Hua & Hua's new work "Sausage Mouth" is so ugly

In the era of information explosion, exaggerated and prominent designs can help brands break through quickly and achieve business goals at a certain stage.

The biggest controversy in the advertising circle recently is H&H’s new “sausage mouth” logo. Let me post the picture for you to take a look.

A round-headed boy with a sausage mouth called "Hot Mouth Brother".

The slogan is also very simple: Kuangdi thermos cup will still burn your mouth tomorrow.

One netizen summed it up succinctly: It successfully attracted my attention, but I refused to buy it because it was ugly.

As a marketing company that charges a starting design fee of 5 million yuan and is known as the most expensive in the industry, every time Hua & Hua releases a new work, it will cause controversy online.

Like the "Old Uncle" who threw the "uncle" directly into the bowl and cooked it, and the Luxi River who spent 6 million yuan to get the ugly "Bald Qiang" logo... H&H has always maintained a stable "shouting" brainwashing output.

It has definitely been spread, but as to whether it is good or not, from an advertising perspective, that remains to be seen.

1. Visualize the selling points to let users clearly perceive the value

In an era of overcapacity and serious product homogeneity, it is really difficult for brands without substantial innovation to impress consumers.

But the product still needs to be sold, so a unique "selling point" must be extracted and users must be given a reason "why to buy" in order to achieve the purpose of building a brand. In this regard, H&H is quite familiar with the routine.

For example, thermos bottles have many selling points and values, such as long-lasting heat preservation, durability, and compactness and portability... but consumers cannot perceive these directly.

Let's first feel the original LOGO, a combination of Chinese and English fonts, and use small words to emphasize the long history of the brand. The overall look is quite standard, without highlighting the industry attributes, and more like a shoe brand.

Let’s take a look at the comparison of the upgraded logos. H&H directly extracted the most prominent selling point of a thermos cup, “long-lasting heat preservation”. Long-lasting heat preservation = your mouth will be hot when you drink from it = a swollen O-shaped mouth.

The selling point is visualized through exaggerated metaphors, so that users will remember the Kuangdi thermos cup at first sight, and it occupies a position as a "hot-mouth thermos cup" in the user's mind.

In the slogan, a catchy rhyming phrase was used: "It will still burn your mouth tomorrow." Compared with flowery slogans such as "It will burn your mouth 24 hours a day," colloquial advertising is more down-to-earth. It's like the brand is chatting with you face to face and conveying the core information to you directly, so users have no obstacles in receiving advertising information.

In addition, you can also convey the brand benefits to others through word of mouth and secondary dissemination.

The overall recognition is still quite strong, and the image of the little boy with sausage mouth is relatively young, which makes it easy to make extended designs, forming a differentiated contrast with other thermos brands that take the light luxury route on the market.

2. Routine expression, only the mother body but no culture

Friends who are familiar with H&H know that in addition to "super symbols are super creativity", they also have a marketing theory called "Cultural Matrix Theory": that is, using knowledge or experience scenarios that people are already familiar with, processing and transforming them, and finally turning them into unique assets of the brand.

However, the cultural matrix found for Kuangdi this time is somewhat far-fetched and a bit too formulaic.

The logic behind the idea is that since the heat preservation effect is so good, it is very hot in the mouth every time you drink it, and it even burns your tongue. Then you think of the sausage-lipped character played by Tony Leung in "A Chinese Odyssey", so the IP image of "Hot Mouth Brother" was created.

But this sausage mouth looks like someone has eaten too much chili peppers. Some netizens complained: I thought it was a spicy hot pot brand, it's spicy enough.

In the original film, Ouyang Feng, played by Tony Leung, also had his mouth swollen like a sausage due to poisoning.

This has nothing to do with the thermos. In subsequent marketing, it will probably be difficult to dig deeper into the so-called "cultural matrix".

3. Black and red are also red, making the brand a topic of conversation for users

Is it worth spending 5 million to make a new logo?

There is a famous saying in the entertainment industry, "Black and red are also red." Being praised is a good thing, being scolded is also a good thing, but the most terrible thing is to have no voice.

The same is true in the advertising industry. For example, Xiaomi spent 2 million yuan to hire Kenya Hara to change its logo, but was mocked by many people for "just fixing the corners". The new logo made by Hua & Hua for Get made even the founder Luo Zhenyu couldn't help but "complain" on a live broadcast...

From a corporate perspective, they not only want to change to a "better-looking" brand image, but also want to leverage industry giants such as Kenya Hara and H&H to gain more attention and discussion.

Commercial design is not art. It is not designed to look good, but to sell goods. The first step to sell goods is to attract users' attention.

Designs like the Kuangdi thermos cup, which are aimed at the general public, are nothing more than hoping to leave a deep impression on users and make them remember the brand. Without investing a penny in marketing, the new image of Kuangdi has sparked heated discussions among many netizens as soon as it was released, which can be regarded as a unique marketing approach.

However, sparking discussion is only the first step. If a brand wants to truly become the "social currency" of young people, its subsequent marketing content must keep up, moving from the stage of building brand awareness under public ridicule to the stage of enhancing brand reputation.

4. Brainwash again and again, the Chinese-style shouting brand

Looking at all the works of H&H, you will find one thing in common: they all exaggerate and magnify the design to the extreme, brainwashing consumers in disguised form through design until it becomes embedded in the users’ minds.

Similar brainwashing advertisements include "Before traveling, go to Mafengwo first" during the World Cup and "Go wherever you want to take photos" from Earl Travel Photography...

Magnification is the most direct way to highlight the focus.

These "ugly designs" and "annoying ads" may help brands break through quickly and achieve certain business goals in the era of information explosion.

But if every brand wants to take this shortcut, Chinese local brands will be too poor. For example, the ugly appearance in the live broadcast room is too low to attract attention, but it will become boring after watching it too much.

In the long run, this kind of brainwashing will definitely do more harm than good. A brand is something that people like from the bottom of their hearts and want to have a long-term relationship with. Only when a brand gathers more and more loyal fans can it gain long-term vitality.

Although business is utilitarian, commercial design can also be more aesthetic.

Author:Aye

Source: WeChat official account: "Shock Copywriter (ID: SHOCKCW)"