Consumer brands’ breakthrough

Since the epidemic was completely lifted in December 2022, various industries such as tourism have begun to gradually recover. Sanya is even more crowded, and shopping malls and restaurants are also bustling with people. How can consumer brands break through? This article may give you the answer.

01

Many authoritative institutions around the world predict that China's economy will recover and develop in 2023. In the past year, strict control of the epidemic, coupled with more stringent sanctions from the United States on China, and the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict have to some extent affected the confidence of businesses and consumers. Due to insufficient funds, residents began to save money, bank deposits increased sharply, and consumer confidence declined.

We have just entered 2023, and the past trend of consumption upgrading has been further continued. Consumption upgrading has caused consumption patterns to begin to change, and changes in consumption patterns have become an important indicator of the continuous improvement of people's living standards.

In the past, broken shoes could be repaired at roadside shoe stalls and worn again, but now shoe repair shops are opened in shopping malls, and they repair luxury shoes and bags; in the past, mobile phones were just a tool for communication, but now mobile phones also represent whether you are a rice fan, an Apple fan, or an Huawei fan; in the past, ordinary people ate green vegetables, and only those with good economic conditions could often afford meat, and eating meat became a pursuit, but now people with good economic conditions like to eat green wild vegetables, and health has become a pursuit... This change in consumption structure, which permeates all aspects of life, directly reflects the consumption level and development trend, and is a reflection of consumption upgrading in life.

During the epidemic, the Shanghai government distributed gift packages of supplies to residents, including some small-brand products. Many young people who received the gift packages complained online. Although this is not a good phenomenon, it is also a landmark event in consumption upgrading.

02

China's total retail sales of consumer goods are estimated to be around 43 trillion yuan in 2022, contributing more than 62% to economic growth, close to the 70% average level in developed countries. Consumption upgrade, as the primary driving force for China's economic growth, not only affects consumers' purchasing behavior, but also forces brands to upgrade their product strategy layout and public relations and marketing strategies to adapt to the consumer market.

At the same time, in the context of consumption upgrading, the relationship between consumers and brands is changing, from a buyer-seller relationship centered on exchanging interests to a friend relationship where people share their thoughts with each other. The essence of brand public relations marketing is to overcome the psychological defenses of consumers, and consumption upgrading will inevitably lead to the upgrading of brand public relations marketing.

03

Brand marketing and public relations should switch from profit-driven to experience-driven: Today's urban life is very stressful. People have to deal with bosses, clients, opponents, and overtime... It is precisely because more and more people have suffered a lot physically and mentally that they have high material demands on themselves. "It is necessary to eat something good!" This is very "heartbreaking" for consumers, giving everyone an excuse to enjoy "eating something good" instead of just "filling their stomachs".

When "experience" and "enjoyment" become the core of the transaction between brands and consumers, the brand's public relations and marketing is to create interaction with consumers and make the consumption process more fun. Master Kong and Uni-President are no longer the first choice. Li Ziqi's snail noodles, Ramen Says instant noodles, Zihaiguo, or simply ordering takeout are the choices of the emerging population.

When it comes to the fun of experience, we have to mention the development of "everything is a blind box" in recent years, and the rapid rise of Douyin live e-commerce in the past two years. The shopping process of consumers is actually an entertainment experience. We also have to mention the strong IP created by brand public relations and marketing: Tmall's Double 11 and JD's 618 shopping festivals.

The birth of Double 11 is driven by the interests of price-sensitive consumers, but through an offline Maker Festival with the theme of "Young People Must Create", it focuses on the interaction and experience of young people, moves future life scenes, innovations in the platform, and artisan shops offline, and injects fashion genes into the brand.

04

Brands should promote consumption in both directions through public relations and marketing as well as consumption upgrades: "When I am different from the world, then let me be different." Generation Z, as mainstream consumers, grew up in an environment of Internet development. These independent-minded people like to pursue a personalized lifestyle.

Among numerous sports brands, when Adidas gathers a group of highly labeled people including celebrities, and faces various opinions such as "too pink", "too rough", "too presumptuous", "too exaggerated", "too fake", "too fast", "too dull", "too feminine", "too manly", "too perfect", "too childish", "too fanatical", "too lazy", "too weird", "too late", etc., it only needs to shout "What a coincidence, this is me!" to give the brand a perfect personality label.

