Three "old men" without internet access are resurrecting a 70-year-old brand

How do the three "little old guys" in the live broadcast room of Guohuo Vitality 28 try to revive the old brand in the wave of live broadcast sales?

"In 1995, the stopwatch of the Xinwen Lianbo broadcast read "Vigor 28", and 28 years later, it has achieved another success."

A comment from a Douyin user brought people back to the 1990s, and also made some people recall the heyday of Vitality 28. Vitality 28, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, seems to be "reviving" on Douyin.

On September 16, Mr. Shen, the anchor of the domestic brand Vitality 28, cried and said, "The first thing is to survive, and then to return to the peak." Mr. Shen is the factory representative of Vitality 28 headquarters in Chengdu. He has 44 years of work experience and has witnessed the glory and loss of this old domestic brand.

@活力28服装洗衣旗舰店TikTok video screenshot

The predecessor of the Vitality 28 brand, Shashi Oil and Fat Chemical Factory, was founded in 1950. It was originally an edible oil processing plant. In the 1970s, it switched from laundry soap to washing powder. In 1982, it became a household name for the launch of "super concentrated foam-free washing powder". By the early 1990s, it occupied more than 70% of the market share of similar products in the country. In the mid-1990s, foreign-funded daily chemical giants entered China, and market competition became increasingly fierce. Under "internal and external troubles", Vitality 28 gradually faded out of consumers' sight.

In 2017, Vitality 28 Jiahua Co., Ltd. was established in Jingzhou to restart the brand revival of "Vitality 28". CEO Li Jianfei had worked for Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Reckitt Benckiser for 15 years.

However, in recent years, domestic daily chemicals have risen, while Vitality 28 has been declining. In June 2023, the brand was exposed to have long been in arrears of wages, social security, medical insurance, etc. for employees and shopping guides, and was in a "semi-shutdown" state.

In September, riding on the momentum of the Hua Xizi eyebrow pencil incident, the sales of Huoli 28 soared and the number of Douyin fans increased by more than 6 million. It seems that the Internet has given Huoli 28 another chance to be reborn.

1. With 5 million followers added in 10 days, has Vitality 28 been reborn?

The development of Vitality 28 on Douyin has not been smooth sailing. The arrival and explosion of traffic is sudden, unpredictable and difficult to replicate.

On August 18, the Vitality 28 Clothing Cleaning Flagship Store (hereinafter referred to as the "Flagship Store") began to test the waters for live streaming. In the process of trying to increase the traffic in the live streaming room, the flagship store's live streaming time and duration were often not fixed, and the live streaming room has always been lukewarm.

On September 13, three days after the "Huaxizi 79 yuan eyebrow pencil incident", the flagship store went live as usual. At first, a young quality inspector from the factory played the guest anchor. After introducing the product, she returned to the factory line for quality inspection. After that, the screen changed to the continuously running production line and the workers coming and going.

According to the Economic Observer, seeing the increase in the number of people in the flagship store's live broadcast room, Hu Wenzhong, deputy general manager of Chengdu Yi Zhong Detergent Products Co., Ltd., the registered entity of the flagship store, quickly grabbed two uncles to participate in the live broadcast. One is the assistant to the general manager Wan Zhong, and the other is Shen Jun, the factory representative of the Vitality Group.

Yizhong Company is the OEM factory of Huoli Group in Chengdu. Before this, the three had never participated in live streaming, and their live streaming tools were only a mobile phone and a stand. Wan Zhong even downloaded Douyin and started watching live streaming in July.

Because they did not understand the rules of the live broadcast platform, the live broadcast room was banned several times, which also caused the three people to stop talking during the live broadcast and just hold up a piece of paper as a reminder in the live broadcast room. This slightly absurd picture later became a short video that was widely circulated. A netizen in the live broadcast room called for young people to be the anchor and find a professional team to operate. The "old man" replied: "Young people don't work in the factory anymore. I am the youngest in the factory."

@活力28服装洗衣旗舰店TikTok video screenshot

That night, the number of people in the live broadcast room increased. At first, the three called the live broadcast audience "kids", and later they shyly called them "energetic babies".

