Marketing promotion routines leveraging the Qixi Festival!

The annual Chinese Valentine's Day is approaching. Couples are planning how to be romantic, singles are waiting for dog food fearlessly, and major brands are probably racking their brains over how to take advantage of the Chinese Valentine's Day.

For brands, leveraging momentum is a "compulsory course", which means attention and traffic. Brands will naturally not miss such a good opportunity, but when it comes to the Chinese Valentine's Day, a festival that inherently carries romantic attributes, most brands are busy "talking about love" and it is difficult to escape from the mundane. How should brands break out of this mindset and stand out in the marketing wave of the Qixi Festival? This article provides a different approach to answering the question.

1. Why do brands need to update their marketing strategies?

Before discussing how brands can break the traditional Qixi marketing, let’s first clarify why brands need to update their marketing strategies. In my opinion, there are two main reasons:

1. The consumer population has changed

As millennials and Generation Z become the main consumer force, their consumption concepts are different from those of previous generations, and personalized consumption for self-pleasing interests has been significantly upgraded. Therefore, in the Young Era, for brand marketing planning, if you want to capture the hearts of this consumer group, you must use personalization and ultimate experience as your core competitiveness.

2. Consumers have higher requirements for content

With the change of consumer groups, new consumer demands are born. As the natives of the Internet age, the young consumer groups of Generation Z no longer have uniform characteristics. Their views on career, life and consumption are more individual, showing diverse characteristics such as interest priority, focus on experience and rational consumption. They prefer personalized expression and are happy to try new things; they are no longer price sensitive and are more willing to pay for creativity.

It can be seen that as young users become the backbone of consumption, user personalized consumption is upgraded, and demands and preferences change, brand marketing can only stand out in the Qixi marketing war by adapting to new trends and transforming marketing ideas and models.

2. How can brands break away from traditional marketing thinking under consumption upgrade?

In the face of consumption upgrades, how to break out of traditional mindsets and create eye-catching marketing on Valentine's Day has become an urgent issue that brands need to address. Let's discuss this with some wonderful cases from the past.

1. The “single” group that cannot be ignored

In the highly homogenized Qixi marketing campaign, 99% of brands focused on “couples” and very few paid attention to single people. However, according to data from the 2018 China Statistical Yearbook, the size of China's single population has reached 240 million, and the number of young single people is extremely large.

Instead of flocking to the already saturated sweet market, why not go against the wind, embrace "singleness" and enjoy the exclusive romance that belongs to singles.

(1) Being single is fun for a while, but staying single is also fun for a while

Singles nowadays say they are lonely and cold, but secretly they don’t know how much they enjoy their single life. “Being single is fun for a while, and being single forever is also fun for a while” has become the consensus of some singles. Brands can approach from this angle and launch a "single declaration", which will gain a lot of favor.

Case 1: Word of mouth - #Spend the Chinese Valentine's Day alone like this#

Word of Mouth, in collaboration with multiple brands, composed an acrostic poem for singles on this special Chinese Valentine's Day (interested friends can look it up on their own). The concept of word of mouth and word of mouth & Huabei is very consistent with the orientation of singles today.

Case 2: vivo-light up the inner thoughts of Chinese Valentine's Day (singles)

Every word of this subway advertisement by vivo touched my heart. After watching it, I couldn’t help but shout “Long live singleness”!

(2) Providing advice on how to get out of being single

Some people enjoy being single, while naturally there are also people who want to get out of being single. Otherwise, the hot topic between you and your friends will always be "Are you single recently?"

Brands can also start with strategies to help couples break the single barrier, offer them advice, and describe various ways to break the single barrier.

Case 1: Yidao Car Rental - Strategy for Seducing the Goddess on Chinese Valentine's Day

Yidao Car Rental has joined hands with a number of brands to launch a set of "strategies for picking up girls". Taking #A conspiracy before Chinese Valentine's Day# as the topic, the "Strategy for Pushing Down the Goddess on Chinese Valentine's Day" was released. The copywriting is extremely internet-based, and the hand-painted posters are funny and vivid.