Consumption upgrades have forced brands to rise to the challenge through public relations and marketing. At the same time, good brand marketing will directly drive consumption upgrades among some groups. Lululemon is a brand that has grown through public relations and marketing and consumption upgrades.

At the Beijing Winter Olympics, when Kanada appeared wearing Lululemon, she immediately attracted people's attention and the Winter Olympics model was quickly sold out. At the same time, she seized the opportunity of consumption upgrading and launched circle marketing, which enabled Lululemon to quickly break out of the encirclement of Nike and Adidas.

05

Lululemon has built a systematic user community, which is spread through product educators, brand ambassadors and user groups. Lululemon calls all its employees product educators, requiring them to be familiar with products and businesses like experts, so as to educate users well.

When recruiting store managers, lululemon will give priority to people in the news industry and coffee industry rather than those with a retail background, because lululemon believes that they are better at accepting and spreading brand culture. Lululemon even encourages executives and employees to take a mind-opening course called "landmark" to stimulate their "real potential." The purpose of all this is to better spread the brand culture.

In the end, lululemon's black pants transcended the product itself and were given a greater meaning. They not only changed from professional fitness scenes to women's daily clothing, but also became a symbol of women's awakening. On the other hand, every time it enters a city, lululemon will dig out the 20 most popular fitness coaches, yoga teachers, and dance teachers in the local area.

From these candidates, lululemon will eventually select 4-5 winners as store ambassadors. The store will provide the ambassadors with free clothing, develop courses for them, shoot promotional videos and photos for them, hang posters of them wearing lululemon products in the store, and put their promotional photos in local newspapers, indicating the name of the ambassador's yoga studio.

06

In this way, brand ambassadors can guide traffic to stores. As a highly educated elite group, ambassadors wear lululemon to show off their toned bodies and smooth muscle lines, which is the best advertisement for the brand and has a strong demonstration effect on ordinary consumers. In addition, brand ambassadors will work with each store team to establish promotion strategies through events, communities and social media to help the brand radiate among fitness enthusiasts in the local community.

In lululemon's annual event, SweatLife, the main content is fitness KOLs sharing their fitness experience and lifestyle, and new product launches are an optional extra session. With the support of this user strategy, each lululemon store has become a user base.

Every time a store is opened, lululemon will do four things first:

1. Pop-up store preparation: First look at a low-cost pop-up store as a preliminary user preparation
2. Invite potential users: Invite target groups to attend yoga classes and try new products in the store through an invitation system
3. Connect local yoga studios and brand ambassadors: Rely on brand ambassadors and product educators to stimulate word-of-mouth social marketing and penetrate surrounding sports and fitness venues
4. Open physical stores: When the time is right, open image stores in the CBD area of ​​the city. Then build the brand through public relations marketing and consumption upgrade.

07

From the perspective of brand capture of the market, the performance of the product itself determines "who can use your product", while public relations and marketing can determine "who you want to use your product".

Every consumer will pay attention to one or more circles. When a brand conveys the message to consumers through public relations and marketing that "people worse than you are doing this", it will form a comparative psychology in the consumers' minds, leading to "I want to do this too" or "I want better". When a brand tells consumers that 99% of young people are playing on WeChat Moments, it will be very difficult for you to stay out of it, thus achieving consumption upgrading.

08

Brand public relations and marketing must hit the pain points of consumption upgrading: In this era of consumption upgrading and rampant marketing routines, what are the criteria for judging whether a public relations and marketing campaign is successful?

There are endless marketing forms such as celebrities, Internet celebrities, live broadcasts, and short videos. Following the trend and watching can only attract attention temporarily, but it cannot maintain the resonance of the brand to "please consumers" in a sustainable way. Public relations marketing is like a love affair between a brand and consumers. It uses the forms and content that consumers like to inject soul into the brand, humanize the brand, and establish a congenial relationship with consumers.

The HM pop-up store on Scheveningen Beach in The Hague, Netherlands, the Uniqlo Rubik's Cube House pop-up store at the high-end ice skating rink in Manhattan, the Spotted Kingdom pop-up store in collaboration between LV and Japanese artist Ya Kusama, the TRIWA cardboard tank watch pop-up store... Pop-up stores, which were born out of the fast-paced life, directly link creative marketing models with product sales, achieving a win-win situation for brand reputation and sales.

Author: Liu Yichun

Source: WeChat public account "Liu Yichun's Brand Business Innovation (ID: shangyeyiguohui)"