Source: 空手 (ID: firesteal13) Author: 空手
Another Spring Festival is approaching, and a wave of corporate Spring Festival marketing campaigns is about to hit. Spring Festival is a crucial marketing node for businesses, and Spring Festival marketing is a must for most companies. This article discusses how to do Spring Festival marketing well.
At this point in time, most companies have already launched their Spring Festival marketing (under normal circumstances, plans should be completed by October), so you can use the upcoming Spring Festival marketing cases to verify whether what I say in this article is correct.
Initially, I asked in my fan group: What Spring Festival marketing cases do you think are well done?
The most frequent answers included Alipay's "Collect Five Blessings," WeChat Red Packets, Apple's Spring Festival short films "Three Minutes" and "A Bucket," and "What Is Peppa?" from early 2019.
These are indeed very successful and well-known Spring Festival cases, but the problem is that few companies can play like national-level apps such as WeChat and Alipay, and not many companies can afford to hire big directors and spend big budgets on every short film like Apple does. Today, let's talk about some strategies that most companies can learn from and actually implement.
The first key to successful Spring Festival marketing is issuing behavioral commands.
Companies do Spring Festival marketing primarily because Spring Festival is an important shopping occasion. For many industries, Spring Festival is the peak sales season.
Stocking up on New Year goods, giving gifts to relatives and friends, bringing things home for the New Year... This atmosphere of universal shopping is important because consumer purchasing behavior requires external environmental stimuli to drive it.
For example, during Double 11 and Double 12, even if the promotions are not strong, many people still consider buying something at that time because the shopping atmosphere is there.
Spring Festival also has such a consumption atmosphere; buying New Year goods is a habit for many. Even if products in some industries are not considered New Year goods, they should consider that many people receive year-end bonuses and make New Year shopping wishes... such as cars.
Therefore, for many companies, Spring Festival is a very important marketing node, and the biggest goal of Spring Festival marketing is to drive sales.
To achieve this goal and make consumers buy from you, the most important consideration is to issue behavioral commands to consumers, reminding them to "remember to buy me" during Spring Festival.
For example, the once-famous "This year, no gifts during the festival; if you give gifts, give Brain Gold." Brain Gold's consumption scenario is giving gifts to elders during Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival, so during Spring Festival, Brain Gold starts advertising to remind you to buy it.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Brain Gold's advertising was very aggressive, with high-frequency ads throughout the year without breaks.
But today, the Brain Gold brand has basically reached the end of its lifecycle, and its advertising has declined. It only does small-scale media placements during Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival, with no ads at other times.
You see, its purpose is clear: to capture the holiday gift-giving scenario and repeatedly remind consumers to buy.
Another example is "Jin Liufu for Spring Festival homecoming." This is the Spring Festival marketing theme for Jin Liufu liquor.
Under this theme, there is an explanatory copy or subtitle: "Going home is the best gift for family." Good copy, right? But the subtext is to tell you that you can't go home empty-handed; you should bring gifts, preferably two bottles of Jin Liufu.
Therefore, Jin Liufu's Spring Festival ads are mainly placed on long-distance highways and various outdoor billboards. If you take a train or bus home, you'll see Jin Liufu ads along the way, specifically reminding you not to forget to buy Jin Liufu on your way home.
Another example is Qiaqia's ad last Spring Festival: "Going home for the New Year, bring a box of Qiaqia." This ad was mainly placed on high-speed rail platforms and inside carriages to remind consumers.
"Bring a box of Qiaqia" and "Jin Liufu for Spring Festival homecoming" are both issuing behavioral commands to consumers, and their ad placements also choose the homecoming scenario. Of course, in addition to highways and high-speed rail, you can also use online New Year goods festivals, offline supermarket displays, and other materials for communication.
In the past, before the pandemic, many food and beverage brands would place ads on Spring Festival travel trains and organize activities like chartering planes and buses to send consumers home before Spring Festival. Essentially, these were all about locking in the New Year goods scenario and issuing consumption commands.
