Brand rejuvenation: How to make young people love you and buy you?

Now all major brands are pursuing rejuvenation. What is the value and significance of brand rejuvenation? What are the misunderstandings and root causes of rejuvenation? What are the strategies and methods of rejuvenation? The author has answered them one by one. Let's take a look!

Brand rejuvenation is a topic that has received widespread attention in recent years. When I was working in an advertising company, almost every client I met regarded rejuvenation as a top priority and assigned our company the topic of rejuvenation and asked us to come up with a solution.

Therefore, although rejuvenation is considered a type of brand reshaping, let’s discuss it in detail. The pace of development of the times is extremely fast, consumer concepts are constantly changing, new generations of consumers are emerging in waves, and the consumer needs and concepts of different generations of consumers are very different. Many big brands that were once glorious have been abandoned, and companies have encountered fatal problems such as brand aging, loss of core assets, and inability to attract young consumer groups. This makes many companies anxious. How to keep the brand evergreen, revitalize the brand, re-attract the attention of young people, and please young people has become a core issue in corporate marketing.

However, when it comes to rejuvenation, I think many people will ask a question: China has already entered an aging society, so why do brands still need to be rejuvenation? In today's lecture, we will start with this question to help everyone understand the value of rejuvenation.

1. The value and significance of rejuvenation

According to the United Nations, if a country's population aged 60 and above reaches 10% of the total population or the proportion of the population aged 65 and above reaches 7%, it is considered an aging country. According to the data of my country's seventh national census in 2020, the number of people aged 60 and above reached 264 million, accounting for 18.7%. In my country's 149 cities at the prefecture level and above, the proportion of people aged 65 and above also exceeded 14%, entering a state of deep aging.

The number of elderly people exceeds that of young people, so why should brands go for younger brands instead of older brands? In fact, brand rejuvenation is not just to capture the youth group, but has more value considerations.

1. Young people’s business imagination

People in their twenties are a critical period for a person to move from school to the workplace and society, and from individuals to forming a family. During this period, they have strong demands, such as buying a house, a car, and milk powder. Moreover, people in their twenties are the formative period of life, and the consumption habits formed at this time can last for decades. There is a concept in marketing called " customer lifetime value ", which refers to the total value contributed to the brand by the customer's continuous repurchase throughout his or her lifetime after the brand acquires the customer. Obviously, the lifetime value of young people is higher than that of the elderly.

For brands, it is also about acquiring customers. A young person may consume you for 40 years, but an elderly person may only consume you for a dozen years. Moreover, as they age and their lifestyles become more stable, the consumption needs and desires of the elderly will continue to decline.

For example, let's look at the wine industry. Liquor is the absolute mainstream of alcoholic beverages. In 2022, the total sales of Chinese alcoholic beverages reached 950.9 billion, of which liquor contributed 662.65 billion. The main consumers of liquor are middle-aged men, who have developed the habit of drinking liquor at an early age. And this taste preference is often deeply rooted and difficult to change. It is very difficult for a middle-aged person who is used to drinking liquor to switch to drinking foreign wine or red wine. Therefore, today's emerging wines can only set the goal of cultivating young people in marketing. For example, for foreign wines, Jägermeister vigorously promotes various exaggerated party-style drinking methods on Douyin, and "Death Jägermeister" and "Jägermeister Bomb" have become popular memes.

For example, Absolut Vodka is focusing on "Asia-Pacific culture". According to the 2021 China Whisky White Paper, among the whisky consumers in my country, Generation Z (people born between 1995 and 2009) account for 47% of the total number of users [1].

Young people do not have many opportunities to participate in business entertainment, so they do not drink frequently and the amount of alcohol consumed per time is not high. However, they represent the future. If a young person accepts whiskey, he or she may be a loyal consumer of foreign liquor for the next 20 years. The liquor industry has captured the current main consumer group, but this is also where its hidden worries lie. According to CCTV Market Research (CTR) data, in 2014, the average age of heavy liquor users was over 45 years old, with people over 45 accounting for 68.5%, and those under 45 accounting for only 31.5%. Among heavy users of beer, red wine, and foreign liquor, the proportion of people under 45 years old was 62.4%, 74.2%, and 92.7%, respectively[2].

For this group of middle-aged people, as they continue to grow older, various minor problems begin to appear in their physical examination reports, and their health awareness increases, so their consumption of liquor will inevitably decrease in quantity and frequency.

Therefore, the growth of the liquor industry in the past decade, like that of beer, has been achieved by reducing quantity and increasing prices. This is a structural growth, rather than a scale growth brought about by the influx of new populations.

How to attract young people to try and fall in love with baijiu is a challenge facing all baijiu brands. However, the good news is that from 2019 to 2021, the proportion of baijiu consumers under the age of 35 increased by 11%[3].

Young people have greater business imagination, and only by capturing young people can we capture the future. At the end of 2021, I once proposed a concept called " post-00s concept stocks ". At that time, if a brand captured the young consumer group, it would receive unimaginable capital valuation.

For example, Weilong’s valuation once reached 70 billion yuan, exceeding the combined market value of Qia Qia, Three Squirrels, and Bestore. Why is this so? On the one hand, it is based on Weilong’s market position and profit margin in the spicy snack field, and on the other hand, it is because Weilong’s consumer group is highly populated by young people.

According to Frost & Sullivan data, 95% of Weilong's consumers are 35 years old or younger, and 55% are 25 years old or younger. More than half of the consumers are born after 1995.

What a great business story it is that this group of young people can enjoy this business from childhood to adulthood.

Another example is Helen's, which was listed in Hong Kong in September 2021, with a market value of HK$20.8 billion. Why did Helen's become the first pub stock? Because it accurately targeted Generation Z. Since 2015, Helen's has defined itself as a " gathering space for young people ", designed product portfolios and pricing strategies for young people, located pubs in areas where young people gather, especially near university towns, and then promoted to young people, sponsoring large-scale events in more than 100 universities.

There is also Pop Mart, which went public in December 2020. Its market value once reached 100 billion yuan. This figure shocked the entire industry, not only driving the entrepreneurial boom of trendy toys and blind boxes, but also triggering collective madness in the investment community. The essence is the super strong grasp of trendy toys and blind boxes on Generation Z. Investors don’t understand what young people are thinking, but they want to invest in the second Pop Mart.

Therefore, in recent years, the market value of companies that involve Generation Z and have mysterious and high-end business concepts has been hyped up. Although the market value of the above companies has dropped sharply recently, business must be done step by step after all. However, it is undeniable that youth has great value and charm in the business world.

3. The consumption influence of young people

Wei Zhe, former CEO of Alibaba and founder of Joy Capital, once said: " Only when you penetrate 25-year-old women can your brand overflow ." Young people have the strongest consumption influence, and can influence people of other age groups and decide what their partners, children, parents and elders consume.

Specifically, a 25-year-old woman is in the best years of her life. She is in a bright rising period in the workplace three or four years after graduating from college. Her consumption preferences and lifestyle will become the common objects of imitation for teenagers and women in their thirties and forties, because girls want to become more mature and be like their older sisters; while middle-aged women hope to return to their youth, stay young forever, and stay in their twenties.

Such a woman will also influence the consumption outlook of the older generation at home and help her parents make purchasing decisions; when she is in love or married, she will also influence her partner’s consumption, and if she has a baby, she will also decide what the child consumes. Therefore, 25-year-old women are the key point connecting people of all ages.

When a brand focuses on young people, it does not mean that it ignores the elderly. Rather, if the brand can penetrate the young population, the consumption power of young people will naturally overflow to the middle-aged and elderly. Brands should always follow the consumption concepts and habits of young people. They are the driving force that leads consumption trends. Only by winning the young people can you win the world. At least from common sense, the elderly will buy brands for young people, but not for the elderly. For example, it is normal for the elderly to wear Anta or Li Ning shoes, but it would be strange for a young person to wear Zulijian.

In terms of consumption, middle-aged and elderly people will be influenced by young people, but young people are unlikely to be influenced by middle-aged and elderly people. This consumption radiation is one-way and irreversible.

3. The influence of young people’s words

Those born after 1985 are the natives of PC Internet, and those born after 1995 are the natives of mobile Internet. Young people are naturally accustomed to the Internet and are good at playing with it. They are proficient in various Internet technologies and media forms. Today, the main force of major Internet platforms is young people. The lifestyles favored by young people, such as camping, frisbee, hand-washing, City Walk, etc., will be paid attention to and hotly discussed by the whole nation; the words young people like to use will become social buzzwords and be imitated by the whole society; the idol artists favored by young people will become the focus of the whole nation and become the most popular stars; the values ​​of young people will influence the mainstream of society and become the mainstream; the brands favored by young people will become popular in society and be favored and followed by the whole nation...

