Who is the next Perfect Diary? Re-answering "Changes in Chinese Brands in 2020"!

“What has changed in our world?”

1. New brands: New retail formats give birth to new species

540 million years ago, the Earth entered the Cambrian period, which brought about a biological explosion and became the source of life today. Today in the 21st century, in the global wave of DTC (Direct to Costomer) brands, new domestic products are rising, international brands and cross-border niche products are developing together, live broadcasts are booming and short videos are fierce, and the Chinese consumer goods sector is also ushering in a concentrated explosion of new species.

On the one hand, the imagination of the new consumer market has been fully opened up, and new domestic brands have risen like stars and gradually occupied the leading position. With the upgrading of consumption and changes in traffic, Heytea, Perfect Diary , Feihe Milk Powder, Panda Buzou Cake... the new domestic products market has cultivated a large number of new players with Internet genes.

On the one hand, facing market pressure, domestic brands are taking action.

Bosideng cooperated with world-class designers and successfully gained a foothold in the high-end down jacket market with its strategic positioning of focusing on down jackets and focusing on high-end products; Li Ning reshaped its product line to improve its brand image, signed contracts with international football stars, and walked into fashion weeks to shout "China Li Ning" to the world, becoming the combat boots in the hearts of many young people...

But also in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the trade war escalated sharply, Sino-US relations came under pressure, the development of globalization has never been so unclear, and the real economy faced even more severe tests. In the battle song of ice and fire in 2020, what are the points worth paying attention to behind consumers voting with their feet?

①Unicorns are rampant in the segmented tracks

I have always believed that the track that is worth companies' in-depth development is one that existed before and is very large, but has become outdated and it is time for an overall innovation. The other type is that it did not exist before and consumers did not think it was a big deal, but in fact the demand has always existed and has been suppressed for a long time. If any point is detonated, it is enough to create a unicorn.

In such a market, if you want to break through, you often have to start by choosing another track: discovering a market demand that "must be satisfied by me" and gaining insight into an unmet need of users. For example, we should pay attention to new user groups (such as Generation Z, singles, the middle class, and sophisticated mothers); pay attention to new usage scenarios (such as health preservation, staying up late, eating alone, and fitness); pay attention to new product demands (such as ingredient parties); pay attention to new emotional demands (such as coolness and appearanceism), etc.

We can see that in this new arena with "segmented populations" as the horizontal axis and "segmented scenarios" as the vertical axis, the granularity is becoming finer and finer. Based on these two points, a new competition has begun. Both new and old brands are doing their best to gain a new foothold.

Many new brands, such as Jane Eyre Yogurt, Xiaoxiandun, and Yuanqi Forest, have been able to break through by deeply exploring segmented populations and scenarios; this is even more true for old brands. Taking the mobile phone industry as an example, Huawei and Xiaomi are both adding sub-brands to match new populations and new scenarios to gain market share.

② Cross-border robbery: I will destroy you, it has nothing to do with you

Recently, my circle of friends was flooded with an article from Tencent. For well-known reasons, this tweet has been in a 404 status. The main point the full text wants to convey is: Tencent may be facing a pipeline crisis and has to launch a battle to defend its traffic.

Of course, I don’t want to elaborate on the author’s point of view here, but I think the signal behind the article is worthy of deep thought for many business owners: in almost every industry, in every industry where products are extremely mature, there will be opportunities for disruptive turnarounds. For example, SMS VS WeChat in the past, Master Kong VS Are You Elephant, today's WeChat VS tomorrow's ByteDance, and of course, maybe there are others. This is cross-border robbery. To paraphrase a famous line from The Three-Body Problem, "I will destroy you, and it has nothing to do with you."