The second key to successful Spring Festival marketing is integrating brand culture.
Chinese people value reunion and togetherness, which is a collective cultural psychology of our nation. Especially during Spring Festival, this emotion becomes stronger. That's why we have the unprecedented Spring Festival travel rush every year; during the New Year, people always go home to reunite with family, and that's what makes it the New Year.
Because of this, many brands' Spring Festival marketing revolves around reunion, family affection, and family, shooting warm and heartfelt ads and playing the emotional marketing card. For example, the aforementioned "What Is Peppa?" is such a warm story between a grandfather and grandson.
Another point is that Chinese people pay great attention to good omens during the New Year, reflecting their aspirations for a better life, happiness, and auspiciousness.
So many brands also reflect this in their marketing. For example, the classic "Once Remy Martin is opened, good things naturally come" used such a good omen to quickly open up the Hong Kong market and then spread to the mainland.
Basically, every Spring Festival, there are one or two very warm and heartfelt family videos that go viral online. For example, Apple's 2018 Spring Festival short film "Three Minutes," directed by Chen Kexin.
(Apple's 2018 Spring Festival short film "Three Minutes")
When this film first came out, I criticized it on Zhihu and was attacked by dozens of people... I think this film has shortcomings, mainly from a brand marketing perspective, because it has nothing to do with Apple's products or brand. It's more like Apple, as a producer, released a movie during the New Year season.
Furthermore, regarding the story itself, I think the multiplication table recitation scene is somewhat contrived, and the editing and sound effects of the three-minute countdown are a bit overdone.
Perhaps the biggest connection between the short film and Apple is that it was noted to be shot on an iPhone X. Of course, the gimmick of shooting with a phone is also significant, because many lenses and external devices were used during filming.
Looking at 2019, Apple's Spring Festival short film "A Bucket," directed by Jia Zhangke, used the same approach, but it didn't have as much impact as "Three Minutes," possibly because Apple had already used the same trick the previous year.
Many people think these two short films are good, mainly because of the halo of big brands and big directors, plus they lack commercial color—no hard selling, no product selling points—just purely telling a warm family story, which moved many people.
However, if every company focuses on this direction during Spring Festival, it becomes monotonous and lacks personality. Vaguely talking about family and reunion is easily drowned out.
As mentioned earlier, the biggest demand direction for Spring Festival marketing is to talk about family affection, leveraging the consumer psychology of expecting reunion and pursuing good omens. Everyone is doing this.
If the above two films were not funded by Apple, not directed by big directors, and not promoted with big budgets, would they still be popular?
You know, "Three Minutes" alone cost about 7 million yuan in production, and Apple promoted it like a movie, investing in many outdoor ads and internet promotion.
In these ads, the visuals are the short film posters and title, with only a small Apple logo. It's completely like movie promotion ads, only promoting the film itself. But how many companies other than Apple are qualified to do such non-commercial Spring Festival marketing?
Apple has continued this approach, such as the 2020 Spring Festival short film "Daughter," directed by Oscar-nominated director Theodore Melfi, with cinematography by Lawrence Sher, and starring Zhou Xun.
And the 2021 Spring Festival short film "Nian," directed by Chinese-American female director Lulu Wang, who won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 2019 for "The Farewell."
Big brand + big director + almost public-service-style emotional short film—that's Apple's approach. Mercedes-Benz has also played this game.
During the 2021 Spring Festival, Mercedes-Benz invited Wong Kar-wai to direct a six-and-a-half-minute short film "Where the Heart Goes," telling emotional stories between young couples, mothers and daughters, and three generations of grandparents and grandchildren. The data looks good: 73.4 million views, 610,000 likes, 130,000 new followers, and 520 million total topic views.
But this approach can only be played by big brands.
First, big brands do Spring Festival marketing purely for image, without performance pressure. Promoting products and sales is not a must, so marketing content can be purely heartfelt without driving sales.
