In addition to "kissing until your lips are rotten", smart brands have many other ways to celebrate Valentine's Day in a romantic way

This year, on Chinese Valentine's Day, various brands tried their best to make their presence felt in front of consumers, just like different-looking suitors in the marriage market. This article introduces the Chinese Valentine's Day copywriting and activities of various styles and brands in detail, hoping to be helpful to you.

"Other people's lips have been kissed to pieces, but you are still pretending to be so rude," this sentence unexpectedly became popular and has become the top golden sentence for this year's Chinese Valentine's Day.

However, in the social context where people often "kiss each other till they are rotten", brands are still very romantic: the way they try their best to make their presence felt in front of consumers is just like the different-looking suitors in the marriage market.

So among so many brands, which type of romance do you prefer?

1. Deep Romance: Touching Confession

1. Cadillac: A special wedding for those who are true to themselves

Is a grand wedding really what every couple wants?

Young people’s love always has a “rebellious” meaning. Cadillac and Mao Xiaotong performed the most beautiful show “Cloud Wedding”, using this rebelliousness to let the public see a different kind of wedding ceremony - a car, two people, and a wedding witnessed by relatives and friends online is also worthy of blessings.

From the dim parking lot to the gorgeous wedding scene, from the spiral staircase to the cool elevator, following the camera, narration and dialogue, the audience can see the daughter who is unwilling to compromise and true to herself at this moment and the mother who wanted to be brave for love when she was young.

"I want to be you who dares to love and hate and dares to do what you want." With the support of her fiancé and her mother, Mao Xiaotong joined hands with her other half to start the wedding she wanted - a cloud wedding, holding happiness in her hands and heading for the stars and the sea together.

In this love story, Cadillac plays the role of a partner for the two on their journey to a better life. It gives the girl courage and also brings scenery to the two.

The form is not important, what is important is to go to the mountains and seas with your lover.

2. Meituan: A love confession with a cornstarch flavor

Following last year’s Chinese Valentine’s Day collaboration with Aunt Qiong Yao to launch the short film “The Language of Chinese Valentine’s Day Flowers”, sending sincere wishes to lovers all over the world, Meituan continued its steady output this year, bringing “The Long Chinese Valentine’s Day” with actor Qin Hao.

The short film starts from the male protagonist's perspective, focusing on daily use of Meituan such as sending flowers, booking restaurants, and group KTV. It combines the male protagonist's state of mind and results and unfolds in four chapters: "Awakening", "Attack", "Counterattack", and "Dream".

In addition to the friendly Northeastern accents of the leading actors, the conversation between Qin Hao and the takeaway boy in the corridor can be regarded as an official show-off of "Meituan" as a romantic god assist:

“——Can Meituan also deliver flowers?
——Yes, it’s delivered quickly, it will arrive in half an hour.”

Middle-aged men don't know how to celebrate Chinese Valentine's Day, Meituan wishes you a helping hand. The jokes buried in the short film, such as "What are you looking at", "Gaga looks good", and "Tiexi Maiba", not only fit the image of the leading actor Qin Hao in his daily life, but also remotely link with his role in "The Long Season".

In addition, Meituan Waimai, a platform under Meituan, also cleverly used the popularity of "Xu Hongdou's bouquet picture" and cooperated with Liu Yifei to shoot the short video "Show love on the Chinese Valentine's Day, the flowers that arrive first are more romantic", and presented a new bouquet picture to the public. After all, who can refuse the fairy sister?

3. PROYA: Love always exists

In terms of video marketing, PROYA has always taken a warm and touching approach.

For this year's Chinese Valentine's Day project, PROYA invited brand ambassador Zhang Ruonan to present a special Chinese Valentine's Day themed short film "Dare to Love or Dare Not to Love".

The short film unfolds from the perspective of love. Through the questions, follow-up questions and answers of Zhang Ruonan, who sits in the center of the theater, the audience can understand the perceptions and myths of young people today about love through the coordination of pictures and music.

Quarrels, hugs, shyness, entanglements, running... each genuine scene of interaction and the emotions expressed also let the heroine know that "the happiness I want may not exist in the outside world, but has always existed in my own feelings."

Through the mouth of the heroine Zhang Ruonan, the short film boldly asks the question "Does love no longer exist?" and also provides answers to the myth of love through fragments and reflections -

When you bravely honor your own heart,
When you dare to love, and dare not to love,
Love always exists.

