Author: Adventures
Source: Zhenghe Island
"Seeing tall buildings rise, seeing buildings collapse."
This sentence can be used to describe a large number of new consumer brands that have soared rapidly in recent years in the wave of brand rise and then fallen rapidly.
Remember that in 2016, Liu Xingguo, a researcher at the Research Department of the China Enterprise Confederation, published an article in the Economic Daily entitled "Why is the average life expectancy of Chinese enterprises short", in which the data showed that the average life expectancy of Chinese private enterprises was only 3.7 years, and the average life expectancy of small and medium-sized enterprises was only 2.5 years.
According to the theory of the enterprise life cycle, many companies and brands have not even survived the initial development period.
In the past 5 years, the entire Internet consumption has experienced a round of big waves, and now many of them have survived and become super brands.
But looking back, why should we feel afraid of these new forces?
01. In the face of the new consumption logic, all beings are equal
Coca-Cola took 134 years, Häagen-Dazs took 99 years, Givenchy took 69 years...
Today, the timeline of the development of these classic brands is being rapidly rewritten by a number of new brands, from birth to popularity, Yuanqi Forest took 5 years, Perfect Diary took 3 years, Zhong Xuegao only took 2 years...
As we know it, the biggest threat to the global chain Walmart in half a century has not been other supermarket chains, but Amazon.
But in fact, whether it is a new brand or a "big brother", the degree of threat is almost the same.
On the one hand, the track barriers of traditional established enterprises are being shattered by the Internet, on the other hand, the upstarts who play e-commerce are afraid of being subverted by latecomers, and an iteration of consumption logic is pulling brands to the same running line.
That is, in the face of the so-called new consumption logic, all beings are equal.
So, what exactly is this logic?
From the perspective of demand, the young consumer force we are facing at present, that is, the "post-95s" we often talk about, is actually the first generation that grew up in the era of national wealth and people's security and everything is accessible.
For them, unlimited shelves bring unlimited supply, material needs, and everything is accessible.
So the real needs of this generation have actually become psychological companionship and spiritual satisfaction.
This unique generation, whose needs range from having more to being better, from functional satisfaction to emotional drive, from the value of material prices to the value added of psychological value.
This poses a very big challenge for businesses in today's era, allowing countless brands to shift their work from winning market share to creating demand, from batch wars to recreating the future.
From a more symbolic perspective, companies should pay attention to three important dimensions:
1. Decision path
An important factor in the shift in consumer demand today is actually the shift in consumer decision-making paths.
Some data show that the average time spent on mobile phones in Chinese today is as high as 7 hours a day, but in fact, our technical concentration is only 7 seconds.
Nobel laureate economist Daniel Kahneman wrote a book called "Thinking, Fast and Slow," which addresses this issue, in today's age of 7 hours and 7 seconds, where information explodes dramatically, consumer decision-making paths are faster and slower.
2. Mode
From the perspective of the model, in the past era of large circulation, channels were king, and the underlying logic of this business was that the supply was too much demand, and it was the weak relationship between goods and people.
But in today's new consumption era, it is people-oriented and user-oriented.
What is the essence of business logic? It is demand that is heavier than supply, and it is a strong empathy data linkage in the mode of people looking for goods.
3. Channels
In the era of traditional circulation, whether it is online e-commerce or offline traditional supermarkets, the channel is essentially a middleman for traffic distribution.
But in today's new consumption era, channels have become the cultivation system of experience, and have become the contact point for consumers to first arrive and perceive the brand.
However, the occurrence of change is all-round, and many companies want to clear the fog, but it is difficult to find a gripper.
The question comes to the practical level, what is the key to breaking the situation?
02, what is the key to breaking the game?
Two words, brand.
With the increasing uncertainty in the context of the times, on the one hand, the stock market has become a place where soldiers must compete, on the other hand, mining "new increments" has also become a fast lane for major brands to anchor. And if you want to take care of both, long-termism is the only way for major brands.
