After the tragic battle of the past year, the competition in catering will only become more fierce in 2024. However, in addition to the scale of the volume, the display of cultural soft power has also become one of the key elements of the brand's victory.
This article was originally published by Red Meal Network (ID: hongcan18), author: Zhou Mo, editor: Wang Xiuqing.
In the past few years, the catering brands of the major tracks have been crazy about the scale, and the slogans of opening thousands of stores and breaking 10,000 stores have come and gone. At the same time, the red food network observed that terms related to national tide culture, such as national style and new Chinese style, have also become another "volume" weapon for many catering brands in addition to large-scale expansion.
In the new tea beverage industry, the tea face and pleasant color of the main national style tea drink have become one of the new business cards of Changsha catering;
In the fried chicken track, a number of brands focusing on new Chinese-style fried chicken, such as Leg Boss, Worry Relief Mother-in-law, and Tiger Head Frying, have successively obtained financing;
In the field of hamburgers, Tustin is one of the representative brands that has risen rapidly by riding the national tide, and it has quickly emerged from the circle with the concept of "Chinese burger", not only becoming a model of contrarian expansion, but even creating the entire Chinese burger category by itself.
In fact, although the concepts of national fashion culture such as national style and new Chinese style are popular, there are not many companies that can really play with these concepts and empower their brands with traditional culture.
Although some brands have the concept of national fashion, their overall performance is always unsatisfactory, and over time, the volume of voice begins to decline, or even disappears. However, some brands can be like a tiger with wings, and every exploration of national tide and Chinese culture can not only empower brands with traditional culture, strengthen consumers' awareness of their own brands, and even drive the industry to further promote the spirit of traditional Chinese culture.
Tustin brand IP "Tashi" renewal,
Set off a national style boom again
"Dressed in a flying wing cloak, he is red and fiery, and he is heroic. The southern lion has a single horn on his head, a pair of flame eyebrows on his forehead, and a pair of flying stars under his eyebrows. The big belly eats all directions, and eats a round wishful belly. ”
When reading this passage, many people may first think of the lion dance in Lingnan. In fact, this is the prototype of Tustin's newly upgraded IP image Tashi officially announced on the first day of the new year. It is also another major upgrade after the Tustin brand 3.0 upgrade in July last year.
Compared with the past, the changes after the upgrade of Tustin Tashi are mainly reflected in the following aspects:
From the perspective of design concept, Tustin has always drawn design inspiration from traditional Chinese culture. Tustin's original brand IP "Tashi" is also based on the prototype of "Lion Awakening", incorporating elements of the image of the lion dance such as auspicious cloud eyebrows, dragon scales, and golden bells, which can fully reflect Tustin's inheritance and innovation of traditional culture.
With the upgrade of brand 3.0, consumers' requirements for brand IP image are also further improved. Therefore, in the upgrade of the tower lion, Tustin has carried out a comprehensive upgrade for the selection of traditional lion dance elements, the outline of IP lines and the application of colors.
In the selection of elements, Tashi still retains the traditional lion dancing elements, and on the basis of not subverting the original IP image, it has carried out innovative content expression. For example, the flame eyebrows, inspired by the eyebrows of the lion, are in the same vein as the Tustin logo.
At the same time, Tashi has also been further optimized and adjusted in details. The unique feature is the tower lion's bulging belly, named Ruyi Qiankun belly, which means that the big belly can accommodate food in all directions, which not only reflects the character characteristics of the tower lion's "love to eat", but also highlights Tustin's all-encompassing food attitude.
In terms of brand color, in order to strengthen the genes of Chinese burgers, Tustin chose red as the main color of the brand at the beginning, and after upgrading, it added the red that represents "brave" and "loyalty" in the traditional six colors of lion dancing, and brightened the color on top of the superposition of the two reds, improving the saturation of the color, making the IP more bright and energetic as a whole, and more in line with the oriental aesthetic visual system and aesthetic standards of young people
On the whole, the upgraded Tustin Tower Lion IP has formed a new combination of "Awakening Lion + Flame Eyebrows + Flying Star Eyes", on the basis of retaining traditional elements, the IP is simplified, and a heroic and cute kung fu tower lion image is about to come out, and the Tustin brand image is therefore more diverse, three-dimensional, fresh and younger.
On the one hand, the new combination and simplification of the image create a brand image that is more in line with the brand, more storytelling, interesting and rich in Chinese cultural connotation, and can bring consumers closer to the greatest extent. On the other hand, the new IP shape can adapt to the shape changes in multiple scenes, improve the design efficiency, and enhance the diversity and freshness of the image of the tower lion.
Red Dining Network observed that once the Tustin Tashi was upgraded, it attracted the attention of a large number of netizens.
At the end of Tustin's official tweet released on January 1, Tustin asked the question "What partners do the forts want Tashi to link with?", which attracted nearly 100 netizens to leave messages. Among the top five messages with the most likes, 4 netizens said that they were most looking forward to the joint cooperation between Tashi and the Palace Museum, the domestic brand Weilong Spicy Strip, the kitchen god Xiaofugui, the Demon Patriarch and other Guoman, to carry forward the traditional culture.
