Is it difficult for old brands to renew themselves? Baixiang CNY Marketing provides a solution

How can domestic time-honored brands continue to occupy a place in the market? This article introduces the CNY marketing case of the domestic instant noodle brand White Elephant in detail. Come and read and learn!

“I didn’t expect that the White Elephant would break my defense on the way home!”

"Da Zhangwei is the little prince of Internet chicken soup."

As the most traditional festival with Chinese flavor, the Spring Festival has become a marketing node that brands must compete for every year. Doing a good job in CNY marketing will also win great favor for the brand. This Spring Festival, White Elephant, which frequently swiped the screen with the brand message of "Eat White Elephant Chinese Noodles during Chinese New Year", attracted the attention of Dao Fa.

At the beginning of the Spring Festival travel rush, Bai Xiang, which delivered chicken noodle soup to people returning home from high-speed rail stations, became a hot search on Weibo with its warm image of #春运路被白象暖到#. Then, as the exclusive title brand of Douyin's New Year's Eve Gala, Bai Xiang's brand information was exposed as the gala performance was listed on Douyin's hot list. During the Spring Festival, Bai Xiang triggered a phenomenal discussion storm on the entire network due to the likes and recommendations of Jay Chou's friends in "Journey of Jay Chou 2".

Founded in 1997, Baiyang ranked second among the four major instant noodle giants in 2007. Later, due to the overall decline of the instant noodle industry, the influx of foreign-funded enterprises, and the emergence of endless new products, Baiyang fell to fourth in the industry in 2020. At that time, Baiyang gradually faded from the perspective of young people.

Four years later, Baiyang has found its own solution. Today, Baiyang’s Douyin sales rank among the top 10 food brands all year round, with more than 2.2 million fans. As of February 23, the topic #Celebrate Chinese New Year with Baiyang Chinese Noodles# has received 1.71 billion views on Douyin.

As a long-established domestic brand, Baiyang, which focuses on inheriting authentic Chinese flavor, has always positioned its brand as "Baiyang Chinese noodles" and successfully implanted it into the hearts of young people. Why can Baiyang regain the favor of young people? Taking CNY marketing as an example, we will analyze Baiyang's problem-solving methodology in detail.

01 Unchanging festival scenes, changing moods of the times

After reviewing Baiyang’s series of Spring Festival marketing actions, we found that they all have the same strategy logic: choosing traditional Chinese festival scenes, finding out the needs of the people in the scenes, providing emotional value while deepening the brand memory of “Chinese flavor”.

We divide it into three aspects for detailed analysis: scenario selection, demand insight, and value provision.

The Spring Festival is the traditional festival that best reflects Chinese emotions. It is undoubtedly the most appropriate time to strengthen the brand awareness of "Eat White Elephant Chinese Noodles during Chinese New Year". However, the node fit is only the basis, and what is more important is to choose the right delivery scene.

In this regard, Baiyang’s strategy is to choose the most traditional Chinese holiday scenes – Spring Festival travel rush, Spring Festival Gala, and family reunion dinner.

For young people who focus on making money, the Spring Festival every year is almost the only opportunity to go home. According to statistics, the number of people traveling during the Spring Festival in 2024 will exceed 9 billion. Such a grand collective ceremony will undoubtedly allow the brand to reach more people.

Eating New Year's Eve dinner and watching the Spring Festival Gala together have always been the customs of the Spring Festival. The Douyin New Year's Eve party and the reunion dinner of friends around the table in "Zhou You Ji 2" not only guarantee the scope of dissemination and influence, but also allow users to inadvertently associate the brand with Chinese feelings, naturally strengthening the mindset of "eating White Elephant Chinese noodles during the Chinese New Year".

The scene is classic because traditional festival customs are common to the whole nation. But each generation has its own troubles, and only by understanding the pain points and needs of people in the current scene can we arouse empathy.

For those who travel during the Spring Festival, carrying large and small bags and making many detours on the way home is a daily chore. For them, having a hot meal is a luxury.

As one of the largest content dissemination media in the Internet era, Tik Tok targets 700 million users worldwide, with the core age group being 18-40 years old.

As the backbone of society and family, they bear huge pressure in their daily work and life. Working hard is their normal state. When watching the Douyin New Year's Eve party, they just hope to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of Chinese New Year customs and forget their daily troubles.

For the audience of "Zhou You Ji 2", watching the show during the Spring Festival is to see their childhood idol and his friends' daily life, and to have a relaxing time. Only when brands find the points of convergence with the guests of the show and integrate brand information into the laughter of the show through relaxed expression can they win the favor of fans and audiences.

Understanding is the prerequisite for action. Finding needs and understanding pain points is like having a "target", but whether it can hit people's hearts depends on the "sword" shot out.

