Wangjiawei, SK Rabbit, King Cat...30 brands use New Year's hot products to get a head start in 2023!

Adding effective images to products is a common idea in brand Spring Festival marketing, and many brands have used it during this year's New Year's Goods Festival. Which brand products will become hot sellers during the New Year's Goods Festival in the Year of the Rabbit in 2023? Let's take a look.

Shakespeare said that the gifts of simplicity and loyalty are always desirable.

For Chinese people, the Spring Festival is undoubtedly the most important festival of the year. It is also an important moment for brands to present gifts to fans with their simplicity and loyalty.

Especially for the anticipated year of 2023, you must dress up carefully.

This is not just a classic fashion show, but also a battle of honor among brand gods. No one wants to miss such an auspicious, beautiful and meaningful "start".

During the New Year’s Goods Festival, let us take a look at what new stories, new meanings, and new carriers the top brands have chosen to step into 2023 with consumers.

1. Limited edition, gift box, customization, "maximizing" the sense of scarcity and ritual

1. Dyson: Technology-based appearance creates a sense of exclusivity

(Photo source: Dyson brand official WeChat account)

Just look at the color scheme that suits Chinese consumers' aesthetic tastes and the hint of dazzling gold hot stamping, and you will know how much Dyson understands the Chinese.

The combination of red and yellow has always been a favorite of the Chinese: red has always been regarded by the Chinese as a color that represents happiness and joy, and is full of solemnity, happiness, and wealth; yellow has been considered a positive color since ancient times, representing the center in the five elements. The color combination of the two can be seen in the "red walls and yellow tiles" of the Forbidden City, or in the "red dress and gold ornaments" of the phoenix crown and bridal robe...

Friends who have listened to the sharing of Mr. Guo Hao, the author of "Traditional Chinese Colors" at the Yibang Future Retail Conference must remember that color economy is becoming a subject that consumer brands are paying more and more attention to. Good-looking color combinations will immediately trigger consumers' desire to buy.

The color matching of Dyson's new year products can be passionate, sexy, or noble and elegant in the eyes of different people. It is destined to shine in this year's New Year Festival. What's more, there are eye-catching exclusive limited numbers on the body. Which girl can resist the sense of participation and ritual hidden in it?

According to official introduction, Dyson launched a limited edition hair dryer in Topaz Orange gift box during the New Year Festival. As shown above, the body of the gift box version is Topaz Orange, and the end cover on the back of the air outlet is gold foil. The "Topaz Orange" orange color scheme implies "good luck" and "good fortune", which is suitable for the festive atmosphere at the end of the year and the beginning of the year. Dyson's engineers manually covered the end cover with 98.6% pure gold foil. The key is that it is also limited, with only 1919 sets.

In terms of product innovation, the Dyson Supersonic is also Dyson's first hair dryer with a dual-mode nozzle, which switches between the smoothing and anti-flying modes by changing the direction of the airflow. This unique product design not only makes consumers spend a lot of money, but also once again cuts a hole in the hearts of competitors.

This is Dyson's trump card for the New Year Festival: understanding the Chinese, creating a sense of "scarcity" and "exclusivity", and the same "sense of technology". Dyson wants to tell its competitors during the New Year: In 2023, I will crush everything in terms of aura.

2. Dior: Limited series + personalized customization to create exclusivity

Limited edition lipsticks, exclusive air cushions, limited edition eyeshadow palettes in new colors, Dior's makeup line uses "hunger marketing" to whet consumers' appetites.

It is reported that among the new products launched this time, the limited edition lipstick has limited prints engraved on the paste; the flap of the air cushion can be personalized with letters with unique meanings... Such settings greatly increase the consumer's sense of participation, making the cosmetics that were originally available to everyone become customized and more like a gift.

"Classic" is the "feeling" that the new products want to convey. The MITZAH limited edition series launched by Dior this time uses a large area of ​​leopard print on the packaging, which is inspired by the founder Dior's close friend and muse - Miza Bricard. Miza Bricard always tied a leopard print scarf on her wrist and loved to wear leopard print clothes, so leopard print became her signature style.

This is not the first time that Dior has used leopard print in its products. The combination of Dior and leopard print has created classic combinations many times.

In Dior's first haute couture show in 1947, leopard prints were used on many items of the "Jungle Series" dresses; Dior also incorporated leopard print elements many times in the haute couture series items in 1949, 1963, and 2008. In Dior's autumn and winter series last year, large areas of leopard prints were also used on classic items such as clothes, bags, clothing, and shoes.

