Marketing Calendar | How to plan marketing for important festivals in February? Take this guide!

February is the prelude to a new year. The Spring Festival, Valentine's Day and other festivals are the time for national carnival. In this month's marketing calendar, Xiaopai provides you with the marketing directions for some of the most popular festivals in February, and compiles many cases for your reference. Don't miss it!

February is not only the month of many national festivals, but also the beginning of a new round of solar terms, with popular carnival festivals such as New Year's Eve, Valentine's Day, Lantern Festival, and the Beginning of Spring. Let's seize the opportunity of the New Year and grasp the marketing hot spots in February in advance.

1. National Festival

1. February 2, Little New Year

(1) Leverage elements and directions

Elements: warmth, good luck, atmosphere, traditional New Year customs

direction:

• As the beginning of the New Year, Xiaonian is a time to stock up on new things and purchase various items.
• Popularize New Year folk traditions and combine folk traditions with product scenes for promotion.
• The warm care for people living alone resonates emotionally with consumers.

(2) Points to note when leveraging momentum

• The main focus is on popularizing science about New Year customs and the relationship between products and New Year customs, avoiding overly blunt and hard advertising.
• Use a variety of online platforms to promote from multiple angles.
• The promotional context should be reasonable so that consumers can understand the logic before and after.

(3) Reference cases

Midea uses animation promotion to educate the public about the Kitchen God, starting from the connection between the Kitchen God and family happiness, to promote the easy cleaning and windless feeling of Midea air conditioners, and increase the audience's impression of the brand.

The edible oil brand Doli took advantage of the traditional New Year custom of "frying New Year's goods on the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month" and combined the frying scene with its high smoke point sunflower oil product for promotion.

JD.com released two animated advertisements during the New Year's Carnival during the New Year's Goods Festival. Although they were titled "Magic Virus Animation", the content was just to promote JD.com's discounts. They had nothing to do with "magic" or "virus". The overly nonsensical expressions also made it difficult for consumers to fully understand the promotional intentions.

2. February 9th, New Year’s Eve

(1) Leverage elements and directions

Elements: Chinese characteristics, family reunion, and the creation of a festive atmosphere

direction:

• The online and offline shopping craze continues the Little New Year, promoting atmospheric items and creating a festive atmosphere.
• Combine products with Chinese culture to add unique value to the products.
• Marketing is based on themes such as family reunion and friends gathering, emphasizing the relaxation and happiness of life.

(2) Points to note when leveraging momentum

• We should focus on China's traditional characteristics to add value to products, but we should not overly tie products to traditions, which may cause public disgust.
• Change the marketing direction of lifestyle in time according to social trends and pay attention to the needs of multiple groups.
• Choose historical facts carefully.

(3) Reference cases

Huawei used the collision of tradition and modernity as its topic, focusing on promoting the technological strength of its products in painting applications, and using "Chinese colors" as its topic, which was refreshing and received hundreds of millions of views.

Taking colors from ancient and modern times, we paint the mountains and seas together.

In its New Year’s Eve promotional video, BYD gave the traditional word “reunion” a variety of modern new meanings: “the longed-for return, the joyful rush”, establishing a close relationship between the brand and reunion.

Daily necessities brand Guanxia invited three women to shoot a promotional video for a new product set. The set includes three products. The short film is also divided into three parts, interpreting the interaction between three generations of women from three different perspectives. The short film starts from the perspective of the popular women of the times, uses products to string together the reunion dinner of three generations, stimulates the soft emotions and emotional resonance in the hearts of the public, and thus promotes consumption.

3. February 10th, Chinese New Year

(1) Leverage elements and directions

Elements: New Year's goods, gift giving, event discounts, dragon culture, family and country feelings

direction:

• Friends and relatives visit each other and give gifts, product discounts, special packages, etc. add a festive atmosphere and good luck.
• During the Chinese New Year, people buy new goods, buy new clothes and furniture to welcome the new year, and promote the Year of the Dragon as a zodiac sign.
• Taking the emotional approach, the promotional content is close to the life scenes of ordinary people and focuses on multiple groups of people, such as middle-aged people, people from other places, etc.

(2) Points to note when leveraging momentum

• The main goal of publicity planning is to accumulate brand awareness and consumer favorability.
• You should determine the direction based on the brand’s cultural tone and not blindly follow the trend.

(3) Reference cases

Three Squirrels launched the slogan "Chinese New Year, give Three Squirrels nut gift box" and targeted two groups of people who have the need to give gifts and those who have the need to stock up. It used the help of various types of internet celebrity accounts to carry out marketing and launched multiple activities around the product's New Year theme song. The promotional style was close to real life, so that the product met both the material and spiritual needs of consumers.

RT-Mart’s “Fireworks Literature” and the highly-known TV series “Country Love” jointly launched a Spring Festival chat poster in the Northeastern dialect, which not only increases consumers’ affection for their hometown, but also makes the public laugh on the Internet and creates an emotional connection with consumers.

H&M specially launched limited discount activities in China during the Chinese New Year, using big discounts to stimulate purchases; and highlighted that this was an exclusive offer for stores nationwide, which won the favor of a wave of consumers.

4. February 14th (Valentine’s Day)

(1) Leverage elements and directions

Elements: surprise, love, bouquet, confession

direction:

• Explore new ideas in long-term love life, with both steady and passionate surprises, place the product in specific situations in life as a reflection of freshness and create a sense of story.
• Establish unique scenarios for the love relationships of different groups of people, such as newlyweds, passionate love, golden wedding anniversary, long-distance relationship, ambiguous relationship, etc. Find unique themes and integrate them with the products.
• Pay attention to singles and promote topics about their wonderful life.

