The marketing calendar is here, no need to worry about marketing inspiration in May!

May is approaching, and the weather is getting warmer, which also brings us different marketing hotspots. How can we seize the opportunity in the future marketing and be one step ahead? Let's take a look at the following May marketing calendar to get more marketing inspiration!

May is coming, the weather is getting warmer, and summer is approaching. Starting from the first day of May, holiday marketing nodes will come one by one, which is an opportunity not to be missed for product marketing. Without further ado, let's take a look at the holiday nodes sorted out below!

1. National Festival

1. May 1st Labor Day

(1) Leverage elements and directions

Elements: May Day, labor spirit, craftsman spirit, short holiday, adjustment, stay at home, special offer

direction:

• The combination of festival elements and products pays tribute to workers from all walks of life, while elevating the theme and conveying the spirit of craftsmanship.
• You can launch promotional activities, such as shopping discounts, group purchases, etc.
• The direction of the holiday travel strategy for the short holiday. As the first short holiday after the end of the epidemic, the May Day holiday has a large number of tourists and can be combined with products and attractions for a large amount of publicity;
• Using "staying at home" and "special offers" as marketing topics, we target customers who choose to relax their vacation time or stay at home during the holidays, attract user participation and increase user stickiness.

(2) Points to note when leveraging momentum

• Avoid similarities with previous campaigns;
• Set marketing content related to the spirit of labor, but avoid generalities;
• It is best to obtain the consent of relevant attractions to prevent infringement and other phenomena.

(3) Reference Cases

The promotion of the vivox80 series is through taking pictures with a series of mobile phone cameras. The pictures are shown from a bird's-eye view of workers in different industries. This shooting angle echoes the spirit of upward life on Labor Day. The smiling faces of the people in the poster show the attitude of "upward life" on May 1st. While paying tribute to the workers on May 1st, it also promotes the product well.

NetEase News and TCL conducted brand linkage from the perspective of "staying at home". Using the form of "staying at home" during the May Day holiday, users can express themselves and show their personality by designing their own stay-at-home posters. The large TCL-XESS smart rotatable TV is used as the largest background object to create the concept that the new TV is a good partner for staying at home, attracting users to understand and buy it.

Skechers created the theme of "Comfortable labor is the most glorious" based on its own brand products, and put forward the slogan "Work hard together and be happy workers who love life", and carried out product marketing of comfortable labor on May 1st, which not only met the theme of May 1st Labor Day, but also achieved the purpose of product marketing.

2. May 4th Youth Day

(1) Leverage elements and directions

Elements: remembering history, patriotism, looking to the future, development, dreams

direction:

• Discuss the inheritance of the May Fourth spirit, remembering history while talking about the fighting spirit of contemporary youth;
• Targeting young groups such as the youth population, brands can launch product promotions related to youthful renewal;
• For the middle-aged and elderly groups, brands can promote their products based on themes related to youth and not age.

(2) Points to note when leveraging momentum

• The rigor of historical citations;
• The theme of May 4th Youth Day is the spirit of striving for progress. Be careful not to deviate from the theme.
• The content of product promotion for different groups should be moderate.

(3) Reference cases

NetEase Cloud Music embodies the spirit of "youth" from the perspective of young people. The overall poster design tone and picture content reflect the modern spirit of young people.

Hanhou’s product marketing themes are “No vitality, no youth” and “If you are young, you must not be afraid of the sun”. Its poster design highlights the color of “vitality”, aiming to reflect the youthful and energetic spirit of young people.

BYD’s theme is “Awakening of the Force, Sharing Youth with the Times”, and its poster design combines text with pictures of the times, giving us a different visual effect.

The theme proposed by Gree Titanium New Energy on the May 4th Youth Day is "Fearlessly Define Youth", which is also the spirit of the May 4th Youth Day - youth is fearless in definition, and strivers are in their youth.

3. May 10th is China Brand Day

(1) Leverage elements and directions

Elements: brand, professionalism, quality life, brand power

direction:

• The theme of this brand day is "Creation of Chinese Modern Brands", and the brand quality will be promoted according to the theme;
• Focus on the brand quality of the product and show how the product improves the quality of life. For example, home improvement brands can create theme promotions for quality life and design related experience activities.
• Build professional support for the brand and carry out publicity and promotion based on professionalism.