During the live broadcast, they would remind the audience not to give gifts. Because they did not know how to put the items on the shelves and did not understand how the "small yellow cart (i.e. shopping cart) ran away", netizens gave the three "old men" online teaching. Netizens even flooded the screen with reminders to turn off the "late delivery means compensation", otherwise they would lose money for not delivering the goods in time.

It is this simple and unpretentious live broadcasting method that has further exploded the number of viewers in the live broadcast room. On the evening of September 13, the flagship store's sales exceeded 500,000 orders, with sales of nearly 5 million yuan, and the number of fans increased by more than 1 million in one day. On the evening of September 14, the topic #I was moved by the netizens in the Vitality 28 live broadcast room# became a hot search.

On social media platforms such as Xiaohongshu, many users are willing to act as tap water to promote Vitality 28 and spread the "simple and lovely" moments of the uncles during live broadcasts. In their view, "sincerity is the ultimate skill." @霜降's summary note in the flagship store comment area received 5,631 likes, which shows that users recognize the Vitality 28 brand and its live broadcast style.

Image source: Xiaohongshu user @霜降

When asked by the media why the flagship store became so popular in such a short period of time, Hu Wenzhong said: "It is mainly due to the kindness of the fans, the sincerity of the three old men in the live broadcast room, or the affordable prices of the products."

Looking back at public information, we can also see the wise choices made by the Vitality 28 brand in its rise to popularity.

On September 17, a refund incident once again pushed the popularity of Vitality 28 to a new peak. During the latest shipment inventory, Hu Wenzhong found that about 230,000 orders of laundry detergent were priced 10 yuan higher than the original price. To make up for the price difference, Hu Wenzhong decided to refund the overpaid amount in full to the customers, a total of 230,000 orders, involving an amount of 2.3 million yuan.

In addition to price control and being honest with fans, Vitality 28 also made clear public the amount of fans' tips and solicited fans' opinions to decide how to use the tips. In the end, based on user suggestions, Vitality 28 distributed most of the Douyin tips to 221 employees (excluding management). This also made its users feel that they were deeply involved in every step of the brand reconstruction and were happy for truly improving the lives of grassroots employees. Isn't this a model of interconnected co-creation between brands and users in the live broadcast era?

The popularity of Vitality 28 continues. As of September 23, the flagship store's Douyin followers were 5.63 million, an increase of more than 5 million in 10 days compared to September 13. As of press time, its followers have reached 6.484 million. In the past 30 days, the flagship store's cumulative sales have been between 25 million and 50 million yuan.

2. Why are “old domestic products + old employees” more popular?

The popularity of Vitality 28 in mid-September was inseparable from the fermentation of the "Huaxizi 79 yuan eyebrow pencil incident". Although Li Jiaqi apologized in tears, netizens did not buy it.

The live broadcast rooms of a large number of domestic brands have become an outlet for "venting" anger, and the brands have also taken advantage of this "overwhelming wealth". Netizens have made sharp comments: fake business wars: illegal and deadly; real business wars: legal but sick. (One flower "falls", thousands of domestic products "resurrect")

Huoli 28 is not the only winner in the 79 yuan business war. This wave of traffic has also boosted domestic brands such as Fenghua, Jingxi, White Elephant, Yumeijing, Wahaha, and Xue Lan.

For example, on September 11, when the Huaxizi eyebrow pencil incident became a hot topic and Li Jiaqi's Weibo account lost a million followers, Fenghua's official Douyin account "Fenghua Official Flagship Store" quietly left a message under the relevant video: "Can you pick up fans?"

In addition, the official flagship store of Fenghua has been live streaming for nearly 95 hours since September 11, gaining 850,000 followers, with cumulative estimated sales reaching 25 million to 50 million yuan; Yumeijing's live streaming room started a live streaming on September 15 that lasted for two and a half days, with estimated sales reaching 7.5 million to 10 million yuan.

When many domestic brands are doing their best to fight the business war, we can often see new routines of brands making fun of and playing memes on social media, such as Fenghua and Jingxi making sarcastic remarks to each other in the comment section, attracting a lot of attention; the host of Hongxing Erke's live broadcast room uses Fenghua conditioner to wash her hair; the White Cat live broadcast room invites a beautiful white cat to sit in charge; and Oh Oh Toffees invites a rooster...

