Love among middle-aged people and the hidden thread of brands

This article uses Xiaodu Smart's recently launched middle-aged love advertisement as a starting point to analyze the concept of light and dark lines in brand strategy. The article mentions that continuously outputting content that is consistent with the brand's proposition can allow consumers to form brand preferences in a subtle way. Just like the companionship between middle-aged couples, an excellent brand can bring a sense of security to a company and help it win in the competition. This article is suitable for marketers who are interested in brand communication strategies.

I was recently attending teacher Li Songwei’s psychology class, and there was a section that talked about Sternberg’s three elements of love: trust, intimacy, and commitment .

A student asked: Can the three elements of love inspire and ignite each other? For example, when commitment and intimacy reach a certain level, passion will sprout (rekindle), or when intimacy and passion last for a long time, commitment will naturally enter the relationship expectations of both parties.

Teacher's answer: Your question is actually asking, is it possible for a relationship to improve naturally? Of course it is possible. The originally lacking elements will slowly sprout or strengthen over time.

But one thing I want to clarify is that what you said about "commitment and intimacy reaching a certain level, passion will sprout" is not guaranteed, because among the three elements, only passion comes and goes quickly. I am not sure whether a relationship that has lost passion will become passionate again as time goes by.

He said it implicitly, but the fact is, as time goes by, passion can never return. No matter how much ritual there is, it is just tacit role-playing by both parties and it is difficult to rekindle the passion.

Then, after a relationship lasts for a period of time, it will completely turn to [intimacy] + [commitment]. The latter two sound like another kind of relationship: alliance.

As each other's allies, in a more complex world, the certainty brought by close dependence and reliable commitment is the greatest source of security other than oneself, and provides a constant source of healing power.

This is also the insight of our brand advertising this time. On July 14, we launched a "Middle-aged Love Picture Book" :

This video was released on Bilibili and received 2.82 million views and 91,000 likes in less than 24 hours. It has now reached 3.5 million . Interestingly, most of the netizens on Bilibili were talking about their parents, and the comments on the video account were basically about their own stories and feelings. I posted it on my Xiaohongshu account and it actually became a small hit.

Let’s talk about brand strategy along the lines of this film.

Brand visibility refers to brand awareness, which is generally obtained through advertising and offline channels;

The brand hidden thread is the brand emotion and proposition, which is subtle and silent, and has a profound impact through brand stories, user communication paradigms and brand attitude events to form brand preferences.

This is the fourth year that we have proposed our brand proposition of " Xiaodu at home, companionship at home ", and it is also the fourth year that "companionship" has been the main storyline.

In the past four years, we have been talking about "accompany" in the underlying brand layer:

In "Ideal City", Xiaodu accompanies the dark and handsome man Zhao Youting who lives alone; in "Walking into the Wind", she always accompanies the introverted and sexy captain Wang Kai.

• With the company of youth:
• There is companionship that transcends life and death:
• Accompanied by young people living alone:
• I also recorded the constant companionship of people around me:

There is also the company of besties (bestie phone), etc. On the official Weibo, Xiaodu Xiaodu accompanies everyone to eat three meals a day.

Sticking to one main line is like continuously saving money in a piggy bank. Internally, it is easier to establish consistency in brand management, and externally, the brand proposition continues to settle in the mind and memory in every communication.

What is the use of these?

If we want to answer this question, we can quote the original words of the author of "Emotional Drive" (Javier Sánchez, Global CMO of Coca-Cola) :

People buy products for the sake of buying, but they buy brands because they believe in them. And they will pay for the entire experience consciously or unconsciously.

A brand is not the same as the name of a trademark. It is the "value" we give to a product through marketing. High-quality marketing builds feelings and emotions around the product to create a brand. The trademark name, VI and design are all ways for us to identify the brand. Owning a brand means having a mechanism to turn people's desires into cash.

Only when customers truly fall in love with your brand can you sell your products. Communication must be based on emotions and speak directly to the inner world of customers. Brands must always be ready to seize opportunities and maintain exposure in the latest media.

Effective marketing always chooses to communicate with the emotional brain.

We can also use the love between middle-aged people as an analogy - companionship is our greatest courage to fight against the uncertainty of the world; and brands are also a safety rope to cope with the changes in the commercial competition environment and consumer psychology:

Having a good brand usually prevents you from losing too badly.

They will also generously give you the opportunity to turn the tide and win back the situation.

Author: Lan Lan

Official account: Taro and Cat Talk (ID: taro_cat)