Second, big brands and big directors themselves bring topics and traffic. Even if the short film itself lacks enough highlights, it's not a problem because the big brand and big director are the highlights themselves. But small and medium brands probably don't have this strength and budget.
In the same automotive marketing space, I appreciate BMW's approach more. For the 2020 Spring Festival, BMW invited director Ning Hao to shoot the New Year film "Bayier's Spring Festival."
It's also a combination of big brand and big director, but BMW's New Year film chose a very good angle: it reviewed the evolution of the BMW brand's Chinese name in the Chinese market. Initially, consumers called BMW "Bayier" (very grassland-flavored), and later it became "Baoma" (treasure horse).
(BMW's 2020 Spring Festival short film "Bayier's Spring Festival")
In "Bayier's Spring Festival," Ning Hao, through a touching emotional story, interprets BMW as "Ba Ma Wo"—that is, splitting the three letters: B is ba (dad), M is ma (mom), and W is wo (me).
For the 2021 Spring Festival, BMW continued this theme with the marketing campaign "Ba Ma Wo, Nian Zai Yi Qi" (Mom, Dad, and Me, Together for the New Year). This Spring Festival marketing not only conveyed emotional value but also had a unique brand imprint, and the creative interpretation of the brand logo won consumer favor.
The key point is that BMW's Spring Festival marketing in these two years is very memorable; after watching it, you can't forget the interpretation of BMW. In the past, we used to call BMW "Bie Mo Wo" (Don't Touch Me) (also created by Ning Hao), and now BMW tries to make people think of "Ba Ma Wo" (Mom, Dad, and Me) when they mention BMW.
(BMW's 2021 Spring Festival short film "Ba Ma Wo Nian Zai Yi Qi")
This is what I consider the correct posture for Spring Festival marketing: it conveys cultural emotion while having a unique brand imprint. Combining brand value with Spring Festival emotion is very important for Spring Festival marketing.
By this standard, I think Apple's recent Spring Festival blockbusters are not as good as the earlier ones.
For example, Apple's 2015 Spring Festival short film "Old Record," although it had an all-star lineup—director Ann Hui, art director William Chang, and cinematographer Christopher Doyle—it tells the story of a girl who, after hearing a record her grandmother recorded in her youth, adapts the song and re-records it for her grandmother using an iPod.
It shows deep emotion and conveys Apple's significance in people's lives.
(Apple's 2015 Spring Festival short film "Old Record")
Also, Apple's 2016 Spring Festival short film, directed by famous Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan, featured Taiwanese singer Jonathan Lee and his apprentices Li Jianqing and Bai An using iPad Pro to adapt the New Year song "Gong Xi Gong Xi" into "A New Year Song for You." It similarly showcased the inspiration and creativity that Apple products provide for users.
This combination of brand value and Spring Festival emotion is, I think, the first choice for Spring Festival marketing. How exactly to combine? There are two ways.
The first is combining at the brand name level, which is a common approach seen currently.
For example, Wanglaoji's Spring Festival appeal to "Ji" (auspiciousness) culture: "Have an auspicious New Year, drink Wanglaoji." Dove Chocolate's "Nian Nian De Fu" (Blessings Every Year), Luzhou Laojiao's "Make the New Year More Flavorful," because Luzhou Laojiao sells strong aroma liquor and its brand appeal is the originator of strong aroma.
These Spring Festival marketing themes not only bring in the brand but also carry good omens and auspicious meanings, while also issuing behavioral commands to consumers.
The second way is integrating brand culture and philosophy into Spring Festival marketing.
In this regard, my favorite Spring Festival marketing case is Nike's 2020 Spring Festival theme "New Year, No Yielding."
During the traditional Spring Festival, we emphasize harmony and unity, and we should yield. But it doesn't align with Nike's sports spirit, because Nike focuses on competition, on being competitive, and on daring to be number one.
So Nike came up with the theme "New Year, No Yielding," which not only ties to the New Year time point but also expresses Nike's brand spirit. This theme helped Nike stand out from a bunch of homogeneous Spring Festival marketing.
