Why is everyone playing the “safe card” during this year’s Qixi Festival marketing?

Every Chinese Valentine's Day is very exciting. In addition to being able to spend a wonderful time with your lover, the marketing methods of various brands are also novel. What "tricks" did the brands come up with on this year's Chinese Valentine's Day? In this article, the author selects relevant wonderful cases and analyzes them. Let's take a look.

Love always makes people obsessed, and so does consumption.

In the gift market valued at over 1.6 trillion yuan, the proportion of people spending a fortune on their partners is the highest. Marketing nodes related to love are always battlegrounds. Even the new holiday of "Double 11" has an ambiguous relationship with love.

Data source: "2023-2024 China Gift Economy Industry Research and User Consumption Behavior Analysis Report" by iMedia Consulting

Compared with the "214" Valentine's Day which originated in the West, the Chinese Valentine's Day node, which is precisely positioned at the turn of summer and autumn, is full of cultural appeal, and can connect to long-distance relationship scenes, has become a new tool for brands to attract Chinese couples. Internet platforms, luxury brands, and the hot tea beverage track in recent years will all invest a lot of resources in this.

But when people are intoxicated, there is always a little "danger" and it is easy to fail. The most likely to fail are the international brands that have been "high and mighty" for a long time. Balenciaga's "He Loves Me" tacky marketing in 2020 and Chanel's "bad" operation of using the same set of materials for two consecutive years are both negative examples that are often used to criticize.

The reason is that these brands have not really delved into the cultural core of Qixi Festival to find materials, and used self-righteous "down-to-earth" to solve the problem. This not only deviates from their own brand main line, but also fails to truly impress people.

However, since Dior took the lead in entering the Chinese Valentine's Day in 2016, luxury brands have gradually tried to communicate with Chinese culture through trial and error. As of this year, there have been almost no cases of failure. There has been obvious progress in communication, category matching, and channel layout. Brands such as BV, LV, Gucci, and Prada have all shown sincerity.

Internet platforms have, as always, become “super factories” for creative output.

Tmall has been deeply cultivating the attributes of transaction venues, using the "default address" as a breakthrough to emphasize the platform's fulfillment capabilities. The "Tik Tok Chinese Valentine's Day Gift Season" IP packages global interest e-commerce marketing resources. Meituan provides a one-stop solution for "eating, drinking and having fun", and JD.com has ingeniously used the topic of "single dogs", breaking through the limitations of "Valentine's Day" to a certain extent.

The fast-expanding ready-made beverage market quickly shifted its focus to Chinese Valentine's Day after the "Double Eleven" event, which was known as the "first cup of milk tea in autumn". Luckin Coffee, Heytea, Nayuki, Chabaidao, and Guming each demonstrated their mature marketing skills based on product attributes by combining joint ventures, changing packaging, and launching new products.

With overall consumption shrinking, "gift giving" has become one of the few scenarios where a premium can be reaped through marketing packaging. This scarcity makes this year's Chinese Valentine's Day marketing cases more conservative and restrained than in previous years - brands need to truly move people who are "willing to pay for love" in order to gain maximum benefits at this point.

Because of this, returning to one's own business genes and returning to the cultural attributes of the node has become the common choice of the entire industry.

1. Platform: Focus on the basic business and use good services to inject warmth into love

With a huge number of users, Internet platforms have become the most important marketing venue in China today. At important nodes, their marketing actions can often reflect the general trend of the entire market. This year, on Chinese Valentine's Day, the larger the platform, the more "conservative" it appears - instead of promoting the new concept of "loving yourself", it focuses on "giving gifts" and provides corresponding services based on the platform's capabilities.

This is both a form of precision marketing and an objective "contraction". Instead of using risky strategies to compete for wavering singles, it is better to bet limited resources on couples with a higher probability of consumption to obtain a better input-output ratio.

1. Tmall

This year, many brands have tacitly found the cultural origin of the "magpie bridge meeting" on the Chinese Valentine's Day, and Tmall is one of them. "You Are My Default Address" focuses on long-distance couples, using the creative point of "default address" to combine the daily gift-giving between couples with the common packages in the e-commerce industry to create a "contemporary cyber magpie bridge". It does not force the ancient style, but cuts into the daily life, which is closer to the real life of today's young people.

Based on this round of creative communication, Tmall also used "You are my default address" as the theme of a series of business actions to promote conversion, and implemented the concept in the two businesses of e-commerce live streaming and "next-day delivery", emphasizing its own fulfillment capabilities and the attributes of full-category shelf e-commerce, linking the entire site and enabling business growth.

2. Meituan

After successfully promoting its hotel and travel business during the peak tourist season by leveraging the popularity of "The Rush", Meituan once again leveraged the popularity of the characters in the popular TV series to launch the short film "Romance Is a Secret" during the Chinese Valentine's Day, leveraging the role potential of "Zhang Dongsheng" and "Biaozi" played by Qin Hao to provide a one-stop dating solution for straight men who don't understand romance. This is also a move to return to Meituan's basic business of "local life + group buying", striving to create the brand mentality of "Celebrate the Chinese Valentine's Day with Meituan".

