Holiday marketing upgrade, let’s talk about the first brand promotion in summer!

Holiday marketing on social platforms seems to have become a "traffic outlet". The author will take us to talk about how brands are seizing the node traffic to launch marketing strategies this summer. If you are interested, please read on.

From the first bite of ice cream in summer, the first cup of milk tea in autumn to the first sausage in winter, node marketing on social platforms seems to have become a "traffic outlet".

With the frequent creation of festivals by platforms and the rush of brands to grab them, node marketing seems to have fallen into a blind competition of self-entertainment. Competition is fierce on large festivals such as 618 and Double 11, and if you are slow, you will not be able to book resources. Small nodes are ignored and deserted.

In the entire marketing node arrangement, the change of seasons is often a point of contention for many brands.

On the one hand, the changing of seasons has become a new trend culture, bringing more opportunities for merchants’ marketing; on the other hand, the first brand promotion after the change of seasons plays an increasingly important role in the brand’s entire annual marketing campaign.

In this process, how to achieve differentiation, mobilize social emotions, and formulate corresponding marketing strategies has become a compulsory marketing course for brands and platforms.

1. Follow the marketing nodes to promote the products and brands in people’s minds

The hot summer brings the beauty of watermelon and smoothies, but also annoying mosquitoes.

According to the analysis of Frost & Sullivan Consulting and Quantuo Data, the retail sales of China's mosquito repellent and insecticide market increased from 6.2 billion yuan in 2015 to 9 billion yuan in 2020. It is estimated that the market retail sales will reach 12 billion yuan in 2024, with an average annual compound growth rate of 7% from 2020 to 2024.

The person in charge of the mosquito repellent category at Tmall Supermarket once said that consumers are currently more concerned about "whether the product looks good" and "whether it is easy to carry" when purchasing products. In addition to the focus on efficacy, the additional experience brought by the brand and product has become an important point to guide consumer decision-making.

Rainbow Group, which has been specializing in mosquito repellent for 30 years, has joined hands with Xinchao Media to launch the first wave of this summer's promotion through a series of creative advertisements. Aiming at the decision points that consumers care about, Rainbow has quickly become a hot-selling product in the market with its strong product strength.

Strictly selected imported ABS material, safe and flame retardant, eliminates residual electricity in one second; built-in smart chip automatically cuts off power, strong battery life. Rainbow has raised safety and quality to the extreme by strictly controlling production processes and product materials. As of 22 years, the cumulative online sales of Rainbow electric mosquito swatters have exceeded 1 billion times!

According to the "2023 Community Elevator Smart Screen Advertising Development Report" released by Xinchao, community elevator smart screens have become the first media in the community, with consumers' attention reaching nearly 40%!

Taking traffic as the entry point and using decentralized media with higher consumer attention as a means, Rainbow takes "wonderful life, meticulous care" as the core of its communication to strengthen the youthfulness, fashion sense and high-end sense of the "Rainbow Life" brand. The high-frequency exposure and repeated contact of community media help Rainbow accurately reach the core consumer group, quickly seize the minds of the group and strengthen brand awareness.

There is another case similar to Rainbow - Taili.

As a high-end home storage brand, Taili's creative advertising film was adapted from a brainwashing song at a time when there is a natural demand for products during the winter-summer season change. The product selling points were integrated into the lyrics, reflecting the advantages of Taili's antibacterial and air-free compression bags, such as "seasonal storage" and "antibacterial, moisture-proof and air-free". At the same time, it returned to the positioning of "choose Taili for storage", brainwashed users through elevator media, and amplified the brand's communication volume.

According to the survey, the advertising reach rate of community elevator smart screens is as high as 98.1%, and the advertising time occupied by elevator media in users’ daily lives (including Internet advertising, OTT, offline advertising, etc.) has also reached 25%!

Relying on its independent innovation capabilities and core technologies, Taili is promoting the establishment of a standard line for the home storage industry, based on online multi-channel and multi-field exposure and promotion, and offline through the expansion of community media, to capture the minds of core groups and reach a comprehensive communication strategy with users.