Case 2: Didi + Weibo + NetEase - The First Houchangcun Internet Dating Conference

Around Houchangcun Road, Didi, Weibo and NetEase News launched a self-help activity with the purpose of pairing up and internally digesting singles - the first Houchangcun Internet Blind Date Conference.

Compared to the strategy for finding one’s single life, this thoughtful and employee-benefiting Qixi blind date conference is so real!

2. Long-distance couples should not be marginalized

Qixi Festival was originally the day when the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, a pair of long-distance lovers, met at the Magpie Bridge. However, as things have developed to this day, long-distance lovers in reality have become invisible on Qixi Festival. On this day, they will not be ridiculed as single dogs, and they will never show their sweetness in public places filled with sweetness, because they cannot show it. They are between single and non-single people, with no sense of existence, and there are very few marketing activities targeting them.

At this time, if a brand can "stand up", restore the real life of long-distance couples, and speak for them, it will not only resonate with the audience, but also enhance the brand's favorability.

(1) Listen to them talk about the bitterness and pain of long-distance relationships

Case: Tencent News x Tencent Wangka - "Long-distance Relationship" Special Topic on Chinese Valentine's Day

Tencent News Brand Studio keenly captured this social phenomenon and teamed up with Tencent Wangka to create a special topic on "Long-Distance Relationship on Chinese Valentine's Day". Invite multiple long-distance couples and encourage them to tell their own "long-distance relationship" stories, using the communication method of storytellers and listeners to cover diverse groups of people and stand out in the fierce marketing battlefield of Chinese Valentine's Day.

(2) The spring breeze is ten miles long, why not come and see you?

It is better to meet than to miss each other. In long-distance relationships, the chances of meeting each other are already very rare. On the day of Chinese Valentine's Day, you should rush to your long-distance lover's side.

Case 1: Darry Ring-Long distance relationship, see you on Valentine's Day

In 2016, Darry Ring planned a themed event called “Long-distance Relationship, See You on Valentine’s Day”. Reply “Your Love Story” and “Departure and Arrival Cities” on DR’s WeChat official account and 9 people will be selected to receive air tickets.

Darry Ring bought plane tickets for these long-distance couples, giving them the opportunity to reunite on Valentine's Day. While bringing their feelings to life, he also touched the hearts of these long-distance couples.

Case 2: Mafengwo & Talented Youth - Qixi Long-Distance Rescue Plan

On Chinese Valentine's Day in 2017, Mafengwo and the public account Talented Youth jointly launched the "Chinese Valentine's Day Long-Distance Relationship Rescue Plan" to encourage long-distance couples to share their love stories. The five couples with the highest votes will receive a two-person trip to an unknown destination on Chinese Valentine's Day.

The event has sparked heated discussions among netizens as soon as it was released. A netizen who participated in the event said: "For long-distance lovers, the greatest romance on Chinese Valentine's Day is to suddenly receive a flight text message reminding you to board the plane and telling you: your lover is waiting for you in this city. Of course, what is more challenging is whether you dare to put everything aside on Chinese Valentine's Day and go to this city to meet him."

3. It’s time to say “bye bye” to your ex

It’s exciting to think about talking about “ex” with everyone on Valentine’s Day.

Case: Sangcha-byebye ex

Days like Chinese Valentine's Day, which are full of the "sour smell" of love, are particularly suitable for confronting your ex. If it weren't for you, would I be able to spend it alone now!

Sangcha’s #bye bye前任# takes advantage of the Chinese Valentine’s Day to set a good example for everyone. We should treat our exes scientifically and reasonably and throw them into the trash in time.

