Author|bean sprouts
"Still Can't Escape the White Girls Cup Stanley"
"Stanley thermos cup gets off safely"
"Question, understand, become, let me see who hasn't?"
If you want to talk about the hottest fashion items in 2024, then the Stanley thermos mug must be on the list. A thermos cup with a large capacity, not a fashionable design, not so convenient to carry, and priced at more than 300 yuan, has become a must-have item for fashionistas.
On social platforms, many netizens posted orders saying that they "successfully pulled weeds", and at the same time did not forget to laugh at themselves "I have followed the trend all my life". Obviously, for consumers, the Stanley thermos mug is not just a cup, but also a social currency. It can be seen that after a long period of mental education, Stanley has successfully shaped the brand into a relaxed and fashionable lifestyle with the "white woman" as the core group.
In fact, before Stanley, many lifestyle brands have emerged in China, among which BOTTLED JOY has set off a boom in large-capacity water cups as early as 2021, and Tonton is not only based on cups, but around the trend of life attitude, do more systematic and long-term brand building. It is understood that the current sales volume in China is 10 times that of Stanley thermos cups.
From 2021 to the present, tons of water cups that resemble buckets can be seen in star airport photos, gyms, and even fashion week shows, and the brand has recently co-branded with Lamborghini to launch a new co-branded product "Ice and Fire Tons".
However, from the perspective of categories, the traditional domestic cup track has been very volatile, and consumers have a lot of choices in price, style, and type; from the perspective of brand labels, under the education of social media, batch after batch of Internet celebrity consumer goods have risen rapidly and died rapidly, and the life cycle is getting shorter and shorter; from the perspective of consumption trends, low-price mentality has swept the e-commerce platform and become a consumption trend.
In this context, it is not easy to turn a mug into a fashion item, or even a lifestyle.
As a brand that starts from traffic and is committed to delivering emotional value, how does Tonton break through the situation step by step and successfully shape a trendy attitude towards life? How to tear off the Internet celebrity label? How to face consumption downgrade and break through the low-price encirclement? With these questions, we chatted with Cao Guangyang, Chief Brand Marketing Officer of Tonton.
"There is no logic of using a glass to do it, we are doing it with a cross-fashion thinking. ”
As a traditional daily necessities, the cup itself has been in a very saturated state in China, and from the price to the product is very volume, this fierce involution also limits the development of the brand to a certain extent, and the domestic cup track has also been in a state of survival with categories and no brands for a long time.
Therefore, at the beginning of entering the game, Tonton, which holds high the new lifestyle and brand power, is targeting new groups and needs, and creating a "trendy cool" brand recognition and emotional value, which is different from the traditional track that only emphasizes functionality.
"The birth of Ton Ton depends on two aspects, one is that we find that there are more and more people who love sports, health and fashion in China, and the other is that the number of Generation Z in China is increasing, and Generation Z needs not only products that meet functions, but also needs to meet emotions," Cao Guangyang told us.
Based on the insight into the crowd and consumption habits, Tonton initially focused on the fitness scene, and then used this as the starting point to expand to multiple scenarios such as office, fashion, camping, and basketball.
Specifically, tonton's marketing starts from the product, and then tells the story around the product to break the circle.
"The product itself should be dramatic enough", Cao Guangyang repeatedly emphasizes the differentiation of the product itself when referring to the marketing strategy. Unique designs such as large-capacity cups, dumbbells or oil kettles distinguish the product from traditional water bottles from the very beginning. "The barrel itself is big enough to pick it up and get attention. ”
Under the differentiated products, large-scale exposure is achieved through star effect and talent planting. In fact, many people realized the ton ton brand through the "star same style" at the beginning, Wang Jiaer, Wang Junkai, Xiao Zhan and other artists with the same label made tons of tons of barrels successfully attract traffic, "We found that after some celebrities used tons of products, it will be further boosted to let more people see it." ”
At the same time, Ton Ton also continues to cooperate with top talents, stars, and football stars to amplify the brand influence. "We use 1% of the top opinion leaders to drive 30% of KOLs in various fields, such as badminton and fashion, to start willing to use our products, and then to drive the remaining 70% of the population. ”
According to Cao Guangyang, in 2021, there will be thousands of experts who will cooperate with tons and tons, and the number of broadcasts on topics related to Douyin #ton tons and barrels will reach 3 billion, and the exposure of the whole network will reach 10 billion, and in 2021, the national tons and tons of barrels category will reach 82.5% of the market share.
