After reviewing more than 10 Valentine's Day marketing failure cases, we found these 4 minefields

Valentine's Day is coming soon. As one of the major holidays that major brands focus on in marketing, what should we pay attention to in Valentine's Day marketing? This article summarizes various Valentine's Day marketing failure cases and finds several major minefields in Valentine's Day marketing. I hope it will be helpful to you who are concerned about brand marketing.

There are still ten days until Valentine's Day in 2023. Daofa observed that in addition to the conventional actions such as holiday gift boxes and spokesperson TVC that need to be prepared in advance, many brands are planning some more interesting actions, trying to focus on spirit, emotions and other aspects to output brand image and values. Indeed, this year the consumer market has regained its vitality. As the first global holiday after the Lunar New Year, February 14th has shown a higher popularity than the previous two years. At present, the video views under the hot topic #ValentinesDay on TikTok have exceeded 15 billion times, and there are more than 1.98 million notes searching for "Valentine's Day" on Xiaohongshu.

Expressions beyond conventional actions always carry risks. Once something goes wrong, it may immediately become a hot topic. Not only will a lot of effort have to be put into reversing the negative impact, but years of accumulated reputation may also turn to ashes.

Therefore, on the occasion of this small festival that allows brands to test the waters, we reviewed the brand failure cases in the past few years on days related to Valentine's Day (February 14, May 20, Chinese Valentine's Day, etc.), and tried to draw some "red lines" for Valentine's Day marketing from the four aspects of people, relationships, content, and products .

1. Crowd: Know who you are talking to

In August 2020, the French luxury brand Balenciaga released an hourglass bag exclusively customized for Chinese Valentine's Day. The words "I love you", "You love me", and "I love me" were graffitied on the surface of the bag, and a TVC was launched simultaneously. In the picture, some elements popular in the last century rudely occupied the sight: a waterfall that seemed to be deducted from a calendar, red, white and purple fake flowers, love flying all over the sky, and cheap balloons with the words "Fall in love with me, let my red heart surround you".

As soon as the TVC of Balenciaga's Chinese Valentine's Day series advertisement was launched in 2020, it immediately became a hot topic. The Weibo topic #巴黎宝家七夕广告土# reached 210 million in just two days, and even led to a storm of insulting China. At that time, the global consumer market was relatively weak under the epidemic, and major brands regarded Greater China as a growth engine. At the same time, as a brand known for its "rebelliousness", Balenciaga has also been respected by the younger generation for a long time with its "rustic and cool" style.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to continue the design sense, but as an advertisement that is only released in China, Balenciaga violently exports its own imaginary "Chinese local fashion", which is almost like aesthetic bullying to local consumers. Although brands cannot be forced to deliberately cater to domestic aesthetic needs, you should at least not cause discomfort to domestic consumers.

This is just an example of a certain country. In Valentine's Day marketing, there are many brands that have made the wrong choice of target audience. Gender, region, consumption level, emotional state, any indicator involving portraits, there are potential minefields.

For example, if a brand wants to promote its products, it may offend women by simply telling men “you should give gifts”. In another example, in a broad context, single people are often portrayed as losers, while married people are portrayed as winners in life. This type of content may easily cause discomfort to users.

The latter is just an example. On January 31, Hu Ge officially announced that he had a daughter. The female care brand "Jie Er Yin" published a copy: "Hu Ge has become a father, why is the object not you? Have you neglected to take care of yourself?" Behind the uncomfortable text is the wrong positioning of the audience. The audience of female care brands is women who care about themselves, not women who want to be mothers.

Jie'eryin Xiaohongshu Notes Valentine's Day brand marketing is often inseparable from emotions and intimacy, and once these two are involved, people tend to become more sensitive. The first step is that brands should at least know who you are advertising to and what they are thinking.

2. Relationship: Eye-to-eye contact with a sense of distance

After recognizing your target audience, brands need to correctly understand their relationship with them. The most common misunderstanding for brands at present is to love to act as a "dad" to users and look down on them . Daojie Doris once wrote an article "Please, brands, stop being "dads"", in which she mentioned that there is no difference between the routines of "dad flavor" and PUA. Both of them first deny you, create their own sense of authority, and then tell you "I can save you".

A recent example is that in March 2021, P&G Member Center published an article on its WeChat account, pointing out that "women's feet are five times more smelly than men's." It used popular science as a cover to promote PUA, implying that "it doesn't matter if you stink, my product is useful, and I'll save you." Similar content, such as "wash out girlish pink," is often seen in the copywriting of some women's cleaning brands.

There is another type of brand on the related daddy-flavored advertising page, which is equally arrogant, or even more arrogant than "Dad", treating users as their own appendages and then "selling heads". Daofa talked to a brand that is planning Valentine's Day marketing, and she told us that a very common way to play on Valentine's Day is similar to "one-day CP" or "weekly CP".

Generally speaking, the safest thing for brands is to find some brands with the same tone, hold a joint lottery and give gifts, and interact with them. However, there are also brands that really treat users as assets, post some user photos and information on a small range of public channels, and plan real-person CP activities, which is actually to attract traffic to the brand. This practice of selling heads and information gives people a very bad impression.