In this year's Spring Festival blockbuster items, Dior once again combined the prints commonly used in haute couture products with the products, creating the temptation of "classic haute couture products exclusively for you".

3. Wang Xiaolu: Using We-media to make New Year gift boxes "break the circle" with content

Brands have come up with different marketing strategies during the Spring Festival. Wang Xiaolu, a braised snack brand that specializes in chicken feet, created a "super-small self-media Spring Festival Gala" with four short videos.

In fact, Wang Xiaolu has always been a master of content, and has launched creative videos during the New Year Goods Festival for three consecutive years. This year, four commercials are promoting the "Wang Xiaolu Fortune Grabbing Gift Box". The characteristic is that the video does not focus on selling the product, but uses fun and nonsense as a memorable point, using content to make the product break the circle.

The video with the theme of "Whoever buys is the boss" attempts to resonate with the public by using the scene of buying New Year's goods in the supermarket. In the video, with the supermarket checkout counter as the scene, young consumers who buy gift boxes will instantly become "animated uncles", implying "whoever buys is the boss". In the stressful real life, who doesn't want to be a "boss" for once? Wang Xiaolu helped everyone achieve this with a funny video. Wang Xiaolu positioned this short film as a magic show "What is Grandpa's New Year's Goods Called" in the "Super Small Self-Media Spring Festival Gala".

The second short film depicts a scene where people are scrambling to pay for New Year's goods during the Chinese New Year. In the short video, two people wrestled at the cashier counter in order to buy the "Wang Xiaolu Fortune Grabbing Hand Gift Box". The conclusion of the stalemate was "It's better to grab chicken feet than to pay the bill", and the product was naturally integrated into it. Of course, as a snack, Wang Xiaolu's advantage lies in the natural harmony between the product and the Chinese New Year, and the setting of the gift box is highly consistent with the scene of visiting relatives and friends and giving gifts during the Chinese New Year.

The other two short videos are full of fun and nonsense.

After Wang Xiaolu collaborated with the Calabash Brothers IP on Double 11, he launched a sequel during the New Year Goods Festival. Inspired by the fact that “except for the eldest and seventh babies, every Calabash Brother is both a brother and a younger brother”, he made a New Year greeting video in which the Calabash Brothers greeted each other and ended up “making a mess”, serving as a comedy work in the “ultra-small self-media Spring Festival Gala”.

Another video titled "Like a Phoenix" uses Wong Kar-wai's film style to show a rooster walking through the night of the city while elegantly complaining about the weirdness of life: "Posting photos is more important than traveling", "Meeting minutes are more important than meetings", "Sneakers are more important than ball skills"... It is slightly ironic, but it seems to be peeking into everyone's life. With the "gradually outrageous" copywriting, the end of the video is a "man wearing sunglasses" tasting chicken feet while sighing "This is the taste of Wong Kar-wai's food". I wonder what Wong Kar-wai's reaction would be if he saw it.

Wang Xiaolu's strategy for this New Year's Goods Festival is to promote the brand's best-selling products as the main New Year's goods. According to official information, Wang Xiaolu has achieved the top sales of tiger skin chicken feet for three consecutive years; in this year's Double 11, the brand also topped the Tmall meat snack category sales ranking.

According to Yibang Power's observation, gift boxes are the most common hot-selling product during the New Year Festival.

Brands such as Be & Cheery, Daily Black Chocolate, Laiyifen, and Xiaoguan Tea have all launched corresponding gift box products. For example, Be & Cheery uses 11 bags of nuts to form a "Taste of the Year" nut combination gift box. The overall packaging box is bright red, which fits the festive atmosphere of family reunion during the Chinese New Year; Laiyifen's Rabbit Snack Gift Pack includes 30 kinds of snacks. The combination of dozens of products covers a wider range of people.

Taking advantage of the Chinese New Year, Daily Dark Chocolate combines a number of classic star products into a "Happy" and "Joyful" family gift box. The gift box adopts a two-layer design. In addition to chocolate, it also includes products such as Dark Chocolate Crisp; Xiaoguan Tea's "Fuqi Mantang" gift box includes ten kinds of famous teas and five colors of tea cups; its "Fuqi Yingmen" gift box means "open the box to see blessings, and good luck will fill the door."

The XR brand pico launched a New Year gift box around its new product pico4. In addition to the helmet and handle, it also includes 4 VR works, New Year limited coupons, New Year exclusive red envelopes and other peripherals.