It is worth mentioning that Meituan also produced a short film titled "Your Little Love Matters, Our Top Priorities" for the errand service, showing how Meituan riders provide thoughtful services for the little details of love. Compared with Flash Express and SF Express, Meituan errand service has always been perceived as an "additional service" by users. Riders not only help users deliver things, but also "help" users, while maintaining a relatively low price in the industry. This round of Qixi Festival communication further emphasized the service attributes of the errand service and differentiated it from competing products.

3. TikTok

As one of China's most important Internet content platforms and interest-based e-commerce platforms, Douyin has turned the entire Chinese Valentine's Day event into an IP, using the "Douyin Chinese Valentine's Day Gift Season" to cover short video content marketing, shelf e-commerce, and search intelligence, providing brands with comprehensive operating services. Big-name gift boxes such as YSL, TF, PRADA, and LA MER are all leveraging Douyin's "planting and pulling in one" capability to boost sales.

Douyin is also one of the few platforms that can leverage large-scale UGC and PUGV content commercialization at the same time. In addition to providing traffic support and brand links for the creation of Qixi-related content, Douyin also launched a theme concert with the theme of "Magpie Dream Thousand Years" on the night of Qixi Festival, cooperating with brands such as Vidal Sassoon, Beaufort, Always, and Pantene, inviting singers, dancers, and Douyin couples to join the battle and build a complete content marketing field. "Gift giving" is a scene that needs to be displayed and packaged, and Douyin is undoubtedly an indispensable marketing position for brands.

4. JD.com

3C products and delivery services are undoubtedly JD.com's strengths, and the platform's Qixi marketing is also based on these two points. The fact is that there are more gifts and categories for women on the market, but "choosing gifts for boys" has always been a relatively niche demand. JD.com's strength in 3C products has made it the main battlefield for "men's gift selection", successfully filling the market gap.

In addition to the conventional 3C gift-giving scenario for men, JD.com unexpectedly chose the concept of "single dog" as a creative starting point during the Chinese Valentine's Day love marketing node, entering the pet track that has been very hot in recent years. This not only reflects the attention paid to the "vulnerable groups" at the node, but also successfully achieved differentiation and took the opportunity to promote its new "buyer e-commerce" model.

2. Luxury brands: Seriously communicate with Chinese culture, and do not try to stand out and set the tone

For luxury brands, events like Chinese Valentine's Day are a good opportunity to reach the general public - many consumer goods brands only give their products as gifts to important people, rather than for regular consumption. Therefore, making holiday-limited products more "gift-like" and more brand iconic has become the initial choice for many luxury brands to enter the Chinese Valentine's Day.

However, this orientation, coupled with the natural weakness of overseas brands and designers who lack a deep understanding of Chinese culture, has also led to many big brands with rich marketing experience overdoing it and frequently failing. This year, on Chinese Valentine's Day, many brands realized the problem and stopped rigidly copying cultural symbols. They also began to try to integrate their own brand management lines with node characteristics, making them more approachable and more attractive.

1. BOTTEGA VENETA

As one of the most important brands under Kering Group in recent years, BV has been constantly refreshing its brand image because it is closer to young people and more fashionable, and has contributed a lot to the growth of the entire group. During the Qixi Festival marketing event, BV did not deliberately promote "Chinese culture", but used the "gathering" of three groups of contemporary young people to find the connection with the core of the festival. The three short films were shot in Shanghai, the fashionable center of contemporary China, to bring out the brand's main handbag products at the event, which not only conforms to the brand's consistent trendy and luxurious tone, but also avoids the awkwardness of implantation.

It is worth mentioning that this time BV not only focused on the content selection for heterosexual couples, but also made the entire campaign receive more positive reviews.

2. LV, Chanel

Both of the long-established brands chose a more conservative and safe approach, finding celebrity couples to promote their classic products. LV returned to its "travel" attribute and collaborated with celebrities such as He Youjun and Xi Mengyao to promote its limited edition bags for the Chinese Valentine's Day. Chanel maintained its collaboration with Liu Wen and Jing Boran to promote jewelry, focusing more on "gift" scenarios, and in addition to real-life appearances, it also produced animated shorts to soften its brand image.

3. Gucci, FERRAGAMO

Even if there is no real couple, you can still pair up with them. Gucci found Wen Qi and Zhou Keyu to shoot the commercial, while Salvatore Ferragamo chose Yang Zi and Jiang Qiming. Coincidentally, in terms of the combination of star status, they are both "strong women and weak men", but in terms of style, they are not following the "hell route" of Balenciaga and BURBERRY in the past two years, but chose a brighter style and more normal and conservative color matching, focusing on safety and no mistakes.