Young people have the right to speak in public opinion and can influence and lead social culture. Middle-aged and elderly people will imitate young people's language habits, consumption habits and lifestyles.

4. Young people’s brand-building power

Brand rejuvenation is not just to attract young people, but more importantly to achieve brand longevity, constantly refresh the brand image, and maintain the brand's vitality and vitality. Many brands are specifically implementing youth marketing, but have you noticed that Nike and Coca-Cola never need any rejuvenation?

Because their brand appeals to the most basic human emotions and values, their advertisements have always been made for people around 20 years old, their spokespeople have always been the idol stars most loved by teenagers, and they often cross-border young people's subcultures for promotion, creating communication content that best suits young people's personality and lifestyle. Therefore, these brands give people the feeling that they are always full of vitality and always belong to young people.

No one can stay young forever, but there are always young people in this society. Only by following the young people forever can a brand ensure its longevity. Brands that do not pay attention to establishing communication with young people and do not update their user image and brand spirit in a timely manner will gradually be eliminated by time.

2. Misunderstandings and Root Causes of Rejuvenation

Although companies are now emphasizing the importance of young people, the industry's youth marketing is mostly superficial and repetitive. In their view, the so-called youth marketing is nothing more than hiring a popular celebrity to endorse, using more popular words and memes in advertising copy, cross-border two-dimensional IP, and cooperating with some resources such as Chinese style, Chinese comics, e-sports, electronic music, street dance, rap, extreme sports, etc. I have a summary of this. There are four common routines for brand rejuvenation: fresh spokespersons, personalized copywriting, cool visuals, and multi-dimensional promotion.

The first thing is to invite young and popular stars to endorse the brand. The second thing is that the brand appeals to the life attitudes of true self, individuality, and being yourself, and releases a 3-5 minute long declaration-style brand film, forcing consumers to value through long paragraphs of narration, and establishes some people who play musical instruments, love Hanfu, and play games as typical users, and tells them in the advertisement how they stick to their dreams, are unique, and are not understood by their families and the world...

The third thing is that the visual style has become more eye-catching and exaggerated, such as flattening the VI, colorful packaging, and nightclub-like terminals. There are two common styles, one is to develop towards colorful macaron colors (such as the recently popular dopamine outfit), and the other is to develop towards the minimalist cool style of black, white and gray.

The fourth thing is to promote dimensionalization. When many companies talk about youth, they mean sponsoring ACG resources, opening pop-up stores, creating anime-style brand IPs, releasing virtual idols and NFT digital collections, etc.

When many companies talk about rejuvenation, they start the marketing activities mentioned above, thinking that this will open up the young people's market and young people will fall in love with them, but in fact these are just superficial rejuvenation.

Although the company has spent a lot of money to make the visual style and promotional effects very fancy, the product and brand core are still the same old things, which are incompatible with the spirit of young people and are completely different. Such rejuvenation has no practical effect.

After Nutri-Express was launched in 2004, it quickly became a super single product under Wahaha. In 2013, its sales reached a record high of 20 billion, becoming one of the best-selling single beverage products in China. But then Nutri-Express lost ground, falling to 8.4 billion in 2016. The reasons for its decline are nothing more than consumption upgrading and the rise of a new generation. Nutri-Express, which has remained unchanged for many years, has fallen behind. The original high-end nutritional drink has now become cheap and tacky, and consumers are aesthetically fatigued. Facing a number of new Internet celebrity drinks, Nutri-Express has also lost its competitiveness.

In 2018, Nutri-Express began to operate in a younger manner. Specific measures include:

1. Make a fuss about the bottle and release a colorful packaging design;
2. Pop-up stores were opened in Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Wuhan to create "Nutri-Express Color Rooms" and launch limited edition makeup palettes across industries;
3. The brand appeal was changed to "You are good enough" and an attitude video advertisement was launched, telling young people to respond to external doubts with a positive, brave and self-confident attitude.

Since then, in 2020, Nutri-Express has also crossed over to "Douluo Continent" to launch low-sugar flavored yogurt drinks, and exclusively sponsored the CCTV national style variety show "Go Online! Colorful Boys".

In March 2021, with the popularity of the online martial arts drama "Word of Honor", the company officially announced the dual spokesperson lineup of Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan.

Attitude copywriting, colorful packaging, pop-up stores, cross-border marketing, and endorsements by young and handsome men are the standard practices of Nutri-Express to implement brand rejuvenation. However, when it comes to the brand itself, Nutri-Express still has many problems to be solved, such as product aging, lack of new products, and packaging design that has remained unchanged for hundreds of years.

The brand communication focuses on the functional level and has been repeating for many years: "Nutri-Express, Nutri-Express, Nutri-Express, pure juice, fragrant milk, 15 kinds of nutrients in one go, drink a bottle for breakfast, and you will be energetic all morning."

The brand lacks connotation and has not established a unique image and lifestyle. “You are good enough” is just an empty slogan that has nothing to do with the product or consumers.

Sales channels are solidified in third- and fourth-tier cities and town markets, and the marketing model is outdated; especially in Nutri-Express advertisements, the characters have remained unchanged for many years as fourth-tier white-collar workers, and the consumption scenarios are old-fashioned and even fake at first glance.

What kind of white-collar worker would hold up a Nutri-Express bar to greet colleagues in the office? What kind of mother would take the initiative to give Nutri-Express to her children for breakfast? And what kind of couple would use Nutri-Express to express their love?

Although I highly recommend scenario-based advertising, the plots and plots of Nutri-Express in workplace, parent-child, dating and other scenarios are too abrupt and shocking. So although each brand under Wahaha is vigorously promoting brand rejuvenation, the results are minimal and there is still a long way to go. Another example is Li Ning. In 2010, Li Ning launched a rejuvenation strategy and shouted out a groundbreaking slogan "Post-90s Li Ning". Li Ning Company was founded in 1990, and Li Ning used this to show that he is also a "post-90s" and stands with young people.

Subsequently, Li Ning launched a series of advertising copy to promote individual attitudes, such as "The path you arranged for me always makes me lost", "Don't always compare me with others", "It's not that I like to be different", "I just don't agree with the status quo", "You can't find a new continent by following the old map", etc., and directly stated "You don't understand the post-90s generation".

However, the post-90s generation did not buy into this flattering advertisement. Moreover, the oldest post-90s generation was only 20 years old at the time and was still studying. Their purchasing power could not keep up with Li Ning's price increases. What was even more fatal was that Li Ning also offended the main consumer group of the post-70s generation. At that time, more than half of Li Ning's customers were between 35 and 45 years old. Old customers left, new users did not come, and Li Ning, who was not doing well in business, encountered the overcapacity crisis of the entire sporting goods industry at that time . Starting in 2011, Li Ning's profits plummeted and its stock price also plummeted by 16%. In 2012, it suffered its first loss since its establishment, with an amount of 1.979 billion yuan. In the same year, Li Ning closed 1,800 stores, and its revenue fell by 24.6% year-on-year. It was surpassed by Anta and handed over the throne of China's number one sports brand.

Of course, there were many reasons for Li Ning's failure at that time, such as industry downturn, excessive inventory, pricing errors, blind high-end internationalization, failed corporate reforms, etc., but from a brand level, Li Ning's youth orientation also had big problems.

What young people really want is not superficial rebellion, coolness, or individuality, but to have their own views on the world, their own pace of life, and their own favorite careers and interests. Besides, it is difficult for today's young people to be rebellious and cool under the pressure of the workplace and social reality. Brands cannot replace real young people with their own imaginary young people. Many brands are shouting about rejuvenation, but they are doing marketing that is full of daddy flavor ; on the surface, they are posing to cater to young people, but in their bones they are full of arrogance. They always stereotype young people, think that young people will be like this and that, and tell young people how to act and how to think in brand marketing. This is exactly contrary to the original intention of brand rejuvenation, and it is nothing more than Ye Gong's love of dragons.

The deep-seated reasons behind these companies are:

First, companies do not really stand on the side of consumers. Many traditional companies appear to be to C, but in fact they are to B. They do not have actual contact with consumers during the sales promotion process. It is the dealers and retail stores that interact and trade with consumers.

Traditional CRM often becomes a pile of dusty A4 paper statistical tables with only last name, gender, and phone number. Companies do not really have consumer data and lack digital capabilities, so they do not understand consumers.

More importantly, these companies don't really care about consumers.

They only care about how their products are, but not what consumers want; they only care about whether consumers buy the products, but not why they buy them, in what scenarios they need to buy the products, and how to use the products; they only care about whether the marketing information reaches consumers, but not what they are thinking in their hearts and what the products mean to their lives.

