MINISO "mails" to Altay, and scene marketing reaches new heights

MINISO creates immersive experiences and emotional resonance by combining cultural tourism economy with creative marketing, thereby achieving brand awareness upgrade and business growth.

What is it like to see the Altay prairie in the city center of Shenzhen?

iBrandi noticed that a few days ago, MINISO "mailed" an Altay to Shenzhen. At the same time, a bonfire party with Xinjiang regional characteristics was also staged in Shenzhen.

Love, live, and get hurt. After the broadcast of My Altay, this sentence that influenced the life choices of the heroine Li Wenxiu caused ripples in the hearts of many people. The picturesque northern Xinjiang and the vast grasslands exude pure and healing energy, catching the imagination of contemporary people about poetry and the distance.

The reason why "My Altay" and Altay are so popular is that in the fast-paced, high-pressure social environment, young people are eager to escape from the shackles of reality and to find a harbor where they can place their emotions and release stress, and Altay provides them with such a cyber dreamland.

In other words, there is a sense of relaxation here that is hard for contemporary people to find in the city.

In fact, in the past two years, whether it is special forces-style tourism, outdoor cycling, camping, frisbee, etc., the reason why offline scenes have become popular again is that offline has an atmosphere and emotions that cannot be replaced by online. These scenes and experiences can bring more direct and strong emotional value to participants, and pay for interest consumption.

In iBrandi's view, from the perspective of the brand, if you can choose the right way to enter these scenes and integrate with these scenes, on the one hand, you can achieve emotional resonance with consumers. On the other hand, it is also a way to expand brand scenes and shape brand minds.

In particular, as marketing increasingly focuses on individuals, experiences, and atmosphere, providing emotional value through scene marketing may be the best choice for brand marketing. The series of "Altay events" created by MINISO in conjunction with the local culture and tourism in Altay can provide some reference for brands.

1. From Shenzhen to Altay: Scenario Marketing = (Creativity + Content) x Emotion

Providing emotional value starts with creating mystery and surprise.

As early as the beginning of July, MINISO had released some surprise clues about Altay on its official Weibo account. Through its official Weibo account, it used emotional copywriting to engage with three major groups of people: graduates, workers, and newlyweds, encouraging them to resonate with users on a spiritual level.

On July 12, a mysterious express box with the words "MINISO" printed on it appeared in Shenzhen COCO Park.

At the same time, consumers who participate in relevant interactions can obtain the corresponding items displayed in the "black hole" of the express box.

On July 14, MINISO Express "officially" opened the box and directly "mailed" a loose Altay to the center of Shenzhen:

It has created an urban oasis, and directly "moved" the "famous homestay" scene of Hemu Village, which is unique to Altay, into the site.

That night, MINISO used postcards to light a bonfire in a place where there could not be a bonfire. Dancers from Xinjiang danced gracefully, recreating the famous scene of the black horse racing in the play "My Altay". They also danced with consumers on site, and experienced relaxation and joy on the prairie together in the center.

In fact, the significance of offline scenes to brands is self-evident. However, most brands use flash marketing for scene marketing, which is short-lived and lacks immersion if they only stay in the local area for activities under a specific theme. But this time, MINISO really went to the "scene".

One part is the "Urban Oasis Altay" it built in the center of Shenzhen, and the other part is that from July to August, it linked up with the local culture and tourism in Altay and entered the Hemu Village scenic area.

During the event, MINISO created a giant postcard in the scenic area for tourists to check in. At the same time, they can also use a small postcard to capture the beauty and customs of Altay and share it with users through social media.

In this way, everyone who arrives in Altay can have a postcard of their own. These detailed experiences and connections can also enable the brand to better resonate emotionally with users.

After all, Altay is more of a travel purpose than a travel destination: to find your own sense of relaxation. This is why MINISO chose Altay among many popular tourist destinations.

If "good advertisements" can be roughly divided into two types, then one is a brand declaration that empathizes with the times, such as the classic slogan "Just do it" created by Nike. The other may be precise empathy with a specific group, focusing on a city, an industry, a state, etc., and providing emotional value to users, such as this slogan of MINISO: Start from MINISO and arrive at your Altay.

2. From Harbin to Altay: A true “long-term thinking” marketing campaign

In fact, if we simply review the Altay-related events created by MINISO, it is obvious that it starts from user insights, provides online content that resonates with them, creates a sense of mystery, surprise, and contrast in offline scenes, and further provides them with emotional value. Even if you can't really go to Altay, as long as you have a relaxed mentality, anywhere is "Altay" and you can find your own chill day.

But if we combine the series of actions taken by MINISO since the Spring Festival, we can find that the "Altay incident" is only a part of its "long-term marketing".

Good communication not only needs to be seen, but also needs to generate interaction and connection, and then be remembered. One of the simplest ways to be remembered is repetition, and MINISO is well aware of this.

