The Forbidden City lipstick became popular overnight: the important forces of advertising, public relations and KOL!

The Palace Museum has successfully achieved the rejuvenation of its brand by using a combination of branded marketing strategies, allowing its solemn and profound culture and history to be inherited and spread in a more visual way through innovative operations and communications. Of course, this is also largely inseparable from my country's growing national self-confidence and the younger generation's return to focus on the reviving traditional culture.

On December 9, the Palace Museum Cultural and Creative Museum launched the Palace Museum's first cosmetics "Palace Lipstick". The six lipstick colors are all from the Palace Museum's national treasure colors. The appearance is inspired by the concubines' costumes and embroidery. It uses a five-color system of black, white, red, green and yellow, combined with "palace blue" as the background color. The top is "led by cranes, butterflies, auspicious deer and bees", and the bottom is decorated with auspicious patterns such as hydrangeas, narcissus longevity patterns, landscape flower patterns, chrysanthemums, and four-season flower baskets.

This time, the Forbidden City lipstick has introduced the black technology of 3D printing to create the texture of the outer fabric and the convex and concave feeling of the embroidery. In short, this set of lipstick is very "Forbidden City" and very "Oriental"! As expected, all six colors of this set of lipsticks were sold out just two days after they were launched, once again proving the Forbidden City's strong ability to sell products.

The Forbidden City, which will be 600 years old in 2020, is an old brand with a long history from a marketing perspective. In recent years, the Forbidden City has been constantly innovating its brand to be younger, presenting consumers with a brand image of a trendy "Internet celebrity" IP that has both profound heritage and a cute contrast and is actively involved in the world.

Since 2013, when the Forbidden City first solicited cultural product ideas from the public and held the "Bring the Forbidden City Culture Home" cultural and creative design competition, the Forbidden City has begun a path of brand rejuvenation marketing that keeps pace with social media. Based on the summary and conclusion of the classic marketing cases of the Forbidden City in recent years, I have new thoughts on how old brands can carry out marketing innovations to attract younger people .

Does brand rejuvenation rely solely on being cute and constantly trying to please young people?

No! The combination of the following strategies is essential for the Palace Museum’s rejuvenation brand innovation:

1. Content: Socialization, brand story inheritance, and craftsmanship

1. Socialization: Entertainment spirit, trendy but not low

As the Forbidden City's major social media IP, the "Forbidden City Taobao" Weibo style has always maintained a "contrasting cute" style that collides history and modernity. The palace maids made the scissors hand gesture, Oboi made a heart shape with his hands, Yongzheng acted cute... the serious history and characters were presented humorously from a social and entertaining perspective. The daily content style of "The Forbidden City Taobao" is basically the "soft and cute" style that is very popular among young people.

1. Dig deep into the brand's historical stories and maintain high-quality products

If Weibo shows the fun and interesting side of the Forbidden City, then the Forbidden City's profound history and cultural heritage are better presented in its series of APPs. In 2014, the Palace Museum officially launched three apps: Pictures of Yinzhen's Beauties, Auspicious Signs of the Forbidden City, and A Day in the Life of an Emperor.

The three apps are very interesting and have attracted the attention of many users. Later, more APPs "opened" the palace doors: Daily Forbidden City, Forbidden City Exhibitions, Qing Dynasty Emperors' Costumes, Night Banquet of Han Xizai... The exquisite Forbidden City calendar, close-up understanding of the history and shape of cultural relics, cultural relics exhibitions and other information can all be obtained on the APP, which represents that the Forbidden City culture is being passed on in a younger form.

1. Pay tribute to the "craftsmanship" of traditional culture and respect the roots of the brand

The cultural carrier of the Forbidden City is inseparable from cultural relics. The behind-the-scenes work of protecting and repairing existing cultural relics is fully and accurately presented in the documentary "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City". The most prominent of these is the ingenuity and persistence of the people who repaired the cultural relics in the Forbidden City, which naturally makes people trace back to the ingenuity and difficulty of the historical creation of the cultural relics in the Forbidden City. The film unexpectedly received positive reviews from many young people.

The rejuvenation of old brands does not mean losing sight of the main purpose. While the content should be moderately socialized, the "roots" of the brand's founding should be maintained, the concept of inheritance should be spread, and the original intention should not be forgotten.

2. Promotion: Advertising, public relations, and KOL are important forces in promoting the Palace Museum’s brand to younger generations

Whether it is online social marketing methods such as Weibo, WeChat, and H5, or offline scene advertising placements, the Palace Museum continues to actively work on brand communication. Some time ago, a 135-meter-long "Snow Scene Scroll of the Forbidden City" was exhibited at Beijing Guomao Metro Station. Unlike a simple flat poster, the scroll has an interactive device. Based on the static picture, the interactive screen uses a slide track to present the dynamic content of the snow scene of the Forbidden City and the headlines channel.

The palace guards performing security checks through facial recognition, the concubines busy with online shopping, the old wizards participating in a photography competition, and the cool car shows and technology exhibitions... make people feel like they have traveled through time.

The public relations and marketing of the Forbidden City cannot be separated from its biggest “Internet celebrity leader”: Shan Jixiang, director of the Palace Museum. The successful innovation and operation of the old brand of the Forbidden City and the gradual occupation of the minds of young audiences by the culture of the Forbidden City are inseparable from this director.

