From the fact that Keep medals sold for 500 million, I summarized two cognitive gains:

Some time ago, Keep sold medals for 500 million yuan, which shocked people in the industry. They didn't expect that they could achieve a sales volume of several hundred million yuan by selling physical medals that are more popular, have a lower threshold for acquisition, are cheap and good-looking. The author analyzes this and discusses some inspirations from it. Let's take a look.

I never expected that a post I made on Weibo (@韩叙HanXu) would become a hot topic in the industry. The data for this post also went viral, with 3.2 million views, 3,000 reposts, and 6,000 likes.

A friend in the group said: I haven’t seen such a large number of “real” interactions on Weibo for a long time.

Moreover, screenshots of this Weibo post can be seen in many places.

For example, in various industry communities, Moments, Xiaohongshu, and video accounts, friends from Tencent also said on Jike: some senior executives have also begun to pay attention.

1. Why is this content so popular? There are several reasons

1. The case of counter-cognition

Everyone in the industry knows about the product Keep, and also knows that they are doing e-commerce and selling things, but no one expected that it would become a hit product with sales of hundreds of millions of dollars.

What’s even more unexpected is that what’s selling well is not professional fitness equipment or courses.

Instead, it is a physical medal that is more popular, has a lower threshold to obtain, is cheap and looks good.

2. Growth anxiety in the post-demographic dividend period

Over the past decade, articles that offer methods to “make a lot of money and write hits” have relatively good data, because everyone is in the media, trying to figure out what they can do next.

Have you noticed that by 2023, there are fewer articles like this, or at least there is nothing new.

Although ChatGPT is the hottest topic at the moment, very few people have participated in it, and it is not yet time to discuss monetization.

In an era of negative population growth, everyone is pursuing refined operations of existing users, but there is still a lack of ideas on how to do it. At this time, an old product making new money can at least relieve anxiety.

3. Attractive presentation

It’s a bit shameless to brag about myself like this, but there is indeed a pattern in it. I used to disdain to use “writing methods” because I thought they were too utilitarian, but this time I suddenly wanted to give it a try.

1) Throw out the key words: Keep and 500 million. The brand is well-known and the number is attractive.

2) Characterize this: A case study of insight into user needs. The sense of value came out, and my peers were amazed.

3) Describe the contradiction: What you think is wrong. We all thought that Keep should focus on the professional field of fitness, but we didn’t expect that more popular products would sell better.

4) Give a conclusion: Pick out a professional perspective to meet user needs. Wrap up and release the value of this article, and readers will have interactive behavior in the next step, such as liking or forwarding.

5) Attach pictures. If there is no evidence, it may not be able to shock people. You can find a lot of them by searching on Xiaohongshu.

2. There is a controversial point: Are there really 500 million?

Personally, I think it’s not that important whether it’s 500 million or 300 million, but I’ll still describe the source of the information:

I got this number from senior management at Keep. I didn’t pay much attention to the specific caliber because it is of little significance and does not affect my understanding and analysis of this matter.

A friend from the fitness media said that the credibility is 0. I asked him what the information was, but he didn't give me a clear response.

Some friends from the Internet media also said that Keep’s public relations denied it.

I asked what the denial was, and my friend said they just asked and the other party denied it. This description of "just once" is also quite speechless and subtle.

Some people even suspected that I wrote PR for Keep. Oh, I should have charged some money earlier.

3. Most importantly, what inspiration did this case give me?

1. Perspective Misalignment

Let me tell you a real case first.

I used to work at Maoyan Movies, and many of my colleagues are senior movie lovers, who have watched thousands of movies. We believe that only professional employees can do the right thing.

When my colleagues talk about movies, they always quote from classics, from the background of the story to the internal gossip, who is paid tribute here, who is plagiarized there, and they also argue about the unreasonable parts of the script, and so on.

I was thinking, are these what users care about? Not sure. So what do users care about?

Because Maoyan's audience is the user group that watches movies in offline theaters, I went to the theater to watch movies almost every day during that period.

There was a scene that left a deep impression on me and made me understand the matter.

At that time, I was watching "My Lucky Star" in a movie theater in the urban-rural fringe area, and next to me was a fat girl. She was holding a big bucket of popcorn, and she would laugh loudly every few minutes, causing my chair to shake and popcorn to fall on me, but she didn't care at all.

I realized at that time that what my colleagues were discussing was too professional and that the vast majority of users watched movies just for entertainment.

Either watch American blockbusters, with all the action and action, which is really fun to watch; or watch comedies and have a great night.