(2) Points to note when leveraging momentum

• Pay attention to the actual use effect of the product and avoid exaggeration;
• Pay attention to the substantive professionalism of the product and avoid false promotional language.

(3) Reference cases

The Bull brand demonstrated its professionalism in this brand marketing campaign. While helping the Bull brand upgrade its strategy, this marketing campaign also ignited the Chinese people's romantic expectations for China's space industry and their firm confidence in Chinese brands.

The biggest highlight of this group of posters of Bestore is the Chinese style and fireworks. It uses Bestore's snack products as the expression carrier, combines product real scenes and creative illustrations, and continuously outputs high-quality content with brand personality, visual beauty, cultural connotations, value propositions and life aesthetics, connecting "good time" and "good food". While spreading China's traditional culture of "eating in season", it gently weaves a bond with users to communicate product features and exchange brand emotions. It realizes the modern embodiment of Chinese brands and achieves the effect of product marketing.

The Forbidden City posters designed jointly by the Forbidden City and Tencent - "Writing a brush to create a moon and drawing a forest" are two posters designed by Huang Hai for the Forbidden City. They use "brush" as the core element and have a strong traditional Chinese style. The minimalist poster design shows the ultimate oriental beauty.

4. May 14th – Mother’s Day

(1) Leverage elements and directions

Elements: Feelings, gratitude, maternal love, companionship, personalization

direction:

• Mother's Day is a sentimental festival, so brands should promote it in a sentimental direction, mainly from the perspective of children. The traditional perspective can still be to simply give "mother's love", and brands can launch related brand gift boxes, etc.
• From the perspective of gratitude, brands can launch activities to express gratitude for mothers’ love, thank mothers for their companionship, etc.
• Beyond the perspective of children, motherhood can also be a personalized self-festival. Brands can launch brand packages from the perspective of mothers.

(2) Points to note when leveraging momentum

• Be careful not to define women’s identities in the copywriting. Mother is just one of women’s identities.
• Avoid excessively sensational copywriting and prevent excessive publicity;
• Avoid similarities with previous periods in the handling of branded products.

(3) Reference cases

Uniqlo Japan uses a new paper media method to carry out brand marketing - newspaper advertising. The advertisement adopts the form of a four-frame comic and is placed on different pages of the newspaper. The page occupied increases gradually, and the advertising theme also progresses layer by layer until it finally occupies the entire page. At the same time, the choice of the protagonist is very consistent with the brand tone and color matching of Uniqlo, and there is no sense of disobedience when the brand logo is placed on it for typesetting. Although it is a reminder advertisement, after reading the content of the advertisement, it is not difficult for readers to think that they may go to Uniqlo to pick out a practical and comfortable piece of clothing for their mother, forming an association.

Walmart's choice of theme is exactly the perspective of the mother herself, which is a unique brand marketing method. On Mother's Day, in addition to the care and concern of her children, the mother herself can also thank herself and gradually become a better self.

Meituan Waimai launched a series of social posters with the theme of "Mom Loves Flowers", presenting real-life photos, which weakened the commercial flavor of this marketing. At the same time, the purpose of adding color to life is also a reflection of Meituan's slogan "Little helper for a better life".

Nongfu Spring presents another perspective of motherhood, with the theme "Mother of Changbai Mountain", which is a pun, referring to the animal mothers who give birth to the next generation, and also to Changbai Mountain, which nourishes 4,394 species of plants and animals with its spring water and is the common mother of all creatures living here. When nature and creatures blend, the vitality and romance of Nongfu Spring are quietly revealed.

5. May 20th, 520 Marketing Day

(1) Leverage elements and directions

Elements: 520, love, confession, companionship, love

direction:

• 520 sentimental direction, using love as the cutting point to design product posters, etc.
• In terms of confession, you can approach it from the direction of youth and bravery;
• Create a love and companionship theme event to promote products. For example, jewelry brands can leverage this theme for marketing;
• Paying attention to different groups, single groups can also have a good 520 experience. Brands can design unique 520 festival methods based on single groups, such as catering brands can launch different single meals.

(2) Points to note when leveraging momentum

• Pay attention to the choice of groups and avoid provoking conflicts;
• Avoid vulgar "love" that makes the product positioning tacky and unattractive.

