One event, search volume increased 51 times! Focus on 4 actions in the food delivery business in 2023

To ignite winter consumption, coffee brands have a new move: coffee + skiing! Some time ago, Meituan Takeaway Platform and Starbucks launched the "Meituan Takeaway Ski Season" theme event, customized ski gift boxes and surrounding products, and launched discounted product packages, which gained sales and popularity. Through this event, I felt the change in the logic of brands doing online business this year. Find traffic online and attract young people. What new ideas are there in 2023?

1. Search volume increased 51 times! Starbucks attracted fans with the "ski package"

As January begins, "ice and snow sports" is the hottest topic in outdoor sports.

The "Top Ten Life Trends in 2022" released by Xiaohongshu shows that the craze for ice and snow sports has continued from 2022 to the present, and there are currently more than 1.72 million skiing-related notes.

According to the "2022 China Ice and Snow Industry Development Research Report", it is estimated that the total scale of China's ice and snow industry will exceed 800 billion yuan in 2022.

To join the ice and snow craze, leading brands have also made new moves recently:

On December 22, Starbucks Delivery and Meituan Waimai launched the "Meituan Waimai Ski Season" Super Brand Day event, and launched preferential packages on the Meituan Waimai platform, including two hot drinks, Toffee Hazelnut Oat Latte and Lava Dark Chocolate Oat Mocha, plus important benefits such as "Second cup on us" and lucky draws for ski peripherals, which set off a wave of popularity.

Starbucks Delivers and Meituan Waimai launch the "Meituan Waimai Ski Season" event

A quick search online shows that many netizens are sharing tips on event discounts on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Weibo. The Star Skiing peripheral gift boxes are even more popular. The "Skiing Equipment Travel Bag", "Multi-functional Sports Waist Bag", "Meituan Kangaroo Ear Headdress", etc., are all displayed by ski bloggers in person, attracting attention. It is reported that the search volume of Meituan's takeaway marketing term "Winter Starbucks" during this ski season event has increased 51 times compared to previous events.

Online platforms have always been a battlefield for beverages that cannot be ignored. The fan-attracting power and sales performance of Starbucks' Star Delivery event also made me feel that the business logic of online platforms is changing. So, what new ways will there be in 2023 to create hot products online and attract young people?

2. Create hot products online, focus on these actions in 2023

Looking back on this event, it was the Meituan food delivery platform that initially had insight into the interests of young people and chose the "winter skiing" scenario as its entry point; at the same time, Starbucks Delivery launched an exclusive event, which relied on event package design, expert promotion and other methods to ultimately break the circle and attract more consumers to check in and spread the word spontaneously.

Bloggers check in and post pictures

In essence, the online platform links up with brands to trigger activities with full-link support.

In the past year, Starbucks Delivery has collaborated with Meituan’s food delivery platform many times to create popular products, which also gave us new inspiration.

1. “Bind” with popular scenarios to gain insights into consumption opportunities

Just imagine, drinking a cup of steaming hot coffee in the snow is attractive in itself.

The Starbucks Star Delivery and Meituan Takeaway Ski Season event is tied to the hot winter scene "ski resort", capturing the current hot spot.

This also stems from Meituan’s long-term consumer insights - skiing represents the novelty and cool trend among young people today. Skiing enthusiasts, mainly young people, are keen to share, which has attracted more attention to the event.

2. Be skillful in product selection and create “order attraction”

In addition to the creation of consumption scenarios, what really influences consumer decisions is the product itself.

The theme of this event is "Meituan Takeaway Ski Season". The combination discount products launched include two Starbucks hot drinks: Toffee Hazelnut Oat Latte and Lava Dark Chocolate Oat Mocha , focusing on bringing consumers a warm and silky experience, matching the skiing theme.

In August and September last year, Meituan Takeaway Super Brand Day and Starbucks launched an event that combined the summer vacation/National Day holiday scenes at the time and selected Frappuccino products with more casual characteristics. In terms of the form of the event, it used the "hidden version of Starbucks" as a topic to arouse consumers' curiosity, which also formed a kind of self-propagation.

In addition, price is also key to giving users a reason they cannot refuse to place an order.

Previously, the promotion launched by Starbucks Delivery and Meituan Takeout also attracted more consumers to place orders with the affordable prices of the discounted packages.

3. Use peripheral products to trigger "tap water" communication and break the circle

After selecting the product, you also need to consider how to use activities to accumulate potential energy and transform the potential energy into motivation for consumers to pay.

The "Meituan Takeaway Ski Season" has gained a certain degree of popularity on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Weibo, which is inseparable from the customized peripheral products that have penetrated into people's minds.

First, ski bloggers personally shared the co-branded peripherals, and some bloggers even directly wore "kangaroo ear headdresses", "multi-functional sports waist bags" and other equipment, and shot "ski resort blockbusters" to attract attention from the circle.

Then, through their own dissemination to shape the perception of a trendy lifestyle, more "tap water" began to pay attention to this event, showing the product features and price advantages of the event one by one.

At this point, by creating a lifestyle, more people are attracted to participate, and ultimately the product and brand will spread themselves.

4. The membership system is connected, and brands and platforms leverage each other

It is worth mentioning that Starbucks Delivery and Meituan Takeout have achieved the integration of membership points.

In other words, users can also earn Starbucks membership points by placing orders on Meituan Takeout.

For users who want both promotional discounts and membership points, this is also an important part of attracting orders. Only by opening up the membership system can brands and platforms truly leverage each other.

3. What new value can brands capture with the help of online platforms?

It can be found that at the current stage, the importance of online platforms is becoming increasingly prominent. Brands seize online platforms to capture two value points.

First, the support of platform traffic has brought about the accumulation of brand potential and ultimately achieved an increase in brand voice.

In June 2022, Meituan Waimai launched the "Shanghai Sweet" campaign in conjunction with six major beverage brands. While releasing joint posters, it also cooperated with local media in Shanghai to conduct street interviews with Shanghai consumers, arouse resonance among target users, and trigger attention and discussion among Shanghai users.

The total number of readings of the Weibo topic #美团外卖上海甜# created by this event exceeded 54.506 million, and the number of discussions also exceeded 16,000.

Secondly, the platform can gain insights into consumers based on massive data and find more accurate entry points for activities. This will also be a more meaningful promotion idea for brands in the future.

Before the National Day last year, Meituan Waimai understood users’ mentality of “living in the moment” and their emotional psychology in the countdown to the holidays, and combined it with Starbucks’ hidden menu gameplay to launch promotional activities.

During the event period, the search volume for the brand word "Starbucks" on Meituan's food delivery platform achieved a daily synchronous growth.

Conclusion

Reviewing the collaboration between Starbucks Delivery and Meituan Takeout, whether it is entering into consumption scenarios or creating activity popularity, it reflects the platform's deep insight into user needs and achieving precise reach in execution.

To summarize the actions of the platform, they are mainly carried out in the following two stages:

• Insight stage: Through the collection and analysis of data on the platform, we deeply explore the sources of consumers and draw user portraits;
• Execution stage: Through insights into consumer behavior, more targeted and personalized marketing is carried out to increase conversion rates.

In short, the ultimate goal is to accurately tap into consumers' sensitive points, meet their ever-changing needs, and make every step count.

Author: Jin Yu

Source: WeChat public account "Kamen (ID: KamenClub)"