GAC Honda's "High Energy Monday": Activating the User's Success Code

Why is GAC Honda's "High-Energy Monday" a successful password for activating users? This article will show you the reasons, and is recommended for companies in the automotive industry.

In recent years, the traditional automobile industry has been facing increasing competitive pressure, and the rise of new energy vehicles has made the industry even more difficult. Moreover, the price war is becoming more and more fierce. The root cause behind this phenomenon is that the market is becoming saturated, demand is gradually declining, and the automobile market has entered a real stage of stock competition.

Not only that, user consumption concepts are also changing. With the advent of the era of intelligent cars, for users, cars are no longer just industrial products, but consumer products; they are no longer just a means of transportation, but have become a mobile living space.

Under this background, automobile marketing must shift from a "product-centric" product mindset to a "user-centric" user mindset .

On the one hand, car companies need to continue to acquire new customers; on the other hand, it is more important to maintain and effectively activate old users, turn them into KOCs, and help promote and spread the brand. User word of mouth is always the most efficient and influential marketing magic weapon.

While other car companies are still engaged in price wars, Guangben, as a Japanese joint venture brand with a glorious 26-year history, in addition to insisting on quality, was the first to keenly perceive the importance of user thinking, breaking out of the narrow competition at the "car" level and rising to the "user" relationship level, actively starting a model of operating a trusting relationship between the brand and users, helping companies and users upgrade from "product connection" to "emotional connection", thereby building a new competitive advantage for the company - user assets.

It is not difficult to find that since last year, Guangben has been actively exploring new models of user operations. For example, last year Guangben and Starbucks jointly created the Coffee Tasting Monday·Power Up event; in May this year, Guangben and KFC cooperated on Monday to launch a crazy fan-pampering event called "V you for lunch, please eat KFC" .

Although they are cooperating with different brands, the purpose is the same. Guangben is accelerating the pampering of fans and strengthening user interaction through scene activities. The effect of this activity is very obvious. In just 2 months, 4,000+ dormant old users were successfully activated, and users spontaneously created and promoted more than 4,000 posts on the site, which also triggered 188,000 user interactions, greatly activating Guangben APP members.

In my opinion, Guangben's fan marketing activities are remarkable, especially the overall planning and detailed design based on "user thinking", which are very worth learning from. I will share my interpretation with you here, I believe it will be inspiring to you.

1. Cornerstone of success or failure: Accurate user insights and lifestyle brands to stimulate participation

Today, it is becoming increasingly difficult and costly for companies to attract users to participate in interactions. Especially for durable goods such as automobiles, which are fundamentally different from the milk tea or fruit industries, there is no such high frequency of repurchase and impulse consumption.

The demand for cars themselves is relatively weak, and companies cannot always give away gas cards, car mats and other products. Although this can meet users' demands for "material benefits", it is difficult to touch their desires at the "spiritual and emotional" level.

What should we do? We need to go back to Guangben's user profile and see who they are. They mainly include middle-level white-collar workers, business people, and bosses with a certain career foundation. The notable characteristics of these people are calmness, responsibility, willingness to fight, and love and pursuit of life. Based on this, it is easy to find a breakthrough point.

Now, Guangben’s cooperation with Starbucks on “Coffee Taste Monday” and with KFC on “V Your Lunch, Please Eat KFC” are very successful. This is because they have grasped three key points from the user portrait, which is worth thinking about and learning:

1. Stimulate the emotional value of users

Starbucks and KFC are both lifestyle brands, and such brands hit the emotional value of users and bring users a unique lifestyle experience. Coffee is a drink, but it also expresses the lifestyle of white-collar workers and business people; KFC's lunch is not just food, but also represents the way of life of people in the workplace. It is undoubtedly a very wise insight to stimulate the emotional value of users by using lifestyle brands that users love .

In 2023, Guangben and Starbucks will jointly launch a food truck for the Coffee Tasting Monday event

2. Leverage high-frequency consumption habits to promote high-frequency interactions

Activating users is the core goal of the activity, so the more frequent the interaction, the better. This urgently requires a "high-frequency hook". Coffee is a high-frequency consumption, and so is lunch. It is a wise choice to create high-frequency interaction opportunities by relying on high-frequency consumption habits . Although items such as water cups, tents, and car mats are more expensive, users may no longer need them after winning them once, making it difficult to create continuous interaction opportunities.

It can be seen that Guangben’s choice of Starbucks coffee and KFC lunch was a correct decision made after careful consideration. Don’t think this is simple. It requires deep thinking about the activity goals and user insights.

3. Super brands convey super trust

Guangben chooses to cooperate with these super brands, which can quickly build up overwhelming recognition in the minds of users, convey super trust through super brands, and give Guangben a super brand image. At the same time, super brands will also promote in their own channels. At this time, for the group of users who happen to be Guangben and super brands, there will be a superimposed effect, which will stimulate activity and loyalty.

Therefore, accurate user insights are not only a prerequisite for good user operations, but also the key to a successful campaign .

2. IP building: omni-channel user experience and long-term brand activity creation

The most difficult thing about the relationship between a brand and its users is not how to establish it, but how to maintain it. An event can certainly easily establish a relationship with users, but if it is only a one-time relationship, this kind of relationship is expensive and not deep enough, and it is difficult for users to perceive and remember the brand. So what should we do? We should learn from Taobao and learn how to create Double 11. Double 12 is commonly known as festival creation, which is essentially the IPization of activities .

