New Year gift box, where are your users? Where are the scenarios? Where are the needs?

During the Chinese New Year, there are always a variety of New Year gift boxes, which are dazzling. From content, style, products to concept, connotation, and culture, brands are increasingly ingenious and creative in gift box packaging. Let's take a look at New Year gift boxes in this article.

According to the report "Insights into New Trends in Young People's New Year Celebrations in 2022" jointly released by the China Business Network (CBNData) together with Ele.me and Alibaba, consumers' New Year consumption scenarios are becoming more diverse. Stocking up on New Year gift boxes and buying New Year snacks are the main consumption scenario demands and have become "New Year must-haves."

Chinese New Year consumption is mainly concentrated in two types of consumption: buying New Year goods and giving New Year gifts. Among them, the consumption habits of buying New Year goods are relatively fixed, mainly purchasing food, wine and other categories to entertain Spring Festival visitors and add "New Year flavor". The consumption habits of giving New Year gifts are more flexible, and the goods purchased will vary according to the different gift recipients.

During the Chinese New Year, New Year gift boxes are always varied and dazzling. From content, style, products to concept, connotation and culture, brands are increasingly having their own ingenuity and creativity in gift box packaging.

Now, whether a gift box can arouse consumers' enthusiasm for buying, judging from the purchasing behavior of the new generation of consumer groups, "personalization" may have become the "most powerful" label. How a brand can innovatively attract consumers' attention is actually testing the influence of an IP.

Therefore, we will see a lot of cross-border co-branded products. Gift boxes can also be used for IP marketing. For example, Wufangzhai once borrowed "Captain America 3" and Shanghai Disneyland to launch 8 Marvel and Disney series rice dumpling gift boxes, which quickly attracted fans' attention and the gift boxes were sold out immediately. This kind of IP marketing that combines hot spots and leverages the trend is also a way that gift boxes can adopt during the Spring Festival.

In addition to IP collaboration, New Year gift boxes must also focus on "topicity", "interactivity" and "salesability", and continue to expand to achieve the simultaneous development of brand and sales, and the dance of topics and traffic. New Year gift boxes must achieve brand promotion and reputation enhancement of the company where 1+1 is greater than 2.

1. Gift boxes of new brands: not only "New" Year, but also "blessings" and "topicality"

Recently, Otter Ton Ton launched the "New Year Fruit Tea Shop" New Year gift box for the first time, starting the new year with the first cup of Red Fortune Fruit Tea. The gift box is centered around the "tea table scene" for young people to gather together to create a healthy and comfortable life with food and drink, including Fresh Fruit Duoduo (lactic acid bacteria) fruit tea, fruit tea snacks and biscuits, as well as fruit tea cups and small Spring Festival couplets with the word "Fu".

The New Year gift box of Otter Ton Ton "New Year Fruit Tea Shop" is officially priced at 268 yuan in the Tmall flagship store. The gift box design is inspired by "otter blessing" and takes the "Duoduo" good omen theme from the Fresh Fruit Duoduo series.

Experts have analyzed that among the types of gifts given by Chinese white-collar workers during the Spring Festival, snacks and nuts (gift boxes), fruits and tea still occupy the top positions. Self-pleasing, practical and quality consumption have become the keywords of "New Year's goods". The Otter Ton Ton Fruit Tea Gift Box uses freeze-dried fruit tea as its main product, paired with biscuits, snacks and New Year's peripherals, which is suitable for friends to drink freely at gatherings and gift giving, and may gain more recognition from consumers.

Recently, Xiaoxiandun Fresh Bird's Nest has teamed up with the Summer Palace to launch a New Year series of co-branded bird's nest gift boxes, integrating classic elements and imagery from the Summer Palace, restoring the ultimate quality with advanced techniques, recreating the pursuit of longevity, happiness and a harmonious and beautiful life in traditional Chinese culture, and delivering blessings and expectations for longevity, happiness and health with a fresh and nutritious nourishing experience, creating a "cultural topic", a healthy Chinese gift that combines cultural connotations and quality, and uses gift to express feelings and inherit the thousand-year-old Chinese nourishing culture.