This leads to the situation that when implementing rejuvenation, companies often start from the perspective of the client and only consider changes in visual image, but do not consider how to meet the personalized needs of young people, how to connect with their values, personality attitudes, and lifestyles. This will undoubtedly make rejuvenation become superficial.

Second, brand marketing is constrained by corporate culture and organizational structure. The work processes of many companies appear to be external, but in fact they are directed to superiors and internally. When doing marketing, they always say that they consider the interests and hobbies of young people, but in reality they consider the tastes and preferences of their superiors.

Moreover, the personnel structure of quite a number of companies is as follows: the boss was born in the 1960s, the senior management was born in the 1970s, the middle management was born in the 1980s and 1990s, and the grassroots were born in the 1995s and 2000s.

When I was in an advertising company, I often found that when making a plan, I communicated with young people at the grassroots level of the client, reported the proposal to middle-aged people at mid- to senior levels, but it was rejected and had to be modified according to their preferences; finally, the plan was reported to the company boss, but it was rejected because it did not conform to the aesthetics and concepts of the elderly. Brand work thus turned into rounds of repeated revisions.

Today we are facing a serious generational gap. Consumers of different generations have huge differences in concepts, behaviors, and lifestyles, and lack mutual understanding. When implementing rejuvenation, companies should lower their status and listen more to the voices of consumers and the ideas of young people on the front line of the company.

However, the internal work processes and corporate culture of many companies do not support this. When a company's marketing decisions must cater to the preferences of middle-aged and elderly people, there is no way for the company to become younger.

To impress young people, companies must truly stand on the side of consumers and must adapt to the corporate culture and organizational structure. It is easy to hire young and handsome endorsements, write social copy, play with visual design, and engage in cross-border cooperation, but it is extremely difficult to fundamentally innovate the brand experience and brand spirit, and rebuild corporate culture, work philosophy, and work processes.

3. Strategies and methods of rejuvenation

To truly make a brand younger, we must have a deeper understanding of young people’s needs and motivations, and their styles of doing things. Based on the psychology and behavior of young people, I would like to share with you three methods of rejuvenation and four principles that need to be paid attention to in actual work.

1. Three major methods of rejuvenation

Around the beginning of 2019, QQ Advertising released two research reports on young people, "Z Generation Consumption Power White Paper" and "2019 Z Generation Marketing Manual", which deeply analyzed the consumption trends of Generation Z and explored their three major consumption motivations: to please themselves, to establish a good image, and to socialize. Generation Z is gradually becoming the main force in the consumer market, and they have unique consumption concepts and behaviors of this generation. They are more pursuing to satisfy their immediate desires through shopping, explore their own style, and integrate into the circle and society.

Only by understanding the preferences of young people and engaging in self-pleasing consumption, sharing values ​​and digital social interaction can companies achieve rejuvenation and seize the future market.

(1) Self-pleasure consumption

Today's young people live in an era of abundance. During their growth period, the supply of goods has been extremely abundant, and the quality has generally improved significantly, so consumers have ample choices. Coupled with the rapid development of e-commerce and logistics, the world is at the fingertips of young people. In terms of lifestyle, they also have more choices in careers, cities, family models, and personal growth. In recent years, society has become more open and enlightened, supporting people to have their own lifestyles and have a wide range of self-expression. This has led to stratification of consumer demand, which has become more segmented and personalized.

In this age, products that can only meet basic functional needs and ensure basic quality can no longer meet the needs of young people.

Their consumption characteristics, in terms of consumption psychology, are more in favor of spending money to buy happiness, and consumption is the most direct way to gain happiness and satisfaction in the present. As long as the product meets the preferences of young people, they are willing to pay more money. Therefore, young people care more about getting a unique experience from consumption and having an experience they have never had before.

As the joke goes, when seeing a bottle of mineral water for 20 yuan, the older generation’s reaction would be “Why is water so expensive? Go home and drink it if you’re thirsty”, while the younger generation’s reaction would be “Why is water so expensive? Buy two bottles and try them.”

Compared with product functions, quality and design, young people pay more attention to the pleasure of using the product, the psychological satisfaction and the freshness of trying. In terms of purchasing behavior, they care more about buying early and enjoying early, and what you see is what you get. By owning the things they like, they feel the happy moments and instant beauty in life. Young people don't like to wait and delay satisfaction, and they are eager to fully enjoy every moment of their youth. In short, consumption must first please oneself.

Meituan's big data shows that in today's catering market, people born in the 1990s account for nearly half of the market, and people born in the 2000s are growing rapidly. The two together account for more than 60%.

Under the leadership of the new generation of consumers, today's catering industry shows a development trend of pursuing excitement, enjoyment and taste innovation. Sichuan and Hunan cuisine has swept the country, hot pot and barbecue have become mainstream categories, sauerkraut fish, grilled fish, spicy crab, crayfish, snail noodles have become star items, and new tea and coffee brands are emerging in an endless stream.

In the tea and dessert industry, there is a classic brand, Hui Lau Shan. In the early years, there was a popular saying in Hong Kong: "Which mountain is the most popular in Hong Kong? Hui Lau Shan is the most popular." It describes the grand occasion of Hui Lau Shan in Hong Kong. At its peak, there were as many as 55 stores in Hong Kong.

Relying on the influence of its reputation as a Hong Kong-style cuisine business card, Xu Liu Shan expanded rapidly after entering the mainland market in 2004. After 2012, it entered markets such as Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States, where it was also loved by consumers and opened over 300 stores worldwide.

After years of expansion, Hui Lau Shan declined. Now, all of its stores in Hong Kong have been closed, and its stores in mainland China have also closed down one after another. Among the four major cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, only one store is still operating in Beijing. The reasons for the failure are multifaceted.

For example, the company's equity has changed many times, resulting in unstable operations and strategic vacillation and hesitation in Xuliushan's operations; after opening stores for franchising, a large number of franchisees were introduced but the management and control were not in place, resulting in poor product quality control and even food safety problems, which greatly damaged the brand reputation; and the offline depression caused by the global epidemic in the past few years has exacerbated the corporate crisis, etc.

But I think the fundamental reason for Xuliushan's decline is the lack of innovation, old-fashioned products, and single taste, which has lost its appeal to young people. Losing customers is the fundamental reason for any business to fail.

You know, Xuliushan's former glory came from product innovation. It was originally a herbal tea seller. Starting in 1992, it innovatively combined mango with desserts based on Cantonese-style syrups, and developed products such as mango sago, mango sago, and mango pancakes, which won the favor of young people at the time.

At that time, Hui Lau Shan was a popular dating destination for the post-80s and post-90s generations, thanks to its Hong Kong-style desserts and romantic atmosphere. Gathering with friends at Hui Lau Shan to share desserts was also a fond memory of many people’s school days. The popular singing group Twins even wrote about it in a song: “Let’s visit Hui Lau Shan together. There is no need to distinguish between you and me.”[4]

But now, when you walk into a Xuliushan store, the main products are still the same ones from many years ago. There are almost no differences between the different products, only the arrangement and combination of small ingredients are different.

Faced with today's consumers with changing tastes and a competitive environment where new tea brands are conquering the market, traditional dessert shops are collectively heading for the sunset. This is not only the fate of Hui Lau Shan, but also the fate of Honeymoon Dessert and Fresh Taro. Fresh Taro has also fallen into the dilemma of closing stores year after year, with a net closure of more than 20 stores in 2021 alone; the number of Honeymoon Dessert stores has also dropped sharply from more than 500 to less than 200.

Today's new brands must be bold in innovation, have a wide variety of product flavors, and have novel and innovative brand events in order to capture the hearts of young people.

In May this year, Baiyang teamed up with Douyin e-commerce to launch the "Super Fragrant Coriander Noodles". This Douyin limited flavor product sold 40,000 boxes on the first day of sale. 4,000 people queued in the live broadcast room to grab it, and all the stocks were sold out.

The inspiration for Baiyang to launch this product comes from the fact that "coriander" is a hot topic among netizens. The #cilantro topic has been played more than 4 billion times on Douyin, but there are actually not many coriander-related products.

So White Elephant launched a new product at the right time, giving away 5 whole corianders in the product, creating an ultimate taste feast for coriander lovers. Eating coriander all at once not only makes people super satisfied, but also triggers the collective craze of coriander lovers.

(Check-in from this coriander party)

In the promotion of this new product, Baixiang highlighted coriander in the product name and packaging design to create a strong visual impact. Offline, a pop-up store was built in Dongshankou, Guangzhou, and interesting contents such as identification of coriander lovers, coriander physique test, coriander protection oath, and coriander lucky signs were designed based on the coriander theme to attract users to check in and experts to visit the store.