Co-branded, limited edition or New Year limited products are the choice of more beauty and sports brands. For example, in terms of limited products, Tiffany specially designed and launched a global limited edition bracelet for the Lunar New Year. Based on the classic "T" pattern, it uses a rose gold inlaid pink sapphire color design. Another example is the New Year limited edition clothing. MAIA ACTIVE launched the 2023 New Year limited sportswear series, which also covers the waist pants 4.0 series, 3D seamless woven series, KIDS series and other celebrity family products.

2. Design packaging around the Chinese zodiac and combine IP to welcome the Chinese New Year of the Rabbit

1. Oreo: Turning both the product and the packaging into a social tool

(Photo source: Oreo Tmall flagship store)

Lanterns, a symbol of festivity, have been a popular item during the Spring Festival since ancient times. Oreo seized on the traditional Chinese custom of hanging lanterns during the Spring Festival and transformed the packaging of its main New Year hot-selling item into a "lantern".

It is reported that during the New Year Goods Festival, Oreo launched a limited edition gift box for the Year of the Rabbit containing a variety of products. The highlight is that the outer packaging of the gift box can be transformed into a rabbit projection lantern with simple operation. This not only realizes the secondary use of the product outer packaging, but also makes its own packaging a "New Year's good thing" with social attributes and shareable, creating more opportunities for the brand to be exposed naturally.

Consumers can tear the lantern accessories on the Oreo Rabbit Year limited gift box along the dotted line, and then piece together a few accessories to get a rabbit-shaped lantern; by placing a light source inside the lantern, they can project a fireworks effect and the words "Happy New Year" onto a flat surface.

At the same time, Oreo’s new “New Year Biscuit Pattern” product also has keywords such as “Happy New Year”, “Auspicious Benefits” and “Make a Fortune” printed on the biscuits, adding the attribute of being able to be “displayed and photographed” to the biscuits.

How many families with children would buy an Oreo gift box just for the cute rabbit lantern? And how many young people would buy more Oreos for the Chinese New Year just to collect auspicious words? Oreo has firmly grasped the atmosphere of the Chinese New Year.

2. Pop Mart: Creating emotional value and delivering blessings with blind boxes

"Rise to the sky with the rabbit", "Good luck in a row", "Good things come in pairs", "Attract wealth and treasure"... These blessings are all put into the blind box by Pop Mart, which makes the blind box fans get not only a sense of surprise when opening the box, but also an extra blessing.

Pop Mart has grasped people's desire to have a good start during the Chinese New Year and launched the "Happy New Year Rabbit Series" blind boxes with 17 IP combinations. These 17 blind boxes also correspond to 17 kinds of blessings, in addition to the above mentioned, there are also "beating drums to announce good news", "good dreams always accompany", "welcoming blessings and auspiciousness", etc. Young people must be willing to send a surprise blessing to themselves and their friends.

In terms of design, these blind box IPs are combined with the image of rabbits. For example, the design of MOLLY's blind box is inspired by the fable of "The Tortoise and the Hare". MOLLY sits on the back of a translucent gradient pink turtle, holding a pink balloon in the shape of a rabbit's head in her left hand and raising her right hand high, implying "relying on the rabbit to rise to the sky".

SKULLPANDA uses red, black and white colors to create a mysterious, sweet and cool image. White and black rabbits are nestled at SKULLPANDA's feet and legs respectively. The back of the character's helmet is hollowed out, with a rabbit lying inside.

The popularity of blind boxes has never diminished. Pop Mart, which specializes in blind boxes, has seen a 33.1% year-on-year increase in revenue in the first half of this year. At present, the article about the Lunar New Year series of blind boxes published by Pop Mart on its official account has received over 100,000 views. In addition to selling the products themselves, Pop Mart also provides consumers with the emotional value of the festival by offering blind boxes with a "gamble" nature, blessing themes, and products full of design details.

3. Huili: Hitting the Metaverse Hotspot and Combining Rabbit Image to Play Digital Assets

During this Lunar New Year Festival, Huili and Rabbit opened up the Metaverse. Consumers do not need AR devices, but can experience AR with the Huili AR WeChat applet.

Huili has released a limited edition of 400 "Aiya Rabbit" digital assets in the trendy online shopping community Dewu, using AR technology to integrate physical products and AR special effects. The sale of the "Aiya Rabbit" digital assets is in the form of blind boxes. Consumers need to participate in the lottery on the platform, and after winning the lottery, they will receive the corresponding digital asset number. The three tail numbers correspond to Huili's three physical products: AR hoodies, duckbill caps, and socks sets limited to the Year of the Rabbit. After consumers receive the physical products, they can scan the products to obtain virtual digital assets. At present, the 400 "Aiya Rabbit" have been snapped up.