(2) Points to note when leveraging momentum

• The story to be promoted should not be too dramatic, but should be moderately sensational.
• The target group must be clear, and promotions for couples and singles should not be mixed.

(3) Reference cases

The "Strange Valentine's Day Advertisement" released by Qingyan Camera on Valentine's Day tells users through the love of beauty of a single girl that it is also good to spend Valentine's Day alone, and pleasing yourself is the most important thing.

Xiaohongshu and Philips jointly planned the "Valentine's Day Things to Know" theme event on Valentine's Day, inviting users to share their sweet stories such as their little happiness in love and dating strategies, providing users with more options for Valentine's Day gift giving and travel.

The Valentine's Day short film shot by Ele.me uses the blue riders at work as the main perspective, showing the interactions between the delivery guys in various states and Valentine's Day and couples, leading to various couple scenes on Valentine's Day on 214, and cleverly implanting corresponding categories. The "scene + characters + products" are used to create a sense of Valentine's Day story, and the theme of "love is fresh" is interpreted through various couple performances.

5. Lantern Festival on February 24

(1) Leverage elements and directions

Elements: food, riddles, reunion, blessings

direction:

• Offline product sales can plan activities to give away limited holiday gifts when purchases reach a certain price; food merchants can launch limited holiday packaging or give away greeting cards, etc.
• Focus on the original meaning of the Lantern Festival, promote scenes such as family reunions and meeting friends, and strengthen the emotional connection with users.

(2) Points to note when leveraging momentum

• Don’t set the threshold for the activity too high so that most people can participate.

(3) Reference cases

Juhuasuan planned the theme "Together We Are Round", which personified glutinous rice balls, offered blessings to users through promotional pictures, released multiple pictures of the "glutinous rice ball family" getting along warmly, and launched an event to buy glutinous rice balls for 9.9 yuan, touching users emotionally.

Chery Automobile launched an activity during the Lantern Festival to participate in the flash sale by guessing lantern riddles and win benefits. Users can participate by scanning the QR code online. If the answer is correct, they can get a brand red envelope. If the answer is wrong, they can share it with their communication friends and get a chance to help. The form of online lantern riddles and the mechanism of sharing friends to revive can spread the activity on a larger scale, and the red envelope reward can also attract more users to participate in the activity.

Alipay also launched an online event during the Lantern Festival. Users can pull down the app homepage to light up their own blessing lanterns and make holiday wishes.

2. Solar terms and festivals

1. February 4th: Beginning of Spring

(1) Leverage elements

Green, healthy, health, a better future, innovation

(2) Direction of leveraging momentum

• The posters and copywriting reflect the sense of belief in overcoming the cold winter, welcoming the spring, and believing in the future.
• Connect with the beautiful nature where everything comes back to life and the grass is green.
• New products can be promoted and released during this period.

(3) Reference cases

Naixue and Dong'e Ejiao have carried out a cross-border collaboration to launch the health-preserving Ejiao milk tea, using homophonic puns and the health-preserving pun of "cola soaked in wolfberries" for young people, combined with traditional culture for promotion.

It is advisable to warm up your body at the beginning of spring to gain vitality and good luck.

The poster released by Zhihu features personified Arctic animals and the platform mascot as the main body. The blue behind them represents winter, and the warm pink above and below represent the arrival of spring, vividly showing the meaning of the "Lichun" solar term.

If "everything is difficult at the beginning", then the ending must be perfect.
The weather is getting warmer, happy #startofspring

JD.com used its logo as the main visual of the poster, and used a poem to express the end of the epidemic and the prospect of a new future. A QR code was placed at the bottom of the poster, which not only expressed public concern but also promoted the brand.

2. February 19th Rain

(1) Leverage elements

growth, water, plant, outdoor, hazy

(2) Direction of leveraging momentum

• Brand promotion posters can use blue as the main color to promote themes of freshness and natural growth.
• The skincare product's refreshing essence combines with the rejuvenating power of rainwater to give consumers a renewed sense of vitality.
• Brands with representative objects can use the representative objects as the main body of the poster and place them in the background of the natural environment.

(3) Reference cases

Pechoin uses plants and green as the theme, combined with simple and natural design of product packaging, so that consumers associate the product with hydration and renewal, achieving a natural marketing effect.

BYD combines the font design with the background in the poster. The two words "Rain" become a mountain shape, and the product is placed on the winding mountain road, showing the image of the product coming out of nature. The body of the car is red, which is opposite to green, to highlight the main body of the product. The poster not only reflects the moist and natural feeling of the Rain Water solar term, but also clearly expresses the function of the product.

Huayuan Real Estate used an artistically designed font. Half of the word "Guyu" disappears into the sky and the earth. The poster presents the beautiful scenery of terraced fields in the mountain village, which can arouse the viewer's yearning for open space.

3. Summary

The above is a summary of the more important marketing nodes in February. There are many important festivals in February. The publicity and promotion content of the three festivals, including Little New Year, New Year's Eve and Spring Festival, should be gradual and avoid duplication. The publicity and event planning of Valentine's Day requires a deep understanding of the public psychology and a good user survey to be popular with users.
The holidays are coming, remember to prepare your marketing plan in advance!

Author: Sun Mingxi; WeChat public account: Operation Party (ID: yunyingpai666)