From a marketing perspective, in the news and information content exposed by the Forbidden City, Director Shan has become a high-traffic IP, a comedian who "repeatedly succeeds" in protecting cultural relics, the director who spent five full months in office visiting more than 9,000 rooms in the Forbidden City, the producer of "New Arrivals at the Forbidden City"... This KOL who speaks for the brand and is unique in topicality and positive energy is a good blessing for the rejuvenation of old brands.

3. Products: Creating fun and creative peripherals

As early as 2008, the Forbidden City launched the "Forbidden City Taobao" store on Taobao and began selling peripheral products. At that time, the peripheral products did not have strong features and sales were average.

Until 2013, when the National Palace Museum in Taipei launched the popular "I know" paper tape, the Beijing Palace Museum also felt the huge potential for innovation in cultural and creative products, so it began to follow the social way of playing, let go of the sense of distance, and the planning and design of products began to become fun and thoughtful: the popular lipstick tape, royal cat ornaments, "cold palace" refrigerator magnets, silk round fans, luggage tags... The Palace Museum cleverly combines its own culture with the daily necessities of consumers. Every time a new product is launched, netizens complain that their wallets are not enough: "The Palace Museum is here to 'rob' again!"

The creative cultural and creative products created by the recent “New Arrivals at the Forbidden City” are sold through crowdfunding on Taobao. The first batch of 5,000 products jointly created by the Palace Museum and Pechoin were sold out one hour after the program was broadcast, at an average price of 2,000 yuan per set. Only one month has passed since the subsequent "Changxin Sleep Series" pajamas were launched on Taobao, and the number of people who have subscribed to the project has reached 15,731, raising more than 8.78 million yuan.

The success of the Forbidden City’s product promotion once again proves that high-quality products that keep up with the innovation of social gameplay can continuously narrow the distance between brands and consumers. The continuous output of high-quality content has provided a good socialized consumption atmosphere for the Palace Museum’s cultural and creative products. At the same time, high-quality cultural and creative products allow consumers to more intuitively access the culture and stories of the Palace Museum’s old brands through products, forming a virtuous cycle between content and products.

4. E-commerce: Crowdfunding for cultural and creative products, controlling the purchasing needs of young groups and avoiding stockpiling

In terms of sales channels, the Palace Museum mainly focuses on online e-commerce, "Palace Museum Taobao" and the later launched "Palace Museum Cultural and Creative Flagship Store", as well as the mini program "Palace Museum Cultural and Creative Center". Recently, the cultural and creative products of "New Arrivals at the Forbidden City" adopted the "crowdfunding" sales model. After consumers pledged and paid, the cultural and creative products began to be produced and shipped within the promised date. Crowdfunding sales can avoid excess inventory of cultural and creative products, produce on demand, and easily control the purchasing needs of young consumers.

5. Cross-border: Creative cross-border cooperation with young brands, marketing effect 1+1>2

When it comes to cross-border marketing, the Forbidden City is also a veteran. In August this year, the Forbidden City Cultural Service Center and Nongfu Spring jointly launched 9 limited edition "Nongfu Spring Forbidden City Bottles". The copywriting and packaging are very youthful, using the bottle as a carrier to allow consumers to feel the real human fireworks in the Forbidden City through interesting ancient paintings and texts, and establish an emotional connection.

Last year, the Palace Museum and Kindle jointly launched the Kindle Paperwhite X Palace Museum Cultural Joint Gift Box and Customized Protective Case, with the theme of "Reading" the Forbidden City. The packaging style of the product combines the classic Forbidden City tones and elements, and auspicious objects from ancient China, adding a rich cultural heritage to Kindle. The clever combination of younger reading methods and the profound culture of the Forbidden City is also a very outstanding cross-border marketing for brand rejuvenation.

Young brands have a group of young audiences. When old brands are undergoing rejuvenation innovation, they may as well try creative cross-border cooperation with young brands. By leveraging the "fan power" of young brands, they can create customized cross-border products or gameplay that are attractive to young groups, establish emotional connections with young audiences, and form a more holistic and comprehensive brand impression with each other, effectively achieving a win-win situation, and the effect is often 1+1>2.

In summary, the Forbidden City has successfully achieved brand rejuvenation, allowing its solemn and profound culture and history to be inherited and spread in a more visual way through innovative operations and communications. Of course, this is also largely inseparable from China's growing national self-confidence and the younger generation's return to focus on the reviving traditional culture.

Finally, let’s make a summary. Old brands need to pay attention to the following when carrying out marketing innovation for youth:

1. Moderate entertainment spirit, but entertainment spirit does not equal excessive entertainment
2. Maintaining "craftsmanship" and establishing consumers' respect
3. Content, products, and promotion require multiple breakthroughs and careful cultivation. Rejuvenation is not achieved overnight.
4. Cross-border marketing is a powerful and effective marketing strategy. Try to conduct in-depth cross-border marketing with younger brands.
5. As those born in the 1990s and 1995s have begun to become the main consumer force, the centuries-old brand Forbidden City and the old domestic brand Pechoin are also rising among younger people. Old brands really need to start breaking through and trying younger marketing, and seize the minds of more main audiences, in order to gain greater brand influence and value.

Source: Ke Ke