The Summer Palace officials highly praised the cooperation: " We are very pleased that there is a brand willing to inherit the traditional oriental nourishing culture with ingenuity, patience and innovation . With this box of freshly stewed bird's nest, we hope that the rich and vast traditional culture can nourish more people."

Xiaoxiandun’s fresh bird’s nest has joined hands with the Summer Palace to carefully present the New Year’s co-branded bird’s nest gift box, hoping to further promote Chinese nourishment into the mainstream life of modern people, and jointly witness Chinese nourishment passing through the corridor of history and shining in the modern era.

If we count the food, the new retail Hema has already planned the 2023 Spring Festival gift boxes in advance. Taking advantage of the topics of time-honored brands and intangible cultural heritage, Hema's 2023 New Year gift boxes will be launched in mid-December, mainly focusing on seafood products with unique flavors co-created and developed by Hema chefs and brands.

Wen Yan, head of the Northwest region of Hema Catering, said that Hema itself is an integrated online and offline sales platform. Not only will it set up special areas for New Year's goods and dishes online, but there will also be eye-catching displays in online physical stores. Customers who have recently visited the store should have noticed the Lao Sun's braised beef gift boxes and various cold dishes that were a collaboration between Hema Workshop and time-honored brands and intangible cultural heritage skills. Citizens have responded very well after consuming and tasting them.

It's not just about "eating", there are also more petite "topic" gift boxes. "Guanxia tosummer" launches the limited edition incense brick gift box "Pepsi Limited Edition Essential Oil Incense Brick Gift Box" for the year of Guimao. The gift box is inspired by the "eating peaches" in Huizhou, and contains four types of 4 essential oil incense bricks. The packaging gift box is engraved with the scene of New Year lanterns and comes with an exclusive gourd-shaped custom plate, which means double blessings of fortune and luck.

At the same time, "The Beast" announced a joint launch of a limited edition Rabbit Year gift box with the champagne brand "Belle Epoque", which includes the two limited edition fragrances, champagne and rabbit gift box lights. The new joint product specially adds Chardonnay grapes (fermented) from the Grande Champagne region of France, essence of French orange oil and Italian sweet orange oil, which highly restores the fruity aroma and bubbles of champagne, and has a sweet taste.

In addition to some conventional options for eating, drinking and having fun during the New Year Goods Festival, "tech-themed" New Year goods have also become one of the mainstream New Year goods consumption. Bringing a novel and easy-to-use smart device to the New Year can also add a sense of technology and modernity to traditional festivals. XR brand PICO has specially launched the PICO 4 New Year gift box, and will start pre-sale on major e-commerce platforms such as JD.com, Tmall, and Douyin on December 26. At the same time, it will be officially sold in the PICO official mall, PICO offline experience stores and various special counters. It is a different kind of technological "trendy gift".

The new brand gift box reveals individuality everywhere and repeatedly triggers the topic of "New Year" by borrowing from ancient festivals.

2. Gift boxes of old brands: "salesability" is essential

Compared with the new brands that are "full of topics", old brands tend to highlight the new theme of "salesability".

On December 18, Shede Wine Industry launched the Shede Rabbit Year Zodiac Wine, which is another masterpiece after the "Shede Tiger Year Wanxiang New Gift Box". It integrates classic elements such as zodiac culture, intangible cultural heritage, and traditional Chinese patterns, satisfying people's pursuit of quality liquor and a better life, thus obtaining a "gift giving" consumption option.

At the fifth CIIE, the debut of the "Four-Leaf Clover" co-branded product of Orion and Dunhuang Museum attracted much attention. The brand-new packaging design, thoughtful product combination, and traditional cultural elements that transcend time and space are especially popular among young consumers, and are expected to help Orion's national trend gift box become the focus of the New Year gift consumption market.

The design style of the Orion×Dunhuang Museum joint gift box is full of strong Chinese style. The main colors are gold, red and blue, and it is decorated with Dunhuang auspicious animal patterns represented by the Nine-Colored Deer, Vermilion Bird and Golden Phoenix, which fully demonstrate the beauty of Chinese traditional culture represented by Dunhuang culture.