However, if you want to quickly build up your brand power and let more young consumers pay attention to it and buy it directly, the most direct way is to find top artists to endorse you. In September 2022, Tonton officially announced Wang Yibo as the brand spokesperson, and Cicada Rubik's Cube data shows that after signing the contract, the brand ushered in the peak of sales in 2022.
"At that time, we wanted to get out of the circle in the fastest time, and we wanted to break the circle more to the daily crowd in addition to the fitness scene. Because Yibo is also called 'Kugai', the image is very positive, and Wang Yibo's labels such as hip-hop, motorcycle, skateboarding, etc., are in line with the culture and essence of Chaoku, so we launched this cooperation. ”
In addition to the cooperation of celebrities, another marketing focus of Ton Ton is co-branding. "Tons of tons of 1.0 is actually based on drinking water, so we emphasize to meet the function of 8 cups of water; 2.0 is mainly emotional value, so with the help of many head celebrities to boost; now 3.0 we focus on tons of cultural value, we operate it as an IP, through the joint name can amplify tons of IP volume", Cao Guangyang said.
Under this consideration, the co-branding cooperation of Tonton is mainly divided into two types: one is to license the IP of Tonton to other brands, and the second is to co-brand with other brands to do double-line marketing.
Different from the idea of co-branding with many brands and popular film and television dramas or animation IPs, when choosing co-branded objects, Tonton mainly chooses IPs with stronger brand power and in line with sports, fashion, health, trends, etc., which are in line with Tonton's brand concept.
Up to now, Tonton has co-branded cooperation with brands such as Adopt a Cow, Lamborghini, Dreamlily, Fila, L'Oreal, NBA, Li Ning and so on. According to Cao Guangyang, the next step this year will also focus on a number of marketing events.
In addition, in order to create a "trendy and cool" label, Ton Ton has also frequently appeared in many fashion weeks at home and abroad, and even invited photographers of luxury brands to cooperate to shape visual impressions and emotional values.
The differentiation of the product itself, the traffic amplification effect of the top celebrities, and the co-branding method to leverage the greater IP value of the brand, Ton Ton has become a new consumer brand with emotional value higher than functionality.
Brands that usually start quickly in the traffic are also easy to be labeled as Internet celebrity brands, and after experiencing one stubble after another, consumers are becoming more and more calm, which also causes the dilemma that the life cycle of Internet celebrity brands is getting shorter and shorter.
In order to make the brand more stable and prosperous, Tonton has begun to aim at channel construction, build its own barriers, and realize a positive cycle from brand power to sales.
From the perspective of the choice of online e-commerce platforms, the starting point of Tonton was on Tmall, even if new content e-commerce such as Douyin is rising now, but Tonton has not changed its focus. "In the first year, we were going to Tmall, and now Douyin e-commerce is indeed a major trend, but the mental brand is still on Tmall, from the perspective of e-commerce, Tmall's mental accumulation is stronger, and Douyin is more about selling goods," Cao Guangyang said.
In addition to determining the focus of the e-commerce platform, it is more important to undertake it quickly and efficiently. Cao Guangyang told us that tons of brands will detect conversions every day, and judge the effectiveness of marketing actions and drainage through data such as on-site trend analysis, search popularity, number of clickers, and click popularity.
In addition, Ton Ton is also widely deployed on platforms such as Pinduoduo, Vipshop, and Dewu. It is understood that the current proportion of online sales on Tmall accounts for 40%, Douyin accounts for 30%, JD.com accounts for 20%, and other platforms account for 10%.
In addition to cooperating with Luo Yonghao, Li Jiaqi and other head talents, Tons of goods are also broadcast in regular stores. However, from the perspective of the purpose of bringing goods, Tonton divides live broadcast into two categories: one is strategic, that is, the scale of a certain product is increased under lower profits, and the other is selling goods, that is, converting and selling goods in a conventional way.
It should be noted that live broadcast is often strongly associated with low prices, and tonton itself needs to protect the product price band. Therefore, Ton Ton is more likely to adopt the "model of giving away products to enhance value", and at the same time is more cautious about the cooperation of low-cost anchors. "Anchors who break the price are particularly damaging to the brand, and the growth is not healthy, so we will be more cautious on this point. ”
However, for tons, the more core channel barriers are mainly offline layouts.
"We believe that the barrier in the future is offline, because all factors of production can be built quickly, but only offline stores will not be so fast, so we are still determined to do offline. Secondly, all the products on our body, only the cup has not opened a store in the top business district, so the purpose of our offline store is also to provide consumers with better products and experience", Cao Guangyang told us.