From last year's Starbucks Coffee Tasting Monday to today's Crazy V Lunch on Monday, Guangben is carefully shaping its own event IP and creating an exclusive festival for its users. It continues to plan fan-favoring activities around Monday, turning fan-favoring into an iconic symbolic activity, leaving a deep and strong memory in the minds of users.

The creation of such a long-lasting brand activity IP can be regarded as an innovative attempt by Guangben in the industry. This time, they also specially designed the slogan of the activity - "Guangben APP, high-energy Monday". They try to constantly emphasize and convey to users that "Guangben APP is the Monday emotional charging station for car owners", so that users are no longer afraid of Monday work syndrome. Of course, how to charge users is the real surprise benefit given by the Coffee Taste Monday and V You Lunch activities.

It is not easy to successfully create an event IP. It requires repeated publicity to all users, while also considering the user's participation experience. Therefore, it is best to build an omni-channel user experience .

I noticed that Guangben’s “V You Lunch, Please Eat KFC” event satisfied the participation of online and offline users. Online, the Guangben app was the main battlefield, and users could buy things at the mall, post and interact in the community, and also promote and interact on Weibo and official accounts.

Offline, it also covers 500 Guangben authorized stores across the country, and opens up the use of APP to facilitate users' online and offline participation and experience, and also accumulates user data, which is conducive to the digital operation and analysis of Guangben users.

Source: Guangben APP community user post

Through the user experience of all-domain and all-channel scenarios, the IP process of brand activities can be accelerated, and three-dimensional penetration into the minds of users can be achieved. In the future, if companies want to manage the relationship between brands and users more accurately and efficiently, they must rely on digital touchpoints, connect and identify user IDs, connect online and offline touchpoints, accumulate data, and ultimately achieve intelligent user operations.

3. The key to pampering fans: hard-core strength presentation, real money to enhance user perception

When managing the trust relationship between brands and users, the most taboo thing is "false", that is, the brand routine . No matter how accurate the user insights are, how effective the activity strategies are, and how perfect the user experience design of the channel is, once the pampering of fans becomes "false", users cannot perceive the sincerity and sincerity, the activity will face failure, and the brand will suffer a backlash, not to mention creating a long-term brand activity IP.

Guangben's "High Energy Monday" fan-loving activity - V You Lunch, Please Eat KFC has won the active participation of users and achieved outstanding results. It is in line with the principle of truly loving fans, distributing benefits in a real way, and bringing surprises and benefits to users. I will analyze 3 highlights for you:

1. Spend points as money

Points have always played an important role in user operations, but in many Chinese companies, points have often become useless. This is because these companies have a morbid mentality, hoping to retain users with points, but are unwilling to let points have too high a value to increase costs . To put it bluntly, they are unwilling to provide real benefits to users.

Therefore, there are very few companies that can really use points as money. This time, Guangben’s “V for your lunch, please eat KFC” campaign allows points to be directly exchanged for 5 types of KFC meal packages (as shown in the picture). This is a real benefit, affordable and with a low threshold.

5 packages to meet the redemption needs of different users

2. Ultra-low threshold for redemption, points are no longer useless

Some companies always set the threshold for points redemption too high, such as 1,000 points for a pack of tissues, 3,000 points for a spoon, etc. They are afraid that users will easily spend their points.

However, in this Guangben event, only 9 points are required to exchange for a KFC meal. In this way, all Guangben car owners can participate, and those old users with fewer points and who have been dormant for a long time also have the opportunity to participate in the interaction. This conditional design is not only user-friendly, but also more in line with the original intention of the event.

3. Combination of general benefits and long-term super gift package benefits

In the field of event marketing, I adhere to a principle, that is, the big prizes should be fine, and the small prizes should be more. I didn't expect that Guangben's "V, please have lunch at KFC" just meets this principle.

They also launch a food festival benefit on the 17th of every month. As long as users participate in the interaction on the APP, they have the opportunity to win a year's Monday lunch, which means that you will have a Monday lunch for 52 weeks a year. Wow, imagine, this is undoubtedly an extremely attractive super gift package benefit.

It can be seen that "truth" is the starting point for enterprises to do a good job in user operations and establish lasting trust relationships.

4. Conclusion: The essence of business is to manage trust

The most valuable asset of an enterprise is never its equipment, technology or factory, but its user assets. And user assets are not cold data, but warm users .

Being user-centric, the first priority is to sincerely serve users. It doesn’t have to be too grand, but it has to be practical. Just like Guangben’s fan-loving activities, a cup of coffee, a lunch, integrating care into the daily life of every loyal car owner. It is for this reason that Guangben’s “High Energy Monday” series of IP activities will be enthusiastically participated in by users again and again, and will attract their active interaction.

Today, all walks of life are calling for a return to the essence of business. So, what exactly is the essence of business?

In my opinion, the essence of business is trust . Isn’t running a business or a brand the same as managing the trust relationship with users?

Author: Yan Tao

Source public account: Yan Sanshou (ID: 1068865)