming to sell goods, the era of virtual idols has arrived.

Picture｜Xiaohongshu

On March 1, L'Oréal China officially announced the debut of its first virtual idol on Xiaohongshu and other platforms! The male character of Ou Ye seems to be L'Oréal China's intention to break the inherent impression that beauty and makeup are only related to women and pursue new breakthroughs.

Figure｜Qiangua Data-L'Oreal China Brand Account Details

L’Oréal China has launched columns such as “Oréal Product Planting Machine”, “Oréal Talks Ingredients” and “Oréal Fans Welfare Club”. According to Qiangua data, L'Oréal China's brand account publishes an average of 2-3 "O'ye" related notes per week, and has won the attention and love of some users by providing emotional value (companionship, entertainment, information) to users.

An image that is too human-like has relatively low recognition, which will bring some difficulties to IPization. Of course, for L'Oréal China, Mr. Ou, who is handsome in appearance and rational in speech, is more like a public relations image, and perhaps there is no intention to turn him into an IP at all.

06 Event-based IP, marketing events with long-term attention

By creating sustainable marketing events, we can provide brands with a steady stream of exposure. For example, Tmall Super Brand Day, Taobao Maker Festival, Alipay Five Blessings and Baidu Boiling Point, etc.

Picture｜Bilibili

A notable feature of event-based IP is compound interest. Instead of one or two explosions, even if "The Next Wave", one of the B station trilogy, had exceeded 30 million views on B station in a short period of time, it would have been widely circulated on the entire network. But after breaking the circle, the precise traffic that can be brought to Bilibili is also decreasing marginally.

Event-based IP creation is closer to node marketing. It continuously accumulates energy through the same node or the same type of event, and continuously expands the depth and breadth of communication. The event-based IP core continues to exist, and only the form of expression changes.

Just as the ways of collecting blessings on Alipay change every year, what remains unchanged are the interaction and red envelopes. Baidu Boiling Point is innovating in form, but its focus on social hot topics remains unchanged.

07 Summary of Brand IP Marketing

The wave of Xiaohongshu’s brand IPization is coming. Brands need an emotional positioning to meet users' diverse spiritual needs and gain their scarce attention. When creating the Xiaohongshu brand IP, you should pay attention to the following points:

1. The fundamental starting point of brand IP is to help products better meet the differentiated needs of consumers (spiritual level). Brand IP is an amplifier of product strength.

2. The three steps of brand IP are the progressive development of roles (products/individuals/events), stories, and values. The roles pursue being but not being unlike, the stories touch the heart and have universal values.

3. Brand IP is the only way to upgrade brands as public domain traffic becomes increasingly expensive and user attention becomes scarce. Pioneers can win time and market.

Author: Qiangua Data

Source: Qiangua Official Account