Brand promotion, why do you prefer cross-border marketing?

Recently, the "Chrysanthemum Big Brother" Ma Yinglong launched a series of lipsticks, and the concept of cross-border marketing has once again been brought into the public eye. However, do you really understand what cross-border marketing is and how to do it? This article will inspire you.

After being accustomed to eating delicacies from land and sea, occasionally having some simple meals can actually taste different. The same goes for lipstick. Armani in the left hand, TF in the right hand, and a Mayinglong lipstick in between, maybe it will feel pretty good.

Yes, this Ma Yinglong is the well-known “Chrysanthemum Big Boss” Ma Yinglong.

In July, as soon as Mayinglong lipstick was launched, the entire circle of friends was taken over by "Mayinglong girls". But this is not the first time that a lipstick with the hat of "cross-border marketing" has been all over the screen, and it is foreseeable that it will never be the last time.

I might as well remind those friends who feel familiar with the three Ma Yinglong lipsticks. Do you still remember the "Forbidden City Lipstick" that was all over the screen earlier? The styles are nothing more than repackaging of Tom Ford.

Other well-known cross-border marketing brands that use lipstick as a starting point include White Rabbit Lipstick, Zhou Hei Ya Lipstick, and Weilong and Liangpin Puzi, which make lipstick-made spicy strips.

Cross-border marketing has apparently become a red ocean competition. Despite this, there is still a constant stream of people eager to try.

Plato once said, "He who can tell stories owns the world." Perhaps in the eyes of brands, in today's media environment, cross-border cooperation is the most eye-catching way to generate topics and controversial stories. In this case, it is better to make the issue of cross-border marketing clear. This article will explain it from the following four aspects.

1. The appearance of cross-border marketing
2. The essence of cross-border marketing
3. The significance of cross-border marketing
4. How to do cross-border marketing?

The appearance of cross-border marketing: "new combination of old elements"

Cross-border marketing is actually a type of creative marketing. Creativity is novel, but the elements that make up the creativity itself are not novel. As American advertising master James Webb Young said, "Creativity is a new combination of old elements."

From Lao Gan Ma sweatshirts to Wangzai fisherman hats, to Liushen perfumes and Mayinglong lipsticks, whether lipsticks or perfumes, it can be said that none of them are 100% new things that everyone has not seen before, but after the chemical reaction with the brand, they have unexpected effects.

This is the creative potential brought by new combinations of old elements. The term "cross-border" in cross-border marketing basically defines the combination method, so the potential energy of cross-border marketing actually depends mainly on the selection of elements. The more unexpected the combination of elements is, the more surprising feedback it can give to the brand, just like the "Chrysanthemum Boss" lipstick mentioned above, think about the application scenarios, isn’t it very gimmicky?

Based on market feedback, we summarize the following combination types of elements:

Cross-category

"Category" itself is a concept created to facilitate consumers' understanding and solving their own problems. I have also mentioned in "If you want to learn how to sell goods, you must first learn how to select products" that categories are generated in response to needs. It is a self-evident method to meet needs and solve problems.

The cross-category integration breaks the sense of routine and familiarity of merging similar items, giving consumers a sense of surprise and making them exclaim unconsciously, "It turns out that this is how it can be played."

Food × clothing, for example, the collaboration between Wangzai and TYAKASHA, and Lao Gan Ma sweatshirt.

Laoganma sweatshirt

Wangzai and TYAKASHA

Food × perfume, such as Dicos and the Smell Library, and the floral water-flavored cocktails collaborated by RIO and Liushen.

Food × beauty products, such as Fortune cooking oil and Afu essential oil, Zhou Hei Ya and lipstick.

Brand crossover

Most of the cross-border branding is done based on category characteristics. In the examples given above, we can also see what categories the products under each brand are in, whether there are any points of combination or contrast, and how the cross-border branding is done on the basis of cross-border product categories.