Different from most scene marketing which is carried out on a day-to-day basis, MINISO's scene marketing, from the Spring Festival to the summer vacation, from Harbin to Altay, is carried out on a month-to-month or even a year-to-year basis. In this way, the number of people affected and the time spent on it are more long-term and lasting.

Since the beginning of this year, MINISO has always been committed to bringing super experience to users through super scenes, and has created a series of activities by cooperating with local cultural tourism, constantly consolidating the brand mindset of "Visit MINISO first when traveling".

During the Spring Festival, taking advantage of Harbin's hot spot bonus, MINISO created a "Northern Snow Moving South" tour in some stores. From the store exterior design to the store furnishings, the complete travel chain is connected with departure → snow play → hotel, and the in-store hotel scene effectively brings out the product's comfortable, safe, and portable selling points, completing the mental education of consumers when traveling and purchasing disposable travel products.

During the Qingming Festival and May Day, MINISO also combined with the popular city of Tianshui. It customized buses to pick up and drop off tourists between Tianshui South Station and Tianshui Siheyuan during the peak traffic hours. At the same time, it sent "travel supply packages" through the mobile use of its own IP image doll Dun Dun Chicken, continuously spreading and building user minds.

In addition, recently, MINISO once again took advantage of the cultural and tourism economy during the peak period of summer travel to create a series of "Altay Events". The presentation of content from online to offline is the result of MINISO's announcement to upgrade from a retail company to a content company. It also allowed it to fight a beautiful battle with highly creative scene marketing during this hot summer marketing period.

As for the key to success, iBrandi believes there are two points.

First, taking into account the characteristics of different regions or cities, MINISO combines its own products and advantages to output customized and immersive marketing content and create emotional scenes; secondly, while offline marketing is being carried out, there is content online that mobilizes and spreads emotions. The combination of the two creates a large-scale, exponential influence.

In fact, with the recovery of culture and tourism, the story of "a drama makes a city popular" is frequently staged. Harbin, Tianshui and Altay are among them, and there will be more "Harbins" and "Altay" in the future.

For brands, rather than riding on the temporary popularity, at a time when marketers have limited budgets, they may want to learn from MINISO’s approach and create a marketing campaign with a long-term mindset. In this campaign, the brand can bring “short-term” surprises and immersive experiences to users through insights and integration with hot cities, but it must always focus on a brand goal, such as: when traveling, visit MINISO first.

3. Business growth is the result-oriented approach

Of course, in the current business environment, when doing marketing, in addition to shaping brand temperament, we also have to talk about business growth.

After MINISO has established the brand awareness of “visit MINISO first when traveling” in the minds of users through a series of marketing events, how did it actually achieve growth in business?

When the product becomes part of the scene and can connect and communicate with the people on site, it can create a more memorable brand experience and enable business growth.

MINISO ensures that its products are present throughout the entire “scene”.

In the "Homestay" created by MINISO in the "Mysterious Express Box" in Shenzhen, in addition to the scenery of Altay, there are also some necessary products for traveling to Altay, including disposable items used for travel, and essential cooling products and sunscreen products in northern Xinjiang in summer.

The product is a solution that MINISO provides for users’ travel. In order to truly enable contemporary young people to “go whenever they want” and make everyone’s travel more relaxing, MINISO has entered into a strategic partnership with instant e-commerce giant Meituan.

iBrandi learned that the two parties have achieved a one-stop, short-time and large-scale solution to users' travel troubles through the double buff addition of "MINISO one-stop procurement + Meituan takeout fast and instant delivery", which truly makes the saying "Start from MINISO and arrive at your Altay" a reality.

On July 20, MINISO and Meituan Waimai jointly created a Super Brand Day with the theme of "Buy MINISO travel products on Meituan Waimai" to provide users with travel solutions. On the day of the Super Brand Day, Meituan's total performance increased by 2000% year-on-year.
This is real business growth.

IV. Conclusion

On the whole, since the beginning of the year, MINISO has focused on the cultural and tourism economy and kept up with hot cities. On the one hand, through online content communication, on-site user UGC and brand PGC fully displayed and shared on-site activities, it integrated the brand and products into these contents and carried out silent and breakthrough communication.

On the other hand, we simultaneously create super scenes and creative marketing offline, build emotional fields, and create immersive experiences, thereby reshaping the brand image and temperament and completing the upgrade of consumers' minds.

But looking deeper, although the cities and contents of each event seem to be different, the theme is always focused: before traveling, go to MINISO first. This kind of scene marketing with long-term thinking, coupled with three-dimensional online and offline collaboration, can help brands achieve long-term and exponential breakthroughs and mind building.

When creative marketing that can solve users' emotional problems is combined with products and instant delivery that can solve users' travel equipment needs, MINISO has obviously told everyone: not only Harbin last winter and Altay this summer, no matter when, no matter which city you want to arrive, you can start from MINISO.

Author: Sober

Source: WeChat public account: iBrandi (ID: ibrandi)