Just like the entrepreneur friends around me often lament: "I have been in the cosmetics business for more than ten years, and I only regard those peers with larger scale, longer history and more funds as competitors. I didn't expect that there were some people who crossed over to the cosmetics business and left me far behind in just a few months." The ones who defeat translators, drivers, chess players, and accountants are not better translators, drivers, chess players, and accountants, but robots. There are more and more cases of cross-border robbery. Every time a "black swan" emerges and every time a cross-border "robber" emerges, people clearly feel how important it is to "repair the roof on a sunny day." As for other industries, who will rob your field and you now or in the future?

③The era of super affordable brands is coming

The 2020 McKinsey China Consumer Survey Report shows that the vast majority of respondents are more cautious in their spending. 60% of the respondents said that even if they feel relatively wealthy, they still want to spend their money wisely. In big cities with high living costs such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, some consumer groups are more savvy and pursue the best value for money, requiring both high quality and reasonable prices.

The signal this sends to us is that the worse the economy is, the more cost-effective and even value-for-money products will become the first choice of consumers, which has also led to the pursuit of ultimate cost-effectiveness becoming a business trend in recent years. For example, during the epidemic, MINISO took a radical "rebellious" path, pricing more than 95% of its products at less than 29 yuan, and lowering the prices of newly developed products by 20%-30%; for example, Mixue Bingcheng, many individual tea entrepreneurs would scold it as a troublemaker in the industry, and the prices that were finally raised would fall into chaos again with its arrival. 2 yuan ice cream, 3 yuan lemonade, 5000+ stores, a model of making a fortune in silence;

For example, Haidilao launched a sub-brand called "Shi Ba Quan", where a bowl of noodles with soybean paste costs only 9.9 yuan, noodles with double pepper and diced chicken costs only 12 yuan, desserts cost 3 yuan each, jasmine tea costs 5 yuan, and milk tea costs 8 yuan. They are all competing in this market. Price is always the last straw that breaks the camel's back when it comes to upgrading, and it is never the first step in upgrading. This means that affordable and high quality products are always excellent genes with a broad mass base. We see too many companies that are indeed very innovative, with leading products and great technology, but the business conditions of the companies themselves are not good. Why? Its price is not competitive, few people use it, and it is easily surpassed by latecomers. So I believe that high-quality and low-priced products are the passport to the world. After the epidemic, super affordable brands will usher in the next golden decade.

2. New organization: user-centered organizational structure

With the overabundance of products, channels and information, it means that the dominant power is shifting from enterprises to consumers, and the traditional information barriers no longer exist. The transfer of sovereignty allows consumers to realize their personalized needs.

But many business owners often tell me that consumers are so important, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to retain consumers and make them happy. Why? Because in the new era of consumerism, it is far from enough to simply meet the needs of customers. We must consider how to build amusement parks to make customers happy and give their lives meaning.

What is the new consumerism? Let me give you an analogy. Today's consumers not only want to eat eggs, but also want to eat organic, nutritious free-range eggs, and eggs laid by hens with values. What are the eggs laid by a hen with values? Only when companies operate their chicken farms in accordance with the concept of sustainable development and with a responsible attitude towards consumers can they produce hens with value. Today, consumers are no longer buying a basic product. What they are buying is the IP, appearance, style and experience that make them feel good. It is an all-round perception.

It’s not that what you give me is good, but that what you give me meets my psychological expectations.

The difference is like others are milk tea shops, but you are a heartfelt healing space experience store. Others sell an ordinary bowl of pearl milk tea with a lot of sugar, but you sell taste, appearance, story, and psychological satisfaction. Consumers may bargain after buying the former, but they may be satisfied after buying the latter, feeling that the brand understands them.

This is the relationship between "feeling" and "knowing", which is a very core part of user experience. In fact, the role of user "feeling" is far greater than the role of user "knowing". Especially in the consumer goods industry where the threshold for purchasing decisions is low, there are too many functional alternative products. Those that can truly gain continued recognition from consumers are often those that have good communication with consumers at the core of the brand, and that enable them to resonate emotionally with the brand and thus form a loyal relationship. Therefore, brands need to go beyond the narrow product perspective and redefine user value:

Who are my target consumers?