Starting in 2023, Ton Ton began to vigorously deploy offline, and has opened a total of 13 stores in Shenzhen, Shanghai and other cities, with a total investment of tens of millions.
As a new consumer brand that emphasizes the value of lifestyle and emotion, the purpose of Tonton's layout of offline stores is not simply sales, but a collection of advertising space, user experience, and sales. Therefore, Tonton's offline stores also focus on cool design and experience to strengthen brand awareness. "We are now 80% self-operated, 20% are joint operation model, and we will not develop franchises now, because we want to polish the core assets, tonality, and operation model of offline stores better. ”
With the layout of offline stores, the proportion of offline sales has reached 3%. Cao Guangyang revealed that he will continue to promote offline stores this year, "This year, it is expected that the proportion of online and offline will be 6:4, and the proportion will reach 5:5 in the future, and even more offline, I think this model is more benign." ”
Although it has not completely torn off the Internet celebrity label, Ton Ton has found the key to its own barriers, vigorously invested in channel construction, and gradually formed a healthier operation model.
When the influence of brand power is not enough, an emotional premium brand is easily squeezed out by "replacement".
With the popularity of Ton Ton on social media, it has also attracted more and more competitors, and these new entrants have a price advantage. This is a very important hurdle for a brand that focuses on lifestyle and emotional values. After all, at the moment of consumption downgrading, "leveling and replacement" has even become a reverse attitude towards life.
In the face of the encirclement and suppression of low-price competitors, Cao Guangyang did not deny this pressure, but he did not show excessive anxiety. In Cao Guangyang's view, "we still have a lot of consumers who want to pursue better products, rather than simply looking at the ultimate cost performance, this general direction is no problem, but in the past two years, everyone has become cautious." ”
Therefore, tonton does not intend to roll down the low price, and the current product price band is mainly above 100 yuan. "It's just that now according to the needs of the market, we have made some adjustments, such as a small number of products within 100 yuan, mainly for the needs of broadcasting and strategic choice, but the core 80% of the products are in line with tons and tons of tonality, to meet the emotional value of consumers. What is clear is that we will not be going to make more lower-priced products this year. ”
"The only thing we have to do now is to keep moving forward, and we still want to turn a manufacturing company into a creative enterprise," Cao Guangyang said. To a certain extent, this is also the key to why Tonton dares to buck the trend and make great strides in marketing and offline store layout when other brands have contracted their marketing actions.
At the same time, Ton Ton is also strengthening the scientific and technological value of the brand, in addition to polishing product creativity, but also strictly controlling the quality and materials. For example, Binghuo tons are made of 316 food-grade stainless steel, which is more corrosion-resistant than the commonly used 304 stainless steel liner on the market. "We want to provide better quality at the material level, and we have more than 160 patents at present. In fact, we also do a lot of PPSU (amorphous thermoplastics, with high transparency and high hydrolytic stability) education. ”
For functional products, the upgrading and control of technology and materials is as important as the construction of brand power, because today's consumers are also paying more and more attention to the efficacy of products. Therefore, not only the cup category, but also many other categories of functional product brands, such as sunscreen clothing, have also begun to roll up materials and a sense of technology.
From the perspective of the long-term development path of the brand, Ton Ton is also forming differentiated competition with the traditional water cup market, that is, Ton Ton is not committed to building a water cup brand, but starting from tons of bucket single products, to Chaoku sports cups, and then to Chaoku sports light equipment, from these three latitudes, to achieve a breakthrough, and shape a lifestyle brand.
From this competitive latitude, Cao Guangyang believes that "Ton Ton is not doing the business of grabbing the market, not rolling up and cutting cakes with the traditional market, but opening a new incremental market." ”
"The more cautious others are, the more we have to toss, and now that the Generation Z group is expanding, we are still very determined to make water cups with brand premiums, and even sports light equipment, rather than simply doing functions, and doing things that 80% of companies have done. ”
In fact, on the whole, the ton itself is a brand born under the emotional value and lifestyle, in the design of the product itself, marketing actions and rhythm, and even channel construction, it is the first to serve the brand value, and then use the brand influence to leverage the logic of sales and premium, at this point, the ton itself has a brand temperament that is completely different from the traditional water cup market and low-price competitors.
As mentioned above, the traditional cup industry, Internet celebrity labels, and the threat of "replacement" are all challenges faced by Tonton, but from the perspective of the actual development of the brand, Tonton has found the right solution to move towards a long-term red brand that pays more attention to the trend of lifestyle, and we also hope that there will be more brands such as Tonton to inject new blood into the market and enter the international market.