PROYA not only conveys a beautiful and positive interpretation of love to the public, but also effectively responds to the brand slogan of "Discover while you are young".

2. Playful and cute romance: the joint name is popular

In addition to the common emotional route of Qixi Festival marketing, this year's IP joint branding track is also unusually crowded. The beverage industry is familiar with joint brands, and it is no problem to leverage marketing to achieve cross-circle marketing.

1. Luckin Coffee x Stripe Puppy

Luckin Coffee×Line Dog

This year's Chinese Valentine's Day, Luckin Coffee started warming up its Chinese Valentine's Day joint marketing with Linear Dog on its WeChat official account a week in advance, and this is their second collaboration (the last time was on Valentine's Day hhhh).

As the 2.0 version of "Dog Repair Love Story", Luckin Coffee once again uses "puppy literature" to bring earthy love words and affectionate confessions, taking advantage of the Cantonese homonym of "I like you", "black pineapple", while launching new products "Black Pineapple Latte" and "Black Pineapple Short Tieguanyin", it also uses the striped puppy to express love on Valentine's Day.

Of course, as the "king of marketing", Luckin Coffee, in addition to launching joint products, also carefully designed peripherals such as paper bags, cup sleeves and stickers. It also launched the "Dog Repair Love Privilege Card" redemption activity on the day before Chinese Valentine's Day, which can be redeemed by buying any drink + 3.9 yuan.

It has to be said that Luckin Coffee really has a way of understanding the minds of young people. On platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Weibo, many netizens have posted photos of their collections of the Qixi Dog Repair Series, DIY mobile phone cases, tissue boxes, etc.

2. Gu Ming x Frog Prince

During the Chinese Valentine’s Day last year, Luckin Coffee teamed up with the “lonely frog” Pepe to launch a joint marketing campaign called “Don’t quack on the Chinese Valentine’s Day, Luckin Coffee likes you”.

The one who will continue the “frog trend” this year is the leader in the milk tea industry - Gu Ming.

Gu Ming×Frog Prince

On the eve of the festival, Gu Ming and the Frog Prince launched a series of joint peripherals, printing funny and cute frog images on cup sleeves, packing bags and key chains, highlighting the prince's crown and confidence. During the Chinese Valentine's Day of Love & Peace, Gu Ming chose to take the route of reverse marketing, focusing on domineering and hurting. It called out to netizens on its official Weibo:

"The Chinese Valentine's Day is here. Are you still worried about not having a partner? Don't worry, Gu Ming is with you! As long as you buy two cups of milk tea, I will give you a frog prince takeaway bag! If you only buy one cup of milk tea, I will give you a widowed king cup holder! A widowed king is still a king, so you won't be lonely on the Chinese Valentine's Day!"

While using humor and self-deprecation to attract consumers, Gu Ming also thoughtfully launched package options - "Prince of You Ming" package and "Widow of the Gu Family of You Ming" package, which really fits its slogan "The widowed king is also a king".

3. HEYTEA and Vincent Fang

I didn’t expect that the tea beverage industry has already involved co-branding with creators…

On the occasion of Chinese Valentine’s Day this year, HEYTEA launched its first refreshing tea milk tea product - Tian Qing Yu, featuring a two-way combination of customized tea base "Tian Qing Yu" and buffalo milk.

HEYTEA and Vincent Fang

Along with the launch of new products, HEYTEA specially invited Jay Chou’s golden partner, the famous lyricist Fang Wenshan, to compose the eponymous rhyming poem "Sky Blue Rain"; at the same time, with the blue and white porcelain background and the flavor of fine brushwork as design inspiration, a new Chinese-style animation was released simultaneously, as well as the new packaging materials of Sky Blue Rain themed customized cups and paper bags, creating a joyful experience full of classical connotations on the Chinese romantic node of Chinese Valentine's Day.

In addition to the limited edition new products with a quaint flavor, HEYTEA has also launched limited edition sachets for the Chinese Valentine’s Day, Chinese Valentine’s Day wedding certificates and other peripheral products, so that workers can enjoy the unique joy of the Chinese Valentine’s Day even during their busy workdays.

