Marketing Promotion: How does "Coco Tree Coconut Juice" use negative marketing?

A few days ago, the new advertising packaging of Coco Tree coconut juice caused an uproar online for being suspected of publishing vulgar advertisements. Such negative news brought huge brand exposure to Coco Tree Coconut Juice, which played a better role than previous positive publicity. Starting with Coco Tree Coconut Juice, the author puts forward two suggestions for how to correctly conduct negative marketing: negative marketing should not involve the core value of the product and should closely follow the product's selling points.

Compared with positive news, negative news is naturally easy to spread. As the saying goes, "Good news doesn't travel far, but bad news travels a thousand miles." Therefore, many companies have gradually realized the hype value of negative news. Although there are certain risks, negative marketing can still be a desirable means of operating a brand.

A few days ago, Coco Tree coconut juice caused an uproar because of its new packaging advertisement in 2019. The matter was also reported to the Haikou Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce, which is investigating the Coconut Tree Group for publishing vulgar advertisements.

In our traditional understanding, publishing vulgar advertisements and being investigated will inevitably damage the company's brand image and have a negative impact on business operations.

But is this really the case?

Actually, not necessarily.

According to Baidu search index: from February 12 to February 14, the search popularity of the brand word "Coco Tree Coconut Juice" skyrocketed, reaching about 10 times the previous level.

The WeChat Index also shows the same trend: from February 12 to February 14, the index data for the keyword "coconut juice" reached a maximum of 3 million, 37 times the previous level.

Thanks to this incident, the brand exposure of Coco Tree Coconut Juice has reached an unprecedented level. Some people say that based on this data alone, this advertisement that caused a public outcry has saved Coco Tree at least hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing costs. This is not an empty statement.

Of course, some people may ask, although it has received a huge amount of brand exposure, it is negative news after all, and the brand exposure is accompanied by negative brand associations. Wouldn’t this damage the brand image and reputation of Coco Tree?

It is true that some netizens are disgusted by the advertisement, but so far there has been no concentrated negative comments, and more people are just taking a spectator's attitude. What's more, there are quite a number of straight male netizens who spoke up for Coco Tree, saying that they like the advertisement very much and don't think it is vulgar at all.

The most important thing is that this advertisement, although vulgar, does not affect the core value of the Coco Tree brand.

What is this core value?

It’s the taste and quality of coconut milk. Consumers recognize its taste and quality. As long as this bottom line is maintained, this public opinion storm will not have a fundamental impact on Coco Tree.

In fact, PR crises caused by brands’ inappropriate advertising content are becoming more and more common, and public sentiment seems to be gradually becoming more tolerant of these topics. This actually provides a friendly environment for companies to conduct negative marketing.

This time, Coco Tree accidentally hit the jackpot by using negative marketing tactics. As the saying goes, "Good news doesn't travel far, but bad news travels a thousand miles." Compared with positive news, negative news is naturally easy to spread. Therefore, many companies have gradually realized the hype value of negative news.

This marketing strategy is called negative marketing, which is to create negative events, take advantage of the fact that negative news is more easily spread, and take the opportunity to achieve the purpose of brand communication at low cost.

Speaking of negative marketing, there is a very classic case in recent years - the "Beat U" series of advertisements by UCAR.

In this advertisement, UCAR invited many popular stars to launch a direct attack on Uber, which was at the peak of its popularity at the time, questioning the safety of its private car model.

After this series of advertisements were released, they caused great controversy. The real brilliance of this marketing campaign lies in the fact that the poster copy deliberately contains a point for users to complain about - "Strange Shu Li" .

Sure enough, after this typo was discovered, it quickly triggered secondary dissemination, adding fuel to the fire and pushing the incident to a climax.

Although this advertisement was criticized and even rated as the most failed advertising and marketing case of the year. But behind the noise, the brand attention of Shenzhou Special Car has increased exponentially. Its daily number of new users increased by more than 10 times year-on-year, and its daily order volume increased by more than 5 times year-on-year. And after this incident, Shenzhou’s “safe private car” brand positioning became deeply rooted in people’s hearts, and it quickly formed a three-way competition with Didi and Uber.

Managing a negative marketing campaign is like trying to pull chestnuts out of the fire, and is very risky. But once successful, it will often trigger brand communication and enable users to quickly establish brand awareness. This attracted many people to come one after another and create one success or failure case after another.

How to conduct a negative marketing campaign?

Looking at those successful negative marketing cases, such as the Beat U advertisement of Shenzhou Special Car, the "The Best Men Can Be" advertisement of P&G, and the verbal war marketing of JD.com, there are two points in common, which are undoubtedly the principles to be adhered to in a successful negative marketing.

1. It does not involve the core value of the brand

For Coco Tree coconut juice, ensuring the good taste and quality of coconut juice is its core brand value.

Just imagine if someone were to make a fuss about the quality of coconut milk, such as spreading a rumor that a certain ingredient in Coco Tree coconut milk may cause cancer. The public opinion storm caused by this rumor is expected to be much more severe than this time, but the damage caused to the Coco Tree brand by this rumor is irreversible. Even if the authoritative organizations confirm the safety of coconut water to the public in the future, consumers will inevitably have doubts when making decisions.

The core value of a brand is its moat. To make a fuss about its core value is tantamount to destroying one’s own Great Wall. A successful negative marketing campaign will not only avoid affecting the core value of the brand, but will also try to spread the selling points of the product.

2. Spread product selling points

The reason why negative marketing can trigger a public opinion storm is that it can easily arouse consumers' emotions. People are slaves to their emotions. When a negative marketing campaign arouses consumers' emotions and sparks heated debate, it is halfway to success. And when the emotions fade, what is consumers’ perception of the brand? This is the key to successful negative marketing. If after the excitement, only a mess is left and users still know nothing about the brand, then this negative marketing can hardly be called a success.

Therefore, negative marketing should closely follow the selling points of the product.

Only by following the selling points of the product can this negative marketing have a foothold.

The Shenzhou Special Car mentioned above has demonstrated this point to the fullest.

The brand positioning of Shenzhou Special Car is "safety". Therefore, the strategy of the "Beat U" advertisement is to promote its own "safety" positioning by criticizing Uber's "black cars". When netizens were discussing this matter heatedly, the "safety" positioning of Shenzhou Special Car was also subtly implanted in users' brand awareness.

Finally, to sum up, what is negative marketing?

This marketing strategy is called negative marketing, which is to create negative events, take advantage of the fact that negative news is more easily spread, and take the opportunity to achieve the purpose of brand communication at low cost.

How to use negative marketing?

In fact, there is no fixed routine, but you can follow two principles: do not involve the core values ​​of the brand and do not communicate the selling points of the product.

In this era where negative news breaks out every now and then, public opinion's tolerance for brands is gradually increasing. Therefore, despite certain risks, negative marketing can still be a viable means of brand operation.

Source: Su Tanbin