02 Satisfy needs while expressing the brand, effectively but not deliberately

Truly valuable brand marketing is to deliver brand information while meeting user needs. Touching the heart without being deliberate. This is how the three major actions of Baixiang CNY are done.

For those who are tired and exhausted, a bowl of hot chicken noodle soup warms the stomach and heart, which can undoubtedly greatly enhance the brand's favorability. For Baiyang, instant noodles are a standard feature of high-speed rail, so the brand placement is not inconsistent. The topic #春运路被白象暖到#, which was sent to Weibo by netizens and reported by more than 100 official media, is the best example.

During the "Year After Year With You" Douyin New Year's Eve party, Baiyang also allowed everyone to experience the traditional Chinese New Year customs during the interaction and remember the brand mentality of "Eat Baiyang Chinese noodles during Chinese New Year" to achieve sales conversion.

Throughout the evening, Baixiang gradually penetrated its brand proposition into the hearts of the audience through the four levels of “seeing – resonance – interaction – transformation”.

The first layer sees.

As the exclusive title sponsor, Baixiang exposed its brand information 360 degrees in the 2024 "Year after Year" Douyin New Year's Eve Gala, which was live-streamed on the Douyin platform. During the nearly 4-hour gala, the Baixiang brand was exposed through the main stage light box, side stage windows, screen strips, microphone labels, end credits, and live broadcast drop-offs. Through the gala's fancy transitions, wandering subtitles, commercial bullet screens, fireworks components, and offline exhibition halls, the idea of ​​"eating Baixiang Chinese noodles during the Chinese New Year" was repeatedly implanted into the audience's subconscious.

Second level of resonance.

Da Zhangwei, the New Year's tasting officer of White Elephant Chinese Noodles, is recognized by the entire network as the "spirited mouth substitute".

The day before the live broadcast of the evening party, Baiyang cleverly implanted the brand idea of ​​"Baiyang Soup is delicious" into the "New Year Chicken Soup" short video co-created with Da Zhangwei, leveraging Da Zhangwei's internet chicken soup prince persona, laying the foundation for the associated image of Da Zhangwei and Baiyang's delicious old hen soup noodles.

Immediately afterwards, at the Douyin New Year's Eve party, Da Zhangwei once again sent a pun-like blessing: "I wish everyone to love themselves more and be nicer to themselves in the new year, and drink more nutritious chicken soup that warms the heart and stomach", which further narrowed the distance between the brand and young people.

As the popularity of Da Zhangwei-related topics soared, the brand information of "Eat White Elephant Chinese Noodles during Chinese New Year" was naturally exposed along with the artist's hot topic content in the front row of information flow, driving the brand topic to the Douyin hot list, and the artist's related natural topics ranked TOP5 on the Douyin hot list and TOP1 on the Douyin entertainment list. The brand influence and popularity expanded accordingly.

The third level of interaction.

Interaction is the fastest way to enhance relationships. In order to reach a wider audience, Baixiang set up a series of topic activities based on the evening party IP.

Not only did they customize a "New Year's gift package" for Douyin's Little New Year's Eve as a Dragon Year benefit for the audience watching the gala online, they also launched the "Look up and see the auspicious elephant in the Year of the Dragon" New Year's greeting sticker challenge and the "Eat white elephant Chinese noodles during the Chinese New Year" national task super challenge, mobilizing users to participate in brand projects and actively interact, bringing more than 1.6 million interactions across the network. The emotional connection between the brand and the audience was successfully enhanced during the fun.

Fourth level transformation.

The nearly 4-hour party brought huge traffic, but the Internet’s memory is also short-lived. Only by continuously releasing brand content can brand memory be enhanced.

Therefore, in the half month before and after the New Year's Eve party, Baiyang and 86 Douyin and Xiaohongshu influencers planned a series of videos to promote "Baiyang Delicious Old Hen Soup Noodles" and the new blockbuster product "Zhenwei Soup House" in all dimensions, including the secondary creation of the party, creative plot, and food evaluation. Taking advantage of the high exposure potential of the party, intensive product promotion was carried out to achieve sales conversion.

The interlocking and progressive marketing actions not only effectively strengthened the brand proposition of "Eat White Elephant Chinese Noodles during Chinese New Year" in the minds of consumers, but also attracted reports from more than 30 party and central media, advertising and marketing, and food media, consolidating the brand's influence in the industry.

Compared with the general public’s New Year’s Eve parties, due to the special needs of the fan groups, cooperation with the program IP puts higher demands on the accuracy of brand marketing actions.

There are two main highlights in "Jack Chou's Journey 2". One is Jay Chou's core IP, and the other is the daily interactions among his friends. Baixiang's marketing actions are closely linked to these two points.

