4 directions for Mid-Autumn Festival marketing

During every festival, brands are eager to make moves. What are the ways to market during the Mid-Autumn Festival this year? This article shares some ways to market during the Mid-Autumn Festival and popular trends from a marketing perspective, hoping to give you some inspiration.

All festivals are hot topics. This year, the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day coincide, and major brands have been eager to make a move. In previous Mid-Autumn Festivals, we shared some good cases from the perspective of copywriting, and summarized some creative ideas for the Mid-Autumn Festival, such as concrete Mid-Autumn Festival elements such as "moon", "moon cakes", "jade rabbit", and abstract Mid-Autumn Festival elements such as "missing" and "reunion"... This year, we want to share some Mid-Autumn Festival gameplay and popular trends from a marketing perspective, hoping to help you open up some ideas.

01 Holiday Limited

In the variety show "Jumping into the High-Level Workplace", there was an episode about Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake proposals. Li Sifan's team came up with the creative idea of ​​"half mooncake". Usually only half a mooncake is sold, and only during the Mid-Autumn Festival is a whole mooncake sold, representing "reunion".

The logic behind this is actually "holiday-limited". Among so many festivals, only the Mid-Autumn Festival is synonymous with "family reunion". The moon is full in the sky, and the family reunites on earth.

With this layer of emotional foundation, it is easy for brands to create content that arouses public empathy and launch Mid-Autumn Festival limited editions around themes such as "reunion" and "missing".

For example, this year Alipay saw the homesickness of the wanderers and launched the theme of "The Moon is Brightest in Hometown" using the "moon" as the medium, and released 34 hometown customized payment code skins. Limited Mid-Autumn Festival + limited region + limited digital collection skins, this wave of "limited" buffs is directly stacked.

"Holiday limited edition" is also the killer weapon for the tea industry to create hit products. This year, Heytea and Su Dongpo jointly launched the "Buy Tea, Get a Lantern" for the second time, which means buying tea will give you a lantern and luminous fragrance tablets.

Naixue has launched a new osmanthus series, and you can get an osmanthus fragrance card for free when you buy tea. "Osmanthus falls in the moon, and the fragrance floats beyond the clouds", creating an atmosphere full of autumn.

Oriental Leaves also launched a "Limited Edition Osmanthus Oolong" with the creative concept of "The moon is about to be full, and the tea is already fragrant", which not only highlights the seasonal characteristics of the product, but also expresses the wish for reunion.

There are also the "Jade Rabbit Bread" launched by Fufu Bakery for the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the "Good Persimmon Peanut" wishing smoothie launched by Fresh Taro...

Incorporating Mid-Autumn Festival elements such as family reunion and praying for a better future into products, coupled with the scarcity of holiday-limited products, stimulates users' desire to consume.

02 Mooncake Marketing

There is a "mooncake war" every year, but now the mooncake marketing is no longer just about "packaging" and "taste", but has begun to compete on "topics", so there are some cool operations.

For example, the "Mid-Autumn Festival Mooncakes from Shanghai Mental Hospital" that went viral this year sparked heated discussions among netizens, "I feel more energetic after eating it", "I am willing to make an appointment to be eligible to buy mooncakes", "I am not feeling well recently, can the doctor prescribe two courses of mooncakes for me first", "6 mooncakes a day, just one course of treatment, after eating it I feel crazy, no, energetic"...

The logic behind the overnight popularity is that everyone is concerned about the issue of "mental health". After all, in a high-pressure society, sometimes going crazy is also a sign of mental stability. "Shanghai Mental Hospital Mid-Autumn Mooncakes" just provides users with an outlet for emotional expression.

We also put a lot of thought into product development. We used this year's hottest dopamine color scheme, corresponding to 6 different emotions, and focused on eating mooncakes according to symptoms. For netizens, they have an additional "social currency" to show off. For the hospital, they use this topic mooncake as a carrier to make more people face and pay attention to "mental" problems.