In addition to the national trend gift box, Orion's classic products such as Orion Pie, Egg Yolk Pie, Ya! Potato and Haoyouqu have also upgraded their packaging design and launched co-branded packaging. The strong national trend flavor and the brand-new packaging style make Orion in the "Spring Festival" particularly "beautiful, nutritious and meaningful". After the New Year's Eve dinner, the "snack time" begins, and Orion creates the consumption of "New Year's snacks".

In this year's gift boxes, Yuanzu has upgraded its product packaging and launched a variety of exquisite gift boxes, including New Year's Inscription Gift, Great Bunny, Fortune Blind Box, Money Bunny, Fortune Bunny Blind Box, etc. From product development to packaging design of gift boxes, Yuanzu focuses on every detail, not only with diverse flavors, but also with unique ways to play, creating a new trend of warm winter fun and showing the extraordinary charm of Yuanzu's exquisite gift boxes.

In recent years, with new changes in consumption trends, the consumer groups dominated by those born in the 1980s and 1990s, in addition to paying attention to product quality, also tend to buy novel and interesting gift boxes. Therefore, in order to better meet current consumer demand, Yuanzu has continuously made efforts in research and development to create New Year gift boxes with high cost performance and quality, bringing a different fun and trendy consumption experience.

Daring to break the rules with excellence, Yuanzu breaks free from the constraints of inherent style with its unique design. In this year's New Year gift boxes, not only the appearance continues to be upgraded, but the gift boxes are also made into souvenirs, which not only conveys Yuanzu's unique culture, but also leaves consumers with unique memories.

The design of the Yuanzu New Year Mingli gift box cleverly combines the classic red of the Spring Festival with the Yuanzu purple, exuding a strong festive atmosphere. The double-layered box is simple and exquisite, and the box body is engraved with retro patterns such as mountains and seas, which has an auspicious and festive, antique charm. Pull open the purple bow ribbon, in addition to the cornucopia of four crispy nuts, milk copper coins with flowing mochi fillings, slightly sweet longan cakes, auspicious persimmons, jujube cakes, chia seeds and black sesame cakes and other excellent cakes, the New Year Mingli gift box is also equipped with refreshing and greasy oolong tea, which brings a diverse consumer experience while enjoying the food.

Yuanzu is more about satisfying the Chinese New Year consumption trend of "consumption upgrade".

Compared with Hema, JD Supermarket's New Year Goods Festival was officially launched on the 29th. JD Supermarket, in conjunction with the 2022 popular IP "I'm Not Fat Tiger", joined hands with Qia Qia, Mead Johnson, West Lake and other brands to exclusively customize 21 gift boxes for JD Supermarket, which were also launched on the 30th.

At the same time, JD Supermarket has also jointly created more than 300 New Year gift boxes for the Year of the Rabbit with brands such as Yili, Suyou Qianxiang, Zhan Yi, and Jingxiansheng. These gift boxes include six major categories: snacks and drinks, fresh food, toys and musical instruments, mother and baby, alcohol, and pets.

During the New Year Goods Festival, JD Supermarket created a "New Year's First Gift" venue for JD Exclusive Gift Boxes and New Year Gift Boxes. Consumers only need to open the JD APP, click on JD Supermarket in the upper left corner, enter the "Gift Box Venue" and make purchases.

The New Year’s Goods Festival used to be dull, but with the rise of e-commerce, Internet shopping for New Year’s goods is now a two-way process. Consumers will provide feedback to the e-commerce platform in advance through “search” and “add to cart” on what they want and like, and when the New Year comes, naturally their “favorite” gift boxes will arrive on the shopping homepage.

The brand manager of Hsu Fuji also said: "Compared with the past, the Spring Festival in 2023 will come earlier. With the easing of the epidemic, it is good news for the Spring Festival gift-giving market. We are very optimistic about the New Year goods market in 2023 and look forward to the strong sales of New Year goods to help Hsu Fuji's performance growth."

For New Year gift boxes, old brands focus on profits to win development, while new brands focus on topics to win reputation and traffic, each getting what they need.

3. New Year's "gift box" also needs to be interactive

New Year gift boxes are popular during the holidays, and consumers are also upgrading. Standing at the beginning of the 2023 timeline, what kind of New Year gift boxes do consumers need?

