We have all been deceived: Mixue Bingcheng made an animated film not just to break the circle

This article analyzes the issue of Mixue Bingcheng filming cartoons. It first analyzes the development of the domestic tea beverage market, then analyzes the re-emergence of Snow King, explains the purpose of Snow King filming cartoons, and finally summarizes the issue of Mixue Bingcheng filming cartoons.

With the rapid development of the domestic tea market, more and more brands are trying to get a piece of the pie. In order to attract consumers, brands are trying their best. Traditional brands choose to make a fuss about price, and even use "male sex marketing" on short video platforms to attract attention.

Until July this year, Cha Baidao, which was busy with its IPO, announced a partnership with Mihoyo's political romance and reasoning mobile game "Undetermined Case Book" and officially launched the joint venture. Many Cha Baidao stores were overwhelmed with orders and had to ask the staff of Gu Ming next door to help.

The joint venture of the second dimension seems to be a breakthrough for tea drinks, and Mixue Ice City has naturally noticed the value of the second dimension. But what's interesting is that Mixue Ice City did not choose the simple and effective way of joint venture, but instead went to great lengths to create its own cartoon, which aroused heated discussions and expectations among netizens. Is the Snow King's extension of its tentacles into the second dimension really just for the sake of breaking the circle?

1. Mixue Ice City shoots an animated film, and the Snow King IP goes viral again

On August 25, the self-produced cartoon "The Snow King Arrives" by Michelle Ice City officially started broadcasting on Bilibili. On the night of the broadcast, many fans of Michelle Ice City came to the show and sent online "Good luck on the broadcast". The well-made animation earned a lot of popularity for Michelle Ice City, and the topic popularity on Douyin that night was nearly 100 million.

In fact, long before the animation was broadcast, Mixue Ice City had already done enough publicity for the "Snow King" animation IP on various platforms. On Weibo, the topic #Mixue Ice City made animations# was directly topped the hot search list; on Douyin, the number of likes for the single video of "The Snow King Arrives" as soon as the trailer was released reached 1.3 million.

In the first episode, the plot of "The Snow King who lost his scepter started his adventure" was released, which made netizens who called it not simple spontaneously play the guessing game of "Who is the villain?" Even Luckin, who was considered the "number one villain", joined in and made fun of himself.

Therefore, the "Snow King", who was already a top star, became even more popular.

But no one would have thought that this IP, which was once disliked by its own father Zhang Hongfu (CEO of Mixue Ice City), would become a top-tier streamer today. From being disliked to being loved by everyone, how did the Snow King make a gorgeous transformation?

1. Create super symbols

Back in 2018, Mixue Bingcheng had already carved out a niche in the fierce competition with its "low prices", and the number of its stores nationwide once reached 4,500. However, people still didn't have a deep impression of this "Henan Zhengzhou boy" and couldn't even remember its name.

In order to change this situation, in 2018, Zhang Hongfu found Hua & Hua Company and spent 5 million to design the "Snow King" IP which is extremely popular today. At the same time, he got 5 marketing secrets: selecting symbols, setting standards, playing with IP, creating proverbs, and creating activities.

Since then, Mixue Ice City has designed everything from brand image to store design, materials, and peripherals around the super symbol of "Snow King". Even after the store closes, you can see the huge "Snow King" on the store's rolling shutter door.

In 2021, the magical melody "You love me, I love you, Mixue Ice City is sweet" was played in 20,000 stores, making Mixue Ice City completely popular and bringing Snow King to the limelight. The theme song created by netizens attracted billions of traffic on the entire network, bringing exponential growth in traffic to Mixue Ice City, and its popularity far exceeded that of similar brands. Following the trend, Mixue Ice City announced that "Snow King" is the brand's only lifetime spokesperson worldwide.

2. Online and offline linkage to build interactive scenarios with young people

IBrandi discovered that in addition to creating super symbols, Mixue Bingcheng has been amplifying and repeating its brand image in various ways, implementing its five marketing secrets of the year one by one.
On the one hand, in the past two years, Snow King has frequently appeared in scenes that young people like, making trendy and interesting crossovers, allowing consumers to form a consensus that "Snow King = Mixue Bingcheng".

The Shandong Weifang Kite Festival swept the internet, with the Snow King flying directly into the sky;

Special forces tourism boom, Gai Liuzi Snow King climbed to the top of Mount Tai in a high-profile manner, and the store continued to offer reasonable prices, only one yuan more expensive;

Snow King even rectified the sky-high prices of music festivals. The ticket prices for music festivals often ranged from 500 to 600 yuan. The Snow King Ice Cream Music Festival only costs 199 yuan, which is a particularly affordable price.

On the other hand, in addition to building interactive scenarios with consumers, the Snow King IP itself is also constantly trying to show its vibrant vitality - offline, Snow King puppets gather together, dance, and challenge others; online, Snow King emoticons appear frequently, and it was officially announced on "WeChat and Weibo" that it was in a relationship, just like a real person.