Following this line of thought, there could also be Chinese medicine mooncakes, "Morning F and Late E cakes" that meet the mental state of this generation of young people, "blind box mooncakes" with a five-nut filling randomly placed in the box, and ENFP and INFP mooncakes launched based on different personalities. That would also be very interesting.

03 Cross-border Marketing

In the current era of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, cross-border cooperation has almost become an unspoken strategy for many brands.

For example, "Wufangzhai", which has maintained a stable output level during the Mid-Autumn Festival, collaborated with "Snow King", which just officially announced its entry into the animation industry this year, and shot an animated short film "What Should We Do Next".

The entry point of this short film is very interesting. It is "examining" from the perspective of the Mid-Autumn Festival. What else can be done for Mid-Autumn Festival marketing? A mooncake star who encountered a career failure and was stranded on an "uninhabited island" woke up after going through all the difficulties and used the most simple philosophy of life to reflect on the selling point of Wufangzhai's "soft filling". No matter how fancy the marketing is, it still has to return to the product in the end.

The two "most lively" brands have joined forces. The time-honored Wufangzhai takes advantage of the opportunity to reach out to the young group, while Snow King also wants to further strengthen the Snow King IP through the "Wufang Pictures" IP.

Of course, not all brands can spend a lot of money to shoot a short film, and many collaborations are still based on the product level.

For example, The Beast and Duo Yun Xuan jointly launched the "Autumn Feeling" series, which uses agarwood pressed into cakes by hand and made into mooncake shapes. Add the Beast warm incense burner, which insulates the incense, and a table of good tea and cakes, and the cool autumn atmosphere is captured at once.

This is not the first time that the two brands have collaborated. From the launch of a number of new national trend products such as the "Oriental Beauty" fragrance and the "World Heroes", it can be seen that The Beast hopes to enhance the brand's cultural heritage through long-term binding with the "Jiangnan Art Garden" Duoyunxuan. This Mid-Autumn Festival collaboration also hopes to explore the humanistic value of the festival and create a consumer experience that integrates traditional culture and emotions.

04 AR Marketing

Innovative technologies will inevitably drive industry reform. This year, many brands have incorporated digital technologies into their Mid-Autumn Festival marketing.

Martell has launched the Mid-Autumn Festival limited AR packaging for its Baume & Mercier Cognac. When users open the mini program and aim it at the bottle or packaging, four AR images will appear, recreating the famous scene of Martell crossing the ocean to China in the 17th century.

There is also Hong Kong Maxim's mooncakes. In order to prevent users from buying counterfeit products, AR anti-counterfeiting technology is integrated into the Mid-Autumn Festival gift box. When users open WeChat to scan the label on the box, a fantasy journey of Maxim's flowing heart alchemy will appear, strengthening its unique "flowing heart" brand memory point.

The application of AR technology can enhance user experience and interaction, and achieve differentiated breakthroughs in the homogeneous Mid-Autumn Festival marketing.

In addition, this technology has also penetrated into the "Mid-Autumn Festival customs", using digital technology to solve the hidden dangers caused by fireworks and satisfy users' customs of setting off fireworks during the festive period.

For example, this year Fuzhou Jinjishan Park held a large-scale AR light show, with a full moon hanging high in the sky, fireworks special effects, and a lively jade rabbit, giving people a refreshing visual effect.

The opening ceremony of this year's Hangzhou Asian Games also presented a splendid fireworks show to the audience through digital technology. The audience on site could watch the digital fireworks through floor screens and net screens.

With the Asian Games digital fireworks as a precedent, I believe that more and more brands will accelerate the commercial application of AR technology and AIGC. After all, technological innovation will change the original ecology of the advertising industry and reconstruct the relationship between users, media and brands.

Mid-Autumn Festival marketing is really crazy. Anything you can think of, there is a high probability that someone is doing it.

However, no matter how things change, the purpose of leveraging festivals is to create brand topicality and freshness. Following this logic, it is nothing more than grasping two points: "sense of contrast" and "interactivity".

Finally, you are welcome to share your good Mid-Autumn Festival marketing in the comment section.

Author: Black Little Finger

WeChat public account: Shock Copywriter