Deconstructing the “emotional value” marketing of Xiangpiaopiao and Chabaidao

We are currently in an era of "emotional marketing". Whether it is a plan or marketing, we must consider and guide public emotions. Public emotions are sometimes even more important than the product itself. Just like the Fat Cat incident some time ago, the results of Cha Baidao and Xiangpiaopiao were completely different.

When a brand is doing crisis public relations, if it does not cater to public sentiment, it will often bring a devastating blow. On the contrary, it is a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity.

Recently, the incident of a "fat cat" falling into the river during a game leveling game attracted attention from all walks of life. Netizens from many places placed orders through food delivery platforms to commemorate the incident. However, some netizens found during the live broadcast that some of the food delivery packages were empty. The brands involved include Mixue Bingcheng, Cha Baidao, Wallace, etc. Under the siege of netizens, Cha Baidao, Wallace and other brands had to respond.

At the same time, Xiangpiaopiao, which actively followed the public sentiment, ushered in a wave of growth. After netizens posted a message on a Japanese supermarket product of Xiangpiaopiao MECO juice tea mocking the discharge of nuclear wastewater into the sea, such as "0.1% of the land polluted 70% of the ocean" and "You can live without Japan but not without the ocean", it received a lot of praise from the public. When it was reported online that the incident was suspected to be the personal behavior of an employee, Xiangpiaopiao immediately posted a message saying: Our employees are great! Its chairman even went to the airport to pick up the employees in person.

From various public relations events, we can see that following the public sentiment and leveraging marketing can greatly enhance the brand's reputation, while the opposite can ruin its reputation. Most of the seemingly accidental situations are carefully planned.

01 The double-sided “emotional card” of Cha Baidao and Xiangpiaopiao

Looking back at the Fat Cat incident, a game power leveler was suspected of being PUA, worked more than ten hours a day, and finally jumped into the river. Before jumping into the river, he transferred the last 66,000 yuan to his "girlfriend" and noted "voluntary gift". The sister said that after the boy got into trouble, the "girlfriend" returned the last two large sums of 136,000 yuan. The boy's sister is now preparing to sue, hoping to recover all the money her brother was defrauded of.

After the incident was exposed and sparked heated discussions across the Internet, many caring people went to the Yangtze River Bridge to deliver takeout and offer flowers as a tribute.

It is understood that the reason why the netizen sent these things was mainly because of the "Fat Cat" avatar and because he only ordered takeout worth more than 10 yuan or even less than 10 yuan each time in order to save money for his girlfriend. Since McDonald's is too expensive, he is reluctant to spend money. However, many careful netizens found that some merchants sent takeout bags with empty bags.

Many businesses were complained about due to the public outrage. The staff of Yuzhong District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau said that they had received multiple calls reporting this matter and suggested that consumers provide the order number and evidence of opening the empty package and report it to 12315, which will then be assigned to various market supervision and administration offices in the jurisdiction for verification. We will continue to follow up on this matter.

The brands involved, including Mixue Bingcheng, Wallace, Niu Yuebao, and Zhu Xiaoxiao Snail Noodles, have all officially apologized and imposed penalties such as closing the stores, terminating the contracts, and suspending business for rectification. All orders involved have been refunded and 10 times the amount of compensation has been given.

Among them, Cha Baidao posted on Weibo that we were deeply saddened and regretful after learning about the experience of "Fat Cat". Regarding the problem that everyone reported to us that "the takeaway ordered for Fat Cat was delivered with plain water", we immediately set up a special working group to investigate, and the results of the investigation are now announced as follows.

After investigation: At about 1 a.m. on May 3, the Chongqing Luzu Temple store received a large number of takeout orders, and the address information for receiving the meals was all "Yangtze River Bridge". The only night shift clerk in the store at the time believed the statements of some people who picked up the meals, such as "the meals must be served quickly... other brands are filled with white water or empty bags...", and used purified water to serve the meals without authorization, involving a total of about 40 orders.

After finding out the truth, Chabaidao said that it had asked the store to fire the employee involved and to refund and apologize for all orders involved. The attitude, speed, and quality of public relations were relatively in place, and the public anger was relieved, so the public did not embarrass the brand again. Especially Chabaidao, which went public in April this year, broke the issue price on the first day of listing, and the decline was close to 40%. In this situation, it is always right for Chabaidao to maintain its sensitivity to public opinion.

