Haidilao uses three steps to target young people

As traditional culture becomes more and more popular, solar term culture has gradually become an important entry point for brand marketing and an important element of brand marketing. How did Haidilao, a popular brand in the domestic catering industry, seize this opportunity? This article will show you how Haidilao uses three steps to target young people. Let's take a look.

On the day of Minor Snow, the weather gets colder, snow falls, and the cold air is pressing. At this time of year, the grass and trees wither, the insects hibernate, and all things are in winter. A gentleman should wear thick clothes to keep warm and wait for the return of spring.

This is the description of the Xiaoxue solar term in the Book of Rites. As traditional culture becomes more and more popular, solar term culture has gradually become an important entry point for brand marketing, allowing the "solar term culture x brand" model to continue to be popular on the Internet, becoming an important element for brands to set off a wave of communication and seize the minds of users.

For example, Haidilao, which recently became popular with "Subject Three", launched a solar term marketing campaign with the slogan #Light Snow is a good time to eat hotpot#, just when the "cold weather is coming" and the brand's new products were launched. This not only conforms to the cultural tradition of solar terms, but also caters to the public's sense of ritual in fixed seasons, making the brand the focus of attention during the Light Snow solar term.

At the same time as this solar term marketing, two other topics also became popular: #I’m impressed by Haidilao# and #All worries go away once the hotpot is turned on#. On the surface, these three topics are unrelated, but in fact, the brand targeted the consumption motivations and consumption scenarios of young people and created a seasonal and emotion-limited marketing.

1. Use solar term culture to create hot searches with unique brand symbols

Many brands use trending searches or traditional cultural forms for marketing, focusing mainly on communication effects. However, Haidilao's marketing, which uses solar term culture, starts from three dimensions: brand communication, the relationship between solar terms and specific activities, and the emotional value pursued by young people. It has successfully activated a variety of consumption scenarios, deepened users' brand awareness of eating Haidilao hotpot during the light snow season, and effectively leveraged user consumption.

After the brand topic became a hot search, young people who wanted to eat hotpot, were eating domestic products, and had eaten hotpot were all awakened. They shared their "stories" about hotpot and Haidilao on social media, and the topic effect was obvious.

In terms of the brand’s own exposure, the topic #被亥捞牛到# brought together new dishes, soup bases, eating methods, talents, etc., showing the versatility of Haidilao, firmly grasping the attention of young people, generating extremely high discussions, and ensuring the brand’s exposure on social media.

In terms of the essence of its brand attributes, Haidilao leaves a deep impression on people with its ultimate service. This time, Haidilao did not exaggerate its "special skills", but instead created a diversified consumption scene, closely linking the cultural imprint of Xiaoxue eating hot pot with the brand, returning marketing to its essence, and allowing young people to feel the rich cultural atmosphere while enjoying delicious food.

In terms of user emotions, Haidilao cleverly uses the emotional value pursued by young consumers to provide them with a unique consumption experience. The experience of #hotpot once started, troubles are gone# not only meets the needs of young people at the consumption level, but also resonates with them at the spiritual level. This also makes young consumers more willing to choose Haidilao as their consumer object, thus bringing more business opportunities to the brand.

Diversified consumption scenarios and different topic discussions have allowed Haidilao to leverage marketing opportunities from different angles, which not only ensures brand exposure among different consumer groups, but also deepens the brand imprint of Xiaoxue Hotpot. At the same time, it also provides a solution for young consumers to "say goodbye" to their worries.

2. Multi-dimensional integration creates seasonal products exclusive to the brand and captures the user’s mind

The growing trend of cultural consumption has allowed brands to discover the benefits. Using traditional solar terms as the core connecting language with consumers has not only made brands pay more attention to the cultural nature of their marketing language, but also made brands pay more attention to the cultural values ​​and profound spiritual connotations it is endowed with.

During the Xiaoxue solar term, Haidilao drew people's attention to steaming hot pot, cleverly combining the coldness of Xiaoxue with the heat of hot pot, allowing people to feel the rich food culture atmosphere while enjoying delicious food.

In order to achieve seasonal reshaping, Haidilao not only conveyed Xiaoxue's culture of eating hotpot, but also paid attention to users' emotions, providing users with the emotional value of #Goodbye-all-worries-as-hotpot-is-opened#, allowing young people's dining choices to be closely linked to their emotions and seasons, providing them with new choices for consumption.

Under the influence of solar terms culture, each season has its own unique diet and customs. Brands use these characteristics to create seasonal marketing activities with distinctive brand symbols. By occupying time nodes, they create seasonal limitations exclusive to the brand, which not only attracts consumers' attention and participation, but also quietly occupies consumers' minds.

The brand is well aware that different time nodes have different solar terms and eating habits, such as eating dumplings and drinking mutton soup on the winter solstice, exorcising all diseases on the 15th day of the first lunar month, eating zongzi and drinking realgar wine on the Dragon Boat Festival, etc. Based on these customs and eating habits, the brand has created a unique brand experience for consumers, conveying the cultural connotation of what should be done during a solar term and what should be done during a certain emotion.

This marketing strategy that incorporates solar term culture not only enhances consumers' identification and loyalty to the brand, but also opens up new consumer markets for the brand. The brand has also created a strong consumer atmosphere by integrating traditional solar term culture, injecting new vitality into the brand's long-term development.

Today, brands use traditional culture as a marketing starting point to extract unique brand concepts and values, and extend these concepts outward, transforming them into differentiated products, consumption scenarios and experiences. By regaining the modern expression of solar term culture, it provides consumers with more ways to understand traditional culture, and also provides users with multiple dimensions to understand and choose brands.

3. Write to the end

While laymen watch the excitement, marketers watch the details. The reason why Haidilao’s winter marketing has attracted so much attention is closely related to its proper marketing strategy.

First of all, this is a limited mind marketing campaign. Haidilao first took advantage of the special time period of Xiaoxue, and created a unique brand experience from different dimensions, including diversified consumption scenarios, discussions on different topics, and attention to the emotional value of consumers, forming a mind occupation of doing something at a certain time and with a certain emotion.

Secondly, Haidilao's fancy marketing ensures exposure at different levels, such as brand and new product launches. Through different topic discussions, consumers are guided to participate in discussions on hot topics. The brand uses the time nodes of public attention to build topics and launches auxiliary topic discussions, which continue to attract consumers' attention and heated discussions. This not only increases the brand's exposure, but also deepens the brand imprint of Xiaoxue Hotpot, leaving consumers with a deeper impression of the brand.

Finally, Haidilao pays attention to the emotional value of young people. By launching topics such as #火锅一开不忧拜#, the brand allows consumers to feel the emotional value conveyed by the brand while enjoying the food, saying goodbye to worries and unhappiness, conquering the taste buds and hearts of the younger generation and completing the mission of brand communication and transformation.

It can be said that Haidilao's marketing combination during the Xiaoxue solar term attracted the attention and participation of young people by combining traditional culture with social communication, and deepened the brand imprint of eating hot pot during the Xiaoxue solar term. At the same time, the brand also provides consumers with diversified consumption scenarios and unique brand experiences by focusing on the emotional value of consumers.

Author: Mr. Bingfa WeChat public account: Marketing Bingfa