Online, Baixiang cooperated with Douyin influencers to promote the product in various ways through live broadcasts. Moreover, “cilantro” is a topic that the cilantro lovers and anti-cilantro lovers enjoy fighting over, which successfully created topics and attracted traffic. While the product was popular, people felt the youth and vitality of Baixiang, achieving a breakthrough in its brand image.

This is marketing promotion that pleases consumers. Creating a more pleasant brand experience through product innovation and content marketing is my consistent point of view when writing about experience brands, brand upgrades and other topics, and it is also the key to impressing contemporary consumers. More and more industries are developing products and building brands with the help of sensory experience injection.

In March 2022, Liby launched its high-end sub-brand "Master Fragrance". This series of products is jointly produced by Liby and French perfume master and creator of J'adore perfume Calice Becker. It uses French spices, adds precious essential oils, and is derived from the same origin as big-name perfumes.

In addition to the basic functions of color protection, stain removal, and softening clothes, the core selling point of Master Fragrance Laundry Detergent is that it has rich, unique and advanced fragrance, and can make clothes retain fragrance for 72 hours through microcapsule friction fragrance technology.

When Liby created the "Master Fragrance", it defined its brand as "a French professional master-level clothing fragrance laundry brand that provides young women with a fragrance laundry experience", and its brand proposition is "to make every detail in life full of the ritual sense and small happiness of romantic fragrance".

The brand's tone is romantic and free, sunny and lively, and French and exquisite.

It can be seen that the entire brand structure is centered on pleasing consumers and enhancing the sensory experience.

And it has indeed captured the hearts of consumers. Data shows that the shipment of Master Fragrance Laundry Detergent exceeded 100 million yuan three months after its launch. It also won the 2022 Jiaren 100 Awards "Annual Trendy Fragrance Explosive Product", the 2022 Fashion COSMO Beauty Awards, and the 2023 Tmall Golden Makeup Award for the Super New Product of the Year, and was listed on Tmall's praise list, repurchase list, 520 hot-selling list, 618 hot-selling list and other lists, dominating the list for 230 days a year.

Liby was an important client of my previous company. At the end of October 2021, I helped Liby's marketing department with training to share the annual marketing inventory and future consumption trends. The theme of my sharing at that time was called "The Advance of Generation Z", and the content was the three points discussed in this article: self-pleasing experience, integration and conflict of diverse values, and digital social interaction.

In the section on self-pleasing consumption, I talked about the trend of fragrance in the field of washing and skin care. The olfactory economy is on the eve of an explosion, and I cited brands such as Guanxia, ​​Smell Library, Adolf, and Costine. Smell Library had a revenue of 480 million in 2019, with an annual compound growth rate of more than 65%; Guanxia's WeChat subscriptions reached millions, with a repurchase rate of 60%; Costine sold 10 million petal shower gels in 2020 with natural real petals or even whole flowers.

Focusing on pleasant sensory experience is becoming the key to creating new brands and gaining new growth, and has driven the rise of a large number of new brands. At that time, I analyzed the Adolf case in detail for Liby and suggested that they seize the trend of fragrance to develop products.

Adolf's shampoo market is similar to laundry detergent, which is a category with all the basic functions. Laundry detergent has functions of decontamination, sterilization, clothing protection, color protection, and smoothness, while shampoo has functions of anti-dandruff, smoothness, fluffy, repair, nutrition, styling, black hair, and anti-hair loss.

Head & Shoulders used to focus on dandruff removal, while Clear focused on men’s dandruff removal. But now Head & Shoulders has evolved from hair washing to scalp care, and its appeal has changed to “dandruff removal and scalp care, of course Head & Shoulders”.

In addition to functional segmentation, there are also hair quality segmentation and ingredient segmentation, such as Ziyuan, which focuses on silicone-free shampoo, Zhiguan, which focuses on amino acid shampoo, as well as hyaluronic acid shampoo, niacinamide shampoo, etc., and each segment option has a representative brand. So how did Adolf rise?

The answer is "high-end fragrance shampoo and conditioner". It uses the original "essential oil five-sense fragrance" and 48-hour professional fragrance retention technology to make the shampoo as long-lasting as perfume. In March this year, Adolf launched a new series of emotional fragrance products, which not only care for hair but also heal emotions.

Since its launch in 2013, Adolf's sales have exceeded 10 billion since 2018, and now it has exceeded 15 billion. It has been the number one brand of domestic hair care products for several consecutive years, and has even defeated strong brands such as Head & Shoulders and Rejoice in the Chinese market. Hair care products are upgrading from basic functional segmentation to self-pleasing consumption. In fact, most consumers do not need so many segmented functions. They just want to wash their hair clean and enjoy the feeling during and after shampooing. Adolf uses fragrance to open up a new space in the red ocean market of shampoo, occupy a new price range, and become a representative of high-end hair care products.

Fragrance is an experience of self-pleasure, not a segmented function.

Among the cleaning products sold in JD Supermarket in 2022, the annual GMV of high-end shampoos increased by 78% year-on-year, of which products priced above RMB 200 accounted for as much as 95%[5]. From the perspective of consumer groups, Generation Z is the backbone of high-end cleaning products.

A lot of Adolf's marketing activities are aimed at young people, such as signing young actor Bai Jingting as the brand spokesperson and creating the marketing topic of "The Mystical Beasts from the Classic of Mountains and Seas Join Adolf";

Cooperating with Tmall Campus, we have built pop-up pavilions in famous universities such as Tsinghua University, Sun Yat-sen University, and Xiamen University;

Advertisements were placed on the bus shelters along a sightseeing bus route in Guangzhou to create a romantic love story called “13 kilometers long of heart-throb”.

Data from Xiaohongshu shows that from 2021 to 2022, the #PerfumeLaundryDetergent topic had 31.55 million views and a 561% increase in searches. Fragrance experience has become an increasingly important factor influencing the decision-making of young people[6].

(A note about perfume and laundry detergent gives 520,000 likes)

Adolf and Master Libai fragrance both grasp the most important needs of young people to please themselves, achieve high-end and achieve new growth. In fact, laundry detergent and shampoo are daily basic products in life. Only by integrating into experience can products play a greater role in people's lives, from basic models to important embellishments in life , and brands can achieve personalized and high-end development.

Whether it is a brand that needs to be high-end or younger, strengthening the experience is a key link, because there is a big overlap between high-end and young people. Young people pay more attention to sensory pleasure, emotional value, and pursuing a sense of ritual. The consumption concept develops from pragmatism to self-pleasing mentality, and is more able to accept upgraded products and high-end brands.

Although there have been many voices of downgrading consumption in recent years, everyone should remember an old saying: " It is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but it is difficult to go from extravagance to frugality ." When consumers adapt to products with higher quality and better experience, it is difficult to go back to the past. This is due to human nature.

Today, the so-called downgrade of many people is actually a decrease in consumption, not a qualitative decline. If the consumption decreases, then when choosing a brand, you should naturally choose more carefully and buy a brand that suits you and you also like, instead of considering buying a brand that is a bit famous like in the past.

(2) The values ​​are the same

The second biggest consumption motivation for young people is consumption for their personality. Because they are at the age of knowing themselves and understanding themselves. For consumers of this age, thinking clearly about "who am I" and "who I want to be" is one of the most important questions in life, no doubt. In the contemporary era, consumption is exploring a powerful way to prove its own style and prove its existence.

Young people experience different lifestyles through buying, buying, buying, buying, trying different personal styles, and finding the style that suits them best, thereby completing self-shaping and establishing personal personality.

In terms of consumption, this is specifically manifested as:

First, be willing to invest in your interests.

Finding one's own interests is an important way for young people to define themselves. For example, animation, e-sports, music, idols, extreme sports, etc., are all marked as self-expression by young people.

For young people, they are the source of happiness, self-affirmation, the meaning and embodiment of life, and are also given social functions, and are the stepping stones to help young people integrate into the circle.

Therefore, purchasing products and brands related to the interest field can deepen the research on interests for young people, strengthen their personal label and image, and enhance their position in the circle.

Because young people have a wide range of interests and hobbies, there are more opportunities and channels for brands to reach and attract consumers. Many brands will combine some niche interest circles to find relevant resources to cooperate, and carry out cross-border marketing and vertical marketing, such as co-branding with e-sports IP, sponsoring rap street dance and other programs, etc., to better enhance young people's attention to the brand and willingness to plant grass.

However, this kind of promotion is not only on the surface, but only prints the logo of the co-branded IP on its own products or designs a special packaging, but also integrates the product and brand core. For example, Li Ning mentioned above, "Li Ning born in the 1990s" cannot impress the post-90s generation, but since he appeared at New York Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week in 2018 and appeared on the international catwalk, this time, the post-90s generation really paid the bill. Li Ning returned to the attention of consumers, and sales and market value rose sharply.