In 2021, Nike did another marketing theme called "Xin Jue Shi Cheng" (Resolve in Heart, Achieve in Deed). In the past, our Spring Festival blessings would say "Xin Xiang Shi Cheng" (May your wishes come true). But Nike said that thinking alone is not enough; you must be determined to do it and take action to achieve it.
This theme also reminds people of Nike's classic "If you have a strong enough heart, anything is possible."
These two themes are the differentiation Nike found, the combination point between the New Year and brand expression.
Another case is Coca-Cola.
We know that in the past two years, the biggest variable for Spring Festival marketing has been the pandemic. During the 2020 Spring Festival, many people didn't go home or celebrate the New Year due to the sudden outbreak. In the 2021 Spring Festival and this year's Spring Festival, many places also called for people to stay put due to the pandemic.
In the second half of last year, I was responsible for the Spring Festival marketing plans for several brands at my company. At that time, I discussed with colleagues that after the 2020 Spring Festival, people would cherish the 2021 Spring Festival even more, and they would value opportunities to reunite with family and relatives more. This is a new and very important direction for Spring Festival marketing.
For example, look at Coca-Cola's 2021 Spring Festival marketing, with the theme "New Year's Voice from the Heart." Coca-Cola shot a series of short films telling the stories of three young people to express their heartfelt voices about Spring Festival.
One story is about a girl. In the past, she found the house too noisy during Spring Festival, crowded with relatives, being dragged to perform talents, and having to share a bed with a relative's child at night. But after the 2020 Spring Festival, she missed that noise and felt it was the flavor of the New Year.
(Coca-Cola's 2021 Spring Festival short film "New Year's Voice from the Heart")
Another story is about a little boy whose heartfelt voice was that in the past, during the New Year, he had to run errands for his parents—going downstairs to buy soy sauce, then buying scallions and garlic, then buying cola—so he couldn't play video games properly. Now, he misses those days of running errands for his parents.
There's also a story about how going home used to be tough—plane to train, train to bus, bumpy mountain roads for hours, making your butt cramp. Now, he feels that being able to go home and taste grandma's homemade snacks makes the long and hard journey worth it.
Coca-Cola's set of stories is very timely, very real, and very much in line with people's current psychology, so it's easy to move people.
While spreading these three short films, Coca-Cola also launched a set of "Voice from the Heart" bottles. The copy on the three bottles was: "I found that the most festive thing is ________," "I will no longer take ________ for granted," and "Now I most look forward to ________," and then let consumers fill in the blanks to express their heartfelt voices.
This is a marketing case that fits the current Spring Festival environment very well and fully reflects Coca-Cola's humanistic sentiment.
Another new direction for Spring Festival marketing is that the pandemic will enhance people's health and hygiene awareness.
Therefore, we can combine some traditional New Year customs with new healthy living habits such as hygiene, exercise, and balanced nutrition to advocate new New Year customs. For example, exercising during the Spring Festival holiday, wearing masks when visiting relatives, and cleaning and changing clothes for health.
For instance, this year's Spring Festival coincides with the Winter Olympics, so some companies' Spring Festival marketing plans will definitely combine with the Winter Olympics. But how to combine Spring Festival and the Winter Olympics?
One approach is to advocate exercising during Spring Festival, or to promote a positive and enterprising attitude for the new year, a day-day-up lifestyle. This is a good combination of New Year wishes and sports spirit.
However, I want to remind everyone here: don't casually use the Winter Olympics element. If you're not an official sponsor, using Winter Olympics elements is infringement.
The third key to successful Spring Festival marketing is focusing on Spring Festival elements.
A student asked me whether Country Garden's Spring Festival marketing case "Home Reunion, Country Garden" is good. From a copywriting perspective, this phrase is good—simple, grand, catchy, and through rhyme, it ties to the Country Garden brand name, strengthening the association between Country Garden and home. It's a good theme.