However, Cha Baidao also made a donation of 1 million yuan in the name of Fat Cat to public welfare projects for young people. This move was a bit redundant and has now been backlashed by public opinion. In the online public opinion environment that is prone to confrontation, Cha Baidao's public relations content was a bit excessive.

The same case is also reflected in Xiangpiaopiao. As we all know, Japan has been discharging nuclear contaminated water into the sea for some time. On April 19 this year, Japan began the fifth discharge of nuclear wastewater and insisted that it was harmless to the environment. It was soon slapped in the face by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In a Chinese supermarket in Japan, slogans mocking Japan's nuclear-contaminated water appeared on the packaging of Xiangpiaopiao Meco in both Chinese and Japanese, including "shameless", "0.1% of the land polluted 70% of the ocean", "Japan can be gone, but the ocean cannot be gone", "The ocean is not Japan's sewer", etc. Then, in the early morning, netizens photographed Jiang Jianqi, chairman of Xiangpiaopiao, holding a banner that read "Welcome back Xiangpiaopiao warriors!" and appearing at the airport to pick up employees who had returned from Japan.

Overnight, Xiangpiaopiao became the "glory of domestic products" and ushered in "huge wealth". Although some people questioned Xiangpiaopiao's staged photos and hype, they had to admit that this was a successful marketing campaign for Xiangpiaopiao.

The two events seem to have no necessary connection, but in the same time period and under different circumstances, they just reflect the two-sided nature of consumer brands playing the "emotional card": Cha Baidao is about turning "danger" into "opportunity", while Xiangpiaopiao is about taking the initiative, seizing the public's opposition, and using leverage to amplify the "family and country feelings."

02 “Patriotism” and “Love the People” marketing cannot hide the performance pressure

The reason why Cha Baidao and Xiangpiaopiao are willing to provide emotional value to the public, or to use self-destructive methods to make consumers happy, is due to both national sentiments and performance factors.

The above article has explained the precariousness of the tea ceremony. Now let’s take a look at Xiangpiaopiao.

After satirizing Japan's nuclear wastewater, on the afternoon of May 5, 10,000 people watched Xiangpiaopiao's live broadcast room at the same time. The anchor wore red clothes with Chinese hearts on them, and many products were sold out. During this period, Xiangpiaopiao's president Yang Dongyun also entered the live broadcast room to interact with netizens and distributed live broadcast room benefits. From May 4 to 5, more than 10 million netizens flocked to Xiangpiaopiao's Douyin live broadcast room to place orders, and the store's live broadcast day sales soared from the original 2,500 yuan to 1 million yuan, an increase of 400 times.

As the "No. 1 Chinese instant milk tea stock", Xiangpiaopiao has put a lot of effort into marketing over the years.

Xiangpiaopiao's advertising slogans have evolved from "More than 300 million cups sold a year, the cups can be connected to circle the earth!" to "When you are a little hungry or sleepy, drink some Xiangpiaopiao", which has formed the consumer mentality of the instant milk tea industry. Now, its slogan is "Sales lead, the cups can be connected to circle the earth 40 times."

2006 was the highlight of Xiangpiaopiao. In one year, its sales increased from 10 million to 480 million. The cup milk tea market was completely ignited by Xiangpiaopiao, and it also attracted many competitors, including Youlemei under Xizhilang, Xiangyue Milk Tea under Dahaoda Food, and Lipton Milk Tea under Unilever.

The entire track suddenly became crowded. At this time, Unilever extended an olive branch to Xiangpiaopiao, preparing to invest 1 billion yuan to acquire Xiangpiaopiao. Jiang Jianqi, the founder of Xiangpiaopiao, was very tempted at first, although he also had some concerns that it would be difficult for domestic brands to escape the fate of being hidden. In the end, Jiang Jianqi calmed down and rejected Unilever's acquisition.

Later, various instant milk tea brands ushered in a price war. In 2009, due to inflation, the price of raw materials rose, and Xiangpiaopiao cup milk tea had to lose 5 cents for each cup sold. At this time, competitors used price wars to win the market.