Under the long-term doctrine, the brand should not only harvest performance growth in the existing market, so that the operation can survive, but also shape and maintain the brand, laying the foundation for long-term development.
Therefore, in the future, enterprise marketing will inevitably take a road of "product and effect".
The so-called "product-effect integration", in simple terms, when enterprises do marketing, they must see both the sound of the brand and the sales volume of the effect.
For developing brands, a good event can not only enable the company to achieve leapfrog growth, but also harvest a highly matched user base and achieve self-positioning.
For mature brands, a re-molding is more to reverse the growth bottleneck or even decline in the situation, "old trees blossom new flowers".
In recent years, in the face of an increasingly complex and uncertain external environment, more and more enterprises have made new attempts to use brands to overcome "difficulties".
Let's take a look at two typical examples of brands at different stages of development:
1. Developing brand
As the saying goes, in the Internet era, every category is worth redoing.
From a broad perspective, what we are experiencing is an era of brands blooming.
However, specific to each brand in the development period, the traffic dilemma, lack of growth, and rapid death are their real struggles in no man's land.
To break through this dilemma, every brand in the development period needs a game-breaking battle.
For example, on August 19, 2020, there was a brand, the product was sold at 0 o'clock, the sales exceeded 50 million in 5 minutes on the line, and the total sales on the day were nearly 100 million, reaching 97.56 million yuan.
Looking at this set of data, people will think which category and what brand is this?
Hot makeup? Or is it a high luxury with a unit price against the sky?
The solution is: small household appliance industry - cloud whale.
Remember that after the event, as soon as the data came out, many people directly called out to witness the new expression and new strength of the artificial intelligence brand.
But now consumers do not lack good things, why is it a cloud whale? Therefore, in addition to the product power, we want to review the construction of the brand power of The Cloud Whale.
After deconstructing, we found that this was a great marketing case with lifestyle as the starting point.
The project was officially launched in July, and Cloud Whale has been playing the topic of "barefoot liberalism" from the beginning. The idea behind it is a realistic portrayal of the lifestyle that young people today are accustomed to free choice.
Therefore, when this topic began to warm up in the three large traffic pools of Douyin, Xiaohongshu and Weibo, bringing out the brand information of Izumo Whale and news such as Tmall Super Brand Day, supplemented by lottery, quiz and other activities, it soon caused a certain range of hot discussions.
I have to say that for how to capture the audience, the planning team of this event is really fast and accurate - cutting into the familiar life scenes of consumers, prompting them to empathize and produce emotional resonance.
Using "Little White Whale" at home can easily complete the video content with the theme of "barefoot freedom" instantly aroused the strong sense of performance and participation of Douyin users.
And Weibo platform users are not to mention more, remember that as of August 19, the day of the event, Weibo alone topic exposure reached 90.124 million, discussion 149,000, so that the cloud whale that "barefoot liberalism" theme of the spread can be called "breaking the circle", quickly narrowing the communication distance with the target group.
After this Tmall super brand day, Yun Whale's owner Hua Dan "Little White Whale" mopping robot directly entered the target group it most wanted to break through.
The results of the marketing plan to be accepted are also very simple, and the sales figures are the most convincing.
Obviously, this is a "double 11" that completely belongs to cloud whales and consumers.
In this step, the cloud whale walked very critically.
2. Mature brand
Many of the mature brands we know have existed for decades or even hundreds of years, but in this day and age, they are also walking on thin ice.
The shrinking market, the division of traffic by new brands, and the migration of consumers are probably the luxury brands that feel the most about them.
Bain Consulting's report pointed out that the global luxury market shrank by 23% in 2020, which means that many well-known companies that have existed for decades and centuries have ushered in an unprecedented crisis in the uncertainty of recent years.
But at the same time, luxury consumption in China rose by 48% against the trend, and after careful investigation, it turned out that China's young people "saved" the scene.
Cartier's case illustrates this problem well.
In May 2020, Cartier released four new limited edition manual winding watches on its official website that pay tribute to pilot Santos-Dumont.