But more advanced brand crossovers actually come from the alignment of brand culture and values. Because behind the same values ​​and the same cultural recognition are real consumers with the same joys and sorrows and the same consumption preferences, and brands amplify the influence of spiritual culture through cross-border collaboration, and use culture and values ​​to screen and influence the people they really want to attract, thereby forming loyal fans of the brand.

For example, NetEase Cloud Music and Atour Hotel have formed a brand alliance based on the pursuit of higher quality for users.

Experience cross-border

Experience cross-border is a comprehensive cross-border based on crowd characteristics, consumption scenarios, cultural habits, etc., with sales conversion greater than communication effect. It is a rare "effect>product" cross-border in the "brand-effect integration" that has always relied on and been questioned.

For example, in the field of "retail O2O", the cooperation between JD.com and Walmart, as well as Walmart's self-built "scan code to buy" dedicated channel, have made the shopping experience offline and the purchase and payment online, giving consumers a better shopping experience.

The essence of cross-border marketing

On the surface, cross-border marketing is creative marketing brought about by new combinations of old elements, but its essence is inseparable from the nature of creative marketing, which is "a better and more efficient way to solve problems."

Whether it is cross-border categories, cross-border brands, or even cross-border experiences, all of them are aimed at this goal. Looking back at the various aspects of "cross-border marketing", the most frequently mentioned ones are still "complementary advantages, complementary resources", "breaking through circles, amplifying communication effects", and other marketing effects that can be summed up as "1+1>2".

What is “1+1＞2”?

Reduce costs and increase efficiency, do more, faster, better and cheaper, spend less money to do more and better things faster, which means 1+1>2.

Keeping this in mind will help companies to reflect on themselves: Am I following the trend of "creative marketing" by doing this, or do I want to achieve an effect of >2 through this 1+1 approach to help brands solve some practical problems?

The significance of cross-border marketing

The question "What is the significance of cross-border marketing" is actually asking "Why has cross-border marketing become the choice for brands to solve the current marketing dilemma?"

Before answering this question, let’s take a look at the current marketing dilemma.

I think there are two points that cannot be ignored:

The first point is that in a world where information is flooded and attention is scarce, almost all companies lack eyeballs and traffic;

The second point is the impact of the nationwide Internetization on the original scale, brand and other advantages of enterprises, which has forced some traditional and large enterprises to start looking for their second growth curve in order to cross the gap.

The most direct effect of cross-border marketing is to attract consumers' attention through the contrast brought about by the cross-border categories, brands and experiences, thus solving the first level of the marketing dilemma. Young people, especially young women, attracted through cross-border marketing are the key to companies achieving their second growth curve.

To a certain extent, the unexpectedness of cross-border marketing can only attract the attention of young people. For middle-aged and elderly people with stable careers and families, brands are more reliable as they get older. Convincing middle-aged and elderly consumers to change the brands they use or to get to know a certain brand again is a thankless and unnecessary task.

It is normal for people to be less willing to try new things as they get older. What brands need to do for this group of people is to maintain customer relationships through consistent quality.

But young people are different. They are an important supporting force for the company’s second growth curve and the future of the brand. Therefore, it is very necessary to use cross-border collisions to create different sparks, occupy the mind market of young consumers, let young consumers see the vitality of "no matter how long a brand has been around, it can still be tossed around", and make young consumers feel that the brand can keep up with the pace and do things together.

For young people whose consumption preferences are not yet formed, brands must continue to make things happen, speak out, and show up to make sure they are unforgettable.

As women are gradually liberated from the family and enter the workplace, their purchasing power increases unquestionably. Data shows that the employment rate of urban women in China exceeds 70%, and nearly half of women's personal consumption accounts for more than one-third of their family income. At the same time, women who have not been completely liberated from the family still play a vital role in family consumption decisions. In the discussion about buying a house on Zhihu, there is a typical answer: I didn’t want to buy a house at all at first, but my wife forced me to do so, and I finally bought it after gritting my teeth. Now the facts have proved that my wife was right, and you really have to listen to women on such important matters!

