Top 10 Breakout Cases in the First Half of 2023

2023 is already halfway through, and there have been many marketing cases that have gone viral in the first half of the year. What are they specifically? This article takes stock of the top ten marketing cases in the first half of the year and analyzes and summarizes them, hoping to be inspiring to brand marketers.

Time flies so fast. In the blink of an eye, 2023 is already half over.

It’s time to review what major events have happened in the marketing circle in the first half of this year. So, follow Mei Xiaohua to review it together~

(Ranking in no particular order)

1. Luckin Coffee’s Valentine’s Day Marketing

(Time period: Line Puppy: February 3rd – February 12th; He Guangzhi: February 13th – February 14th)

On Valentine's Day in February this year, Luckin Coffee collaborated with the Korean IP Line Dog. The brand serialized the comics and animated short videos "Dog Repair Love Operation Instructions" and "Dog Repair Love Story" on social media platforms, and the cute dog repair was loved by netizens.

The two limited drinks launched by the brand are "Acacia Red Bean Latte" and "Prickly Rose Latte". The drinks are designed with corresponding cup sleeves and paper bags, and stickers will be included if certain conditions are met.

Perhaps because the brand over-estimated the popularity of the IP, after the drinks were launched, the stores quickly ran out of peripheral stock. In response, consumers kept giving negative reviews on Xiaohongshu and Weibo. At the same time, Luckin noticed that many netizens mentioned the talk show actor He Guangzhi.

Luckin Coffee quickly issued an apology letter, apologizing for the insufficient stock of sticker peripherals, while also revealing a new cooperating artist - "Rose with Thorns" He Guangzhi.

In less than ten days, Luckin Coffee reached a cooperation agreement with He Guangzhi and produced promotional materials for the event. This to some extent dispelled the negative emotions caused by the lack of peripherals and pushed the brand's Valentine's Day event to a new peak.

2. Boys dancing in the live broadcast room of Coconut Tree Group

(Time period: March 7 to present)

On the occasion of International Women's Day, the Douyin live broadcast room of the Coconut Tree Group changed the usual beautiful women dancing program and invited a number of amateur men to appear on the stage to bring a "show" to the majority of netizens. Netizens gave suggestions in the live broadcast room, and they implemented them on the spot, such as leg hair management, wearing a vest or a uniform, etc.

While other brands are encouraging women to be brave and confident, the Coco Tree Group is like a mudslide, with simple and direct visual stimulation, and its main theme is "equally objectifying each gender."

Such a bold marketing approach has allowed the Coconut Tree Group to quickly gain a place on the hot search list and become one of the most discussed brands on the entire Internet.

Recently, the Coconut Tree Group has made public the operating team behind it. The Coconut Tree Live New Media is advertised as being operated by a third party, namely "Hainan Zaoshi Chuangjie Culture Media Co., Ltd." @敲石公司.

At present, the two Douyin accounts of Coconut Tree Group, @Coconut Tree Group and @Coconut Tree Group Hainan Coconut Juice Beverage Co., Ltd., have stopped broadcasting for several days. This may be in preparation for the next broadcast. I wonder what kind of surprises Coconut Tree will bring to everyone~

3. KFC x Sanrio Toys Collaboration

(Time period: May 20 to June 12)

In terms of marketing, KFC combined the two events of May 20th Valentine's Day and June 1st Children's Day to launch beautiful and fun Sanrio IP co-branded toys.

Among them, the cute characters, including the big-eared dog, the pudding dog, the cool and the Hello Kitty, are respectively a kettle, a music box, a handbag, and a fan. The silly and cute character, the lazy egg yolk man, is a suitcase.

Following last year's Psyduck toy, KFC has once again captured the hearts of countless adults and children this year. In order to get the toy they wanted, netizens even went to two stores, queued, and ate a lot, showing great efforts.

"IP collaboration + charity" is the Children's Day marketing model of many fast food brands.

In addition to KFC, Pizza Hut has collaborated with Pokémon, Wallace has cooperated with the "Journey to the West" animation, and Tustin has cooperated with the "Balala the Fairies" children's drama. In addition, these four brands have all participated in children's charity projects.

In addition, McDonald's launched co-branded toys with Shanghai Disney on Children's Day and participated in marine charity projects, while its competitor Burger King cooperated with two IPs, the Green Cat and the Spider-Man movie.