This matter was originally a routine operation, but it was different in China, and Cartier chose the official Tmall flagship store as the pre-sale platform.
The reason for Cartier's decision was inseparable from a cooperation between Cartier and Tmall Super Brand Day on February 10, 2020.
At that time, Cartier debuted a 32,000 yuan unit price, limited edition 500 pieces of Juste un Clou series of "nail" bracelets on Tmall.
Not only was the bracelet sold out on the same day, but one of the orphan Juste un Clou series black ceramic diamond bracelets with a unit price of more than 150,000 yuan was also sold within 52 seconds of sale.
More importantly, on the day of the event, Cartier's official flagship store added nearly 200,000 fans.
It is also this outbreak on Tmall Super Brand Day that makes Cartier see the positive role of Tmall's digital capabilities and platform operation capabilities in promoting brand growth.
So after 23 years of entering the Chinese market, Cartier began to actively embrace e-commerce, and around the Tmall platform, to develop a long-term marketing plan for Generation Z, and integrate its brand story into a new context.
The opening of a Tmall Super Brand Day is becoming a landmark beginning for luxury brands to penetrate the Chinese market.
Although the rapid increase in the share of China's online channels in global luxury consumption is undoubtedly the underlying reason for luxury brands to accelerate the pace of Tmall's layout, why have they chosen Tmall Super Brand Day as the opening whistle?
It is not difficult to find that compared with chasing sales, it is possible for luxury brands to tell a story of entering China that conforms to the tone of their brands, and to continue to bring a unique high-end experience to consumers, which is where the more scarce value of Tmall Super Brand Day lies.
In fact, telling a good brand story is not only the appeal of luxury brands.
Looking back at the past Tmall Super Brand Day case, it is not difficult to find that many brands tend to coincide with important nodes of the brand when choosing their own exclusive "Double 11" day.
The potential energy of the brand node not only gives more ritual value to the brand's exclusive "double 11", but more importantly, for the brands that increasingly regard the annual Tmall Super Brand Day as an important marketing voice, the brand node can undoubtedly become the main story line of a Tmall Super Brand Day, by writing a story material with brand upgrade, value remodeling and other significance, making it more meaningful to the brand event.
If we want to continue to review, we have many cases worth learning - the bubble Mart of rational marketing, wild growth, the glory mobile phone of "revitalizing the classics and paying tribute to the extraordinary", and Li Ning, who opened a big show next to the Himalayas...
These brands have their own different needs, breaking through bottlenecks, reversing decline, opening gaps, etc., but the core is highly consistent - maintaining the long-termism of the brand and not wanting to blur the self in the era of fragmented marketing.
Because of this, they all invariably chose Tmall Super Product Day as a key step to break the game on the road ahead.
03, the end game of the big competition: evolution and win-win
To review the branding cases that have been effective in recent years, it is almost impossible not to notice tmall super brand day.
He Zhifeng, head of e-commerce at Oreo's parent company, Mondelëz Greater China, once said in an interview with the media, "We regard the annual 618, double 11 and super product day as three big tests, and the super product day is the most important big test, you can't even use KPIs to calculate, this is a battle that must be won." ”
Just over five years after the birth of Super Product Day, how did it surpass the veteran huge IP "Double 11" and "618" in the brand's heart?
First, there is the origin of the demand.
Whether it is a new consumer brand or a mature brand, in the current market environment, maintaining long-termism is most of them an unwavering choice.
This requires that the brand's marketing activities can not only focus on performance growth, but also make great efforts in brand building and expression.
This coincides with the opportunity and position of the birth of Tmall Super Brand Day.
There is a saying in the field of brand marketing: as long as there are people, they should do marketing.
Around 2016, Tmall users basically completed the gradual transition from the PC side to the wireless end, and Tmall is quite aware of the habits of its massive users.
At the same time, with the complex rapid changes of the external environment, the brand owner's evaluation of the marketing effect is also changing.
Before, no one would have thought that the advertising fee of 1 million yuan could still be sold, and even the advertising fee of 1 million yuan was not known whether it was placed or not.