As consumers become more rational and all brands compete for the popularity of mass festivals, excessive marketing at key points will reduce consumers' perception of the festival. Only by following the key points and combining product characteristics can brands achieve the transition from "I say" to "you listen".

2. Stimulate product demand and build a three-dimensional marketing scenario

Summer is the peak sales season for beverages in a year. How to capture consumers' minds and achieve emotional resonance with consumers during the season change is a direction that many brands are exploring.

Among the top 10 industries with the largest advertising scale on community elevator smart screens in 2022, alcoholic beverages accounted for 18.08%, ranking third. This not only reflects the industry development of mass consumption trends, but also indirectly confirms the layout of the alcoholic beverage industry in marketing channels.

At the end of 2022, "electrolyte drinks" became the hottest sub-category in the beverage industry, with a growth rate of 225%, ranking first in the entire secondary track of functional beverages.

Kangzhiwei Yandian is known as the "grandfather of electrolyte water". In the past 24 years, it has sold more than 2 billion bottles nationwide, which is a benchmark in the industry. From "drink Yandian to replenish electrolytes" to "drink Yandian when you sweat", Yandian has extended electrolyte water from traditional sports drinks to daily hydration by using the media that connects consumers most closely.

To cater to consumer demand, Yandian has actively innovated and iterated, and launched flavors such as lime, sea salt white peach, and sea salt lychee black tea to satisfy the taste buds of young consumers; in terms of packaging, Yandian uses a more youthful and fashionable visual expression to compete for a share on the shelves.

Kangzhiwei Yandian relies on its insight into consumption scenarios, seizes the moments of seasonal changes and hot summer days, and implements them into precise scenarios such as "sweating" and "exercise". It then uses community elevator media as a means of communication and the aggregation effect of elevator smart screens on the crowd, thus achieving more efficient brand communication.

Another brand in the category opposite to electrolyte water, Pukou, has become a leading brand in the large-fruit juice category by relying on its positioning of "one step ahead" and "large fruit pulp, drink while chewing", and has topped the sales list in this category for several consecutive years.

With quality and products as the core, Pukou initiated digital brand construction and formally signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Xinchao Media at the "Pukou·New Strategy·Great Development" account proposal meeting, making full use of the scene advantages of elevator smart screens and quickly penetrating the market in a comprehensive coverage manner.

Different from Yandian’s functional appeal, Pukou focuses more on taste and sensory scenes. Relying on the differentiated advantage of “large fruit juice”, the Pukou brand has stood on the new outlet of national trend beverages, and with the centralized media advantages of Xinchao Media with great influence and strong coverage, it has jointly created a super brand in the Chinese juice track and led the new trend of large fruit juice consumption.

The main feature of Pukou Double Grapefruit Juice is "fresh flavor to stimulate taste buds", while Pukou Star Drinks selectively show the advantages of "enjoyable skewers" and "real and tasty". While each has its own focus, it also grasps the preferences of new-age consumers.

The full-scenario coverage of the Pukou brand community + business not only reaches the target family and business groups, but also diverts traffic offline to achieve radiation to physical channels such as convenience stores and supermarkets.

Utilizing the digital intelligent delivery system jointly developed by Xinchao and JD.com, Pukou has built a full communication chain covering all home and business scenarios, making "big fruit flesh, chew and drink" a brand memory in the minds of consumers, penetrating the user market at the cognitive level, detonating the mainstream consumer group, helping the brand upgrade and break the circle, and creating a blockbuster product in the category that is deeply loved by consumers.

In just a few years, Huayang 1982 has completed the transformation from drinking Huayang, a domestic soda, to drinking China Huayang, a big country soda, and then to a trendy domestic fruit juice soda. In addition to product polishing, it also comes from more cutting-edge marketing channel planning.

Through online promotion, the company strongly promoted product growth, and reached a strategic cooperation with Xinchao to seize the national elevator smart screen resources, and efficiently built a full communication chain based on family and business scenarios. Huayang 1982's core proposition of "dare to show off and be cool, come with a bottle of Huayang" continuously reaches consumers, and achieves a closed loop between goods, people and places with a deeper and more accurate emotional connection.