Because "Li Ning born in the 1990s" is still a slogan based on the Party A's thinking, just like a crappy middle-aged man trying to please the young man and his sister. Li Ning, who carried the banner of national trend, truly understands the style and personality that young people want, and understands what people want to express.

Therefore, Li Ning began to design products and brands based on national style fashion and initiate various marketing actions.

In terms of product design, a large number of Chinese elements such as mountains, water, ink, and printing are integrated into the design of products, shows and stores. A classic replica of the Chinese Olympic award-winning suit with the "Tomato Scrambled Egg" color scheme. The old photos of Li Ning holding a big brother making a phone call when he was young were printed on the clothes. A pair of popular shoes, ACE was hyped up to a high price of 3,000 yuan...

In terms of brand, Li Ning once changed the English slogan "make the change" for internationalization, and now Li Ning has returned to "China Li Ning" and adopted the LOGO design of traditional fonts and seals to re-activate the slogan "Everything is possible". In terms of promotion, Li Ning signed the GAI champion of "China Has Hip Hop" and launched a joint sneaker; and released a customized shoe model "Leshi Wudu" with rap brand GOSH

It also acquired the old e-sports team Snake and changed its name to Li Ning E-sports Club, known as LNG. The club's new logo uses the ancient divine beast Qilin. Li Ning also created a sub-brand, such as the trendy e-sports brand Li Ning LNG, etc.

Compared with the simplicity and rudeness of the "post-90s Li Ning" back then, this time Li Ning also spent more time to cater to young people. Coupled with the cultural background of China's rise and national confidence, Li Ning was a great success.

Second, they are willing to pay for their values. Young people are eager to create self-expression and strengthen their self-cognition. When they consume, they will pay more attention to whether the brand has no bonus on individuals. Whether the concept and culture of brand promotion are in line with their own values.

A study by The Economist shows that 79% of millennials (born between 1980 and 1995) are more willing to pay for companies with clear social issues, and young people support their recognized values ​​through consumption. If their values ​​are not consistent, young people will not only refuse to buy, but even speak out to boycott them.

In early 2021, Kotler Consulting found marketing experts and corporate executives to predict annual marketing trends and explore the biggest challenges facing corporate marketing in 2021. The answer I gave at that time was: conflict of diverse values.

Based on the complexity of the international political and economic situation and the post-00s generation has begun to appear on the social stage, under such an environment, enterprises must be more careful and pay attention to their own business behaviors and marketing promotions, otherwise it will easily cause risks and crises. Conflicts of diversified values ​​are the biggest challenge and annual hot spots of contemporary marketing.

Looking back at the major marketing events in recent years, you will find that most brands have failed and crisis public relations are values ​​conflicts. The concepts or cultures promoted by companies are inconsistent with the mainstream values ​​of young people, which has caused controversy and boycotts, especially topics involving high concerns such as gender, workplace, and national consciousness .

Therefore, it is very important for corporate marketing to be in the same frequency as the user's values, output communication content that conforms to the spirit and personality of young people, and keep it consistent with the lifestyle of young people. Like the Johnnie Walker mentioned in "Brand 30 Lectures: 21 | Integrated Brand Communication", its brand proposition has been adjusted from "always forward" to "joy in it and take a step further". In fact, the reason behind it is that young people are not interested in the values ​​of hard work, and are not interested in the spiritual chicken soup where persistence is victory and struggle can succeed, and instead impress young people through love and fun.

Many brands want consumers to participate in their marketing activities, forward marketing information, and provide consumers with some incentive measures. However, many young people will not forward the company's small gifts like the previous consumer.

On the contrary, they will consider whether the brand information I forwarded is in line with and affect my image. If there is a conflict between the two, they will not forward it even if the prize is provided. If the brand information can strengthen the consumer's personality, they will forward it actively without the prize.

If a brand can bring strong identity and value recognition to consumers, then consumers will be willing to become loyal fans of the brand, establish active connections with the brand, and regard the brand as a symbol of their personality and capital for showing off, helping the brand to promote and spread. In contrast, many brainwashing advertisements now use exaggerated and vulgar language and visual effects to successfully attract consumers' attention and be discussed by people, but they often do not conform to the consumer's personality image and value concepts. Therefore, although these advertisements have increased brand awareness in the short term and stimulated sales, in the long run, there is no positive bonus for the brand, and even play a negative role, making a large number of consumers turn black. This is called losing money to make a profit, and losing a brand to make a profit.

However, value communication is not instilling and preaching to consumers, but through the output of brand content, allowing consumers to understand and freely explore the spirit expressed by the brand, and resonate with the brand in the process of perception. For example, Burberry, a classic British luxury brand with a century-old history. Many people will think of its classic plaids and windbreakers when they mention it. This is a good thing, but it is also a bad thing. Since 2013, Burberry, which adheres to tradition, has been deeply trapped in the quagmire, and its growth has stagnated, and then it has begun to firmly follow the path of brand rejuvenation.

It is the first luxury brand to carry out social media marketing, has opened accounts such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., and has broadcast the catwalk online live.

In 2018, Burberry replaced former Givenchy creative director Riccardo Tisci, a designer known for his darkness, subversiveness and avant-garde nature. Under his leadership, he significantly innovated his brand image and changed his brand logo.

In November 2020, Burberry launched its first advertising short film "Future Youth Creativity" for its rejuvenating brand.

This short film pays tribute to the classic movie "Song in the Rain", where four dancers in Burberry jackets dance in the huge hail falling all over the sky, performing a romantic and vibrant contemporary dance music full of surreal fun.

In October 2021, Burberry released its second short film "Open Spaces".

In the film, four young people broke free from the constraints of gravity and flew freely over rice fields, forests and lakes, as they pleased, reflecting the willingness to embrace freedom and nature.

In October 2022, the third short film "Night Creatures" arrived as scheduled.

Three young people discussing science fiction movies on the night bus suddenly encountered unknown creatures. People flew around, but the three of them tried to contact this giant creature suspected to be from the outer star. The three were driven by the giant tentacles of the creatures to float in the air, and took advantage of the opportunity to dance lightly, and were intoxicated by the gentle moonlight of the Thames. The whole film has a yearning for the unknown and the joy of exploring.

All three short films, created by creative agency Megaforce and production company RiffRaff Films, are known as Burberry's free exploration trilogy.

From dancing with hail, to flying with the wind, to dancing with alien creatures, the three short films all use the form of dance, which makes people feel that Burberry embraces the brand spirit of freedom, exploration of the unknown, adventure, fearless and interesting, and establishes cultural identity with young people. Moreover, they are full of imagination, with a magnificent and fantastic visual style, beautiful, and extremely appealing to consumers (don’t just listen to my description, you must watch the original film). These three short films make people feel the youth and vitality of the century-old brand, and perfectly complete the brand’s strategic tasks. Therefore, I call them Burberry’s brand youthful trilogy.

The luxury industry should pay more attention to brand building, but luxury advertising is rarely done well. Most advertisements are hard photos of celebrity supermodels, accompanied by product close-ups, unknown blockbuster scenes, or the previous sentence of abstract and empty copywriting, with tone, non-creative, lack of communication with consumers at the heart level. It relies more on the brand's own history, bloodline and handicraft to support luxury and attract consumers to buy.

Good luxury advertising, Patek Philippe's heirloom series is one, LV's travel series is the first, and Burberry's series is also called classic in terms of brand strategy, creativity and production.

(3) Digital social networking

The last major consumption motivation for young people is socialization. The young people have a more lively personality, a more open and inclusive mentality, and hope that they can explore the world freely. To be more specific, they love to play and are more good at playing. They like social ways that can play and communicate with the brand in an equal manner.

Therefore, today's brand marketing must be more playful, thinking about what young people think, saying what young people say, and more importantly, playing with young people.

On the other hand, Gen Z youth live in a living environment wrapped in various electronic products. The Internet is prone to erosion of intimate relationships in reality. In addition, the proportion of only children among them is high, so they have a strong sense of loneliness and a stronger social need.

They are eager to form online and offline social circles through common interests, hobbies, common language methods, and common behavioral patterns, gain the sense of identity of others and the sense of belonging to the group.

Consumption is a pass to help young people integrate into the circle. It allows young people to have the same products as their peers, attract friends with common interests and like-mindedness, and become common topics among friends, thereby better maintaining social relationships.

Therefore, brand marketing needs to meet the needs of young people for social interaction. Products and communication content need more topicality, providing consumers with capital for discussion and social interaction, thereby establishing a stronger sharing willingness and expanding brand influence.