What do consumers need?

Why is there such a need?

How to meet their needs?

What value can I create for consumers?

3. New channels: channels determine the brand’s communication dimension

I tried to explain it with a formula:

If we roughly break down this formula:

Platform quality : Only when the brand tone matches the target audience can the value brought by the new media platform be maximized;

Spreading speed: from single traffic, single channel, single promotion method to three-dimensional traffic that leads to the whole, go deep and thorough;

Communication effect: occupy users’ minds and convert them into purchases.

By observing the emerging brands that have emerged in recent years, we can find that every change in traffic has brought about an iteration of brand reshuffle, and traffic from emerging channels has become a catalyst for emerging brands. For example, WIS gets its bonus traffic from Sina Weibo, HFP’s core is the scatter-net advertising on WeChat public accounts, Perfect Diary has been overwhelmingly popular on Xiaohongshu, Half Acre Flower Field has seized the bonus of Douyin, and Huaxizi has tied up with Li Jiaqi’s e-commerce live broadcast...

For every brand, you should not care about how high it is now or how big it is, but what it has done from 0 to 1. You will find that the characteristics of these brands are to find the target user groups, focus on one platform in depth, and after exploring the experience on one platform, replicate it to another platform in the same way. The most typical example is Perfect Diary, which has invested heavily in all platforms where young people gather: starting with Xiaohongshu, then expanding to Douyin, Bilibili, live streaming...

Different platforms have different characteristics. Xiaohongshu’s KOLs deeply promote products, Douyin has real-person color testing, Bilibili focuses on reviews and makeup tutorials, and Weibo has a large number of users and a loud voice, making it particularly suitable for image building. Perfect Diary will officially announce its spokespersons, cross-border collaborations, etc. on Weibo. WeChat’s strategy is mainly based on WeChat private account marketing + official account + mini program...using the point to lead the whole, forming a closed loop of promotion.

However, we should also see that for some brands, the blessing of traffic dividends is not actually a victory for the brand, but a carnival of short-termism.

For example, HFP seized one round of opportunities but failed to continue to seize new opportunities. Perfect Diary was able to accumulate all new opportunities and thus exceeded expectations and reached the top. This is the fundamental reason why the two brands are in different states today. So, let’s face a soul-searching question: Is traffic the essence of all business?

For example, live streaming and community marketing are very popular. Their directness and immediacy break down physical distances, help brands communicate with users more quickly, and allow some small and beautiful new brands to turn things around. Under this national enthusiasm, various celebrities and stars have joined in to seize the dividends of live streaming. For a time, it seemed that wherever there was Internet, there would be a live streaming room, and businesses also continued to come, becoming a sacrifice of love.

I have always believed that those who plan big things will not pursue small profits, and the money earned by luck must be paid back by strength. Therefore, you can try live streaming, but don’t be obsessed with it. Live streaming can only provide “an extra piece of firewood” but cannot provide timely help. Brands should explore more possibilities of live streaming to help shape the long-term value of the brand.

Therefore, whether it is a traditional brand or an emerging brand, it is necessary to decide which platform to operate based on the attributes of its own products, user characteristics, and the tone of different media platforms, and then match the scenario-based content to push it to users.

4. New content: content planning based on consumer insights

As the famous marketing expert Eugene Schwartz said: Marketing cannot create the desire to buy goods, it can only arouse the hopes, dreams, fears or desires that already exist in the hearts of millions of people, and then direct these "already existing desires" to specific products. What brands need to do is not to create popular desires, but to find out the existing urgent desires and guide consumers to where they want to go:

How to do it? I summarized it into 4 points:

1. Scenario-based: A scene that can trigger emotions is a real scene

If the consumption scenario is not clear enough, it will be difficult for consumers to think of the corresponding products when they have needs. Therefore, it is necessary to create an immersive feeling for the audience and show more interactions with the consumption scenario, so as to increase consumers' favorability and awareness of the product. For example, you can try to search for Xiaoxiandun on Xiaohongshu, and you will find that its content scenarios are bundled with many office workers. We can imagine that a white-collar woman who is used to the 996 work schedule returns to her own cabin after a busy day at work and takes out a bottle of freshly stewed bird's nest from the refrigerator, which not only nourishes her body but also gives her taste buds and psychological satisfaction.

