Chinanews.com, Shanghai News, May 13 (Fan Zhonghua) In 2016, a cultural and creative grocery brand called "Jiumu Sundries Society", which brings together a variety of cultural and creative products and small objects, began to appear in major shopping malls in Shanghai, becoming the "originator" of today's new generation of Chinese grocery stores. But few people know that Jiumu Sundries was born out of Shanghai's national stationery brand Chenguang, and has become a bridgehead for Chenguang's brand and product upgrading under the new consumption wave.
Zou Hong, general manager of Jiumu Sundries Society, delivered a keynote speech. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
On May 10, the "2024 Brand Innovation and Development Forum and Brand Tour Exhibition Conference" was held in Shanghai at the 2024 China Brand Day sub-forum. Zou Hong, general manager of Chenguang's independent brand Jiumu Sundries Club, said in an interview with reporters that Jiumu Sundries Club is a new retail model created by Chenguang based on the insight of consumers' experiential consumption needs. The warm and healing cultural and creative goods and the store atmosphere of "shopping and shopping" have a multi-touch and multi-dimensional emotional resonance with consumers, and also make Jiumu Sundries an indispensable part of the majority of cultural and creative lovers to discover beauty and enjoy cultural and creative life.
Why does a well-known national stationery brand want to build a new "cultural and creative store"?
Zou Hong said that today's consumers, especially Gen Z, are no longer simply pursuing the identity brought by brand premium, but pay more attention to quality, functionality and experience. With the change of consumer groups and the upgrading of consumption concepts, in the stationery and cultural and creative industry, the demand for personalized, creative, green products and experiential consumption is increasing. M&G provides innovative products and retail experiences based on consumer insights.
The store image of Jiumu Sundries Society. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
He introduced that from the beginning of its establishment, the brand positioning of Jiumu Sundries Club was a cultural and creative grocery collection store. Sundries originally referred to miscellaneous and useless small things, and Jiumu Sundries Club redefined the word "sundries" in a cultural and creative way, giving these small things more aesthetics, cuteness and creativity and other emotional values, so that they can become beautiful little things that improve life and heal mood.
In line with this original intention, Jiumu Sundries Club continues to explore innovative models under new retail, and reconstruct people, goods and places.
In terms of the creation of cultural and creative fields, Jiumu Sundries Club starts from cultural and creative life, focuses on consumer experience, uses display aesthetics, and sets up learning scenes, entertainment scenes, gift-giving scenes, social scenes, travel scenes, and a number of small scenes that consumers can savor, which have formed a very "shopping and shopping" field of the Sundries Club, which directly affects the time consumers stay in the store.
"This field has a multi-sensory experience of sight, hearing, touch, and smell, including the store music that customers hear, which needs to conform to the tone of the store, follow the theme changes, and change during busy and leisure times; Including the scene-based display that customers see, it needs to match the appropriate lighting atmosphere; Including customers try to write a variety of pens, flip the book, touch the soft plush doll, shake the blind box; Including the smell of the fragrance of the customer, now stationery can also have a fragrance, osmanthus, gardenia...... These olfactory, visual, auditory, and tactile experiences form a three-dimensional scene. Zou Hong said.
Create a field space for consumers to "shop and shop". Photo courtesy of the interviewee
With more than 100 new stores opened every year, as of the end of March this year, Jiumu Sundries has opened more than 639 stores in more than 60 cities across the country, and more than 100 stores in Shanghai alone, which has won the favor and love of many young consumers.
At the same time, continuing the idea of Chenguang's co-branded cultural creativity, Jiumu Sundries Club believes that "everything can be cultural and creative", "In the past, many IP derivatives appeared in the form of dolls and blind boxes, and we want to combine IP and products in a cultural and creative way to make its vitality more durable." We have launched a series of original limited series - LuLu Pig, Zhuo Dawang, Harada Osamu and Nanci and a series of IP co-branded cultural and creative products. For example, the pillow of "Pig Hello Dream", the plush toy of "Sakura Monster", and the tiger head hat of "Good Hood", these cultural and creative expressions of goods are 'against the code' with consumers, and in an instant, they shorten the distance between each other and the emotional value is full. These have formed a very 'shop-shopping' consumer perception of the Sundries Club. Zou Hong said.
Focusing on consumers, the "secret" of Jiumu Sundries Club is to maintain the frequency of innovation and updates. Zou Hong introduced that the sundries club has 12 major new rhythms every year, and constantly launches a continuously changing cultural and creative theme season, so that consumers have a fresh feeling and experience every time they come to the sundries club, and will also form a shopping habit of often coming to the sundries club.
12 cultural and creative theme seasons throughout the year. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
In addition to a plate of cultural and creative goods around the theme, Jiumu Sundries Club has also created a variety of interactions and games under this theme, such as stamp check-in, handbook rafting, city walking, handicraft teaching, children's drawing competition, endangered animal VR experience and so on. "For example, we are promoting the theme of exams, and we have set up a scene in the store to pray for the exam before the exam, and there is also a scene for graduation gifts after the exam. The college entrance examination that began in June kicked off the prelude to the exam season, in addition to preparing the necessary stationery for the exam before the college entrance examination, candidates also need some psychological support, carrying blessings with the royal guard, and relieving pressure with decompression goodies. Zou Hong said.
The theme activities created by the Jiumu Sundries Club around cultural creativity. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
"Chenguang has always believed that stationery with temperature can not only bring a better writing experience, but also meet the emotional value of consumers, which is also the entry point and driving force of Chenguang's continuous innovation," Zou Hong said, Chenguang and Confucius Temple Blessing launched a joint examination stationery, through creative design to integrate the concept of "national tide" into products and life learning scenes, calling on more people to fall in love with China's excellent traditional culture again, actively establish emotional connection with consumers, and convey brand temperature; In terms of environmental sustainability, we have launched sustainable products such as endangered animal series, the first carbon-neutral stationery series, and carbon reduction plan series, leading the stationery industry to move in a more sustainable direction.
The Confucian Temple Blessing series of examination stationery launched by Chenguang is deeply loved by consumers in the store of the Sundries Club. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
"Since its establishment more than 30 years ago, Chenguang has accompanied generations of consumers to grow up, and has been called the 'light of domestic products' by many people," Zou Hong said, "and Jiumu Sundries is a Chinese cultural and creative brand born in Shanghai along with the Ministry of Culture and other departments' Several Opinions on Promoting the Development of Cultural and Creative Products in Cultural Relics Units and 50 Articles of Shanghai Cultural and Creative Works." When the 50 articles of Shanghai cultural and creative industry were proposed, we imagined that Shanghai should be built into a cultural and creative industry center with international influence in an all-round way by 2035, and we have the responsibility and confidence to work hard towards this goal. At the source of technology and product development, we insist on consumer-centricity and continuous independent innovation; Facing the needs of the new generation of Chinese consumers, such as emotional value, cultural identity, and environmental protection, we will continue to provide consumers with innovative and high-quality products, services and experiences; In terms of production process, supply chain, quality management, etc., we will apply digitalization to empower traditional industries, empower the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries with innovation, and build a Chinese brand with international influence. (ENDS)
Editor: Fan Zhonghua