The specific leverage routines can be cut into from the following points:

• In light of the current trend of garbage classification, classify your exes into different categories. Which category does your ex belong to?
• You can use #Do you still meet your ex after breaking up# as the topic, use "breakup" and "ex" to interpret another Chinese Valentine's Day, and guide the audience to participate in commenting and interacting.

4. Reverse marketing, disrupting the Qixi Festival

Is it only love on Chinese Valentine’s Day? Obviously, the above cases all say "NO". However, everyone can have fun without falling in love, but it is rare to see a disruptive Qixi Festival.

Case: Alipay-divorce appointment function

On the day of Valentine's Day, Alipay did the opposite and released a push notification on its own official account titled "Some Reminders about Divorce on the Chinese Valentine's Day", which can be described as a mudslide in the marketing of the Chinese Valentine's Day.

As the old saying goes, "encourage reconciliation rather than divorce", but Alipay is different and directly helps people get divorced. What’s even more bizarre is that this feature was paralyzed on the day of Chinese Valentine’s Day because it was so popular! I've only heard that one has to choose an auspicious date for marriage, but does one also have to choose an auspicious day for divorce?

3. Technology upgrades help make Qixi marketing more accurate, personalized and interesting

Previous Chinese Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns have focused on sweet attacks, but the above cases have weakened this point. This is the result of adapting to changes in consumers. Consumers influence brand marketing decisions. So, how can brands correctly grasp the changing trends of consumers, create marketing hits, and "get things done"?

1. Make full use of big data

In the era of big data, a brand’s core competitiveness lies in its ability to monetize digital assets. Big data marketing not only has the advantages of being fast, accurate, and thorough, but more importantly, it can find the correlation between brands and consumers through data analysis, maximize the value of data, help brand owners find real users, understand and analyze, predict demand, quickly and accurately cover target groups, and then implement personalized delivery and optimization.

Image source: Digital Business Cloud MA

2. Differentiation breakthrough

As market competition becomes increasingly fierce and products become highly homogenized, consumers receive redundant and complex information every day, and their perception of brand differences is becoming weaker and weaker. How else can brands attract consumers’ attention? Differentiation is key.

Craving for novelty and seeking difference is the consumption psychology of many consumers, and the rule that people are keen on "contrast" has long been verified by the famous psychologist Aronson. Differentiated marketing can alleviate users' aesthetic fatigue, and also bring consumers novel experiences and strong emotional stimulation, thereby attracting user participation.

3. If it’s not interesting, why would consumers interact with you?

Today, when advertising tends to be content-based, failure to attract consumers to participate in interaction cannot be considered successful marketing. How to quickly identify the interests of young users, deeply integrate them with your own brand assets, and interact with consumers? H5 interaction is a good form. For example, the straight male test questions that have sprung up like mushrooms after the Chinese Valentine's Day and Google's AI picture guessing robot, etc., have the ultimate goal of maximizing the exposure of the logo and product features in a short period of time, and their emphasis is on fun and good looks.

Brands can use H5, combined with interesting gameplay, to enhance consumers' sense of participation and experience, and help guide consumers to interact.

Activity Box Tanabata Activity Template

IV. Conclusion

These Qixi marketing strategies, which are different from previous ones, have frequently come up with innovative ways to target young consumer groups, breaking the traditional marketing methods and bringing a sense of freshness to consumers. On this basis, brands can also combine big data to accurately grasp consumer needs, differentiated brand positioning, and interesting H5 games to create more attractive Qixi marketing activities.

Related reading:

1. How can brands take advantage of the Chinese Valentine’s Day? Here are 6 marketing tips for you!

2. How to take advantage of the Qixi Festival marketing trend?

3. Chinese Valentine's Day short video advertising marketing promotion!

4. Take a look at other people’s new marketing promotion methods for the Qixi Festival!

5. Super sweet! The review of the Qixi Festival marketing case is here!

6. Example sharing: A creative Qixi marketing case!

Author: Activity Box

Source: Activity Box Operation Club (ID: huodongheziyys)