The sudden popularity of Snow King also verified the original marketing secret of H&H’s brand image: first “come alive” before it can “become popular”.

This time, Mixue Ice City filmed an animation to upgrade the Snow King IP again, helping it to complete the transformation from "joining the second dimension" to "becoming the second dimension". In addition to reaching more consumer groups, Mixue Ice City also became the first tea beverage brand to animate its IP brand image.

2. Playing with IP animation, Mixue Ice City is not just for breaking the circle

Originally, tea and animation were two fields that were completely unrelated, but Mixue Bingcheng, which produced animation, unexpectedly achieved good results. Four days after its launch, the number of views on B station reached 3.33 million, and it also received a high score of 9.9 points, achieving both topic and reputation. Obviously, IP animation helped Mixue Bingcheng break through the circle again, and also brought it a lot of popularity.

It seems that the tea beverage brand’s animation is not just a simple play of capital.

Long before, there have been successful cases at home and abroad of adapting brand IP into animations to help the brand reach a higher level.

In the 1960s, the movie "Astro Boy" produced by Casio became popular in Japan. Later, it caused a sensation after its release in China, and Casio electronic products also entered the Chinese market.

In 1995, Haier Group, a long-established home appliance company in my country, produced an animated film based on its IP, Haier Brothers, which was widely welcomed by adults and children in the United States for its rich and healthy content. In the six years since Haier Brothers was popular, Haier Brothers has expanded overseas, created a reputation through exports, and is now an international brand.

Mixue Bingcheng has also been accelerating the pace of expanding the influence of its brand IP. The rapidly expanding Mixue Bingcheng has not only branched out in China, but also brought its IP overseas.

But the problem is that the competition in the tea beverage market is extremely fierce. According to the "2022 New Tea Beverage Research Report", the scale of my country's new tea beverage market has increased from 42.2 billion in 2017 to 100.3 billion in 2021. The scale of new tea beverages is expected to reach 104 billion yuan in 2022, and the total number of new tea beverage stores will be about 486,000.

Since 2018, the tea beverage market has been expanding overseas. Competition overseas is also fierce. Almost all leading milk tea brands are planning to expand overseas, although the number of stores is far less exaggerated than that in China. However, we must also realize that compared with the relatively mature understanding of domestic consumers on the tea beverage track, the overseas market's recognition of tea beverage brands is not high. All domestic tea beverage brands must innovate marketing strategies while expanding stores to stand out. For Mixue Bingcheng, the appearance of Snow King animation is obviously just right.

So in general, the Snow King IP is essentially more like an accelerator. Through this vivid IP that is closely integrated with Mixue Ice City, consumers all over the world can cross the language barrier, have a simple understanding and a basic understanding of Mixue Ice City, and then firmly grasp the minds of consumers through low-price strategies.

Perhaps we can say that without the Snow King, Mixue Ice City may still be able to develop, but as the influence of the IP expands, the Snow King will greatly shorten the time of "educating" the market and consumers.

Animation happens to be the fastest and most effective way to expand the influence of this IP. After covering enough consumers with ultra-low prices and a large number of stores, the story-telling Snow King IP animation may become the strongest auxiliary to continuously empower the Mixue Ice City brand.

3. Conclusion

After the release of the animation "The Snow King Arrives", many people are looking forward to whether Mixue Ice City will become the next Haier or the next Disney.

Now it seems difficult to achieve.

On the one hand, in order to produce animations like "Haier Brothers" and the Disney series, in addition to having good aesthetics and money, the main reason for the former is that they both hit the cusp of the animation era. Now that the domestic animation two-dimensional market has long been mature, it is not easy for Mixue Bingcheng to grab a share of the market.

In addition, the plot of "The Snow King Arrives" is relatively simple, and the overall content is still childish, so it is difficult for the IP reputation to ferment again among adult consumers. The last snack brand similar to Mixue Ice City, Three Squirrels, also released two seasons of animation series, but it did not make much of a splash, and many people didn't even know it had made animations.

On the other hand, if a "super IP" wants to live in the hearts of consumers for a long time and stably, in addition to cross-border and marketing methods, it must be supported by high-quality products and efficient management.

In recent years, as the market share of Mixue Bingcheng has expanded, many food safety issues have arisen. Many media outlets have conducted undercover investigations into Mixue Bingcheng and discovered that Mixue Bingcheng had tampered with expiration date labels, cut corners, not used fresh ingredients, found insects, etc.; on the Black Cat platform, there were more than 6,000 complaints against Mixue Bingcheng.

At present, if Mixue Bingcheng, which has a large scale and is well-known for its products, wants to go further, it is far from enough to rely solely on new animations.

How much publicity this animation can bring to Mixue Bingcheng and what impact it will have on the brand are still unknown.

Author: Empowering Global Brands WeChat Official Account: IBrandi