In addition, among the group, people need to continue to show themselves and seek a sense of existence in the circle. Young people are afraid that they will be out of date and are therefore excluded by their peers, so they value the popularity of the brand more. There is a concept in the Internet era called " Fear of Missing Out" ("FOMO"), which specifically refers to the anxiety of always worrying about losing or missing something.

People's mood is particularly amplified by overwhelming social networks and the constant beating and flashing information prompts in various communities, and decisions and emotions in daily life are very easily affected.

Therefore, for brands, they must constantly stand at the forefront of fashion and create hot topics and topics. If brands are considered outdated by people, they will be sentenced to death in the minds of young people.

Digital survival has become a common lifestyle for young people, and brands must therefore establish digital social interactions with young people. Overall, there are several ways:

1. Content Marketing and Social Media
2. Cross-border marketing
3. Avatar
4. Create social trends

a. Content marketing and social media

Young people have strong curiosity and curiosity, and more diverse and unique interests. They prefer novel, unique, vivid and interesting, rich visual effects, immersive, and emotional reactions. For brand marketing, if you want to attract young people, you must create content with memes, interesting and topical content, pure functional publicity and cognitive education, which cannot arouse their interest. The importance of sensory pleasure is not only reflected in products, but also in content consumption.

Moreover, the Z generation people are active in their own circles, and 65% of the Z generation want to have a common language with their friends. If the brand can create high-quality content, it will not only attract young people, but also inspire them to communicate and recommend them to each other with their friends, becoming a common topic of chat. " Content + social " has become today's brand communication link. Brands should do a good job in content construction, make good use of social media and social interaction, implant themselves into the social occasions of young people, stimulate users' independent communication, and establish brand stickiness, guide and accelerate users' purchasing decisions.

In recent years, KFC has become a popular phenomenon on Thursdays. Every Thursday, KFC jokes are indispensable in various WeChat groups, and most of these jokes are spontaneously created by users. The massive amount of content and community interaction methods have helped KFC create huge voices and frequently appear in the public eye.

McDonald's, which has been seeking to fight back, responded to this by launching the "Maimen".

"Maimen" is a meme derived from the Christian "Amen". It compares McDonald's to religion in a humorous and joking way to express the meaning of believing in McDonald's. As a result, "Maimen" became the abbreviation of "McDonald's Faithful Disciple" and is regarded as the combination of McDonald's and Golden Arches.

The initial "Maimen" was a spontaneous play with memes. In 2022, a batch of notes about "Maimen Code" appeared on Xiaohongshu. It is said that "Maimen" was noted in McDonald's takeaway orders, indicating their identity, and they could get a few extra chips. Although many people do not believe that this will really happen, they began to imitate and place orders with the mentality of games, and occasionally get gifts from McDonald's stores, which made such notes quickly become popular and become a hot search.

Since then, "Maimen" has gradually derived a series of content such as various text jokes, maimen packages, funny videos, etc., and gradually spread to major platforms, showing a spark of fire. So at the end of 2022, McDonald's official official officially claimed "Maimen", began to frequently mention Maimen and official work, promoting the development of Maimen literature.

For example, collecting Maimen literary memes on Weibo, publishing Maimen emoticon packages, forwarding the advertising song "McDonald's Infinite Good", publishing McDonald's Guide "McDonald's: What Doors?" on B.S., and publishing "Maimen Maimen, What Is Maimen?" on the official website, popularizing science and participating in the creation of Maimen.

When "playing with memes" is becoming a necessity for contemporary young people and a necessity for social interaction. Brands participating in making memes and playing with memes in person has become a key link in younger marketing. Good memes can not only generate a large amount of social content, enrich the connotation and three-dimensionality of the brand, but also achieve resonance with young people, trigger collective participation and carnival, and help brands successfully integrate into user groups and social culture. There is even a chance to become a unique asset of the brand.

McDonald's uses humorous attitude and belief calls to call on users to participate in brand marketing actions, and uses "Maimen" to create an independent discourse system, allowing young people to use Maimen literature to express their voices and likes and dislikes, seek recognition and similar groups on the Internet, becoming a classic youthful marketing case.

Today, brand building must be more dramatic. Product packaging design should be bright, unique, communication should be more melodious, brand attitudes and opinions should be clearer and sharper, interactions with consumers should be bolder, and innovative. Only by playing with content and social interaction with users can we effectively enter the young people.

b. Cross-border marketing

Cross-border marketing is another form of content that quickly creates topical content. It has two ways of playing: one is to play by yourself, get rid of the limitations of the original business scope, and launch products and content to new fields; the other is to play with other brands, launch co-branded products, and jointly carry out marketing promotion.

Many brands are keen on cross-border activities. The purpose is to use the resources and advantages of other brands to open up their own market space and improve their brand image. More importantly, it is to activate young people and make consumers feel that the brand is interesting, fun and friendly.

To do a good cross-border marketing, the core is to form contrast, create impossible, or enter areas that are completely inseparable, or combine two brands that are incompatible with each other. In short, it will make people exclaim, "Wow, it's possible? This brand is really good at playing!"

First of all, you have to "do not do your job" when playing. For example, Lao Ganma launched a hooded sweatshirt, Big White Rabbit milk candy and sells milk candy and lip balm, Moutai sells ice cream, Luzhou Laojiao creates perfume, Fulinmen has makeup remover oil, and KFC has sunscreen and nail polish;

Tongrentang opened a cafe called Zhima Health and launched drinks such as Luohan Fruit, wolfberry latte, motherwort rose latte; Ma Yinglong, a brand of hemorrhoid cream, has launched lipstick, eye cream, diapers and other products.

For example, China Post opened its first pharmacy "China Post Pharmacy" in 2019, launched its milk tea shop "Yuan Tea" in 2021, and the first direct-operated coffee shop "Post Office Coffee" in 2022, and will be opened in major cities one after another.

Some friends may ask, those strange products launched by these brands are really bought and bought by stores that are opened across the border. Are there anyone visiting them? In fact, cross-border marketing is not first of all a product behavior, not for sales, but for advertising. It is mainly for communication , and it is to create topics through cross-border creation, attract consumers to pay attention, talk, try to buy and share check-in, thereby creating their own traffic.

For example, Tongrentang sells coffee mainly to attract traffic, and the main sales of health care and other medical services in the store are still selling health care services; while China Post is to use a series of cross-border gameplay to arouse heated discussions in society, return to consumers' attention, and change the postal image of old-fashioned, old-fashioned and serious in people's minds, becoming trendy, playful, lively, and full of vitality, thus revitalizing the brand and turning the brand into a high-value IP.

For example, the US Postal Service will cooperate with many fast-moving consumer goods and clothing brands to sell official authorized goods, and its annual retail sales of IP authorized goods reach US$200 million.

Moreover, these cross-border operations can also allow postal services to explore new companionship scenarios in consumers' lives, rebuild user relationships, and regain the sense of companionship for hundreds of millions of families in addition to simple logistics business.

Secondly, when joining other brands, you must "make a couple randomly". When doing cross-border marketing, companies should not blindly choose other brands with similar styles and similar product attributes to their own, but should boldly combine them and match impossible two brands together. Only with a strong contrast effect can people be impressed.

Only by having brains and topics can people find it interesting and willing to pay attention and discuss it.

This contrast can be a difference in brand style or industry attributes, such as old and new, cold and warm, hard and soft...

In September 2019, Luzhou Laojiao and Zhong Xuegao jointly launched the "Small" ice cream, turning the difficult-to-frozen 52-degree white wine into an ice cream sandwich. The contrast between ice cream and liquor has sparked heated discussions online. If it were replaced by ice cream and milk tea brands, the attention would not be so high.

In March 2022, China Post and Xiaodu jointly created an intelligent experience store. The store includes traditional customized postal products and postcards, as well as Xiaodu's headphones, smart screens, smart fitness mirrors and other high-tech products. The combination of tradition and newcomers is refreshing.

For example, the pre-mixed bartender brand Ruio RIO jointly launched a pre-mixed bartender with Liushen in 2018. 17,000 bottles were sold out in one minute, and 5,000 bottles were sold in 17 seconds. In 2019, it launched a pre-mixed bartender with Heroes, which once again attracted high attention and discussion;

In 2020, it will jointly launch a peach-flavored fruit tea with Lele Tea, which looks much more normal.

In 2021, RIO and Bawang Shampoo launched a joint gift box, which includes two bottles of pre-mixed bartenders, one bottle of shampoo, and a customized hairline measuring ruler. This wave of promotion is themed "I wish you to survive without baldness". It focuses on the topic of hairline with high attention, and sends care and blessings to the working people who work overtime and stay up late to lose their hair, catering to young people and gaining a wave of love.