First of all, Jay Chou’s two labels of “Chinese style” and “top Chinese wave” are highly consistent with the strategic positioning of “White Elephant Chinese Noodles”.

Based on this insight, Baixiang linked up with Zhou Youji's friends group in the form of a creative short film to release the brand memory point of "listen to Chinese music and eat Baixiang Chinese noodles". Later, taking advantage of the popularity of the program, it cooperated with Duodaren to continue to promote the Baixiang delicious old hen noodle soup with the same soup as "Zhou Youji 2" with #华流即顶流#.

In order to enter the fan circle while the popularity is high, the official self-media quickly launched the #Show the Same White Elephant Chinese Noodles# topic activity after the show was broadcast, achieving the spread of "big fans - general fans". The hot discussion on Weibo, led by Jay Chou's big fans and entertainment media, attracted the active participation of hundreds of fan seed users, further radiating the popularity to the general fan group. Through the sentence "After eating White Elephant Chinese noodles, we are all family", the brand mentality of "eat White Elephant Chinese noodles during Chinese New Year" was infiltrated.

At the same time, since the group of friends includes guests from both sides of the Taiwan Strait, the phrase "After eating Chinese noodles, we are all one family" in the video is given a deeper meaning, highlighting the brand's overall perspective.

Whether it is delivering heart-warming noodles during the Spring Festival, or taking advantage of the Chinese New Year's Eve atmosphere to convey the message "Eat White Elephant Chinese Noodles for Chinese New Year", or "Listen to Chinese music and eat White Elephant Chinese noodles", it is all about meeting user needs while smoothly integrating the brand information of "White Elephant Chinese Noodles" into marketing actions.

Traditional festival customs remain unchanged, but with the change of generations, people's needs and communication media are changing. Behind these seemingly routine actions is actually a deep insight into "change and constancy".

This logic also runs through Baixiang’s overall brand actions.

03 Only by being firm in yourself and keeping close to your users can your brand be evergreen

In categories without strong technological iterations, the renewal of old brands does not mean abandoning existing brand positioning and advantages, but allowing new consumers to recognize and accept themselves.

The brand advantage of Baiyang lies in the product barriers brought by the supply chain and the solid positioning of "Baiyang Chinese Noodles". This is also the part that Baiyang has been strengthening and improving.

In 2003, Baixiang launched bone soup instant noodles, which is the pioneer of the "bone soup instant noodles" category. Since then, it has continuously iterated its products, upgrading traditional sauce packets to bone soup packets. In the development of new products, it also focuses on restoring the authentic traditional Chinese taste. For example, Baixiang's large chili series has launched flavors such as Nanchang mixed noodles, Xinjiang fried rice noodles, Chongqing noodles, and spicy crayfish noodles.

The firm belief in "White Elephant Chinese Noodles" in the product also extends to the brand side. In the second half of last year, White Elephant signed contracts with the Chinese women's basketball team, women's football team and women's volleyball team, becoming the first Chinese brand to sign contracts with the three major women's national teams at the same time, using the spirit of sports to deepen the brand imprint of Chinese quality and Chinese brands.

Of course, in the face of changing user habits and communication media, mature brands must not only maintain their existing advantages, but also actively make changes in order to better express themselves.

Whether it is accurately finding the Douyin battlefield or being well versed in the interactive gameplay of the platform, it can be seen from the CNY marketing actions that Baiyang can accurately understand the lifestyle of young people and subtly deepen the brand positioning of "Baiyang Chinese Noodles" in a way that adapts to them. This is not a one-day job.

In order to be seen by young people again, Baixiang established Baixiang e-commerce subsidiary in 2021, carried out slow live broadcast of factories on Bilibili, and updated daily on Douyin with the persona of "working man", actively adapting to the social methods of young people. It actively interacts with young people both online and offline.

Active approach and efficient communication soon brought Baiyang back into the public eye. The solid production foundation and mellow and authentic Chinese taste also made the product gain the trust and favor of young people. In 2022 and 2023, Baiyang ranked first in online sales in the instant noodle industry.

Just like making friends, being on the same wavelength does not mean giving up yourself to please others, but finding the right time to express yourself in a better way. Baixiang’s CNY marketing is to use the most Chinese-featured Spring Festival to find the brand memory point of “eat Baixiang Chinese noodles during Chinese New Year” and convey the brand positioning of “Baixiang Chinese noodles”.

The most important thing for a brand to be evergreen is to keep it in sync with the times and the protagonists of the times. Change is constant. Only by clarifying and firmly establishing your own positioning and direction can you avoid being swept away by the tide.

Author: Yixiu

WeChat public account: Knife Skills Research Institute