Brand promotion: How to do Spring Festival marketing?

It’s the Spring Festival again. Brand owners will naturally not miss this wave of traffic dividends, and various advertisements have been launched online one after another.

During the Spring Festival, when holiday marketing is prevalent, sensationalism is the mainstream. The Spring Festival marketing themes of most brands are nothing more than "traveling thousands of miles in anticipation of family reunion" and "working hard for a year just to spend a good New Year with family", trying to "touch China" in various ways. As a result, the advertisements that Chinese people see during the Spring Festival are almost all about: Spring Festival + going home + tear-jerking.

Although playing the emotional card and going for a tear-jerking approach is indeed safer, it can touch the softest part of people's hearts and easily resonate with them. Even if the event fails to stand out, it won’t die too badly.

but! Brands always bring up some emotional topics during traditional Chinese festivals. However, consumers, who are increasingly mature, are becoming less and less sensitive to the bombardment of sentimental advertisements. It would be better to send out a red envelope or work with everyone to figure out how to deal with the "New Year's greetings" from relatives.

Today, let’s discuss how brands can avoid falling into the vortex of emotional marketing? Stand out among many commercials? Inject a different New Year flavor into brand marketing?

1. Short videos are popular

QuestMobile data shows that on New Year’s Eve 2018, the number of daily active users in the short video industry exceeded 258 million and the industry penetration rate reached 27.6%, both indicators reaching historical peaks.

Nowadays, as short video apps such as Douyin and Kuaishou are becoming more and more popular among users, short video marketing is undoubtedly one of the hottest fields in recent years, bringing new opportunities for brand marketing.

Major brand owners have also set their sights on short video platforms that have tens of millions of traffic. Relying on their powerful social attributes and interactivity, they gather many young people and use highly personalized and innovative marketing methods to spread brand information to users invisibly and leave a deep impression.

Wanglaoji, a time-honored brand that is celebrating its 190th anniversary, is actively embracing the young market based on its insight into the preferences of young consumer groups. In early December, it took the lead in launching the Year of the Pig marketing campaign and teamed up with TikTok to initiate the "Vertical Screen Co-creation Competition".

This co-creation competition is centered around the Spring Festival scene with the theme of "Good luck is the beginning of all good things", guiding user groups to participate, and finally delivering the brand marketing appeal of "Celebrate an auspicious year, drink red can Wanglaoji", conveying a positive brand image.

As a product of the times, short videos are unleashing unprecedented marketing imagination and giving brand marketing more creative space. Therefore, brands must not ignore short video marketing when planning Spring Festival marketing activities.

2. Pan-entertainment, creating a new brand marketing model

Ye Maozhong once said:

All industries are entertainment industries.

From this point of view, it is not difficult to find that the holiday marketing content of various brands is gradually becoming entertaining, and they all use entertainment topics and entertainment social platforms to carry out entertainment marketing.

Statistics show that users born in the 1990s and 2000s prefer a marketing model that combines entertainment and interaction. These young people are naturally "immune" to advertisements, and it is basically impossible to impress young user groups using traditional advertising methods. Entertainment marketing activities that are interesting, interactive, and experiential are more attractive and can create stronger memories among users.

It can be seen that as the main force of social media continues to get younger, the combination of entertainment and marketing is an inevitable trend!

Among them, Lunar New Year films are considered the first choice for brands to conduct entertainment marketing. Ticket subsidies were limited before the Spring Festival, so film companies stepped up their marketing efforts. Before the release, the films had cross-border joint promotions with many brands, such as China Auto Rental, Xiaomi Mobile Phone, Xifeng Liquor, Now Live, China Merchants Bank, etc. in "Detective Chinatown 2"; Chow Tai Fook Jewelry in "Journey to the West: The Women Kingdom" and China Minsheng Bank in "Operation Red Sea".

3. Essentials for the Spring Festival: A Self-help Guide

Every Spring Festival, those embarrassing questions from relatives and friends become a common nightmare for many young people. "Have you bought a house?", "Do you have a partner?", "How much is your monthly salary?"...

The series of questions is like a death warrant. Thus, the "festival celebration" guide came into being. The sharp and humorous complaints are actually a way for young people to vent their emotions.

During the Spring Festival of 2017, the Rainbow Choir’s song “Spring Festival Self-Help Guide” became a hit and caught up with the momentum of this topic. After that, many brands used this topic for marketing, such as the sports drink brand Pocari Sweat. During the Spring Festival of 2018, they launched a Pocari Sweat red-capped New Year's Edition, which severely dissed the "aunts and uncles".

At the same time, MC Hotdog was invited to release a hip-hop hit song "Mr. Almost 10th Anniversary Edition", which made a 360-degree all-round complaint about the Spring Festival. The ad song has been played over 8 million times on Weibo.

