These 3 brands spent over a million on Xiaohongshu! Why did they disappear again?

Why did the brands that were popular on Xiaohongshu disappear today? The author mentioned three brands based on real situations. Let's take a look.

In such a peaceful atmosphere where Xiaohongshu is promoting YYDS, why do I mention these three brands? Because this is the reality.

Let me first tell you the whole story. I contacted a skin care brand and searched for previous cases. I found that the account had stopped updating. Then I looked at a supplementary food brand, which had also stopped updating. Then I looked at its meat brand, which had also stopped updating.

The suspension of updates is not terrible, what is terrible is that the three previously had an investment of over one million and became the industry's favorites. However, even though they were treated as investment cases, they could not escape the fate of failure.

A brief description of these brands:

The first one is a beauty brand, mainly engaged in acne treatment. It has cooperated with many influencers and now has many small popular articles. Basically, they are published through information flow. It is a typical on-site delivery and conversion to off-site. At that time, the off-site conversion effect was good. Now the Xiaohongshu account has stopped updating and Tmall has also closed its store.

The second one is a baby food brand. If you search the brand name, you will see many popular articles. The popular articles were also praised by the official. Last year, Douyin and Xiaohongshu were both used, and the advertising was also very aggressive. Today, Tmall closed its store and Douyin did not do it. In my opinion, with a limited budget, every product was not successfully promoted.

The third is a food brand, which has truly enjoyed the dividends of the platform. It has easily created many popular articles with tens of thousands of likes, and achieved an ROI of over 2 through more than 10,000 daily information flow placements. However, the corporate account has been discontinued, the influencers have also stopped, and it has completely abandoned Xiaohongshu and Taobao platforms and switched to Douyin.

The above examples do not mean that Xiaohongshu is not suitable for being Xiaohongshu, but remind us that the reasons for successful projects are similar: the demand is firmly grasped, the project is profitable, and the brand can be sustained. The reason for closing stores is mostly that they are not profitable or there is not enough money to compensate, especially in the mask incident. The probability of failure of a project that burns money is greater. I summarize the internal and external reasons for failure.

1. External reasons

1. Taobao faces fierce competition for survival

The person in charge of food directly said that he would not do business on Taobao because the competition was too fierce. The same was true when talking to the person in charge of planning the Taobao brand upgrade. The pressure on Taobao brands to survive was increasing.

The core of Xiaohongshu's grass-growing strategy is to spill over to Taobao. If there is no refined commercial content, even if there are tens of thousands of likes, the spillover cost will be very high and it will be difficult to make a profit. In this case, new brands are under financial pressure, constantly raising funds, and are eventually crushed by KPIs.

2. Competition in the Red Ocean

The reason why new brands fail is largely because they are competing in a mature category where there are already mature brands. In this case, products must be differentiated and rely on core explosive products to have a chance to break through.

Otherwise, if the product strength is mediocre and there is no strong support from explosive products, it will be almost impossible for the giants to succeed even if they invest the same amount of strength.

2. Internal reasons

1. Spend money on branding

I have always been against high-profile campaigns when doing Xiaohongshu. Bosses often say, "I want to invest 1 million a month to let users know the brand," and then agencies and advertisers enthusiastically applaud and say, "This is definitely possible."

This is obviously nonsense. High investment brings in a large number of customers who take advantage of the products. After they are taken advantage of, it is difficult for them to repurchase. Even when the brand goes bankrupt, we don’t know what the specific feedback from users is.

As a new brand, it must not rely on a large amount of advertising, but rather on refined operations and adjusting products based on user feedback. Ladies and gentlemen, product strength is always the top priority. Without product strength, it will be difficult to succeed no matter how much advertising is placed.

When it comes to pre-prepared meals, the first thing that comes to mind is Qudian, but I will never buy it again after eating it. On the contrary, for pre-prepared meals, the brands that can really stand out must be those with authentic and delicious taste. I personally recommend Jia Guolong Kung Fu Cuisine, not only because I have worked there before, but it is really delicious!

Jia Guolong's Homemade Kung Fu Cuisine

2. No product differentiation

Differentiation is not just about appearance, it is about function and values. For new products, users’ perception of values ​​is often weak, and the core differentiation is still function. This function is more about creating new categories, establishing a standard, and solving new needs. Only in this way can new products have a chance.

Therefore, before you start using Xiaohongshu, you need to keep thinking about what your product differentiation is, what the reasons for purchase are, why users buy it, will they repurchase after purchase, can it be spread after repurchase, can the name be spread, can the symbol be spread, and what users will say when spreading, these are all important considerations.

The above is my personal summary about these three brands that invested over one million but gave up on the platform. I would still advise every brand that wants to promote its products on Xiaohongshu to build its own media before considering related investment.

Author: Jianghe Team

Source: WeChat public account "Jiangheliaoyingxiao (ID: jiangheliaoyingxiao)"