Ele.me’s new marketing strategy: creating a solar term marketing IP

With the rise of solar term marketing, Ele.me has successfully combined traditional solar term culture with modern marketing with its unique style, creating a solar term marketing IP with brand characteristics. By deeply understanding user emotions, presenting solar term culture delicately, and deeply combining regional food culture with solar terms, Ele.me has successfully attracted the attention of many users and achieved in-depth interaction between the brand and users.

"Spring rains bring spring and clear days, summer is full of grain and summer heat. Autumn has dew and frost, winter has snow and slight or severe cold."

Solar term marketing is appearing more and more in the public eye. Different from holiday marketing that focuses on capturing the minds of users, the 24 solar terms appear year after year. Doing a good job of solar term marketing may bring unexpected results to the brand.

Among the myriad actions of sudden solar term marketing, Ele.me's solar term marketing is different from the single narrative of other brands. Instead, it has created a unique style, "borrowing" the solar terms as its own and incubating them into its own marketing IP - using integrated marketing to create a comprehensive platform of cutting-edge marketing gameplay.

1. Dietary Expression in Spring

This spring, we have already experienced four solar terms: Beginning of Spring, Rain Water, Waking of Insects, and Spring Equinox. Let’s first take a look at the solar term short film released by Ele.me.

During the Spring Festival, Chinese people have always had the custom of "biting spring". Lin Lanchi, a Qing Dynasty poet, once praised it as "a spoonful of soup and noodles with the colors of spring, spring comes to the world in one roll", which perfectly described this food culture.

Ele.me’s Spring Festival short film also takes “spring rolls” as its theme, and puts forward the “philosophy of rolls” with a double entendre, hoping that everyone will eat up the “rolls” in their lives in one bite at the Spring Festival.

Fried crispy and delicious spring rolls, scallion pancakes and rice buns that are beyond ordinary people's cognition, and roast duck that is colorful, fragrant and delicious... Foods similar to spring rolls but not just spring rolls, roll up people's appetites, are a touch of spring, and are a counterattack against the "involution" of life.

In today's society, "spring rolls" are everywhere in our lives and are constantly striking people's hearts. Ele.me, through the combination of delicious food and light-hearted copywriting, transforms the philosophy of spring rolls into the dissolution of social emotions.

As the Rain Water solar term comes, Ele.me focuses on the tea drinking culture.

This year, the rainy season fell on a Monday. Rainy weather always makes people drowsy and lose focus on work. Compared with the Beginning of Spring short film's insight into social emotions, Ele.me's Rainy Season short film focuses more on the mental state of workers in the workplace.

Literary masters such as Leo Tolstoy, Lao She, and Kafka would also want to rest for a moment, let alone ordinary people. The quotations of celebrities' "bad literature" in the film just hit the emotions of the younger generation of workers and became the strongest substitute.

“Drinking tea is good during the Rain Water season, and with tea comes rest.” Ele.me also drew on emotions and the ancient custom of drinking tea and taking a rest, and output a wave of information points such as “Drinking tea on Ele.me during the Rain Water season”, using insights into social emotions while spreading traditional culture to resonate with the public.

The Jingzhe short film does not continue the social insight, but turns the perspective to the innocent side, and tells the custom of eating insects during Jingzhe in the Dai villages in Yunnan with the theme of "Spring thunder scares away all insects".

"Spring Equinox, the Schizophrenia of Spring" disassembles and reconstructs the word "Spring Equinox", again using accurate insights into the living habits of young users. The short film presents two faces of young people from five scenes that often appear on social media platforms: self-discipline, rest, travel, health preservation, and social interaction. Although it seems to have little to do with the solar term itself, it is also another interesting expression.

2. Finding Diversified Styles in Solar Terms Marketing

It is not difficult to see from several TVCs of Ele.me that in the field of solar term marketing, the brand has found its own unique way of expression. From leveraging marketing to fixed projects, Ele.me's control over solar term marketing has gone beyond ordinary marketing methods and has formed the brand's IP, becoming one of the content assets. Overall, the presentation of Ele.me's seasonal official IP can be divided into three styles.

1. Advertisements incorporate young people’s discourse system, focusing on social emotions and life pain points

Advertising short films such as "The Beginning of Spring, the Philosophy of the Volume" and "The Spring Equinox, the Schizophrenia of Spring" in 2024 and "It is Recommended to Take a Day Off on the Winter Solstice" in 2023 are all works based on insights into young people's emotions.

The short film is based on the small problems that young people encounter in life and work, and presents the mental outlook and psychological state of the young group through humorous words. Whether it is using interesting words to cure anxiety or expressing opinions in a slow narrative, it makes the brand's opinions resonate spiritually with users.

Group emotional resonance is the killer feature of this type of advertisement by Ele.me.