RIO's cross-border gameplay, the combination of pre-mixed bartenders, shampoos, and ink is a random match. The painting style is clear and the mind is open, which makes people feel quite novel and outrageous. Therefore, these cross-border gameplay are constantly being discussed and fermented on social media, becoming a screen-level case. If mature products want to rejuvenate and revitalize their brand image, they can find more new brands to cross-border.

For example, in February 2022, the sanitary napkin brand Hushubao and the well-known game IP Honor of Kings carried out joint marketing, borrowing classic characters and lines from the game to launch a joint series of products, inviting professional e-sports players and well-known Cosers to create "Canyon Immersive Live Broadcast", and also created a marketing theme "Protect Our Sisters".

Hushubao uses this to bring closer distance to young girls, encourage them to be as confident, brave and shining as the hero they like, and win brand recognition.

In 2020, on the 30th anniversary of the men's clothing brand Seppellwolves jointly launched a cross-border gift box with the new high-quality coffee brand Yongpu, presenting the daily life of the "wolf-type youth" in the coffee town and showing the brand's understanding of the "taste of 30". Yongpu's consumer group is mainly young people aged 18-35, and attracting young consumer bodies and revitalizing the brand image is the purpose of Seppellwolves to implement this cross-border marketing.

There is also the old domestic product Liushen Hualu mentioned above, which has also carried out cross-border marketing with a large number of brands or IPs, such as RIO, Lele Tea, INXX, Anta, Disney, Zuige Niang, etc. This is not only to activate the vitality of the brand, form a topic effect, and make people talk more about the brand, but also to achieve a younger, revitalize the image and enter the young consumer market. At the same time, this series of cross-borders can also help Liushen gradually transform into a lifestyle brand with herbs as the core.

c. Virtual Avatar

Virtual images are another social gameplay that interacts with young people and establishes relationships. It can quickly open up the dimension wall of Generation Z because the two-dimensional world has a strong attraction to Generation Z, and they can complement their lack of emotional needs in reality.

In 2021, digital person AYAYI officially debuted on Xiaohongshu with a personal image, and was loved by young people as soon as it was launched. The number of views of this first post reached 3 million, and it increased by nearly 40,000 fans overnight. It has gained 110,000 likes and 14,000 collections so far.

AYAYI, which is loved by many people, has quickly become popular on major platforms and has been favored by brands. It received a cooperation invitation from Guerlain France since it was born to participate in its summer "Honey" garden event check-in; in September it became the chief noise cancellation experience officer of the professional audio brand Bose; even joined Alibaba and became the digital manager officially announced by "Tmall Super Brand Day". This virtual idol has now become an important carrier of corporate marketing and a key link for brands to establish social and connective relationships with consumers.

Many companies have begun to cooperate with popular digital people, or simply create their own virtual idols as the personality embodiment of their brand image and personality.

For Generation Z, as natives of the Internet, they have no barriers to accept virtual idols. Therefore, creating virtual image has become one of the core measures for brand rejuvenation.

Two old domestic products like Pechoin and Centennial Runfa have successively chosen Digital Human Ling_LING as the spokesperson, and Natural Hall also chose AYAYI as the spokesperson.

In November 2022, Li Bai also officially announced that Yuanyun singer-songwriter "Li Xubai" was the brand virtual spokesperson, which became the first time in the entire Jiaqing industry.

The purpose of these practices is to create more interaction with young people, and at the same time refresh the brand image, making themselves more fashionable and futuristic. For brands who are determined to layout the metaverse, they should now consider creating their own virtual idols and grasping the hearts of Generation Z consumers in advance. Of course, virtual image is just a form, and the ultimate goal is to interact with young people and enter the social circle of young people.

Create social trends

In May this year, Heytea x FENDI's joint drink "Joy Huang Special Tune" flooded the Internet, attracting countless people to buy and check in and post, forming a collective carnival, and Heytea's ordering system was down for this reason.

After this incident, there was a voice on the Internet that in this joint marketing, Heytea won the game and FENDI suffered a lot. The price of the 19 yuan per cup lowered the brand tone of FENDI and turned it from a high-end luxury product to a road product.

In fact, according to this article, it is this combination of high-end and popular that creates a strong topic effect. There are many similar joint behaviors, such as Karl Lagerfeld and KFC have promoted joint packages, Alexander Wang has jointly issued a handbag at McDonald's, Hermes has jointly established Starbucks, Coach has jointly established a big white rabbit milk candy, etc. Moreover, joint branding is an advertising behavior rather than a product behavior. This limited, one-time, abnormal sales joint product will not impact the brand price system and affect its value perception.

From this cross-border marketing, FENDI not only gained a large number of potential customers among Heytea’s 68 million members, but this group of first- and second-tier young people have very high commercial value, which is very helpful for FENDI to open up the Chinese market;

More importantly, even for luxury brands, they must be well-known and influential among the public. Brands must be constantly familiar with consumers and be on the forefront of popular culture, so as to maintain brand power.

I have been thinking about what is brand rejuvenation, especially looking at some classic old brands. Why do brands such as Jianlibao, Wahaha, Xiangpiaopiao, Yinlu, and Lulu feel that they have lost their feelings, but Coconut Tree and Wangwang can always be eternal? As mentioned in the previous lecture, the aging and backwardness of a brand often does not occur in the brand itself, but in the consumers. When the brand lacks voice and there is no change, and consumers no longer pay attention to or talk about you, then the brand will naturally disappear from social trends and become a yellow flower in the eyes of consumers .

The reason why Coconut Tree and Wangwang do not have this problem is that they keep up with the trend of the times and have done a lot of marketing and promotion actions full of topicality and attention, so they have been active in the public eye and are talked about by people.

Like the live broadcast of beautiful women and live broadcast of macho men, Wangwang’s 56 ethnic cans of Wangzai Milk, Naixue’s tea joint series, as well as the small steamed bun sofa, snow cake storage table, Xianbei folding sofa and other household products launched across the border.

If a brand wants to remain young, it needs to have continuous familiarity in the minds of consumers and keep up with the popularity of social culture and consumption concepts. I call this concept " socialization ", and will be discussed in detail in the lecture "The Way of Playing Brands in Mature".

Sensory experience, value recognition and social interaction are the three basic methods for brand rejuvenation.

2. Four principles of youth

According to the characteristics of young people, there are 4 points in brand marketing that need to be paid attention to and avoided.

(1) Young people pursue casualness, and most brand marketing is intentional

Today's young people have grown up in a mature business environment and have been surrounded by various advertisements since childhood. They have long been accustomed to advertising. They can tell at a glance what advertising is and what is not advertising. In fact, in a business society, it is completely reasonable for companies to have their own interests and consumers can understand it. Companies only need to admit openly that they are advertising and communicate with consumers in a sincere and interesting way, so consumers will naturally accept it.

If the company deliberately covers up, and is clearly advertising, it has to pretend to be objective and fair third parties, and also boast about the tone of real consumers to boast about the product. Or it is blunt and rough, exaggerating the product's efficacy like Dali King Kong Pills, emphasizing that "you can reach the peak of your life with my product." Such marketing will only arouse the disgust of young people. Corporate marketing is hypocritical, and user feedback is the most ruthless.

Brand marketing should pay attention to reality and start from the reality of consumers' lives. Remember that many products are very good and have their own functions, but they cannot solve all the problems in consumers' lives.

Moreover, today's young people pursue casualness, like to have some fun, and don't like to be serious. Therefore, brand marketing content should also be casual and follow human nature.

Like in the past "The Debater", Ma Dong broadcasts advertisements for the title merchants in a real and interesting way, which has won the love and pursuit of young people.

On Double Eleven in 2022, when all online merchants are working hard to do promotions and stimulate consumers to place orders, Wei Long put a Buddhist poster on the homepage of his Tmall flagship store. An operation guy with a spicy strip in his arms, a lotus in his hands, and a warm ear, looking into the distance without any sadness or joy. The line on the poster caption "Order is fate". In the hot Double Eleven atmosphere, the main feature is one with no desires and no desires and all four elements are empty.

At the same time, there are also various emoticon packages and "Buddhist urging orders" in the store, such as "You order, I order, and the operation can get off work soon", "Buy whatever you want, it's all fate", "Konjac sells well, come home early during the Chinese New Year", "One order and two orders are not too small, it's better to have a few more orders"... This wave of marketing suddenly became popular all over the Internet, and emoticon packages were circulating everywhere, reminding people of the common saying "Sincerity is the ultimate skill". Young people like to play with, especially those who like to play memes, but many popular memes are full of jokes and sarcasm, and some companies cannot accept such memes. However, if brands want to play with young people, sometimes they must appropriately admit their flaws and shortcomings, and be brave to ridicule and self-deprecating, which can win the favor of young people.