The main audiences of Huili, Metaverse, and Dewu are all young people, and the linkage between the three parties accurately hits the preferences of the core group. The popularity of Metaverse has continued from last year to now, and the interactive design of "Aiya Rabbit" digital assets and physical products has made Huili "trendy" again.

4. SK-II: Transformed into the "SK Bunny"? A white rabbit is printed on the magic water

SK-II has always been very festive, always launching limited editions of its Facial Treatment Essence in different bottles during various festivals. Many fans even have the habit of collecting different bottles of Facial Treatment Essence. And this Lunar New Year Festival, SK-II's New Year limited edition is particularly "Chinese".

In the promotional video for the Spring Festival limited edition, a white rabbit happily ran towards the classic SK-II Magic Water bottle. As the white rabbit stepped onto the bottle, the background of the entire picture turned into the blue color of the White Rabbit Toffees logo, and the Magic Water bottle instantly turned white and was printed with the White Rabbit Toffees logo. The red SK-II logo and the white rabbit logo with red, blue and black as the main colors are integrated, and the SK-II Magic Water 2023 New Year Limited Edition appeared.

Unlike simply combining the image of a rabbit, SK-II found the old Chinese brand White Rabbit, which was founded in 1959, to collaborate with. It not only combined the image of the rabbit zodiac sign, but also took advantage of the potential energy of White Rabbit as a must-have candy for the Chinese New Year for many years, cleverly creating a popular New Year product where 1+1 is greater than 2.

International brands + national brands, who wouldn’t want to give such a stacked New Year gift to yourself or your loved one?

Adding effective images to products is a common idea in brand Spring Festival marketing, and many brands used it during this year's New Year Festival.

Dove designed the appearance of the gift box into the shape of a rabbit, and the chocolate "collected" the twelve zodiac signs, which respectively symbolize blessings such as "rabbit makes rapid progress" and "oxen are full of energy"; "Liangpin Xiaoshixian", a children's snack brand under Liangpin Shop, launched a hawthorn stick in the shape of a rabbit head; Tan Mujiang used wooden beads to show the shape of a rabbit. The craftsmen chose red mahogany and hand-carved the rabbit's agility on it.

In the new "divine beast" series of children's clothing brand Balabala, the image of a running rabbit is designed on the boot shaft, and the rabbit image is also highlighted in sweaters, pajamas, socks and other products. Babycare, an infant brand, has printed cartoon rabbit prints on sweaters, down jackets, home clothes, sportswear and other items. Li Ning also seized the rabbit element and added rabbit images of various shapes to the "Make a Fortune Every Day" theme products.

In addition, Dior's accessories line has launched a special watch for the Year of the Rabbit, with a glittering rabbit image made of mother-of-pearl and gold on the dial.

3. Joint products, spokespersons, and classic marketing strategies to enhance New Year products

1. Bosideng: Collaborating with artist Chen Yingjie to interpret Chinese New Year in ink painting

With seasonal new products and a strong Chinese style, Bosideng has grasped the Chinese people's consumption psychology of buying new clothes and attaching importance to the festive atmosphere during the New Year.

Winter is the peak season for down jacket sales and an important time for brands to add buffs to new products. In order to stand out from many competitors, the 46-year-old Bosideng's strategy is to seize the opportunity to express the brand's understanding of the Year of the Rabbit.

In the main Spring Festival model, Bosideng chose to combine the product with the representative of Chinese traditional art "ink painting" to set off the Spring Festival atmosphere. Chen Yingjie, an artist who is good at integrating traditional Chinese ink painting and Western street graffiti, created a "rabbit belonging to China" for Bosideng, implying that the "rabbit" in the future will be like brocade. Against the backdrop of all red and black and gray, the image of this ink graffiti rabbit is full of "Chinese New Year flavor". Bosideng's cooperation with Chen Yingjie, who has more than 143,000 Weibo fans, also directly provided a foundation for the new product to go viral.

Of course, consumers don’t just pay for joint brands when choosing warm clothing. 680+ duck down (fluffiness measurement index) and 90% down content ensure the fluffiness and warmth of the down. In terms of style and tailoring design, Bosideng adopts a silhouette style, based on ergonomic principles and continues to use 3D sports tailoring, emphasizing the product characteristics of "fashion without gender" and "loose and comfortable". The new product combination of couples and parent-child clothing just fits the brand topic of "warming Chinese families for 46 years".

Soon after the release of Bosideng's limited edition Rabbit Year themed series, it was included in COSMO's COSONGIFT BOOK New Year Gift List, becoming the first choice for clothing gifts. As of 15:00 on January 3, the Weibo topic "Bosideng becomes a popular New Year gift" has attracted 360 million views and 173,000 discussions.