It can be seen that the way of reconstructing the brand through Chinese cultural symbols not only shows the cultural core of Tustin Chinese burgers, but also virtually enhances consumers' recognition and recognition of the Tustin brand, strengthens the brand mentality, and makes the brand culture more deep and thick.
In the context of the new era,
How to build a brand moat with the help of traditional culture?
At present, the national tide culture is in the ascendant, and it is still a trend that young people pay attention to and love.
In a questionnaire survey of more than 2,000 young people conducted by China Youth Daily in June 2023, nearly ninety percent of the respondents had a strong interest in traditional culture, and 67.4% of the young people surveyed believed that "cultural creativity" out of the circle would help strengthen their recognition of traditional culture.
The upsurge of national style set off by the renewal of Tustin IP also further shows that in the future, national tide culture and traditional Chinese culture will still be an important bridge for dialogue and connection between brands and consumers, and the value of national tide culture and traditional culture is still worthy of the attention of catering brands.
In the context of the new era, how can brands draw inspiration from it and empower brands with traditional culture?
Tustin, which has been deeply studying national tide culture and traditional culture for ten years, may be worthy of reference for catering brands in its ideas and playing styles.
1. The IP upgrade fits the cultural genes of the brand and infiltrates the national tide culture into the bones
In 2018, with the birth of hand-rolled baked burgers, Tustin began to clarify the direction of brand development - to be Chinese's own burger brand, in 2019, Tustin also proposed the "Oriental Taste Awakening Plan", and then Tustin successively launched creative Chinese forts such as Beijing Roast Duck Burger and Mapo Tofu Burger, with Chinese-style burger embryo with national flavor inline, since then the burger has been marked with the "Chinese brand".
In July 2023, Tustin Brand 3.0 will be upgraded to further export the brand cultural connotation in the three major sectors of positioning, culture and vision. Among them, the brand slogan of "is the Chinese stomach, I love the Chinese stomach" strongly correlates the Chinese stomach with the Chinese stomach, and leverages the greatest common divisor word "Chinese stomach", which not only conveys its concept of "more in line with the taste of China", but also further deepens the brand awareness of consumers and gives consumers a reason to buy.
Over the years, Tustin's inheritance and innovation of traditional craftsmanship and traditional culture can be seen that its pursuit of national tide culture has been integrated into the brand gene. In the past few thousand years, the popularity of traditional food crafts such as rolling skin and dumplings, rolling noodles and steaming steamed buns has made the hand-rolled noodles and foods imprinted in the hearts of Chinese people. Nowadays, when it comes to "Chinese burgers", the first thing consumers think of is Tustin.
2. Output brand culture with the help of co-branded IP, short video, and brand IP image
In recent years, the topic of emotional value has been very hot. In this era when people are paying more attention to their own psychology and emotions than ever before, brands must face the characteristics and needs of Gen Z consumers if they want to be better in cultural marketing.
Tustin's consumer group is dominated by the post-95 generation, and the product is the basis for building a relationship with them, and the emotional value provided by the brand is the key to determining their final stay. Therefore, Tustin has never forgotten to pay attention to the emotional value of consumers in recent years, whether it is in co-branded IP activities, new product marketing, or brand upgrades.
For example, on Children's Day last year, Tustin co-branded the "National Childhood IP" Balala Little Demon Fairy, forming heart-to-heart communication with adult consumers through mental contrast, logically giving young people an outlet for catharsis, and also giving all post-95 girls a "memory kill".
Last year's Qixi Festival, Tustin's new characteristic new product in southern Fujian, "Spiced Meatloaf Chinese Burger", was launched, which combined the characteristics of the new product and adapted the lyrics and content of the "Top Divine Comedy" - "Love Fights to Win", which made the song magically brainwashed at the same time, and perfectly displayed the selling point of the new product, and finally realized the high degree of unity of product and marketing in "regional characteristics".
In this IP renewal, Tustin also specially launched a limited emoji pack of Tashi, which links with young people in a way that young people like to see, which not only quietly conveys the brand culture, but also logically achieves the purpose of renewing the brand impression of being young and down-to-earth.
In addition to providing the hard power of products, Tustin's brand marketing related measures are also the main reason why it has occupied a place in the hearts of consumers for a long time.
Conclusion
In recent years, the discussion on Guochao culture has been hot. However, with the increasing number of catering brands that have entered the national trend and are optimistic about the new Chinese style, brands want to continue to gain consumer attention, which requires brands to constantly update and iterate themselves.
Like many domestic brands in the past, as a local burger brand, Tustin also took off with the dividends of the national tide and the awakening of Chinese culture, but it goes one step further in that it can achieve internal and external consistency from product creation to cultural rendering to marketing, so that it can be more recognized by consumers.
At a time when the soft power of brand culture is becoming more and more important, Tustin's way and path of empowering brands through traditional culture is worthy of peer brand research and Xi.
*The pictures in the article are authorized by Tustin to be used by Red Meal.com.