2. Focus on personal experience: Invoke the five senses

This includes how to make your product visible (packaging, cross-border cooperation); knowable (product features, celebrity endorsements); perceptible (usage effects, users’ five senses, immersive experience); and transferable (social currency, taking selfies for you). It means that users hear you, see you, smell you, eat you, experience you, and finally think of you, which together constitutes the perception of the brand. For example, let’s analyze the differentiated content marketing strategy of Huaxizi lipstick.

①The product is inspired by China's carving technology to create this new domestic carved lipstick. The oriental aesthetic design gives people a refreshing feeling. ②Li Jiaqi endorses the product and Du Juan speaks for it. By bundling celebrity endorsements, the product’s style is elevated and consumers’ trust in the product is increased.

③On social media platforms, in addition to "extremely beautiful" and "the pride of domestic products", "affordable cosmetics" and "a must-have for students" have also become keywords for Huaxizi.

④Super beautiful gift box + rich colors + extremely high cost performance = built-in content genes, making consumers willing to take photos of it and post them on WeChat Moments.

3. Easy to understand: Selling points translated into consumer language

When content reaches users for the first time, it acts as a filter. Users who hold the same values ​​as the content are attracted, stop and even develop a strong resonance at first sight. Therefore, the content we output is essentially communication with fans, so what they need is content that is a conversation between people, rather than "punching in the same pipe".

In this regard, you can learn from Li Jiaqi and write content that promotes sales. For example, when talking about a lipstick shade that is very versatile, he would say, "A color that is fearless"; when talking about a classic color, he would say, "The balance on your bank card can change, your boyfriend can change, but 999 cannot change"; when promoting perfume, he would say, "The smell of a forest after a light rain"; when trying out colors, he would say, "Ah, so shiny! A five-carat mouth."

4. 4 taboos + 4 cores:

In the new media era, content that catches the attention of young people is more effective and should be interesting, updated quickly, personalized, and good-looking. First of all, a brand should be like a person. It should have emotions and personality to show itself, rather than a living brand standing there coldly. There must be an emotional connection so that your users will trust you and fall in love with your brand.

Now when I watch Wufangzhai’s advertisements, I watch them over and over again. Let’s see what’s inside it, is it imagination, emotion, or experience?

For example, the sticky and magical TVC launched in recent years; the Double Ninth Festival retro advertisement "Meet in 1989"; the New Year of the Republic of China in Zhou Xuan's song; the Dragon Boat Festival fantasy blockbuster; the "what a soft duck" that makes tough guys and straight men exclaim... Each one is hilarious, it is really Schrödinger's Wufangzhai, only when you open it, you will know what the filling is.

It can be said that in content marketing, Wufangzhai focuses on two-way communication with consumers. By giving the product a humanized side, the IP image linked to the brand can have temperament, emotions, and attitude, thereby creating a more sticky communication connection between the brand and consumers.

5. Finally, Luo Zhenyu said in his 2020 New Year’s Eve speech that the Chinese economy has reached a node, switching from elevator mode to rock climbing mode.

The process of free climbing is not about overcoming difficulties, but about getting used to difficulties. The market has changed, consumers have changed, and where to climb next, every step tests our creativity and ability to choose. What I want to say to everyone is, see it, keep watching, understand it, calm down and be a craftsman, carve and polish more valuable things (products, services, content), and everything is possible.

Whether you are the first wave or the last wave, let’s rush forward together, 2020!

Author: Sister Mulan

Source: Mulanjie (ID: mulanjie-)