In order to cope with the risks of relying on the brewing business, Xiangpiaopiao focused on the ready-to-drink business in 2017, launched products such as LAN Fong Yuan, which focuses on ready-to-drink cups, and entered the mid-to-high-end liquid milk tea market; in 2018, it launched Meco juice tea, which is benchmarked against freshly brewed fruit tea, emphasizing 0 fat and 0 added pigments.

However, the ready-to-drink business also has competitors such as Wahaha, Master Kong, and Nongfu Spring. Xiangpiaopiao's internal distributors were also turbulent for a time. Under internal and external troubles, Xiangpiaopiao's development fell into a trough. In 2020, the profit for the entire first half of the year was only 22,800 yuan. If the government subsidies were removed, the company would be completely in a state of loss. In this case, Xiangpiaopiao resolutely donated 10 million yuan to Wuhan, which was in a precarious situation at the time.

Let's look at Xiangpiaopiao's performance and marketing expenses in recent years. According to its financial report, from 2020 to 2022, Xiangpiaopiao's revenue was 3.761 billion yuan, 3.466 billion yuan and 3.128 billion yuan, respectively, down 5.46%, 7.83% and 9.76% year-on-year, respectively. Xiangpiaopiao's sales expenses were 714 million yuan, 740 million yuan and 561 million yuan, respectively.

In 2023, Xiangpiaopiao's sales expenses soared by 53.42% to 860 million yuan. The financial report explained that this was mainly due to increased advertising and marketing expenses and increased manpower expenses for the establishment of a ready-to-drink sales team. In the past year, Xiangpiaopiao's LAN Fong Yuen and Meco have also frequently appeared in many variety shows on Hunan Satellite TV.

In short, from the perspective of performance and industry, Xiangpiaopiao urgently needs to find a fulcrum to leverage performance. The best fulcrum is marketing, which can bring greater returns with minimal investment. Although patriotic marketing is an inexhaustible and absolutely correct direction, if it is used frequently, it will be excessive.

03 Brand sentiment changes with the crowd and media

For domestic brands, marketing used to rely on spending money on advertising, but now the marketing method is developing towards providing emotional value such as donations and patriotism. The public relations method is to apologize for small things and keep silent on big things. This is related to the current trend that young people generally love to "surf" the Internet and are easily led by various opinions. If a brand is not careful, it will be "bitten back" by traffic.

The reason why consumers nowadays pay attention to emotional value marketing is because of changes in consumer mentality. At present, many "post-90s" and "post-00s" have become the main consumer force in various fields.

This consumer group grew up in a relatively affluent environment and has their own consumption preferences. Their main consumption trend is to spend money to buy happiness and save money to buy value. Only by combining product functionality and cost-effectiveness with a sense of participation and ritual can the hearts of this wave of young people be captured.

For brands, a single product function cannot satisfy consumers. Even with the intensification of competition and increasing product homogeneity, many brands are unable to stand out and gain the favor of users.

At this point, if brands want to gain a larger market share, in addition to continuing to work hard on research and development, they must also break out of the limitations of product functionality and take advantage of current changes in media channels and changes in consumer focus to cleverly provide emotional value to the public.

In addition, there is a negative example in the Fat Cat incident. In fact, in the Fat Cat takeaway incident, in addition to the merchants such as Cha Baidao who responded promptly, there were also merchants such as Dicos who chose to remain silent and avoid the incident.

According to the feedback from Jimu News reporter who called Dicos national customer service, a staff member said that they had received several complaints about empty packages of the brand, but they were not sure about the handling situation and would report the reporter's interview request to the relevant department of the company. As of press time, the reporter has not received a reply from the brand staff. This undoubtedly aggravated consumer dissatisfaction and was a negative score.

Making good use of marketing tricks can stir up a wave for a while, such as Li Ning and Hongxing Erke in the past, and now Chabaidao and Xiangpiaopiao. However, brand functionality is the foundation, and emotional value is the icing on the cake. Xiangpiaopiao took advantage of the "patriotic marketing" to return to the public eye for a short time and gained a surge in sales in the short term.

In the long run, just as Hongxing Erke still faces many problems in its actual operation, this is also the development of Xiangpiaopiao and Chabaidao after their successful single marketing, and we still have to question it.