How does Mixue Bingcheng, the top new tea drink, use the Snow King IP to create brand popularity?

When it comes to Mixue Ice City, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is "Snow King" rather than its products. Snow King has long been deeply rooted in people's hearts, and the Snow King IP is closely related to the marketing of Mixue Ice City. Why can Mixue Ice City accurately grasp the interests of users and remain popular for so many years? What is the role of Snow King IP in brand marketing? Let's take a look at the analysis in this article.

When mentioning Mixue Ice City, perhaps what you think of immediately is not the product, but a "Snow King" with a crown on his head, an ice cream scepter in his hand, and a round body. The "Snow King" walking in the streets and alleys has long made the brand image of Mixue Ice City deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The Snow King IP is closely related to the marketing of Mixue Ice City.

Recently, Mixue Bingcheng officially announced that it will launch its first animation work "The Snow King Arrives", and released the animation's poster and pilot PV. This news has aroused heated discussions and expectations among netizens.

Why has Mixue Ice City been able to accurately grasp the interests of users and remain popular for so many years? What role does the Snow King IP play in brand marketing?

1. Take the animation image as the core of IP and make personalized expression

David Ogilvy's brand image theory mentions that "every brand and every product should develop and project an image. The image is conveyed to customers and potential customers through various promotional techniques, especially advertising."

Mixue Ice City is well aware of this. In 2018, Mixue Ice City officially launched a new brand image - Snow King. Mixue Ice City can be said to have used the "Snow King" IP to the extreme. From the brand logo to the store design to the surrounding materials, the image of Snow King is everywhere, and even some stores have the image of "Snow King" on the rolling shutter doors. At this stage, "Snow King" is just a concrete manifestation of the brand image, and its social attributes are not obvious.

In the summer of 2021, the magical lyrics "You love me, I love you, Mixue Ice City is sweet" made Mixue Ice City completely popular, and also brought the brand image "Snow King" to the forefront. The rapid rise in popularity brought about a wave of secondary creation. Major UP hosts on Bilibili showed their creative talents and launched multiple versions of Mixue Ice City's advertising theme song, including foreign language version, electronic music version, ghost version, and dialect version, which brought exponentially growing discussions and traffic to Mixue Ice City.

Image source: Screenshot from Station B

Michelle Ice City took advantage of the popularity online and played the theme song of the advertisement in various offline stores. At the same time, some stores also had "Snow King" dolls, which danced to the beat of the music and attracted a large number of consumers to watch. By linking offline stores, Michelle Ice City easily made young consumers remember the image of "Snow King", and the interaction between "Snow King" and consumers also injected a personalized soul into this IP. The social character of "Snow King" increased users' favorability towards the brand and also shortened the distance between users and the brand.

Today, Mixue Ice City continues to enrich the IP image of the "Snow King" to make it more three-dimensional and full. In the official description, the "Snow King" not only has a birthday, personality, hobbies, and catchphrases, but is also the chief quality control officer and lifelong spokesperson of Mixue Ice City.

The marketing of Mixue Ice City also revolves around the "Snow King". The Snow King's lively, cute, funny and cute personality has won Mixue Ice City a large number of fans. Through the Snow King IP, Mixue Ice City continues to be active in the vision of consumers and its popularity remains high.

2. Leverage social platforms to “play” with young people

The reason why Mixue Bingcheng has always had a high brand voice is closely related to its brand marketing strategy.

According to the report "Young People's Lifestyle Consumption Observation Series Research - Tea and Coffee Life" by Clour, Xiaohongshu, Douyin and Weibo are the preferred platforms for young people to browse coffee and tea content. The age distribution of Weibo users is more evenly distributed, and those born in the 1980s and 1985s are more likely to be attracted by short video platforms, while those born in the 1990s and 1995s prefer the content on Xiaohongshu.

Mixue Bingcheng has set up brand accounts on multiple platforms including Bilibili, Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, Kuaishou, etc., to reach out to young user groups, understand their habits and hobbies, and play with young people.

At present, the new media matrix of Michelle Ice City is gradually maturing. Specifically, Michelle Ice City has set up two main brand accounts on various platforms, namely "Michelle Ice City" and "Michelle Ice City Snow King", and the main brand accounts on each platform have accumulated a certain number of fans.

For example, the @蜜雪冰城 account on the Xiaohongshu platform has 810,000 followers, and @蜜雪冰城雪王 has 1.6 million followers. On Bilibili, @蜜雪冰城官方站 has 1.09 million followers, and @蜜雪冰城雪王 has 370,000 followers. It is worth mentioning that 蜜雪冰城 has set up an account matrix on Douyin. In addition to the main brand account, there are also multiple related accounts such as @蜜雪冰城 (official group purchase) and @蜜雪冰城雪王直播室. The number of fans of the two main brand accounts is in the millions, among which @蜜雪冰城 has 3.91 million fans, ranking first among many platforms.