Hezijun believes that compared to the sad drama of zqsg calling the wanderers to go home, straightforward complaints can indeed hit the hearts of modern young people.

4. AR marketing empowers new ways of playing for brands

Based on AR technology, brands can achieve real-time, natural and interesting interactions with users, allowing users to interact with AR content through human-computer interaction methods such as voice, gestures, and eye movements, thereby meeting the strong participation demands of young users. It can also bring more vivid experiences and more creative feelings, helping brands strengthen their innovative image.

In recent years, brands have begun to realize this and have broken away from traditional marketing methods that rely solely on creative design or slogans to attract users. They have gradually shifted their funds and energy to AR advertising. AR marketing, which is highly technological and interactive, has also repeatedly become a hot topic.

For example, Alipay’s “AR Collect Five Blessings” campaign has attracted a lot of attention. In terms of user popularity, it surpasses any previous AR activity or even any AR activity to date.

Although the activity is technically mediocre and the accuracy of recognition has caused a lot of complaints, it does not affect the attractiveness of the activity. The diverse social interaction elements such as the New Year, blessings, red envelopes, and collections are enough to trigger a national climax.

The use of AR technology can greatly enhance the product service experience, integrate creativity and participation, and promote linkage interaction between brands and users. When AR marketing is closely connected with users, it will naturally form a social hotspot and spontaneously drive the secondary dissemination of brand marketing. In the current marketing circle, it can be said to be very eye-catching.

5. Offline flash sales make the New Year more interesting

According to a related research report by RET, the number of pop-up stores in my country increased significantly in 2012, and clothing retail was the main promoter of pop-up stores, accounting for 27%. By 2020, the number may exceed 3,000. The increasingly popular pop-up stores have become one of the practical solutions for brand marketing.

The growth of the number of pop-up stores in RET's "China Pop-up Store Research Report"

With the arrival of the 2018 Spring Festival, Jinmailang's "Yi Tong Ban" staged a Spring Festival flash warmth-giving event with the theme of "One billion people meet, and you will be full and happy when you return home" in the waiting halls of Beijing West Railway Station and Shijiazhuang Railway Station for young people returning home during the Spring Festival travel rush.

In this event, the most eye-catching thing is the combination of flash mob and charity. Flash mob is a trendy lifestyle for young people to create surprises and bring joy. It is "fleeting" and naturally easier to attract the attention of young people. Beijing West Railway Station is the largest railway station in the country. With huge crowds of people and concentrated consumers, it is undoubtedly the best marketing scene.

In the unique scenario of the Spring Festival travel rush, flash mobs can quickly attract people's attention and maximize the public welfare effect in a very creative way. Jinmailang’s textbook-style flash marketing is deeply loved by young consumers, and the fun and interesting offline interactions also make the New Year atmosphere more novel.

6. Leverage IP to spread brand image

"IP marketing" has been in full swing in recent years, providing an opportunity for brand marketing, which can cleverly leverage the potential of IP to quickly transform IP influence into brand influence.

Because the IP itself is a "traffic pool", advertisers do not need to spend too much energy and budget on traffic matching. As well as the "strong following" feature of IP fans, IP fans can identify with the brand by identifying with the IP, thus solving the low conversion rate in marketing.

Starting from January 24, 2018, McDonald's teamed up with the Spring Festival movie "Monster Hunt 2" to launch a series of new themed products with the same name, starting a wave of "Monsters and You Reunion, More Delicious" IP marketing campaign.

It launched the "Monster Hunt" themed limited-time burgers - Xinghu Burger and Tuanyuan Burger; it also transformed into the Qingshui Town Monster World Restaurant, injecting a different "monster" experience into McDonald's restaurants, allowing people to experience the "monster world" in advance before the movie is released. While helping the movie "Monster Hunt 2" to promote and McDonald's to convert marketing, it also creates a more interesting and memorable dining experience for consumers.

In the WeChat index on January 24, the keyword 'McDonald's' increased by 300%.

Summarize

The Spring Festival is the biggest hot spot of the year and has become a battleground for brands. Various companies are trying to impress you with various sensational means. But as Zhang Xiaolong, the father of WeChat, said:

"To intentionally impress someone is a sign of disrespect for him."

Therefore, when we do Spring Festival marketing, the first thing we think about is to return to the festival itself, and not always think about how to move everyone.

After all, the target audience of brands is getting younger and younger, and they don’t buy into sensationalism at all. Only by grasping their psychological trends, not falling into the clichés of the Spring Festival, and focusing on creativity, can brands impress this group of people in the first place and gain a firm marketing advantage.

Source: Activity Box (huodonghezi.com)