The first half of 2024: Whose plan exploded? Who became the hot topic?

This article deeply analyzes the hot marketing events in the first half of 2024, from Jia Ling's movie "Hot" to Xiaomi Auto SU7's high-end strategy, providing marketers with rich case analysis and strategic thinking. I hope it will help you understand market trends and plan marketing activities.

Behind every major marketing event, there are many seemingly insignificant and inconspicuous small events or behaviors, which eventually trigger a chain reaction. This is also the significance of the Knife Skills Research Institute writing and recording hot events. Starting from a single event, we strive to explain the problem thoroughly, present the details that have been neglected, and re-examine the connection between things with marketers.

Today's May Day cheer package, the Knife Skills Research Institute has reviewed the iconic hot events that have occurred in the past four months:

Jia Ling won the Spring Festival box office championship with "Hot and Spicy", her hit movie methodology

As "Shangchunshan" became popular again, the once top milk tea brand 1DianDian fell

Go to All Seasons to book a room and do laundry, Hong Kong people go north to Shenzhen for consumption, Sam's Club food tasting is popular, Uniqlo's performance has increased significantly, and the "middle class" is redefining themselves

From Internet celebrity to long-term success, Zhong Xuegao's failed leap

Xiaomi's car business is no longer cheap but still popular. How can it achieve high-end branding?

Can you find the driving force behind the change? How are these major events related?

1. Impressing female users: Product manager Jia Ling’s experience in creating hit products

Recommended reading: What should brands learn from Jia Ling to impress female users?

On April 10, the movie "Hot" directed and acted by Jia Ling ended its public screening, and won the 2024 Spring Festival box office champion with a total box office of 3.46 billion.

Although the film itself has received mixed reviews and the opposing sides have fierce debates, it is undeniable that "Hot and Spicy" is a successful commercial film. Jia Ling's success in creating two Spring Festival champions, "Hello, Li Huanying" and "Hot and Spicy", is obviously not due to luck.

If the movie itself is considered a consumer product, Jia Ling, who directed and starred in the movie, is undoubtedly an excellent product manager and marketer. Daofa analyzed "Hot and Sour" from the perspective of brand marketing and answered the following three questions about user insights, traffic accumulation, and marketing strategies:

How does "Hot as Hell", which has been rated as a "plain water" movie, stand out from the Spring Festival period through topic marketing?

What does the user psychology behind the high level of attention reflect? How can brands learn from it?

After "excessive" marketing, why was "Hot as Hell" able to escape the "traffic backlash"?

2. The top streamer falls, where is the 1 point spread?

Recommended reading: The top streamer has fallen, where is the 1 point spread?

Chun Shanxue became popular, and the former top star 1Diandian entered the consumer's field of vision through DIY milk tea.

From being the most popular tea in the world where you have to queue for an hour to buy a cup, to topics such as #Why is 1DianDian milk tea not popular anymore##1DianDian is going to close down#, etc., netizens are hotly discussing. Why did 1DianDian drop from King to Bronze?

The Knife Skills Research Institute cuts in from four key points: product, price, channel, and popular culture, and analyzes the fall of the top streamer.

Although the product reputation is strong enough, in the new tea beverage market where the mindset of hot-selling products has been cultivated and the competition is fierce, if the brand wants to convince consumers to go to the store, new products, marketing activities, prices and services cannot lag behind. To stand out from the crowd, 1DianDian needs to make greater determination.

3. Checking into a hotel, doing laundry, and sampling food at Sam’s Club, what does this generation of the middle class really want?

Recommended reading: Check-in room, do laundry, Sam’s Club food tasting, what does this generation of middle class want?

This year, the consumer circle is still discussing an unsolved mystery: Is consumption downgrading or upgrading?

In the article "The Secret of Consumption", Chen Long, President of Strategic Planning of Alibaba Group, analyzed consumption trends from three dimensions: capacity constraints, consumption purposes, and business momentum, and came to a conclusion: the original consumers have disappeared. When the ability and expectations of consumption have changed, the willingness and content of consumption also need to be redefined. Consumers are not more differentiated because of changes in income, but they have redefined themselves, and companies also need to change accordingly.