An important task for the two classic Italian brands in recent years has been to make their brands younger. In addition to the selection of spokespersons, both brands have also launched more trendy new products in this round of Chinese Valentine's Day marketing. Although Gucci's colorful designs and Ferragamo's "love + mahjong = game of love" are still controversial, they are obviously path decisions that are more in line with the public's imagination and aesthetics.

4. Prada, Dior

As big names in fashion and bags, the two brands focused more on the "gift-giving" scenario in their selection of main categories for Chinese Valentine's Day, while pushing out another wave of classic models in the main categories. The former has just launched a beauty line, which has naturally become the brand's largest category for Chinese Valentine's Day marketing, lowering the entry threshold for "young people's first Prada." The latter mainly promotes the "perfume + lipstick" category combination, both of which are typical categories with interest attributes higher than practical attributes, more suitable for gifts and more suitable for Chinese Valentine's Day.

3. Coffee and tea: co-branding, packaging, and new products

Even if luxury brands and flowers are too expensive and it is difficult to book a seat in a restaurant, drinking a limited edition coffee or tea can be considered a "ritual" for the Chinese Valentine's Day. As one of the few new consumer subcategories that has remained popular in the past year, the competition in the brewed coffee and tea market is still fierce. The most intense battlefield is node marketing and IP joint marketing. Fighting for the share of users' circle of friends on the Chinese Valentine's Day has become the direction of the brewed beverage market.

1. Luckin Coffee

As a major player in IP co-branding of ready-made beverages, Luckin Coffee further increased its stakes on the Chinese Valentine's Day this year by launching co-branded products with striped puppies, following last year's success with the Sad Frog. The company's careful investment in peripheral products such as stickers and cup sleeves also boosted a wave of beverage sales for Luckin Coffee.

Compared with last year's surprise, Luckin Coffee, which has exceeded 10,000 stores this year, may have anticipated the fierce competition that might come, and chose to extend the Qixi Festival marketing cycle to occupy communication resources and user minds in advance. Choosing "cuteness" rather than continuing "loneliness" is also a conservative and safe card.

2. HEYTEA

In terms of joint ventures, Heytea has always been "only be the first, not the second". This time, it is leading the entire industry and collaborating with Fang Wenshan to launch a new packaging with the theme of "Sky Blue", promoting milk tea products that are more suitable for the autumn and winter seasons, and at the same time using cold colors to differentiate the products. On the Chinese Valentine's Day, which is shrouded in the festive atmosphere of red and pink, it looks particularly fresh.

At the same time, Heytea did not deliberately pursue the shaping of love, but used heart-shaped sachets to express it lightly. After long-term and high-frequency joint action training, the Heytea team has gradually found the balance between joint brands and its own brand power.

3. Nayuki, Chamomile

The two tea companies closest to the capital market have both chosen to focus on packaging, which is more restrained and prudent. Nayuki has completely "pinked" itself. The new and extreme product packaging transformation has been verified by Heytea and Chabaidao as an effective solution to leverage social media communication. In this round, Nayuki has made a safe choice by combining lychee-related products on the Chinese Valentine's Day, a node that is strongly related to love. Chabaidao uses a double cup set with the slogan "Holding your hand, growing old together", which is obviously also to increase the customer unit price and create communication topics, but it is obviously lacking in creativity.

4. Ancient Tea

As a brand that has opened stores intensively in the southern market, Gu Ming has always had difficulty breaking through the national circle. This year, it has improved to a certain extent after co-branding. Although the IPs it chooses are relatively niche, they all have the same characteristics of being stalked and magical. After choosing the "Pink Rabbit" co-branding in the second quarter, it cooperated with the Frog Prince on the Chinese Valentine's Day, almost replicating Luckin's cooperation with the Sad Frog last year, focusing on the emotional points of single people. Although the creativity is not new, the reverse stalk marketing of "The Widowed King" is still effective to a certain extent.

IV. Conclusion

Compared with the previous years when there were always several brand-related hot searches during the Chinese Valentine's Day, this year's Chinese Valentine's Day marketing seemed particularly bland and safe, but there were many more discussions and explorations about the beauty of love itself. The choice of scenes, emotions, and creativity are essentially the screening and insight of the crowd. The safe card is often the accurate card.

In an era where the "dog-licking economy" is gradually being eliminated and intimate relationships are repeatedly scrutinized, "whether you are willing to pay for love" has become a clear-cut issue. On the Chinese Valentine's Day, more brands have chosen to stand on the side of love. The link between love and brands is often "gifts", because good gifts, like good love, are not necessities of life, but can bring emotional value to people.

To do a good job in Qixi Festival brand marketing is just like having a good relationship. All you need is to be serious, focused and attentive.

Author: Cloud, Source: WeChat public account: "Dou Jiao TMT"