Mixue Ice City, disrupting music festival marketing again

Mixue Ice City announced that it would launch an "ice cream" music festival. This move won both word-of-mouth and popularity. So, why are many brands keen on "music festival" marketing? And how to successfully carry out "music festival" marketing? Let's read this article together!

"Snow King, come on, get the price of the music festival down for me!"

Mixue Ice City has once again become a hot search topic! The reason is that it announced the cross-border "ice cream" music festival. The topic discussion volume reached 60 million+, and people bought Mixue Ice City products one after another, allowing the Snow King to strike and "bring down the price of the music festival"; and triggered the additional topic "Should the price of the music festival be brought down?", which once again brought huge traffic to the brand and won a double harvest of reputation and popularity.

Music festivals are becoming a marketing method generated by new demands, and "hosting" music festivals is becoming a new brand marketing trend.

Different from the past situation where beer and cola brands were the main brands, offline brands such as JD MALL, liquor brand Jiang Xiaobai, and instant noodle brand Tang Daren have successively entered the music festival marketing.

Brand marketing has begun to target "music festivals".

1. Why are so many brands so keen on “music festival” marketing?

1. Brand competition is high, so take the initiative in marketing

Unlike the product-dominated era, competition in the brand era is no longer limited to product functions and parameters, but more reflected in the concept and value level. In the past, most major brands had to use a large number of "market expansion" and corresponding promotional activities to establish their brand reputation and attract consumers' attention and purchases. In addition to gaining a superficial voice, it is difficult to win the market with a crushing advantage, and from the perspective of marketing cost investment, it is not advantageous.

With the progress of the times and the development of science and technology, marketing methods have changed. It is no longer necessary to "flood the market" with a large number of products as in the traditional way. Products can easily reach consumers through the Internet, but how to really impress them has become a problem. The improvement of people's living standards has put forward new requirements for marketing methods. Some traditional promotional activities can no longer easily attract attention, and people are more pursuing immersive scene experiences.

For brands, in the current context of extremely inward-looking product competition, more marketing investment means it is difficult to make a profit. Especially for a number of new consumer brands, the current situation is even more severe.

The popularization of the niche culture of "music festival", the main concept theme, and the in-depth scene experience allow brands to seize the opportunity. They can not only have a higher degree of initiative, but also achieve full exposure online and offline, link products with publicity and promotion, and win the competition in brand concept.

At the same time, as the global economic market shrinks and many leading brands cut spending, the box office revenue and other activity income brought by the music festival itself can reduce marketing costs to a certain extent and achieve better results.

2. Seize the young market and keep pace with the young people

Generation Z has gradually grown up and become the main consumer force.

"Music festival" means "diversity, trend, and youth". According to the "2022 China Performance Market Annual Report", the current main consumers in the performance market are young people aged 18-34, and music festivals can allow participants to gain multiple real-life experiences such as socializing, companionship, and sharing.

Brands choosing to "host" music festivals is essentially an act of "enclosing land". They are seizing the social entertainment methods of the new generation of young people, hoping to use the immersive scenes of the music festival to convey their own brand tone, trigger brand resonance, and further deepen the brand's "young" image.

3. Expand consumption scenarios and enhance brand communication

From a communication perspective, it is very feasible for brands to host music festivals as a promotional idea.

In terms of topicality, a music festival is inseparable from its theme and lineup. Whether it is the brand’s own characteristics or the traffic brought by celebrities, it can give the brand “great potential” in publicity and promotion topics.

From the perspective of on-site content, the creation of diverse scenes such as venue layout, peripheral products, and theme activities can expand consumption scenarios for brands and allow consumers to generate new "imagination" and "image" of the brand.

For the large number of audiences present, they are both the "consumers" and "co-creators" of the brand. Generally, the number of people at a music festival is 10,000 to 20,000. According to the famous 250 rule, the communication effect is self-evident.

2. How can brands successfully carry out “music festival” marketing?

1. Accurately segment and find the “fitness” with the brand

When a brand conducts music festival marketing, the core starting point is to release and enhance the existing brand power, rather than just to "follow the trend" for the sake of "music festival". Finding the "compatibility" between the two is the key.

From planning to implementation, brand music festivals are a major "test" of the brand's integrated marketing capabilities. If your brand is a mass consumer brand with a relatively broad target customer base, you need to focus on finding the "fit" point with the brand in the theme of the music festival, and run through the core concept of the brand in the content and publicity methods, so as to resonate with consumers. How to enhance the brand's influence is the core; if your brand is for a niche group of people with a relatively narrow target customer base, in addition to determining the appropriate theme, you must also consider whether the music festival customer base needs to be carried out in a "general population" or in-depth communication with fans. How to enhance brand stickiness and loyalty is the core.

Only by finding your own rhythm can you thrive in music festival marketing.

2. Create IP and build immersive scene experience

Building scenes around core products through music festivals is an excellent opportunity to induce users to consume and occupy their minds.

By creating an immersive experience, the brand concept is invisibly recognized and spread in the entire constructed scene and atmosphere, and brand marketing achieves concept output.

Mixue Bingcheng did not directly name this music festival after its brand theme. This is not only a continuation of the theme, but also product-level marketing.

It's a bright summer day, and at a music festival where tens of thousands of people gather, along with the cheerful music and everyone's enthusiasm come the friction of limbs, the hot air and the rise in body temperature. In summary, "the joy is boundless, the heat is also boundless." At this moment, there is a glittering Snow King on the stage, surrounded by the shops of Mixue Ice City, with a big ice cream printed on the poster, and you look up and see, "Ice Cream" music festival. Yes, what you need at this moment is an ice cream that can make you feel refreshed, and the scene is then successfully created.

3. Determine prices with an eye on long-term brand benefits

When brands conduct music festival marketing, they should focus on long-term interests in terms of pricing and avoid "fixating on ticket prices".

Price is one of the factors that music festivals have been criticized for recently. With the reappearance of a large number of music festivals, their prices have also risen, while the quality of the content provided is not up to standard, causing everyone to complain.

For a brand, a music festival brings more than just considerable box office revenue. More importantly, it enhances the brand image and captures the minds of consumers.

Like Mixue Bingcheng, it combines its own brand characteristics and maintains a consistent "low-price" strategy amid the overall trend of rising prices at music festivals. The price of 199 is widely accepted. On the surface, it is an invitation to everyone to come to the music festival, but in fact it is a further deepening of the brand image and the output of the brand concept.

4. Matrix communication, pre-arrangement of topics and preheating

Brand music festivals are different from general compilation music festivals. They have a large number of brand elements and brand-related activities, plus the popularity of the stars in their lineup, that is, brand effect + star effect. They must use integrated marketing thinking to plan online and offline promotion and publicity to create a media matrix.

The opening hours of brand music festivals are generally 1-3 days, with a visitor flow of over 10,000. The dissemination time of the music festival should be extended and preheated, linking online and offline, creating momentum in advance, and conducting subsequent hot publicity after the end.

3. Conclusion

Music festivals are gatherings of people with unique youth culture and spirit. Through music, brands spread their core concepts, enhance user stickiness, fully display their brand attitudes in music, and connect with the emotions of the target group. Music festival marketing is becoming a new outlet for brand marketing. How to create your own brand music festival rhythm has become the core of a brand's music festival marketing.

Author: Cao Zhenming

Source: WeChat public account "Marketing Art of War (ID: lanhaiyingxiao)"