2. pidan: Bringing the game into reality and turning your pet into a "king cat"

People who keep pets will not refuse to make their pets cuter; game lovers will not refuse to "bring" games into reality. Now, the opportunity has come. Cat owners who love to play King of Glory will find it hard not to be touched by the King of Glory IP co-branded series launched by pidan after two years. Cats wearing co-branded clothing will have the opportunity to transform into characters in the game and become "king cats".

From the previous co-branded series of products, we can see that pidan pays special attention to the compatibility with the co-branded IP audience, such as bilibili, LINE FRIENDS, Gudetama, The Beast, Caramella, etc. This time is no exception. Most pet lovers and game enthusiasts are young people. The overlap of the audience reflects the "brilliance" of this co-branding and also lays the foundation for the "explosive" potential of the new product. Nowadays, more and more pet owners regard their pets as family members, and they also buy New Year's goods for these lovely family members in the New Year.

During this New Year's Goods Festival, pidan launched four series of products, namely Canyon, Fantasy, Chang'an, and Video Games, corresponding to the Canyon of Honor of Kings, Hero Mengqi, Chang'an of Honor of Kings, and Hero Luban No. 7; each series includes clothing, cat scratching boards, cat climbing frames, and other categories. The elements that originally only appeared in the game have been "illuminated" into reality through product design. Pets can be regarded as playing the role of characters in Honor of Kings for their owners.

3. Cosmo Beauty: Officially announces new brand spokesperson and starts new plans for the new year

Every Spring Festival is the home ground for red underwear, and urban beauties will naturally not miss this opportunity to rise to fame by using "red".

In addition to underwear sets and bras and panties that are especially suitable for the year of birth and weddings, Cosmo Beauty also launched the same style as the star as the main hot-selling product of the New Year Festival this year - Zhou Bichang's same style home cotton coat. Zhou Bichang is of course the buff of this main hot-selling product, but unlike focusing on a certain New Year product, Cosmo Beauty focused on announcing Zhou Bichang as the new brand spokesperson at this point, in order to bring a longer celebrity effect to 2023.

Brands are well aware that fans tend to love celebrities and their trust in them, and they often transfer their love and trust for celebrities to brands. The "diffusion" reflected in this also corresponds to the halo effect. Zhou Bichang, who has more than 31.636 million fans on Weibo, is undoubtedly an important choice for urban beauties.

Combining brands with celebrity spokespersons is a classic brand marketing strategy. Back in the early 20th century, JWT had already used photos of movie stars in its Lux soap commercials, and celebrity advertising has gradually become an important advertising performance strategy. 32,000 comments, 111,000 reposts, and 32,000 likes, these are the data of a single Weibo post by Cosmo Beauty when it officially announced that Bibi Zhou was its spokesperson. Look, the celebrity effect came on the first day of the official announcement.

In addition, Urban Beauty also announced the official launch of the Hundred Cities and Thousand Stores Plan, and on the same day released the New Year's song "Urban Beauty Is You" sung by Bibi Zhou, continuing to increase consumers' attention to the brand.

In fact, joint ventures or cooperative brand spokespersons are strategies that can only be adopted by relatively "powerful" brands.

Xiaoxiandun, a brand of fresh bird's nests, has jointly launched gift boxes with the Summer Palace named "Golden Phoenix Brings Good Luck" and "Lucky Deer Brings Good Fortune". On the packaging of the "Golden Phoenix Brings Good Luck" gift box, a golden phoenix is ​​hovering around the Summer Palace, presenting a sense of auspiciousness; while the design of the "Lucky Deer Brings Good Luck" gift box uses a combination of the Leshou Hall, which symbolizes good fortune and longevity, and a bronze deer in the Summer Palace, implying "peace and prosperity in the world".

The clothing brand Peacebird chose to collaborate with Disney's "Zootopia" to highlight the image of Judy the Rabbit on sweaters, shirts, hoodies, plates and other items and peripheral products. The luxury brand BALMAIN and the jewelry brand Pomellato promoted new products for the New Year with celebrities Xie Keyin and He Ruixian respectively.

Home appliance brand Supor and underwear brand Maoren launched joint gift package activities with other brands on Weibo. The brands guided consumers to post Weibo with specific topics and draw "New Year Koi" at a specific time. Boyang Home Textiles chose cross-border cooperation and jointly launched a series of four-piece bedding sets with the trendy toy brand Xingjixiong.

Author: Zheng Ya

Source: WeChat public account "Ebrun Power (ID: iebrun)"