4. A barbecue brings a city to life

(Time period: late March – early May)

In April, another internet-famous tourist city was added - Zibo, Shandong, became the focus of the entire network because of its barbecue.

On the Douyin platform, videos with related topics such as #ZiboBBQ have been played nearly 5 billion times.

Tickets to Zibo were hot sellers, and people chose Zibo as their destination for the May Day holiday. Faced with the huge passenger flow, Zibo barbecue was in short supply, and new stores opened rapidly. On April 14 alone, more than 20 new barbecue companies were added.

The reason why Zibo barbecue is so popular is, firstly, because of its special barbecue features - the "three soul pieces" of barbecue oven, small pancakes and green onions; secondly, the stories of hospitable and down-to-earth barbecue shop owners are widely spread, so tourists don't have to worry about being "ripped off"; thirdly, the government is busy and provides good logistical support, such as opening a high-speed rail barbecue train and repairing roads overnight, to optimize the tourist experience.

While the directors of cultural and tourism bureaus in other cities used creative short videos to attract tourists, Zibo mobilized the entire city to rectify the upstream and downstream industries of barbecue, solve the pain points of tourism in small cities, and "escort" the tourists' experience.

Recently, the topic #How is Zibo barbecue# has become a hot search on Weibo. @China News Weekly reported the news of the decrease in tourists and the transfer of barbecue shops.

With the end of the Labor Day and Dragon Boat Festival holidays, coupled with the high temperatures in summer, the popularity of barbecue restaurants has declined and the number of stores has decreased, which is a foreseeable market phenomenon.

Although barbecue is not a specialty of Zibo, it has become a business card of Zibo. Even if the popularity has passed, barbecue has left a good reputation for the city of Zibo, as well as the appreciation and recognition of tourists from all over the country.

5. Xiaopeng Motors invites Jimmy Lin to promote its products

(Time period: June 6 – end of June)

Last July, Jimmy Lin was in a car accident while driving a Tesla Model X. On June 6 this year, Xiaopeng Motors officially announced that Jimmy Lin is the brand friend of its G6 model.

Jimmy Lin's change of identity from a Tesla owner to a promoter of Xiaopeng Motors, coupled with the advertising slogan "Believe again", reminds us that Xiaopeng probably had a special purpose in choosing this star.

In addition to being a well-known artist, Jimmy Lin is also a professional racing driver. He can not only bring topics to the brand, but also endorse the performance of Xpeng Motors.

Although in the materials released later, Xiaopeng Motors was a bit "overconfident" - it did not clean up Lin Zhiying's sunglasses, and netizens found that the reflection was a Tesla steering wheel. Xiaopeng's editor explained that it was intentional, but some netizens did not buy it.

But it has to be said that Xiaopeng Motors has a set of marketing~

6. Yuanqi Forest remakes Cai Guoqing's classic MV

(Time period: mid-April – early May)

On April 18, Yuanqi Forest launched the "000 Theme Song Challenge" event, and invited young idols and singers Wang Ziyi, Liu Zhang, and Wang Zhengliang to take turns to adapt and cover the song.

But when it comes to Cai Guoqing, the style suddenly changes. Netizens compared it with the "365 Blessings" MV from more than 30 years ago and found that Yuanqi Forest made a "remade" MV for Cai Guoqing, replicating the old scenes and adding the product bottle.

After the collaboration between Yuanqi Forest and Cai Guoqing went online, netizens reacted strongly. Some believed that the quality of the advertisement had regressed 20 years, some believed that this creative approach was very interesting and could go viral, and some said that the picture was not detailed enough. If you want to play with ghost animals, you can refer to another national team player, Teng Geer.

Although some people complained that Yuanqi Forest chose Cai Guoqing to cooperate with them because they wanted to target older women, it is undeniable that Cai Guoqing's appearance helped Yuanqi Forest's originally tepid campaign. On the official video account, Cai Guoqing's advertising data far surpassed that of several other cooperating artists.

7. HEYTEA x Fendi collaboration is a big hit

(Time period: May 19 – June 16)

The collaboration between Heytea and Fendi did not have much publicity, but it triggered a wave of posting photos on WeChat Moments. Heytea’s ordering app was once crowded, and the co-branded peripherals were snapped up. Even Lei Jun was “taking advantage of the trend” on Weibo.

While co-branding is very popular, there is no shortage of discussions online about whether co-branding is worth it for the brand.

Some people think that HEYTEA is targeting high standards and Fendi is lowering its own prices, while others think that HEYTEA can help Fendi open up the young people's market.