When users evaluate a movie, they care more about whether it is funny, touching, enjoyable, or has some boring parts.

This is a user demand, and there is not much professional information in it.

If you apply your professional perspective to the needs of the general public, it will definitely be misplaced. It seems that everything you do is reasonable, but it just doesn’t work. This is a problem that many companies have, and it is difficult to detect.

Let’s look back at the Keep case.

Keep's target audience is the general fitness group, who do not go to the gym, do not buy private lessons, and exercise at home. Their goal is to lose weight, and they have specific areas to lose fat, such as the lower abdomen.

This audience group is very large, and their understanding and demands for fitness are not that high.

Once Keep users become students of offline gyms, they basically stop using this product.

Targeting such an audience, Keep sells equipment, courses, and instruments, signs contracts with top influencers, and opens gyms, all in order to enable users to train more professionally and achieve better results.

A very reasonable perspective, which is consistent with the logic of the fitness industry.

But the general users of Keep don’t think so. The things mentioned above are not within their expected path and have no direct relationship with their needs, so their desire to buy is very low.

To use an analogy, it's like the user asks for a shotgun, but you provide a cannon. It's more powerful, but it's not useful.

The conclusion is that you need to know who your target users are, what their needs are, and at what level.

If it is a mass user group, you must not use a professional perspective to analyze and understand it. A misaligned perspective will lead to ineffective decision-making. We must realize that the mass and professional are two conflicting perceptions that should not be mixed together.

2. Categorical Determinism

Some friends think that Keep buying medals is an expansion of the sku; others think that it is the materialization of the incentive system.

Both views are incorrect.

1) If it is an expansion of the sku, then more professional medals should be made, from appearance design to acquisition threshold, such as marathon medals.

But in reality, it took a completely different route.

The medals are very cute and beautiful, with IP co-branded models and many varieties. And they are cheap, only 39 yuan. The design concept of this product is completely different from that of marathon medals.

Therefore, this is not an expansion of the SKU of Keep's existing product line, but an exploration of a new direction.

2) If the incentive system is materialized, then the prerequisite is that users must be motivated by the system and care enough about it.

The incentive system is an implicit agreement between the two parties. Both parties agree to participate and contribute voluntarily.

Users who have such a deep connection with the product are all die-hard fans. They are the kind of people who can’t be driven away and won’t leave no matter how hard you try. The number is very small, no more than 20% of all users.

If you design products for this group of people, they will definitely sell, but they will definitely not become a hit.

The core reason why Keep medals are selling well: the product category and positioning have changed. Previously, they were fitness equipment and peripherals, but now they are cultural and creative products.

The advantage of cultural and creative products is that they have a wide audience.

Users used to buy equipment and peripherals for better fitness. Fitness is inherently anti-human, and few people can stick to it. And they have to continue to invest and pursue higher requirements. After layers of screening, there are not many people left.

Nowadays, when users buy cultural and creative products, the logic is much simpler: they look good and are cheap.

In this link, Keep’s professional brand value cannot be ignored.

In the field of fitness, users recognize the brand, so the medal is from Keep and users will buy it. Otherwise, it is just a beautiful medal, which not only lacks soul, but also has no collection value.

This is also one of the channels for the Keep brand to explode its potential after years of accumulation.

In summary, when Keep launched new categories of products, it achieved unexpected results. The logic behind this is: classification determines everything.

The way of classification is essentially the way of looking at business.

Because different classification methods correspond to different strategies. For example, if the category is hotel and travel, then you need to focus on local life; if the category is travel life, then you need to focus on content and strategies.

For example, we can see the changes in market demand from how bookstores are divided into areas.

When I was a child, the Xinhua Bookstore was divided into areas by category, fiction and non-fiction, and then divided into secondary and tertiary categories.

Today's bookstore sales are more dependent on coffee, cultural and creative products, and children's books.

So these three categories became one level, corresponding to different areas and providing different services. The bookshelves in the children's book area are very low so that children can reach them; there are also mats on the ground where you can sit down and read.

Let’s go back to the Keep medal case and summarize.

It is precisely because of the jump from fitness equipment to cultural creation, relying on the professional brand endorsement of Keep, that this product will sell well. The internal logic is the way of classification. The classification has changed, and the business model and audience have also changed.

The above is my hindsight analysis of this matter. I hope it is of some inspiration.

Author: Han Xu

Source: WeChat public account "Operation Dog Work Diary (ID: yunyingriji)"