In addition to expressing love to users in various ways, what other marketing methods can brands use on 520? See how Alibaba, Baidu and McDonald's do it!

It’s 520 again this year. Do you have a plan for your holiday marketing? Should they just release a poster as usual, or should they form an alliance with different industries to do something together? The following cases may give you different inspirations.

1. Reverse thinking, flash marketing

From Ele.me and NetEase News opening a "Sangcha" in Shanghai in 2017, to CHANEL opening the world's first COCO game center in Harajuku, Tokyo, to the HERMES scarf and record pop-up store, pop-up store marketing has become a standardized action in brand experiential marketing.

Looking back at the 520 marketing over the years, the "One Day Breakup Flower Shop" imitating Sangcha's "flash x reverse marketing" is still a successful case sought after in the industry. [Breakup Flower Shop] is specially opened for people who have been heartbroken. It is open for one day only on May 20. While other brands are marketing to couples and calling for love from the center of the universe, they choose to give care to couples who have been heartbroken.

Just like the eye-catching menu in the store, the interesting copywriting of [Breakup Flower Shop] also stands out among the many brand marketing copywritings that show off their love for each other.

"I'm going to take my driver's license test, so please be careful when crossing the road."

"Life is not just about the present, but also about the invitations from your ex"

"It's raining in the city where you live. I want to ask if you have a companion. If not, I hope it's raining knives"...

Every sentence is the voice of someone who has been heartbroken, and every sentence is full of the charm of reversal. It is a very typical social copywriting.

The concept of [Breakup Flower Shop] conflicts with the traditional meaning of 520. This reverse thinking not only pleases the Z generation represented by those born in the 1990s, 1995s and 2000s, but also makes flash marketing more mysterious and interesting.

If you are not satisfied with the standardized holiday marketing, you might as well go the other way and do more homework on user insights, dig deep into user preferences, and combine brand/product selling points. Maybe it is not that difficult to attract users!

2. Create your own festival and build momentum across the region

In recent years, the boundaries between Party A and Party B have become increasingly blurred. The marketing teams of major companies such as BAT have been very creative, and many excellent marketing cases are worth learning from for advertisers.

For example, Alibaba once took advantage of 520 to create the "520 Xianyu Auction Festival". The pre-heating creative advertisements attracted a lot of attention. The "Red Lips" series of advertisements were full of provocative copy, which also attracted a lot of attention and discussion on social networks. Unlike the first auction festival, the second 520 Xianyu Auction Festival successfully took advantage of the wedding news of Chen Xiao and Michelle Chen, achieving online and offline linkage communication.

The "lip print" effect spread from online to offline, and at the same time, fission propagation was achieved through the interaction of H5. Users can customize the same "lip print portrait" online.

The gameplay of combining lip prints into portraits is not new, but the combined effect of celebrities and online user interaction, the full-region promotion of the 520 Xianyu Auction Festival was able to go viral on WeChat Moments. You see, stale ideas combined with fresh integrated marketing can also have unexpected marketing effects.

3. Technology integration to follow the trend

If you search the keyword "520" on Baidu, you will find that the words "Blockchain Confession" are added to the lower right corner of the "Baidu Love Message" e-card. This is a special mark left over from the "One Promise for a Lifetime" confession event launched by Baidu Search and Qumei Home Furnishing on last year's Chinese Valentine's Day.

The "Baidu Express" online e-card has a simple and easy-to-understand format. Users write down what they want to say to someone on a special template and generate a unique password. As long as the user sends the password to the other party, the other party can see the greeting card by searching the password, avoiding direct confession and making the confession mysterious and interesting. "A Promise for a Lifetime" uses technology to play a different kind of romance, while also conveying the technical advantage of blockchain technology's "permanent preservation".

Although Baidu is a large company, its marketing achievements in recent years have been somewhat disappointing. Compared with Alibaba’s omni-channel marketing, the communication effect of “Blockchain Confession” is insignificant, but I believe that if Baidu can implement technology-driven development in various business modules and integrate it with product experience and user needs, it will definitely present more innovative marketing.

"Old wine in new bottles", online fan-flirting

On May 15, McDonald’s Dessert Station launched a “certificate-receiving” H5 in conjunction with the launch of its new product, “Sweet Berry”.

As soon as H5 was launched, it attracted tens of thousands of people to get their marriage certificates online. Star-chasers, secret crushes, and couples all rushed to participate, setting off a wave of getting marriage certificates. Randomly generated exclusive "Sweet Berry Love Poems" and online synthesized marriage certificates that are indistinguishable from real ones allow users to post photos in various ways to show their affection. This not only dealt a heavy blow to single people, but also caused the server to crash several times.

There are actually precedents for similar online marriage certificates. In 2016, there was a "fake marriage certificate generator". However, this marketing campaign of #McDonald's Love Certificate# is not only for publicity, but is obviously more practical. The hit DNA of strawberry desserts, coupled with the fun marketing of the certificate H5, and the fact that you can use #McDonald's Love Certificate# to enjoy the discounted price of two strawberries at an offline dessert shop on 13.14, can be said to be a benchmark case of the three-in-one "brand, effect and sales".

Whether it is the "reverse thinking" of [Breakup Flower Shop], Alibaba's "creating its own festival", Baidu's "technology integration", or McDonald's "old wine in new bottles", they are all innovative presentations of marketers dancing in shackles. It is precisely because of this creative original intention of not being content with mediocrity and pursuing “Normal is boring” that marketing can become the glimmer of light for the brand’s progress.

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Author: Turning back is a case

Source: Back to the case