In this collaboration, the co-branded beverages were not the focus of the promotion, but Fendi's "hand in hand" art exhibition. Heytea was the supplier of desserts and beverages for the exhibition, and its mini program directed traffic to the Fendi art exhibition.

The 19-yuan popular drink printed with a luxury brand logo has attracted the attention of netizens. In this cooperation, Heytea and Fendi have achieved a win-win situation.

8. Messi's trip to China

(Time period: June 10 to June 16)

In June this year, Messi and the Argentina national football team, who won the World Cup, were invited to China to play a friendly match with the Australian team at the Beijing Workers' Stadium.

This is a commercial game. During the short 7-day Messi China tour, multiple platforms and brands took advantage of the influence of Messi and the Argentine team.

In the live broadcast section, Kuaishou was the first to release a clip of an interview with Messi, but netizens complained that it was "short in time" and "not a live broadcast". Taobao followed closely and announced a live broadcast event with "real king of football, real live broadcast, no recorded broadcast", which directly hit the pain point.

In the sponsorship sector, Mengniu and Yili each sponsored events and teams, and the exposure of the two competing brands was almost equal. The emerging brand Kudi Coffee made a name for itself with the help of Messi's China Tour.

Two small incidents occurred during Messi's trip to China.

First, due to the large number of fans and their enthusiasm, many of Messi's brand offline commercial activities were forced to cancel.

Second, a student from a Beijing high school basketball team broke into the court to hug Messi and high-fived several players including Martin. The "chase battle" between the high school student and the security guards was more dramatic than the friendly match itself. Although some people scolded him and some praised him, it did not affect the wave of tap water flow for the pair of Yonex badminton shoes on his feet.

On Taobao, "the same shoes as Messi fans" are hot-selling. On Douyin, many netizens have flocked to Yonex's brand live broadcast room to inquire about the same shoes.

Afterwards, the young man took the initiative to contact the organizer and apologize, and the organizer accepted his apology.

9. Station B and China Railway exchange letters

(Time period: mid-January – February)

Against the backdrop of the three-year epidemic, in mid-January this year, bilibili’s Spring Festival project "The 3286th Station" was launched.

The promotional video is centered around the theme of "From the world, to home". As the "happy hometown" of young people, Station B asks 3,285 stations across the country to take good care of young people on their way home. The video copy is plain but contains care for individuals.

“Some of you are far away, some are small, and some may be a little run-down, but every station is a hometown.”

What is unexpected is that on the last day of the Spring Festival travel rush, China Railway released a promotional video in response to Bilibili, titled "Reply from 3,285 Railway Stations."

State-owned institutions spontaneously responded to the commercial promotional videos of social enterprises. This was a two-way rush between China Railway and Bilibili, which can be said to be China Railway's recognition of Bilibili's Spring Festival marketing values.

10. Ele.me’s “Guess the Answer, Get a Free Meal” Campaign

(Time period: June 2022 to present)

Ele.me's "Guess the Answer and Get a Free Meal" campaign started out by apologizing for difficult questions and loopholes in the rules. Now it is operating stably, and the free-meal campaign is being optimized towards having fewer rules and making users happier.

On the basis of "free meals", Ele.me took advantage of various nodes and used celebrities to ask questions to create heat. From the beginning, 100 Weibo posts @ celebrities to ask questions, to now, publishers, visually impaired people, and environmental protection related units ask questions, Ele.me is becoming more and more "serious"~

On Xiaohongshu and Weibo platforms, many netizens spontaneously organized knowledge points from the questions, indirectly spreading them for Ele.me.

While the free-of-charge activity was going on, we could also see that many netizens left negative comments on its official account, complaining that they could not get the free-of-charge due to various strange reasons. However, the marketing model of the "free-of-charge" pricing strategy still attracted netizens to continue to participate in the activity.

Well, these are our top ten marketing events.

In fact, in addition to the above, there were many high-profile marketing events in the first half of the year, such as the second son of Holiland, Luo Cheng's live performance, Zhang Dada's reversal of reputation with the character of "Customer Service Xiao Zhang", Zhang Lan's green tea and braised eggs in the live broadcast room, and Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui's sales on Xiaohongshu, etc.

What are some of the best marketing events in your mind? Welcome to add to it~

Author: Meihua.com;

Source public account: Meihua.com (ID: meihuaevent), the information center for marketers.