(3) Reference cases

Mixue Ice City focuses on love on 520. Couples can go to Mixue Ice City's offline stores or order takeout to get paper couple certificates. Each electronic couple certificate comes with a "certificate number", and each one is a unique limited edition, giving couples on 520 a full sense of ceremony. Each electronic couple certificate has an exclusive certificate number. Mixue Ice City has also set up a unique couple certificate numbered "MX1314520" waiting for the destined person to receive it. It can be said that the love of 520 and brand marketing are perfectly combined, which is a very successful brand marketing.

Momo adopted a marketing method that is completely opposite to the familiar "love" on 520 - redefining this day as "World Strangers' Day". In Momo's view, every year's 520 should not be limited to the category of "acquaintances" such as lovers, relatives or friends, but can also be extended to a broader and open social field. At the same time, a poster with the theme copy "Don't let the kindness of strangers be covered by hurt" was launched. It can be said to be a different way of marketing. As a social APP, Momo's reverse marketing method is worth our deep consideration.

Xianyu, as a large platform for persuading people to break up, is surrounded by the romantic atmosphere of 520 when other places are surrounded by it. But on Xianyu, a group of young people are reselling gifts overnight: "gifted by boyfriend", "gifted by dog", "brand new and unopened". Each keyword of the product listed on Xianyu tells us a story of love grievances, and this behavior is also defined by us as "Xianxue", which is a new trend of young people managing their lives on Xianyu.

Therefore, Xianyu took advantage of 520 to launch Xianyu's annual cultural IP "Xianyu Behavior Awards", and based on the insights of young people on Xianyu on 520, proposed the 520 Xianyu theme: It's just a chance encounter, go to Xianyu, which describes that after receiving a gift on 520, you will immediately go to Xianyu, indicating that you only have a chance encounter with the gift.

2. Solar terms and festivals

1. 5.6 Beginning of Summer

(1) Leverage elements

Summer, sunshine, vitality, sun protection

(2) Direction of leveraging momentum

• The color tone of the brand's promotional posters can be more summery and the content can also be more cooling and refreshing.
• All kinds of summer-related cooling products, such as cooling drinks and ice cream, as well as essential summer skin care products and sunscreen, can be promoted in large quantities.
• In addition to cooling down, you can also create a "Hot Summer" theme promotion to emphasize the hot summer experience.

(3) Reference cases

Daily Fresh’s poster adopts a refreshing green tone as a whole, and also uses a bright watermelon symbol to show the arrival of summer, achieving the brand’s summer “Fresh” marketing effect.

iQiyi takes "heat" as its theme, reflecting the heat of summer in its selection of programs.

Haier's poster is clear and concise, directly reflecting the brand value with the arrival of summer, evoking associations while achieving the effect of brand marketing.

2. May 21, Grain Full

(1) Leverage elements

Solar terms, plant growth, and maturity

(2) Direction of leveraging momentum

• The name of the solar term "Xiaoman" has many meanings. Brands can associate "Xiaoman" with it to extend content in multiple directions.
• In addition to being the beginning of summer, Grain Full is also a node in plant growth. Brands related to plant growth can adopt relevant intentions for marketing;

(3) Reference cases

In this poster copy, Hisense extended the meaning of the name of the solar term Xiaoman, saying "things here are small but full", and used the visual effect of ripe wheat ears in the poster to reflect the characteristics of the solar term Xiaoman.

The poster design of Jiumuwang is based on the characteristics of the Grain Full solar term - the growth and maturity of plants, and the brand marketing is carried out with the theme of "Grain Full, Full of Happiness".

Yili also extends the meaning of the solar term "Xiaoman", explaining that Xiaoman is the best state of life.

3. Summary

Festivals are an important starting point for brand marketing in all walks of life. Through the above-organized festival marketing and case analysis, we remind you to plan festival marketing preparations in advance! However, each festival has a different marketing focus. You should pay attention to the differences between each festival and the compatibility with your own brand. Sometimes, choice is more important than effort. It is recommended to choose a festival that suits your own brand and increase marketing efforts to achieve twice the result with half the effort.

Attached: The mind map of marketing nodes in May, please take it if you need it~

Author: Chen Yijun

Source: WeChat public account "Operation Party (ID: yunyingpai666)"