2. Ele.me also uses delicate narration to present the culture of solar terms in an artistic way

People's moods often change subtly with the change of seasons, and Ele.me's commercials also change styles according to the change of solar terms. For example, compared with the liveliness of spring, the images and themes of autumn and winter are more restrained and quiet.

During the Frost Descent Season, actress Kara Hui was invited to talk about the formation of frost-bitten vegetables, and also compared frost-bitten vegetables to life experiences; during the Winter Solstice, Xu Zhiyuan used his observations of life to make the custom of eating dumplings during the Winter Solstice warm and moving, and also conveyed the consensus of wanting to have a holiday.

The theme of Ele.me's official seasonal IP is to call for seasonal food. From this style, Ele.me is not only talking to young users, but also to every Chinese who has a deep understanding of the changes in solar terms. The preferences of different user portraits are targeted, and they should be lively and high-end, which is also a reflection of the diversification of the brand's solar term style.

3. Deeply integrate regional food culture with solar terms

As the old saying goes, "Food is the first necessity of the people." The love for food runs in the blood of the Chinese people. The "Twenty-Four Solar Terms" are the product of ancient agricultural civilization, and are also a folk system that includes rich folk customs.

During some solar terms, Ele.me focuses on local food characteristics and spreads traditional Chinese food culture, but it is not bound by a single dietary structure. The focus is to give everyone a "reason" to eat their favorite food during the solar terms.

Of course, advertising is just one of the means of solar term marketing. For the local life service platform Ele.me, increasing the number of orders on the site is the key. Therefore, Ele.me not only recommends solar term food on the site, but also invites users to participate in topic interactions on social media platforms to win red envelopes, using real benefits to increase user orders.

In addition, Ele.me is also creating its own solar term atmosphere. During each solar term, the deliveryman's image is changed to a seasonal food design, and limited costumes are launched offline. The official and users use memes to further strengthen Ele.me's brand image of eating seasonal food.

Ele.me delivery man limited costume

Ele.me delivery man limited costume (real version)

3. What did Ele.me do right by turning the solar terms into an IP?

After sorting out the materials released by Ele.me, TOP Jun found that its solar term marketing began with the Winter Solstice in 2021. At that time, Ele.me invited Ma Dong to shoot a short film on the Winter Solstice, Laba Festival and Lantern Festival respectively, using the interaction between seasonal officials and historical figures to convey the idea that seasonal food should be eaten during the solar terms.

In the early seasonal official IP, Ele.me’s solar term marketing style had not yet been fully formed. The main marketing actions included taking seasonal food and historical stories as themes, and leading and linking multiple catering brands to provide users with seasonal red envelopes and other benefits.

In August 2022, Ele.me replaced its seasonal officer with singer Zhou Shen. Since then, its advertising videos have become more interesting, trying to accurately target young audiences. The rider logo on the site has also changed from an animal image to seasonal diet and seasonal customs. It is not difficult to see that Ele.me is constantly trying to find an IP style that suits itself.

In TOP’s opinion, Ele.me’s success lies in two points.

The first is to find the brand's anchor point in the minds of consumers. Today's young consumers care more about cost-effectiveness, but they also care about value expression. This time, Ele.me's solar term IP can't help but remind people of its free-for-all activity, which successfully hits the user's desire for low-price free-for-alls, making cost-effectiveness the anchor point of Ele.me. And in the same dialogue with young consumer groups, this time Ele.me chose to break away from the simple business model and move towards value resonance . Whether it is incarnating as a small philosophy for working people, words that touch people's hearts, or the exploration and dissemination of folk culture, Ele.me uses emotions and feelings to pry the user's mind.

Secondly, Ele.me, which has done a good job in using solar terms IP, is no longer just an ordinary local life APP, but also a symbol of solar terms, leaving an impression in people's minds with advertising content and forming effective associations . Compared with the "flash in the pan" IP co-branding, brands now prefer to create their own IP - a more long-lasting marketing method to consolidate the brand's business in the minds of consumers. The official seasonal IP has been used for two years to this day, which is not only a call for consumers to use the APP, but also a precipitation of content assets for Ele.me.

Conclusion

Alibaba's third-quarter financial report for fiscal year 2024 showed that revenue from the local life segment increased by 13% year-on-year to 15.16 billion yuan, mainly driven by the strong growth of Ele.me and AutoNavi businesses. Its order volume increased by nearly 20% year-on-year, which is a good result.

The growth of revenue is inseparable from the firm decision of the platform and merchants to "move in the same direction". Its continuous marketing attempts have also brought different ideas to the breakthrough of local life services. I believe that Ele.me, which is good at playing with solar terms, will create more excellent marketing methods in the future and bring new thinking to the industry.

Author: TOP Jun

Source: TopMarketing (ID: TMarketing)