But in the era of mobile phone intelligence, data and quantifiability have become better choices for brands, because quantifiability means operation.
That is to say, only from the timing of the time, a strategic choice of the way forward is in front of Tmall.
Internally, it needs to find another position within Ali's huge business map to exert its energy. Externally, the major e-commerce platforms are surrounded by strong enemies, and if they can give brands the ability in addition to sales, this will become a differentiated advantage that highlights the siege.
Apparently, Tmall took that step.
At that time, an era of information explosion and fragmentation was already emerging.
In a row, many marketing is also "east a hammer, west a stick", by grabbing consumers' short-term attention in exchange for performance growth.
However, in the long run, such a way is not conducive to the creation of brand power, and will only make the brand image more and more blurred in the minds of consumers.
Tmall Super Brand Day is more like a theater, setting up an exclusive stage for the brand, taking the brand will as the guide, and tailoring the communication event with icon significance for the brand.
A truly centralized expression can help brands to self-demonstrate and efficiently explain to consumers "who I am, what I am communicating, and what I want to be."
The core of brand self-expression is actually to be yourself.
Before that, the e-commerce IP we are familiar with is a shopping carnival for consumers, and it is a key node for the performance of the brand, but from the perspective of brand voice, what can be done is not outstanding.
Fixed time, homogenization of propaganda, with promotional genes... These characteristics determine that brands can only annihilate their characteristics in traditional e-commerce IP activities.
The birth of Tmall Super Brand Day gave brands an opportunity to be themselves and tell their own stories.
In a sense, "stories" are also the easiest things to help brands close the psychological distance with consumers.
Brands create brand issue stories by integrating the brand's historical context and current social trend topics, and with the help of the strong resource integration of Tmall Super Brand Day, they can often achieve the effect of doing more with less.
For example, another mature brand that ushered in the 170th anniversary, Keyan's brand, built this Tmall Super Brand Day into a grand brand celebration, and through the MV of the anniversary theme song "Spark", it showed the love of several undeserved adventurers to explore the world and sing and dance from the perspective of young people, thus conveying the youthful vision of this long-established brand of continuous communication.
We also mentioned that in the Internet era, the benefits of communication can be quantified, and "product-effect integration" has become a basic operation.
However, marketing activities can make the brand not only harvest the volume, but also harvest a lot of sales, but there are very few who can afford the three words of "big event", because what is needed behind this is real performance.
Take the xiaomi that everyone is familiar with, for example.
This year, the total daily sales of Xiaomi Tmall super brands exceeded 600 million, an increase of 105% over last year's super brand days, setting a new record for the sales of new products/single products on the Tmall super brand day.
At the same time, the topic volume of Xiaomi 11 is more than 1.78 billion. Xiaomi Mi 11, which is lightly loaded in 2021, has achieved a double harvest of sales and sound with the help of Tmall Super Brand Day.
When we look back at the birth and development of the first marketing IP of the whole network, we will find that they have been on the road of pursuing "centralized expression stage", "helping brands to be themselves" and "product and effect integration".
In the end, the long-termism of the brand is also the long-termism of Tmall Super Brand Day.
In the super days of concentrated activities and full of rituals, it brings the double explosion of voice volume and sales volume to the brand, reaches and connects users with unprecedented energy, catalyzes the super brand to bring consumers a new consumer experience, and ultimately points to the leapfrog growth and long-term survival of the brand.
In today's traditional marketing has achieved the ultimate, "marketing standards are diversified, can be more closely combined with business demands, and land practical solutions" is not only what the brand hopes, but also what platforms, advertisers and service providers are happy to see.
Tmall super brand daily with 5 years and more than 400 communication feasts, subverting the traditional thinking, ahead of time to open a new brand marketing format, but also prompt us:
From a long-term perspective, the final outcome of this great race is evolution and win-win.
Resources:
[1]. Finance & Economics Weekly, Tmall Super Brand Day: Three Years of Assault
[2]. Sugar and Wine Newsletter, New Thinking After "New Consumption, New Logic"