Although young consumers and female consumers have their own age groups in consumption scenarios, they are surprisingly consistent in impulse buying. Compared with middle-aged people who have the pressure of houses, cars and children, and the elderly who have weaker material desires, young people are more willing to spend money; compared with men who shop rationally and are good at calculating, women, whose basal dopamine levels are 30% higher than men, are also more impulsive when shopping. If young people are still spending money for their "first experience in the world", then women spend money for any reason. When they are happy, they spend money to celebrate; when they are unhappy, they spend money to vent and relieve stress.

What makes companies happier than the "anytime, anywhere and all-weather consumption habits" is that the consumption upgrade and product category expansion of young consumers and female consumers are so fast that other consumer groups can't catch up even if they ride a rocket.

From daily water cups costing a dozen yuan to Starbucks cat claw cups costing a thousand yuan, from buying clothes, bags and lipsticks to parenting classes costing 299 yuan per session, flying to Europe today and going to Japan tomorrow, these people who don't blink an eye are almost without exception young people with money and willing to spend, mainly women.

How to do cross-border marketing?

The most taboo thing about cross-border marketing is that it leads to corporate self-satisfaction (fake screen-sweeping caused by all employees in the company forwarding likes and comments) and brand backlash (the cross-border effect directly collapses, triggering negative comments from users). The fundamental reason for these two results is that you haven't thought clearly about why you want to do it. Seeing others cross-border and screen-sweeping, you want to join in the fun, which ultimately leads to investing manpower and spending money, but ultimately seeing no results.

In order not to waste budget and manpower, here are a few points to help you avoid minefields.

First, companies or brands refuse to join forces with weak ones

Generally speaking, there are three types of cross-border transactions:

The first is to combine the strong and strengthen the strong. This is the best, with equal strength and matching resources to get things done.

The second type is the alliance between the strong and the weak. When the weak party relies on the strong brand and takes advantage of the strong brand image resources, it needs to pay other resources to balance the cooperation. However, there may be a situation where the overall effect of the activity is good, but the party itself is overshadowed by the strong brand, and it is doing the wedding dress for others in vain. This is a great test of the bargaining power and control level of the weak brand.

The third type is weak-weak alliance. Weak brands all want to take advantage of the strong brands, but the strong brands may not be willing to do so. In fact, they can only find brands that are the same as or even worse than themselves to cooperate with. In the end, the event cannot make any waves. So in the end, there is really no need to do this kind of weak-weak alliance. It is better to just invest in some performance advertising.

Secondly, choose the right entry point for the category

Categories such as fashion and food, which naturally generate topics, can help companies attract attention at the lowest cost. The threshold for food consumption is low, and consumers are easy to accept and convert; the fashion category has a high premium and high profit, and cross-border marketing of the two makes it easier to achieve product and effect integration.

Finally, continuous accumulation

As mentioned before, cross-border marketing is actually a kind of creative marketing, but sometimes it is presented to consumers in various forms, which may be an online joint sale, or an offline exhibition or pop-up store. Whether a product becomes popular or goes viral depends on one aspect, human effort and another aspect, luck. Even the Durex and NetEase teams, which are recognized as creative masters, can fail sometimes.

But without the accumulation of small steps, one cannot reach a thousand miles; without the accumulation of small streams, one cannot form a river or sea. As mentioned at the beginning, the "Chrysanthemum Big Brother" Mayinglong lipstick that went viral is not Mayinglong's first cross-border attempt: Mayinglong eye cream, Mayinglong eye mask, Mayinglong T-shirts and the "Butt Protection Alliance" jointly launched by Mayinglong and Hellobike also became popular for a while.

Not only that, earlier, Ma Yinglong and the "Never Expected" team of Jiaoshou Yi Xiaoxing and Wang Dachui made a lot of efforts and accumulation in content marketing, and have cooperated on dozens of films.

Therefore, marketing is something that needs to be continuously cultivated, no matter what type it is. I hope that everyone can keep their original aspirations in mind while pursuing hot-selling products, and at the same time hope to gain something.

Author: Nan You Chestnut

Source: Delicious chestnuts