But marketing is not just about a theme; you need to develop creativity, content, and activities around the theme... And "home" and "reunion" are very big themes. Given such a grand theme, it's not easy to develop creative ideas and plan user interaction activities because it's not focused.
(Country Garden's 2021 Spring Festival focused on the soldier point to promote home)
For Spring Festival marketing, vaguely talking about family affection and reunion makes it hard to create moving content, and it's also hard to create distinctive features and memory points (really, everyone talks about this during Spring Festival).
For Spring Festival marketing, I suggest focusing on a specific Spring Festival element and making it deep, thorough, and rich. Through this small point, convey the brand's understanding of Spring Festival, create a breakout point, and create a memory point.
Spring Festival elements and customs are really very rich, such as Spring Festival couplets, the character "Fu" (blessing), red packets, zodiac animals, the Nian beast, going home, New Year's Eve dinner, Spring Festival Gala, New Year greetings, visiting relatives...
Look at Alipay, such a big company and brand, its Spring Festival marketing core is just one point—the character "Fu." Alipay's "Collect Five Blessings" has formed a national memory over the years.
During the 2019 Spring Festival, Alipay also invited a big-name director to shoot a New Year short film. Ann Hui directed a 9-minute-30-second Spring Festival Five Blessings short film "Seven Miles."
This film tells the story of three generations of a family over seventy years, their obsession with and inheritance of pasting the "Fu" character at home. There are two lines in the film: "Where Fu is, there is home" and "When Fu arrives, home is reached." A single "Fu" character reflects our faith in home and our expectation for the festival.
(Alipay's 2019 Spring Festival short film "Seven Miles")
Director Ann Hui cleverly uses a "Fu" character to reflect the entire Spring Festival's rituals, customs, faith, and inheritance. This is Alipay's Spring Festival marketing. Just like WeChat's red packet approach, the entire Spring Festival marketing is presented with one red packet.
Another example is the 2014 CCTV Spring Festival Gala public service ad "Chopsticks."
The creativity of this short film is outstanding because it uses a pair of small chopsticks to carry the emotions of Chinese people over thousands of years.
A mother teaches her daughter to use chopsticks; chopsticks represent inheritance. A grandfather uses chopsticks to dip a taste for his grandson; chopsticks represent enlightenment. At the dinner table, elders must use chopsticks first; chopsticks represent etiquette. During the New Year, inviting a neighbor who is alone to dinner, saying it's just "adding a pair of chopsticks," chopsticks represent neighborliness.
(2014 CCTV Spring Festival Gala public service ad "Chopsticks")
Without these chopsticks, the entire creative idea loses its soul and its main content carrier.
(Speaking of which, I recommend you read my article "This Might Be the Ultimate Secret to Writing Great Copy." What is the ultimate secret to writing copy and doing creative work? It's seeing the big from the small!)
Following the chopsticks idea, I could also shoot a Spring Festival short film with chopsticks as the theme. Because this year, many people choose not to go home and spend the New Year alone in a different place. I can use chopsticks to express the emotion between distant parents and children working in big cities.
Here's the specific creative idea: The camera first pans over a dining table in a rented apartment, showing many disposable chopsticks thrown on the table, indicating that the owner often eats takeout alone at home.
Then, there's a knock on the door. Our protagonist, a young person, habitually gets up to open the door for takeout, but finds a package wrapped tightly in a cloth bundle. After opening it, they find various New Year goods sent by parents, as well as various foods made at home.
Then, at the bottom of the package, there's a pair of brand-new chopsticks. Because the New Year custom is to change to new chopsticks.
At this moment, the parents call to ask if the child received the package and remind them to eat well. Although they can't spend the New Year with their parents, a pair of chopsticks connects the two places, making the distance no longer far.
Because chopsticks always appear in pairs, our marketing theme can be called "Together for the New Year, Not Alone," making chopsticks a symbol.
Moreover, when promoting, the brand can turn chopsticks into cultural and creative products, giving them as New Year gifts to consumers, or directly bundling them with products for sale. In the product design of chopsticks, for example, one chopstick has "dad and mom" and the other has "me." One chopstick has "girlfriend" and the other has "me."