However, after all the excitement of the fancy moves and stunts, when counting the brands with the most followers, it was not the brands that seemed to be the most popular on social media, such as Fenghua, Jingxi, ERKE, and Hualolia, but the seemingly simple and clumsy "senior group representative" - ​​Vitality 28.

Why did the elderly group take the first place in this wave of business wars? Does this represent a trend in certain brand marketing?

In fact, the brands that have recently gained followers thanks to middle-aged and elderly male anchors are not only Vitality 28, but also soft acid bacteria beverage brand Xile and washing and cleaning brand Green Umbrella. Among them, the boss of Xile, a middle-aged uncle born in the 1970s, danced the "I didn't K" dance, which attracted many young people in the live broadcast room, and the brand's official account gained nearly 50,000 followers; the middle-aged uncle anchor of Green Umbrella popularized the use of disinfectant and the patent application process of laundry detergent in the live broadcast room. The unexpected operation also made young people's eyes light up, and was jokingly called "Green Umbrella Night School".

Screenshots of the brand live broadcast of Xile and Green Umbrella

"Why can old domestic products and veteran employees win the hearts of the majority of netizens and make them willing to support them with real money?

Cass summarized the reasons on two levels.

From the user's perspective, affected by Japan's discharge of nuclear contaminated water, a large number of netizens are more willing to support domestic products at this time. Among the many domestic products, old brands are more popular than new brands established in recent years .

Screenshot of the note by Xiaohongshu user @铭

A brand that uses middle-aged or elderly anchors generally means that it has been established long enough and is willing to give older people job opportunities. In addition, the elderly do not know how to market, so young people are more willing to believe that they "really don't have access to the Internet." In this way , these "weak" domestic brands are the small brands that really need help, the brands that cannot afford to enter the live broadcast rooms of big anchors, and the national brands that have been forgotten but are still working silently.

When users' feelings towards a brand change from pure curiosity to love and a sense of responsibility to support it, the benefits that can be created for the brand are huge. If this positive emotion of users can be maintained for a long time, even if the number of users is only 1/10 of the peak period, it will be enough to save the brand a huge amount of promotion costs.

From a brand perspective, genes and stories determine its audience base and public emotional tendencies.

We can explain this problem with the viewpoints in "Weak Communication" written by Professor Zou Zhendong of Xiamen University. The world of public opinion is the reverse world of the real world. In terms of strong and weak attributes, primary and secondary relationships, judgments of importance, and rational orientation, the two worlds are basically opposite in direction. The world of public opinion is a surface world constructed in the struggle for attention, the struggle for recognition, and the struggle for the surface. In its competitive communication process, in the world of public opinion, the strong have an advantage in the struggle for attention, the weak have an advantage in the struggle for recognition, and the ones with a larger "specific surface area" have an advantage in the struggle for the surface. (Specific surface area is the total area per unit mass of material)

Vitality 28 was once glorious but is now in decline, but its old employees are still sticking to it. The brand image of a well-established domestic product has been established and does not need heavy marketing. This fact has become an important basis for many Chinese people to be willing to support it.

In addition, the brand is quick to respond to online hot topics, and at the same time knows how to lower its profile, communicate sincerely, and reveal its weaknesses and difficulties. Fans are also willing to call themselves "shareholders." After the fans' willingness to interact soared, algorithm recommendations helped the brand to magnify its weak image and gradually gain popularity. The production and operation team of Vitality 28 just grabbed the traffic of this wave of domestic product wars, and further increased its favorability by providing good after-sales service.

In comparison, Huaxizi actually went to the opposite of "weak communication". Judging from its apology statement, the image it established is still strong and official. From the initial "strong apology" to the later "crazy literature", it has not been forgiven by the public opinion. This is certainly not only related to the price of 79 yuan for the eyebrow pencil, but also because the brand did not find the right posture to communicate with users and went further and further in the wrong direction, thus triggering a domino effect.

"A random punch can kill a master", an old man who doesn't know the Internet and can't play Douyin has become an "idol" in the hearts of the Internet-born generation of young people and a "hero" they are trying to help. This seems to be an "anti-algorithm" star-making movement. How long can these "energetic uncles" be popular? We will have to wait and see.

Author: Kasi Data, WeChat public account: Kasi Data