The advantages of repeated brainwashing, closed communication, and the combination of sound and picture in elevator media also provide certain conveniences for Huayang to consolidate consumers' minds and realize marketing empowerment. The elevator smart screens covering more than 100 cities and 180 million middle-class people have built a huge data network. Relying on this data network, Huayang has built an indestructible core competitiveness by focusing on online and offline marketing, product and brand core, and decentralized methods.

3. High-end transformation and upgrading, new opportunities for brands to break through the circle

The 2023 Online Alcohol Consumption Trend Report jointly released by the China Alcoholic Drinks Association and JD.com shows that in the first quarter of this year, the attention paid to high-end alcohol products was 16 times that of affordable products. This data applies to the sub-segments of wine, liquor, and even beer.

This has also inspired various brands to further pursue brand power and high-end transformation.

Regarding the future development of the wine industry, CCTV brand consultant Li Guangdou said in his keynote speech that "if it is only sold online, the time a product stays in the live broadcast room is calculated in seconds, but if you want to form a lasting impression in the minds of consumers, you still need to rely on the high-end brand." The high-end brand is able to give consumers more emotional appeals in addition to functional appeals.

In recent years, the tonnage price of Tsingtao Beer has continued to rise. As of 2022, the tonnage price has reached 3,985.6 yuan. On the one hand, this is because the industry reversal under the competition of the stock market has made it urgent for Tsingtao Beer to move upmarket; on the other hand, it is also because of the active layout, Tsingtao Beer has begun to drive the overall brand upmarket with a strategy of structural upgrading.

On a sunny summer day, spokesperson Yang Yang, holding a Tsingtao White Beer, advocated more "bourgeois" topics such as "Enjoy the little beauties in life" and "The beauty of life is created by you" with an elite and natural attitude. This happens to be in line with consumers' value orientation of quality life and is also a means to enhance the brand's tone.

Tsingtao White Beer focuses on a relatively young and high-end consumption route. In the peak sales season of summer, Qingdao chooses to use community elevator smart screens to deeply reach consumers, covering the core active groups born after 1985, 1990, and even 1995, and achieves more accurate and efficient brand marketing goals in a closed and immersive environment.

Coincidentally, Changyu, which has been deeply involved in the wine industry, has also begun to actively promote its product structure towards high-end to drive the overall growth of the brand.

"Changyu Cabernet Sauvignon, believe in Chinese terroir", "Sold in more than 5,000 stores in Europe", "TOP 5 in global long-lasting wine brand blind tasting competition". Unlike in the past, Changyu has shifted the focus of its publicity from product details to its position in the industry. The change stems from the rise of new consumption trends and the reshaping of the underlying logic such as brand building, product structure adjustment, and marketing model change.

With the rise of new consumer groups, Changyu has used elevator smart screens to penetrate its brand influence and, through big data marketing, has found different new consumer groups such as young people and high-net-worth individuals, boosting product sales and achieving overall high-end branding.

IV. Conclusion

In fact, in the final analysis, the brand's festival marketing is still based on the overall strategic appeal. Whether it is Taili and Rainbow going with the trend, Pukou, Yandian and Huayang breaking the scene circle, or Tsingtao White Beer and Changyu seeking a high-end market, it is better to implement nodes as part of the strategy than blindly pursuing hot spots.

The first wave of summer promotion is to create a differentiated and scenario-based emotional resonance in the process of becoming a hot topic; it is also a heart-to-heart communication with consumers. With the help of the concept of community marketing, festival promotion is not only a part of closed-loop conversion, but also the first gateway to break through the circle of youth and high-end.

With the trend of marketing decentralization, community media will play an increasingly important role in future festival promotions. For new consumer brands, how to open up new prospects with festival marketing is the next step.

Author: Editorial Department of Community Marketing Research Institute

Source: Community Marketing Research Institute (ID: Community_Marketing), insights into community consumption