Another example is the zodiac.
2022 is the Year of the Tiger, so we can also develop creative communication around the tiger element. Among the cases of zodiac-based Spring Festival marketing, I think the most successful is Pepsi's 2016 Spring Festival case.
2016 was the Year of the Monkey, so Pepsi invited Liu Xiao Ling Tong to participate in the marketing activities. They not only shot the nostalgic ad "Bring Happiness Home: The Monkey King Family" but also launched a commemorative can product with the Monkey King's face pattern.
Because the Monkey King and Sun Wukong can be said to be China's number one traditional cultural IP, almost every year there are films and TV works with Journey to the West themes and Monkey King themes. So Pepsi achieved very good communication effects with the Monkey King IP, and the commemorative cans were constantly sold out.
Moreover, at that time, a topic appeared online: netizens called for Liu Xiao Ling Tong to appear on the Spring Festival Gala, because the Year of the Monkey Gala couldn't be without the Monkey King.
This topic also won widespread discussion and support from netizens. Of course, Pepsi was behind this push. In this marketing campaign, Pepsi seized two major IPs of that Spring Festival: the Monkey King and the Spring Festival Gala. It would be unreasonable if this marketing didn't explode.
Another zodiac case is from January 28 last year, when Ford China posted a poster on its official Weibo showing "2021 China·Year of the Horse."
This poster quickly sparked discussion because 2021 is the Year of the Ox in the lunar calendar... Netizens said, how can Ford, such a big company, not distinguish between ox and horse? Ford quickly trended on hot search.
Finally, Ford responded that 2021 is the first year of domestic production for Ford's pioneer pure electric SUV—Mustang Mach-E—so it was abbreviated as "China Year of the Horse" (Mustang is what people call Ford's wild horse).
Although Ford's approach was somewhat controversial, playing a pun or a small joke around the zodiac still had a good marketing effect.
Besides the zodiac, there's also the Nian beast.
The Nian beast is a legendary evil beast that appears on New Year's Eve. People set off firecrackers and paste Spring Festival couplets to scare it away, which became an important Spring Festival custom and a symbol of the Chinese nation.
During the 2013 Spring Festival, McDonald's Spring Festival ad created a cute Nian beast, no longer fierce as in legend, but a cute and adorable pet with a pleasing expression.
This Nian beast turned into a foodie, going around asking people for McDonald's new Spring Festival products, such as the "Heartfelt Year, Heartfelt Burger" and red bean pie. It not only fully promoted McDonald's new products, but the Nian beast image also successfully broke out and won consumer affection.
Remember, it was 2013. In today's world of trendy toys and blind boxes, McDonald's Nian beast could have been played with in even more ways.
(McDonald's 2013 Spring Festival short film "Nian Beast")
Including Apple's 2021 Spring Festival short film "Nian," which also depicted a cute Nian beast, using it to tell a warm story between a little girl and her family. And the Nian beast also symbolizes facing the unknown and fear, finding strength within. Apple used the Nian beast to reinterpret Chinese folk mythology.
The above cases are all very successful uses of Spring Festival elements. They complete the brand's expression of Spring Festival by focusing on a certain image and carrier.
In fact, Spring Festival elements are very rich. As long as you put your mind to it, you can definitely find them. For example, dumplings. In Apple's 2020 Spring Festival short film "Daughter," one clue is making dumplings.
So, can I use dumplings as an element to carry the entire Spring Festival campaign? Enlarge the dumpling idea—how to make dumplings, what fillings to use—there's a lot of imaginative space.
Another example is pets. Today, the pet economy has formed. Pets are a weapon for brands to become younger and appeal to young people. Cats and dogs have become part of many families, like family members. So we can also talk about home and family affection from the perspective of cats and dogs.