3. The romance of playing hard to get: Saying one thing and thinking another

1. Jingdong Small Appliances Qixi Demolition Team

It is inevitable that some brands want to play the opposite tune on Chinese Valentine's Day. When others talk about love, they want to say no. JD.com's small home appliances have started to break up their CPs.

Are sister Caiye and brother Yachi inseparable? The electric toothbrush breaks up the couple, driving out all the dirt between their teeth, and letting Yachi and Caiye say goodbye completely.

The beard tries hard to climb up just to meet the chin? It doesn't matter, the electric shaver that fits the facial contour will disassemble and the chin and beard will never meet again in this life.

Are hair lovers inseparable? There is no hair in this world that cannot be separated by a hair dryer. Even the most annoying couples should keep their distance.

Face and crow's feet can't appear on the same screen? In this case, why not give them a helping hand with beauty devices, and even if they can't see each other, they can just separate.

JD.com's small home appliances turned into a demolition team on Chinese Valentine's Day, demolishing one pair of "lovers" after another. But under the appearance of "demolition for love", the core of the platform's holiday marketing is actually buried: it not only meets people's needs for appearance, but also is a good gift for couples during the holiday.

The Qixi Demolition Team is not demolishing real couples, but is trying to demolish the lovers who are inseparable.

2. Ele.me joins hands with Xianyu

This yellow and blue CP is actually together!

Here's what happened. Yesterday (August 21) at 4pm, Ele.me posted a picture on Weibo with the caption "See you tomorrow!", which whetted the appetite of many netizens, who speculated which APP was under the yellow mosaic.

At 10:10 this morning, Ele.me revealed the answer on its official Weibo account, expressed its love for Xianyu with earthy love words, and generously invited everyone to a "wedding banquet", giving out over 10,000 red envelopes. This wave of CP marketing is really worth the investment!

Ele.meX Xianyu

Netizens can not only open the Ele.me app and receive the big red envelope in [My-Red Envelope], but Xianyu users can also receive the Qixi red envelope in Xianyu! As netizens said, "It's like drinking two wedding wines, so I don't have to eat dog food today."

It not only mobilized the enthusiasm of netizens to participate, but also enhanced the reputation of the application, adding full appeal.

4. Mysterious romance: Steady temperament

Of course, luxury brands have always used the Chinese traditional festival of Qixi as an important time node to leverage their brands and establish emotional connections with consumers through blockbusters or videos. Therefore, TOP believes that they are both a professional group and a group with a more mysterious style.

1. FERRAGAMO: Yang Zi and Jiang Qiming [Game of Love]

FERRAGAMO’s Chinese Valentine’s Day blockbuster was released very early, with a pre-release announcement on Weibo in mid-to-late July. The brand invited actors Jiang Qiming and Yang Zi to co-star in the film.

As an Italian brand, it hopes to express love in the Chinese context during the Chinese Valentine’s Day. Therefore, the mahjong game engraved with red hearts, 22 and love fills the rhythm of the short film, showing the game between lovers and sending out heart-beating signals.

The short film not only makes good use of color contrast, contrasting the classic red background with the camel and black of clothes, shoes and bags, but also uses close-up shots many times to show the details of the clothes, bags and shoes.

2. CHANEL: Liu Wen, Jing Boran [Dear You]

Starting from 2019, around the Chinese Valentine's Day, CHANEL will work with brand ambassadors Liu Wen and Jing Boran to shoot blockbusters and tell love stories.

This year is no exception. The brand and the two have jointly launched the animated film "Dear You", which takes us from reality into the world of animation to witness the heart-touching moments between lovers. It is worth mentioning that whether it is the alleys that Liu Wen speeds through, the lanterns beside the streets, or the lotus lanterns on the river, they are all full of traditional Chinese elements.

V. Conclusion

It is not difficult to see that the Chinese Valentine's Day is changing from a couple's festival to a national carnival. On the one hand, brands are paying more and more attention to leveraging the festival and enhancing the sense of interaction; on the other hand, in the increasingly competitive marketing track, everyone dares to challenge the traditional Chinese Valentine's Day marketing model and find a breakthrough point that hits the pain points of young people.

Whether walking down the street to sing a song or ordering a cup of Line Dog Coffee, consumers can enjoy a different kind of fun from the brand's fancy marketing. After seeing so many brands' "peacocks spreading their tails", which case do you want to pick the most?

Author: Top Jun WeChat public account: TopMarketing