In the era of consumer sovereignty, the relationship between brands and consumers tends to be equal and mutually beneficial, not "education" and "being educated", nor "ownership" and "being owned" . Establishing a close relationship with consumers is more about providing them with an imaginary possibility and encouraging them to spontaneously pursue a better life and become a better self.

3. Content: Cannot be separated from culture

Content is a disaster area for Valentine's Day-related marketing. Once it involves gender relations, vulgarity and offense are everywhere. For example, on April 19, 2019, the condom brand "Durex" took advantage of the special node of FOR ONE NIGHT to launch the topic #419不眠夜# on Weibo and carried out joint marketing with the tea brand "Heytea". During the interaction, Durex's picture was accompanied by the copywriting, "Tonight, not a drop can be left". Heytea replied in the comment area, "You always have my cheese on your lips."

This explicit exchange is undoubtedly a borderline case of sexual relations, and it also forcibly links food and sex, which makes people feel strongly uncomfortable. Even though three years have passed, searching for "Durex Heytea" on Weibo Square still yields a lot of negative comments.

OnePlus, which has always been a geeky brand, launched a brand promotional video in February 2017. A group of people hold their phones and say some explicit words, such as "Bedmate, I'm in love with you." They even start kissing and licking the phone, and then it is revealed that they are confessing their love to the phone. Even in a more open social environment abroad, this promotional video has been criticized as "awkward and uncomfortable."

Four years later, on February 14, OnePlus shared a GIF on its official Twitter account showing a phone case being put on like a condom. The brand's attitude was clear, and it didn't take the explicit content seriously.

OnePlus mobile phone Valentine's Day ads in 2017 and 2020

Playing word games is fun, but words cannot be divorced from culture. When brands no longer seek creativity from culture, but rely on skirting the rules to attract attention, it becomes an offense to culture, users, and women. Although we have begun to discuss "offense" as an art, reasonable offense requires the right context. Not only on Valentine's Day, but on any festival related to the two sexes, when creating content, brands must at least keep in mind the "red line of public order and morality." This is not difficult, it's just common sense.

4. Products: Small and beautiful is worse than big and complete

The product suggestions came a little late, but it must be said that many couples' concept days are the annual harvest days of straight men, the spiritual suffering days of girls and the return days of e-commerce. On this day, under the overwhelming pressure of public opinion, men who are not the main consumers of beauty and skin care products have become the main contributors to brand sales: the sales of death Barbie pink lipsticks, dark blue eye shadow palettes, and heart-shaped makeup sets remain high.

It is easy for brands to make this kind of money. They don’t even need to create any content. All they need is a poster, a Weibo post, or a WeChat public account article to sell the product.

For example, on the Chinese Valentine's Day in 2022, a certain cosmetics brand launched a Chinese Valentine's Day gift box, with prices ranging from 699 to 1314 yuan. The most expensive set sold over 10,000 units per month. The loose powder and lipstick inside could not be selected in color, and one had to spend 299 to buy a makeup box. Another cosmetics brand launched an envelope gift box set, which also included blush, loose powder, eyes, and lipstick. In the end, the set was more than 30 yuan more expensive than buying them individually.

After Chinese Valentine's Day, various social platforms were full of complaints about brands, and many girls recreated their conversations with their boyfriends:

——"Why did you buy this?"

——“Because it has the highest sales volume.”

——"The gift is very good, don't buy it next time."

This is bound to label the brand as a "tax on IQ".

Attitude is one thing, and ability is another. On May 20, 2020, Luo Yonghao put the 520 flower gift box of "Take a Little Time" and the everlasting rose flower ball of "ROSEONLY" on the shelves during the live broadcast. However, due to overselling on the spot and the brand's wrong decisions in product packaging and design, the flowers were already wilted and rotten when they were delivered to the users. The brand was accused of "selling rotten flowers", and Luo Yonghao also turned to defend the brand together with consumers.

So far, many brands have launched this year's Valentine's Day gift boxes, such as the "Little Bunny with Love" limited edition gift box from "BEAST", the "Anonymous Rose" limited edition aromatherapy gift box from "soulvent", and the "Heart-beating" limited edition gift box from "colorkey". Many of them are inspired by "roses" and have updated some subtle product designs.

Daofa believes that instead of selling large and comprehensive expensive sets, it is better to use some inspired small designs to renovate classic well-known products , so that everyone can celebrate the festival happily together without affecting the user experience.

5. Analyst Comments

Nowadays, marketing can be done at any time. It is difficult to do well, but it is easy to make mistakes. In the ever-changing marketing environment, consumer needs change accordingly. Brands need to truly think and express from the perspective of users, combine the spirit of the times, and use methods that fit their psychology and behavior to output in order to win their recognition.

Although love is a "big business", in the short-term holiday hype, the spirit of "doing nothing" may be more applicable: not with excessive purposes, but taking the opportunity of the festival to communicate with users, to express to the outside world, and to use the gimmick of the festival to let the voice spread a little further.

Author: Saturn, Siete; WeChat public account: Knife Research Institute (ID: DigipontClub)