Image source: Tik Tok screenshot

Clour observed that the marketing emphases of the two main brand accounts of Mixue Ice City are different. "Mi Xue Ice City" mainly releases brand dynamics, including various online marketing activities held at festivals, new product launches and other nodes. "Snow King" mainly appears in the video in the form of puppet costumes, and the promotional scenes focus on offline. "Mi Xue Ice City Snow King" takes the cartoon image of Snow King as the core, and tells the daily fun of Snow King through pictures, texts and videos. There is no deliberate brand promotion. However, the personalized brand IP of "Snow King" has invisibly strengthened the market influence of Mixue Ice City, and at the same time will not cause users to be disgusted. It can be said that this approach is very clever.

Although "Snow King" is an anime character, his behavior is the epitome of contemporary young people, which allows the brand to naturally integrate into the young user circle and resonate with young people.

For example, in the video "Is your vacation like this?" released by "Mixue Ice City Snow King", Snow King divides a day into four modules: games, eating, sleeping, and studying. By moving and combining step by step, Snow King removes the study section from the daily schedule. This lifestyle resonates with many users, "What today's task, it's a daily task", "It's worthy of being Snow King, it really understands us", "Snow King understands me! Order Mixue Ice City now"...

Image source: Xiaohongshu screenshot

In addition, Mixue Bingcheng accurately grasps young people's strong desire to create and share memes, and interacts with users through a series of meme-creating content.

For example, when netizens found that the image of the Snow King had become darker, they joked that "the Snow King has turned evil". Finally, the official said that it was because the mulberry products were launched in the summer, and the Snow King went to pick them and got tanned. Another example is that offline the Snow King likes to hang out in competitors' stores and dance at the door without restraint, but he never goes to his own stores. His image as a street kid has become more and more popular, providing netizens with intensive laughs. There is also a collaboration with China Post. Mixue Bingcheng used the official announcement copy "Snow Snow, I can't hide it anymore", which led netizens to play the "Snow King is included" stalk.

Recently, Mixue Ice City's sarcastic remarks about Luckin Coffee have aroused the participation of netizens. The cause was that a customer was dissatisfied with the large amount of ice cubes in Luckin Coffee, and Mixue Ice City said in the comment section of this news, "What's wrong with Xiaorui? It shouldn't be intentional." This statement attracted many netizens to watch, and many netizens pretended to be the official account of Mixue Ice City to post "green tea" comments. Some netizens joked that Luckin Coffee could launch a new product "Green Tea Mixue" to fight back.

Image source: TikTok, Weibo screenshots and @蜜雪冰城雪王

When the official release date of the first animation "Snow King Arrives" was announced, @Luckin Coffee (Chengdu store) made a comment "The villain boss won't be me, right?", which once again created a brand topic.

Mixue Ice City has been able to connect with young people through the IP of Snow King, and has continuously narrowed the distance between them. It is also through the way that young people like and hear that Mixue Ice City has always maintained a high market voice.

3. Marketing style is consistent with product positioning

As a tea brand focusing on the lower-tier markets, Mixue Ice City has maximized the price-performance ratio. Compared with similar brands that often cost more than 20 yuan, Mixue Ice City's price of 4-10 yuan is extremely friendly and affordable. Consumers only need to pay for a bottled drink to buy a cup of freshly brewed tea, which is hard to resist for consumers who pursue price-performance ratio. Even in first-tier cities, Mixue Ice City has occupied a place because of its affordable price advantage.

The marketing style of Michelle Ice City is highly consistent with its product positioning. In order to expand its brand influence, many brands will launch peripheral products, and Michelle Ice City is no exception. Michelle Ice City's peripheral products continue the brand's simple temperament, are down-to-earth, practical, and even a little magical.

For example, a set of 13 Snow King tumblers costs less than 20 yuan, and the Black Snow King gave netizens a surprise. Thermos cups, ton barrels, cup holders, key chains and other daily necessities are also not expensive and very practical.

Image source: Taobao screenshot

At the Michelle Ice City Music Festival, Michelle Ice City still focused on the low-price strategy. Not only did the Snow King liven up the atmosphere, but also many well-known singers and independent bands such as Wang Sulong and Xu Fei were invited. There were many stars performing, but there was no common distinction between early bird tickets, pre-sale tickets and official tickets, nor was there a division between VIP areas and ordinary areas. The low price was still very consistent with the melody of Michelle.

In general, Mixue Bingcheng takes the Snow King IP as its marketing core. By gaining insights into the lifestyles of young user groups, it injects a personalized soul into the Snow King, and continuously narrows the distance between itself and users through repeated interactions. This is the key to Mixue Bingcheng becoming the "top stream" of new tea drinks.

At present, brand content marketing, joint ventures, social media marketing and other marketing methods are emerging in an endless stream. Brands must learn to understand the consumption trends of young people, grasp their consumption preferences and product usage scenarios. This is the basis and key for brands to seize the market atmosphere.

Author: Aries

Source: TopKlout (ID: TopKlout), a self-media ecological observation account that combines good-looking and informative content