New Year gift boxes must first be innovated and upgraded. With the improvement of living standards and economic recovery, innovative and upgraded products have become a hot topic. The demand for personalized and diversified products is becoming increasingly strong, and consumers are more welcoming of healthy, green and smart consumer products.

Semi-finished New Year's Eve dinners, window-cleaning robots, and smart toilet lids have become popular New Year's goods on the Tmall platform. More and more young people are getting into the "black technology" of smart homes. The sales of quilt warmers, noodle machines, steak machines, floor washers, and dishwashers have increased by more than 100% year-on-year.

In addition, sales of health-related home beauty and fitness products have also increased significantly. For example, protein powder, probiotics, thermometers, blood pressure monitors, and massagers have become popular products for young people to thank their parents and reward themselves.

5G and AI industries are expected to see further growth this year. The earlier the Internet of Everything industry enters the market, the easier it will be to gain an advantage. The current technical levels of smart homes are similar. How to capture the preferences of young people and the operation of the elderly in terms of appearance design and product interaction is the key at this stage. And with the increase in traffic costs, smart terminals, as new user traffic entrances, will deposit traffic in their own hands through high-frequency daily use, which will also bring more additional benefits.

New Year gift boxes must be good-looking. No matter how the times change, the gifts given during festivals and holidays are always as good-looking as possible, after all, humans are visual animals. Gift boxes with New Year attributes are usually made exquisitely and beautifully, and may even overshadow the gifts themselves. These "face-saving" packaging that takes a lot of effort naturally increases the value of New Year gift boxes.

New Year gift boxes need to meet people's emotional needs. Different from daily life, where people buy whatever products they lack and pay attention to cost performance, consumers who buy and send New Year gift boxes do not buy them because they need the products, but need the New Year gift boxes to convey emotions. Therefore, "interactivity" and the need for brands to "play" with consumers are very important.

Conclusion

Whether at the New Year’s Festival nut gift box sites on JD.com, Taobao, and Tmall, or on other platforms, it is not difficult to find that major snack brands have hung the 2023 New Year gift boxes as important gift boxes at the forefront of the shelves.

The big sellers of high-end gift boxes are also using their unique designs and gift box contents to bring everyone a different New Year feeling in 2023.

Whether it is the cute "hand-painted squirrel" style, or the national trend style jointly promoted with the Dunhuang Research Institute, or the joint interpretation with the new national trend artist Zhu Jingyi like Be & Cheery, the gift box packaging that combines traditional art with emerging trends and Internet language conveys the brand's understanding of the meaning of the New Year.

The consumption scenarios of New Year gift boxes focus on the word "giving". They need to be "face-saving", bring both parties closer together, and have a taste for style. And because it is under the fixed word "New Year", festiveness is indispensable.

Therefore, so many New Year gift boxes use "red" as the center and festivity as the radius. New consumption focuses on "establishing the brand" and "topic" at the same time, while old brands focus on "profit" and "consumption". Only because of the inconsistency of target customers, new consumption gift boxes impress young people, and old brands accompany the middle-aged and elderly. Therefore, the most comfortable model is for the brand to find its own comfort zone and provide the most appropriate satisfaction within the sight of its target customers.

The author believes that the most appropriate gift box must be in line with the company's tone. Young people's eyes are on the line and "tone", simple and generous with a little "red". Middle-aged and elderly people are the enthusiastic fans of New Year's goods in supermarkets. No matter whether they buy New Year's gift boxes or receive New Year's gift boxes, companies do not need to satisfy every age group, just because in the New Year scene, it is the most revealing choice.

Therefore, in the New Year gift box market, the only thing companies have to do is to be themselves. Whether it is "rustic" or "foreign", the gift box that best matches the company's tone and target audience is the best gift box.

Although the times are changing, marketing remains the same. The purpose of gift box marketing is to sell products, so the design of gift boxes must keep up with market trends. This means that merchants' gift box marketing can no longer stay on simple product packaging, but must create highlights in the "topicity", "interactivity" and "salesability" of gift boxes to make gift boxes more valuable and bring more profits to enterprises.

What other ideas do you have about New Year gift boxes? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

Author: Li Jiaman

Source: New Consumption Think Tank