For instance, I once proposed to a client a creative idea for Spring Festival marketing using dogs, creating a short film "A Dog's Way Home," using a dog to tell the story of a wanderer returning home, including designing a set of dog New Year greeting emojis.
Also, at the recent Bilibili New Year's Eve Gala, the core element of its trailer ad was fireworks, using hand gestures to set off fireworks. Fireworks and fireworks are also very typical Spring Festival elements.
Another example is the combination of Spring Festival and the Winter Olympics mentioned earlier. I could focus the entire marketing on a Spring Festival element—snowflakes.
From childhood, holding grandma's hand and sledding on a country path, to growing up and skiing at international competitions. From grandma's vivid snowflake paper cuttings under her scissors, to the flying snowflakes on the ski slopes.
We can tell a story through a snowflake, or even personify the snowflake, give it life, and make it a virtual image of a little snowflake to expand the marketing.
Elements are rich and colorful; it's not that you can't find them, but that you can't think of them. In addition to these "item-type" Spring Festival elements with specific images, we can also focus on behavioral and customary elements during Spring Festival.
For example, I could do Spring Festival marketing around the single event of eating the New Year's Eve dinner. When I served liquor brands, I also suggested to clients to do New Year's Eve dinner, combining with cultural IPs (local history museums) to recreate famous historical banquets and create a banquet IP.
For example, the Tang Dynasty's "Shaowei Banquet" and the "Han Xizai Evening Banquet." Martell recently collaborated with the Forbidden City to create a "Thousand-Year Palace Banquet."
And the aforementioned "Going home for the New Year, bring a box of Qiaqia."
We've analyzed this theme: it's a behavioral command to promote consumption, a sales-oriented statement, not a communication-oriented statement. So just shouting this slogan won't move consumers to resonate, create topics, or gain attention. Around this theme, we need to do some content.
How to do it? First, let's look at Qiaqia's consumption scenario: it's eaten when someone is relaxing while watching a drama, or when a group is chatting. So we can focus on the element of Spring Festival gatherings.
For example, I could make a short film about blind dating during the New Year. A young man just returns home and is forced by his parents to go on a blind date. Both parties are forced and don't know each other, so they don't know what to say. They're staring at each other, and the atmosphere is getting more and more awkward. Fortunately, there's a plate of Qiaqia on the table...
This episode's theme is: "With Qiaqia, blind dating during the New Year is not awkward. Going home for the New Year, bring a box of Qiaqia."
For example, I could make another short film about visiting relatives. A young person who returned home from a big city for the New Year just sits down at the dinner table, and various relatives start asking, "How much do you earn a month?" "Have you bought a house?" "Why aren't you married yet?" "When will you bring a girlfriend home?"...
Seeing the atmosphere getting worse, fortunately, there's a plate of Qiaqia on the table... This episode's theme is: "With Qiaqia, New Year gatherings are more harmonious. Going home for the New Year, bring a box of Qiaqia."
Also, at a gathering, two mothers compare and boast about their children's abilities, and it looks like they're about to fight... Also, a relative's naughty child comes to the house... These can all become reasons for "Going home for the New Year, bring a box of Qiaqia."
These contents can generate topics, create discussion, and trigger consumers' recognition and resonance with why they should bring a box of Qiaqia when going home for the New Year. This is the marketing combination of content topics + action commands.
In this section, we introduced how to focus on Spring Festival elements for marketing, including various image elements, behavioral and customary elements, and scene elements.
In summary, when doing Spring Festival marketing, the key is to find the right element, find a very subtle, delicate, specific, and very small core point, and use this core element to carry content and activities, packaging your entire Spring Festival marketing approach.
Then the Spring Festival plan you create will be sharp enough, substantive, and able to stand out in homogeneous Spring Festival marketing. The smaller and more specific the element you choose, the stronger its impact and appeal.
The fourth key to successful Spring Festival marketing is building a Spring Festival IP.
In recent years, a very important marketing trend is the branding and IP-ization of marketing activities. Companies are not just doing marketing activities; they are building activity brands.