For example, many people bought it but didn’t read a few books. Instead, they put it at home to eat dust, which actually turned into a instant noodles lid. So on World Book Day 2019, Kindle launched an official self-deprecating ad "Sticking the Kindle, the noodles are more fragrant", and #Kindle official stamped instant noodles lid# became a hot search on Weibo.

In June 2022, Buick released a new brand logo. The three shields in the new logo were laughed at by everyone as saying they looked like nail clippers. Unexpectedly, in March this year, Buick really launched a nail clipper, which triggered heated discussions on the Internet. This is called "official play music, the most deadly."

For example, in November 2021, Jiang Xiaobai's official blog issued 100 "sovereign statements" in succession. The statement included some consumers' complaints about Jiang Xiaobai, even sarcastic and ridiculed the Shanghai newspaper, and then responded seriously. While the brand was self-deprecating, it also complained about its boss and teased its colleagues.

Since then, Jiang Xiaobai launched a user activity #Tuji Jiang Xiaobai#, directly printing consumer complaints and criticisms on the product envelope, and expressed his desire to "progress forward in the criticism and self-criticism of real users."

These brand communication battles can flood the screen and trigger forwarding and discussion across the network because the official self-deprecating, making consumers feel interesting, and the brand's frank attitude makes consumers feel more intimate and won people's great favor.

(2) Young people pursue fast, but corporate processes are very slow

The Internet has accelerated the pace of the whole world. Today, information is spreading very quickly. New hot topics and topics emerge every day, and are covered by new hot topics in a few days. Especially young people are very transformed and forgotten, and it is difficult to continue to capture the attention of young people. In this case, the era of TVC investment throughout the year, one advertising slogan and one piece of cake to win the world is gone forever . Brand marketing must keep up with the changes in the form of heat, constantly adjust and optimize, and accelerate the communication rhythm.

But unfortunately, the work rhythm of many companies is still stuck in the traditional era, and the approval process is extremely long, and it is difficult to deal with external changes in a timely manner, especially for today's common hot-spot marketing.

A hot topic appeared. The executive staff or agency of the enterprise marketing department completed the plan overtime, and then reported, approved, and revised it layer by layer. When the plan was decided, it was officially released, the hot topic was almost over and the daylily was cold.

In the 2018 World Cup, a brand invited Messi to endorse the TV commercial, but the Argentine team was eliminated early, while Messi's endorsement advertisement was put into the finals, and it still interpreted strength and sportsmanship in the advertisement. So the advertisement was immediately spoofed as "I am Messi, so panicked."

In fact, companies should make quick adjustments to advertising after Argentina are eliminated, or make plans for the start of the World Cup and design a communication plan for the two outcomes of victory or defeat. The lag in response to the company will turn huge endorsement expenses into an online spoof.

In January 2023, the TV series "The Rapid" was hit, which sparked heated discussions among the people, and the actors Zhang Songwen and Gao Ye became popular. On March 4, Xiaomi officially announced that Gao Ye served as Xiaomi's video recommendation officer and launched video advertisements.

On April 18, Xiaomi 13 Ultra was officially released, launching a brand advertisement endorsed by Zhang Songwen on the same day. This reaction speed is amazing. You should know that it took one or two months to shoot a TVC in the past.

(3) Young people pursue the edge, companies only want mainstream

Although I mentioned in my article that young people use concepts such as "Gen Z", "post-90s", and "post-00s", the general term "age generation" alone is not enough to understand young people. Today's young people are subdividing into countless small groups in real life and on the Internet. Each of them has their own small social circle, their own unique interests, hobbies and attitudes to life, and thus countless subcultures have been derived.

When two post-90s stand in front of you, the only difference between them is about age, and their lifestyles, hobbies, and values ​​are completely different.

The crowd has been differentiated, and young people are scattered in niche and marginal circles. Hanfu, lo, and JK servers are different, Star Wars fans, Marvel fans, Three-Body fans, and Harry fans are also different, Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Cthulhu, and SCP foundations are also different.

But now there are still many brands who think that their target population is suitable for both young and old, and they take both men and women, and they want to include all 0-80 years old in their target population. This is reflected in promotion, which means they are unwilling to focus on a certain sub-group to appeal, and unwilling to choose niche content resources for communication. Because they believe that doing so has limitations and cannot leverage the mass consumer group.

Companies tend to use mainstream resources and popular popular resources for marketing. For example, "Summer of the Band", only after the mainstreaming of rock and punk, companies are willing to sponsor, so naturally they will not hire an underground band to do marketing.

Such marketing logic is fine, but you should know that the target population is not focused enough, so the communication demands will not be sharp enough, and the advertisements and content presented in the end will be mediocre and cannot stand out . Especially the lack of penetration and infectiousness to young people will make young people feel that the brand is impermanent and not cool at all.

In fact, like the hamburger cat nests created by McDonald's in December 2021 for cat breeders, and the communication battles created by Myomao Laundry Detergent in October 2021 for the Hanfu Circle, there were even earlier. The advertising videos launched by SK-II for 30+ people and "older leftover women" focused on segmented groups and resources for promotion, but in the end, it achieved screen spanning the entire network, affecting the broad spectrum of people.

Only by focusing will it bring pressure. The niche can feed back to the public, and the edge can subvert the mainstream.

(4) Young people pursue openness, but enterprises only want to control

Most companies continue the traditional central control practices in marketing. They treat consumers like parents treat their children. They are used to cramming advertisements, educate consumers, look down on users condescendingly, and be used to chanting over and over again and trying to nail brand information into the consumer's brain. Companies are used to parent-made style, but young people do not take this. They are more willing to communicate with the brand in an equal manner and participate in brand activities according to their own preferences and attitudes.

Sometimes, they will create brand content for the second time, which often leads to the emergence of various spoofs, bad tastes, and nonsensical content, which many companies do not want and believe that it affects the company's brand image.

Although many companies are always calling for consumer participation, when consumers really participate, they are worried that consumers' behavior will deviate from the company's established marketing route and bring risks to the brand. Therefore, they are unwilling to open up marketing participation nodes and set rules and regulations for consumers to limit their behavior, so consumers lose interest.

However, if marketing wants to detonate, it cannot be separated from consumer participation and recreation. We can even say that the only criterion for flooding the screen is whether a large number of users have spontaneous UGC . For example, the "Vanke" that once became popular all over the Internet was detonated by a poster that spoofed Guo Degang.

In fact, if the brand content is interesting and the social mechanism is perfect, young people are very willing to play with the brand, but this requires companies and consumers to have a real and equal dialogue, and must have an open and inclusive attitude, not be afraid of consumers playing around, and do not think about deleting posts and controlling comments when there is a little disturbance. Especially when facing crisis public relations, many companies' first reaction is to issue articles to refute and send lawyer letters, which often arouse consumers' dislike and further aggravate the crisis. At this time, if companies can patiently explain, express apologies, or even make self-deprecating, they can turn danger into safety and passive into initiative. You should know that the key point of brand communication today is openness, not control.

True and casual, open participation, timely response, and focus on niches. These are the four principles that need to be grasped in the process of brand rejuvenation.

A brand rejuvenation is like having an affair with young people. It must not only be attractive to facial features, use sensory experience to please consumers, but also have the same viewpoints as well as being able to play together and go in both directions.

Only when brand owners truly understand the consumer psychology and behavioral characteristics of young people, understand today's cultural direction and marketing trends, and master the Internet and digital technology, can they achieve a good brand rejuvenation.

Notes from this article: [1] "Whiskey in China: Breaking the Circle, Growing, and the Hot Tide is Coming", Source: Titanium Media APP, Author: Li Jinglin, 2022-03-16, https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1727428487986855921&wfr=spider&for=pc

[2] "CTR: 2014 China Liquor Consumption Research Series (I)", Source: Duozhishidai, 2019-4-12, http://www.duozhishidai.com/portal.php?mod=view&aid=59178

[3] "Food and Beverage Industry: 2021 Liquor Consumption White Paper is released to become the main consumer force at the age of 28-40", Source: Guotai Junan Securities Co., Ltd., 2021-09-18, http://stock.finance.sina.com.cn/stock/go.php/vReport_Show/kind/lastest/rptid/685284370437/index.phtml

[4] "Xu Liushan, Can't Keep the Hearts of Young People", author: She Weihang, source: Leopard Breed, 2023-06-03;

[5] "Trend of personal care and cleaning in 2023: JD Supermarket's high-end shampoo increased by 78% year-on-year, laundry beads are favored", source: Financial World, 2023-03-27, https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1761524373325039022&wfr=spider&for=pc

[6] "It is better to understand a trend than to write 1,000 notes" by Dao Jie doris, Source: Official Account "Dao Jie doris", 2023-04-10.

Author: Hushou, Source: WeChat official account: Hushou (ID: firesteal13)