So we selected four representative events to see how brands redefine their consumers, capture changes and follow the trend.

The first is the all-season self-service laundry, which has won the favor of users and created social topics with its differentiated wool. The second is that Hong Kong makes money and Shenzhen spends it, and the truth of reverse consumption is that it is good and cheap. The third is the popularity of Sam's tasting, and the fourth is the performance growth of Uniqlo, and its high-cost-effective functional items are favored.

The above cases have three commonalities. First, to maintain the quality of life of consumers, provide more cost-effective solutions. Second, establish competitive advantages and make prices low while maintaining good quality. Third, streamline SKUs and make classic large single products.

Dao Fa believes that there is no such thing as consumption rising or falling, consumers are just demystified by consumerism.

4. The fall of Zhong Xuegao, the gap between internet celebrities and long-term success

Recommended reading: New consumption (don’t) be scared by Zhong Xuegao

Another question related to consumption upgrading and downgrading is: Is new consumption no longer viable?

The case of Zhong Xuegao, which has been surrounded by negative news this year, seems to have given a positive answer to this question, but we believe the problem is not that simple.

Daofa proposed two value formulas for brands in "From Internet Celebrities to Long-term Success - A Growth Model More Suitable for China's Emerging Brands":

The growth model of classic brands = category strategy x large penetration and large distribution

Long-lasting brand = brand value x compound growth model

Judging from the growth formula of category brands, Zhong Xue Gao has surpassed Haagen-Dazs more than once, taking the first place in Tmall's Double 11 ice cream category sales list, and its annual sales in 2021 reached 800 million yuan. Even in the summer of 2022, when the "ice cream assassin" was attacked from all sides, Zhong Xue Gao's sales in Tmall's base camp did not fall off a cliff. According to Jiuqian's middle platform data, from January to August 2023, its Tmall sales exceeded 32 million yuan, an increase of 1.9% year-on-year.

If Zhong Xue Gao retreated online, did a good job of user maintenance and repeat purchases, slowed down the pace of breaking out of the circle, and did not rule out the possibility of bottoming out and extending the brand life, why did it suffer successive defeats afterwards and missed the window of opportunity to transform from an Internet celebrity to a long-lasting brand?

After multiple online and offline surveys, Daofa discovered that Zhong Xuegao had tried the above two approaches, but for various reasons, its brand value was always disconnected from the market's expectations, and both paths were only halfway taken.

5. Making cars: Xiaomi’s last-ditch effort to enter the high-end market

Recommended reading: Xiaomi is no longer cheap, but Lei Jun is still popular

On March 28, the launch conference of Xiaomi Auto SU7 was held, and related topics dominated the hot searches for a long time.

Interestingly, we found that before the launch, price and configuration were the core of the discussion in the car circle, but after the launch, Xiaomi SU7 became the focus of everyone's attention, and the focus shifted to soft values ​​such as service and return rate. Xiaomi is no longer cheap, but it is still popular. How did it do this? We reviewed the series of actions of Xiaomi SU7 and summarized its product positioning and marketing strategy.

In terms of product positioning, the first thing is to build a matrix. Widen the price gap, clearly position and avoid internal competition. The second is to lower expectations, first raise and then lower, so that "buying at a loss" becomes "buying at a profit".

In terms of marketing strategy, how did Lei Jun turn the car launch conference, which was usually limited to "insiders", into a national carnival? First, find a competitor. The price is benchmarked against CR1, and the configuration is benchmarked against TOP1. Secondly, break through the circle, lower the professional threshold, and the launch conference breaks through the circle and attracts the attention of the whole people. Finally, keep a low profile. Be humble and sincere to narrow the distance, and guarantee the sales of the founding version.

In general, the no longer low-priced SU7 has indeed implemented Xiaomi's "popularization of high-end products" and provided high-performance products with the ultimate cost-effectiveness. But can a high-end brand be equated with a high-performance product? This is another topic.

Author: Raolao Xiaomei WeChat public account: Knife Skills Research Institute