Treating an activity as a brand to operate, with a fixed name and logo, fixed time nodes and participation rituals, and fixed themes and connotations.
Spring Festival marketing is the same. Many companies operate their Spring Festival activities as an IP.
For example, Pepsi's "Bring Happiness Home" has been running since 2012, and it's been exactly 10 years now. Every Spring Festival, Pepsi starts creating content around "Bring Happiness Home" for communication. Pepsi's Spring Festival marketing this year has already started; you can go and see what Pepsi has done this year.
"Bring Happiness Home" is not just a Spring Festival marketing activity for Pepsi Cola alone, but a common Spring Festival approach for several brands under Pepsi, including Pepsi Cola, Lay's, and Tropicana (later joined by 7 Up, Mirinda, etc.). It not only lets consumers bring home these brands with the character "Le" (happiness) but also naturally integrates the brand into the festive atmosphere of going home for the New Year.
What is the value of Pepsi playing this way?
On one hand, this approach brings together the spokespersons of Pepsi's different brands, using its all-star lineup to shoot a funny or warm New Year micro-film.
This makes "Bring Happiness Home" like a blockbuster movie in the New Year season, becoming a fixed annual expectation for consumers, maximizing the use of Pepsi's star endorsement lineup and forming a combined force for communication.
On the other hand, although the theme is the same every year, Pepsi has different approaches each year. For example, the 2016 Monkey King mentioned above; and the 2019 space-themed "Star Picker," paying tribute to China's 39 space launches the previous year, ranking first in the world.
Pepsi's 2021 Spring Festival ad was also touching, telling the warm stories of two ordinary people—a food delivery rider and a Hope Primary School teacher—paying tribute to ordinary heroes.
This year's Pepsi Spring Festival short film has already been released, also gathering spokespersons like Wang Jialer, G.E.M., Li Xian, Wang Yuan, and Liu Haocun, with the theme of Pepsi's auspicious beasts offering blessings. My book "Chuan Shen Wen An" has a complete interpretation of Pepsi's "Bring Happiness Home" IP. If you're interested, you can read it.
(Pepsi's 2020 Spring Festival short film "My Dad's Happiness")
Besides Pepsi, there's also Safeguard's "Wash Hands and Eat," which started in 2015 and has been going for 7 years now.
The origin of Safeguard's Spring Festival marketing was in 2015, when China Newsweek launched a voting campaign on Weibo for "The Most Touching Sentence in China During Spring Festival." Among more than 13,000 netizens' votes, "Wash hands, eat" topped the list with 26.3% of the votes.
For homesick wanderers, after enduring the hardships of long travel during Spring Festival, the parents' words "Wash hands, eat" contain the deepest care and emotion. This mother's catchphrase, a short and simple sentence, when heard, means family reunion.
Moreover, washing hands before meals is a life habit we've been taught since childhood, and it's also a typical usage scenario for Safeguard, fully demonstrating its product's cleaning and antibacterial function (especially in the past two years, this is very important).
In other words, "Wash hands and eat" laid the foundation for Safeguard's product consumption, reflecting Safeguard's significance and role in consumers' lives.
So Safeguard has been carrying out Spring Festival marketing around "Wash hands and eat," forming its own branded memory.
You can see that every year it's "Wash hands and eat," but the marketing direction varies by year: health protection, health companionship, and healthy reunion. (My book "Chuan Shen Wen An" also details this case.)
Companies actually don't need to do so many brand marketing activities, because every activity requires a budget to promote it, inform consumers, and achieve user reach and acquisition. The IP-ization of activities is a way to help companies save resources and continuously accumulate brand assets and fan base.
But building an activity IP or activity brand doesn't mean companies should do exactly the same thing every year or every time. Instead, under the guidance of the same theme, each activity should have a unique direction and fresh content.
For example, the creation of a Spring Festival IP can be designed specifically according to the different cultural characteristics and social psychology of each year's Spring Festival.
The above are some of my thoughts on Spring Festival marketing.
Are you "watching" me?