Friendly reminder: Click the blue text above to follow "FMCG Distributor Professional Consulting" for more insights on marketing and distributor management.
Since 2001, the various communication platforms of the Chinese Spring Festival have been dominated by international beverage brands such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Traditional cultural elements like Spring Festival couplets, lanterns, and the lucky boy (A Fu) have all been borrowed by these foreign giants in their "localization" marketing strategies. But is there a truly Chinese local beverage brand that can, during the festive season, undertake the cultural mission of the Chinese people, extend their cultural values, and showcase their cultural spirit? This question remained unanswered, leaving a sense of regret. Today, however, JDB has answered it confidently and resoundingly.
Under the guidance of the "big platform, big strategy" philosophy, JDB systematically sponsored Liaoning TV's "Benshan Selects Who for Spring Festival Gala," Hunan TV's New Year's Eve Concert, Guangzhou TV's "New Year's Eve Countdown Carnival," CCTV's Spring Festival Gala, and the Lantern Festival Gala during the 2014 Spring Festival period. This move secured premium media resources across the south, north, and central regions, taking the lead in the beverage industry to complete its Spring Festival marketing layout and cover mainstream consumer groups. From then on, throughout the pre-, mid-, and post-Spring Festival stages, consumers were essentially in JDB's home turf, seeing JDB's red cans and brand almost everywhere. From both channel promotion and terminal sales perspectives, the effect was unmatched by any other brand, including international giants.
More importantly, from a professional perspective, JDB's "major festival marketing" is far more than just intensive placement. In fact, it operates its festive communication activities through a complete system. We have summarized this into five key directions, which are worth deep understanding and learning for other Chinese local brands:
Cultural Focus Spring Festival is the most important festive occasion in the lives of Chinese people. Concentrated communication during this period is not just about showcasing the brand to consumers and channel partners nationwide; more importantly, from a long-term development perspective, it aims to closely link the collective cultural product of "celebrating Spring Festival" with the essence of traditional culture, the "red-can herbal tea."
Culture determines all our life scenarios. For example, during the festive season, the dishes, beverages, and even dining methods are deeply influenced by local culture, which is why they feel comfortable to us. JDB precisely fills this gap. Its multiple elements—the red festive can, the traditional health-preserving function, and the ancient heritage recipe—are natural partners for Chinese people's festive behaviors. Moreover, the name "JDB" (Jia Duo Bao) carries auspicious meanings: "Jia" means "increase, benefit," "Duo" means "abundant, plentiful," and "Bao" means "precious, wealth," all closely tied to the blessings valued by Chinese people during the Spring Festival.
Here lies a direct benefit: around the New Year, with the high reach of TV programs and the effective interaction of multi-level communication across online and offline media, JDB, with its authentic herbal tea quality, fully captures consumer minds and becomes the unique choice for "authentic good gifts."
Therefore, deeply embedding itself in traditional Chinese festivals, combining other cultural elements, and rapidly forming a strong cultural focus through multi-point, intensive communication, thereby stimulating Chinese people's cultural consumption of "JDB" in various scenarios and at various nodes—this is the fundamental starting point of JDB's festive communication.
Emotional Peak The blessings that "JDB" brings to consumers during the festive season, from another traditional psychological perspective, can also be seen as a form of "reward."
We know that people yearn for the Spring Festival not just for family reunions, but also as a time for rest and reflection after a year's work, and to open up happier expectations for the coming year. During this festive period, all the joy, gifts, and blessings inherently carry the connotation of "reward" and "recognition" for the hard work of oneself and family over the past year.
In the current context, the "Chinese Dream" is the theme of China's social progress and personal development. We know that the core goal of the "Chinese Dream" is to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, which accompanies the cultural renaissance mentioned above. The concrete manifestations of the "Chinese Dream" are national prosperity, national rejuvenation, and people's happiness, with the ultimate focus on "people's happiness." More specifically, it represents that every Chinese person can realize their dreams and fulfill their missions through year after year of hard work.
Therefore, during the Spring Festival period, it is not a time for the overall emotional rest of the Chinese people, but rather the peak of their collective emotions: they yearn to be encouraged, valued, recognized, and rewarded. At this time, any item that carries cultural, festive, happy, and wealth connotations will be seen as an expression and response to these emotions.
Thus, JDB's Spring Festival marketing, whether for personal consumption or as gifts for friends and family, actually embodies a sense of reward and recognition for the realization of the "Chinese Dream." Moreover, JDB itself is a condensation of the struggle and achievement of the "Chinese Dream"—it took 20 years to turn a local, even regional, herbal tea specialty into a brand known nationwide and even globally, while also surpassing Coca-Cola, considered an international commodity, in actual sales for consecutive years. This feat is enough to inspire and comfort all Chinese people striving for the "Chinese Dream."
Coverage and Placement Of course, beyond the top-level thinking and market psychology, we can also see a more systematic communication plan.
Let's look at JDB's Spring Festival marketing coverage and placement: For example, in terms of audience coverage—while covering all types of people comprehensively, it precisely targeted the dry northern population and the young heavy consumers of herbal tea through program sponsorships on Liaoning TV and Hunan TV. In terms of time coverage—JDB's Spring Festival marketing actually started in December, with Liaoning TV's "Benshan Selects Who for Spring Festival Gala," followed by Hunan TV's New Year's and Little New Year's parties, reaching a climax during the Spring Festival Gala, and then forming an extended small peak through Hunan TV's Lantern Festival party. This arrangement, with multi-level communication across the pre-, mid-, and post-Spring Festival periods, has an unmatched effect on strengthening consumer awareness and behavior compared to other brands.
Content Integration From the communication of "The Voice of China," we can see that JDB, through long-term brand practice, has developed a mature set of methods for tightly integrating with program content. In Spring Festival communication, we can also see a series of successful measures in this regard. But the key point here remains JDB's profound grasp of its own positioning and brand connotation, as well as its deep understanding of the content and processes of the platforms it uses.
Regarding the integration of program content, in our view, physical product placement and presentation are superficial issues; what matters more is the fit with the program's spirit and the psychological needs of the audience. Setting aside the case of the Spring Festival Gala, which is a national celebration, let's look at a program like "Benshan Selects Who for Spring Festival Gala." Its content conveys not only laughter but also the transmission of intrinsic spiritual elements such as original sketches and attention to people's livelihoods. They integrate quality into laughter and incorporate thought into entertainment, bringing added value to the brand that simple product presentation cannot match.
These contents, combined with new media, can directly link to offline promotions. More importantly, JDB also carried out coordinated content marketing initiatives offline, such as the interactive promotion "Auspicious Year, God of Wealth Sends 'Bao'" in Shenzhen stores (via WeChat), which organically boosted festive sales by enhancing consumers' affinity for festive information points.
Attention to Details Of course, grasping communication details is a key point in event marketing and event communication. In various JDB Spring Festival communication scenes, we made careful observations and found that compared to activities sponsored by other brands, JDB's brand and products appeared most frequently and for the longest duration in shots, sometimes several times more than other brands.
This should be the result of a technical, professional marketing team. We know that to do a good job of sponsoring an event, if you want to multiply the communication effect, you must deeply study the program's creativity, content flow, director's plan, and key figures, while also deeply understanding camera language and audience psychology.
In all JDB-sponsored programs and activities, we can see brand presentations that follow the camera, the flow, and the rhythm, entering the audience's eyes in different forms, often integrated with the on-site plot and characters. Sometimes, this combination itself can become a unique cultural phenomenon.