---
title: "From Zero Awareness to No.1: How P&G's Downy Created a New Product Miracle"
description: "Achieving both buzz and sales is the ultimate marketing goal for newly launched brands. After just one month of marketing campaigns, Downy became a new internet sensation in China, achieving a win-win in awareness, reputation, and sales, moving from awareness to purchase in one step. China's biggest trend now is consumption upgrade. To catch up with this golden decade of consumption upgrade, many new brands with new concepts, new technologies, and new lifestyles have entered the scene with high ambitions, but most have failed in their debut..."
author: "New Distribution"
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published: "2018-06-05"
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# From Zero Awareness to No.1: How P&G's Downy Created a New Product Miracle

> Achieving both buzz and sales is the ultimate marketing goal for newly launched brands. After just one month of marketing campaigns, Downy became a new internet sensation in China, achieving a win-win in awareness, reputation, and sales, moving from awareness to purchase in one step. China's biggest trend now is consumption upgrade. To catch up with this golden decade of consumption upgrade, many new brands with new concepts, new technologies, and new lifestyles have entered the scene with high ambitions, but most have failed in their debut...

Achieving both buzz and sales is the ultimate marketing goal for newly launched brands. After just one month of marketing campaigns, Downy became a new internet sensation in China, achieving a win-win in awareness, reputation, and sales, moving from awareness to purchase in one step.
What is the biggest trend in China now? Consumption upgrade. To catch up with this golden decade of consumption upgrade, many new brands with new concepts, new technologies, and new lifestyles have entered the scene with high ambitions, but most have failed in their debut, eventually fading into a page in web snapshots.
How can a new brand succeed in its launch? This is where we can learn from the brand giant P&G. In December 2017, Downy Beads (hereinafter referred to as Downy), which is popular in North America, landed in China. This product is China's first "clothing perfume" with a new concept. Used together with laundry detergent, it leaves a lasting fragrance after washing.
Although Downy comes from a prestigious family, as a new category and brand in fabric care, it faced a nearly zero awareness and highly competitive FMCG market environment. It also had to challenge Chinese consumers' laundry habits and upgrade their needs, making it even more difficult.
However, after just one month of marketing campaigns, Downy became a new internet sensation in China, achieving a win-win in awareness, reputation, and sales, moving from awareness to purchase in one step, achieving both buzz and sales, which made many lukewarm new brands envious:
The Birth of a Miracle
In December 2017, Tmall store (excluding Tmall Supermarket) sales: ranked first among Tmall flagship stores in the clothing care (fabric softener) category; it was 2.2 times the sales of the clothing care (fabric softener) Tmall flagship stores that month (data source: China Venn eShare Data);
Successfully changed the laundry habits of target consumers, adding an extra step to laundry.
Achieving both buzz and sales is the ultimate marketing goal for newly launched brands. Traditional big companies usually spend a year on channel coverage for new product launches, then heavily advertise, and the rest is left to luck. Downy, on the other hand, used a startup's approach of small steps and fast iteration, learning and trying as they went. By focusing on small points, they gradually exploded and grew. In the era of new e-commerce retail, only pursuing buzz can easily be covered by other brand information and miss the best opportunity to let consumers try and experience new products; only pursuing sales can lower the brand's tone and be detrimental to brand image. Neither is sustainable, so it is necessary to pursue both buzz and sales to succeed in the debut.
Achieving both buzz and sales has always been the ideal state for all marketers, recognized as the most difficult to achieve, and even more difficult for new brands. This may be the reason why the success rate of new brand launches is not high. But Downy's explosion tells us that you can have both buzz and sales.
Reviewing Downy's debut, see how an internet sensation is played
**Strategy 1: Celebrity endorsement with remarkable results, hot topics generate traffic**
To turn a new brand into an internet sensation with both buzz and sales, you need a trigger point that quickly builds brand image while also maximizing the target consumers' desire to experience and buy. At this time, choosing a suitable brand spokesperson is very important. The spokesperson's good looks, high popularity, and fit with the brand not only safeguard brand promotion but also effectively bring sales to the brand.
Downy was originally a laundry care brand, belonging to "unpresentable" household chores. But the brand took a unique approach, extracting the brand value elements of "fragrance" and "beauty," positioning Downy as a new concept beauty product, corresponding to the upgraded "clothing fragrance" need. It can be described as an easily accessible "light luxury fashion" enjoyment in modern life, instantly elevating the brand tone.
To ignite the market, Downy first targeted young women aged 18-24, who are easily influenced by media information, love beauty and fashion, like celebrity gossip, like novelty, pursue celebrity styles in shopping, and pursue quality of life.
For such target consumers, the brand carefully chose Yang Mi as its spokesperson. Yang Mi is a screen queen and popularity queen, highly sought after by the younger generation, with her own traffic, and she also endorses a famous international beauty brand, with a high-end image. At the same time, she is down-to-earth and has super strong sales ability, basically making one outfit popular every day. "Yang Mi's style" has supported half of Taobao's clothing market. In the "CBNData Star Consumption Influence 2018 Q1 Overall Ranking" released by the First Financial Business Data Center, Yang Mi won the title of "Sales King."
Such Yang Mi fits Downy's image quite well, and the results were remarkable. On December 1, 2017, after the release of the short video "Big Mi Mi's Little Secret" guessing game filmed by Yang Mi for Downy, views broke one million instantly, and Yang Mi's five major fan groups, four with 100,000-level and one with million-level followers, reposted it. On December 4, after the secret of Yang Mi endorsing Downy was revealed, TVC views exceeded ten million. In the Xunyi Brand Star Index from December 5 to 11, Yang Mi × Downy ranked first.
To fully tap the celebrity's brand and sales value and quickly form brand awareness, the SocialTouch Guangzhou team, in line with Downy's promotion rhythm, continuously created hot topics centered on Yang Mi and the product, maintaining Downy's topic heat and increasing exposure. The topic "Big Mi Mi's Little Secret" focusing on the guess of Yang Mi endorsing Downy occupied TOP16 on the topic list. The topic "Yang Mi doesn't want to take me to hot pot" based on Yang Mi's interview occupied TOP1 on the hot search list, with over one million searches; the topic "Yang Mi reveals she loves foot soaking for health" also occupied TOP7 on the hot search list. In addition, "This smell is fragrant like Yang Mi" from the fashion and beauty ceremony where Yang Mi appeared, and "Yang Mi's clothes are actually beautiful in 4D" from the Mi Secret Fragrance Appointment conference, both received considerable interaction.
The value of a hot topic was maximized here at SocialTouch. Under the operation of the SocialTouch Guangzhou team, more than a hundred well-known bloggers, including Yang Mi fan groups and IP-level KOLs, as the first camp, dug into the secret of the celebrity's clothing fragrance, and fashion and beauty accounts then shared real usage experiences. The hot topic of Downy + Yang Mi achieved layered strong word-of-mouth communication.
**Strategy 2: Discover pain point scenarios, achieve both buzz and sales**
As a new category, the core value of "fragrance" and "beauty" provided by Downy was initially an abstract concept for Chinese consumers. They did not understand in what occasions and times Downy is useful, and why Downy would become a must-have item for a quality life. This made it difficult to achieve in-depth communication of brand information with potential consumers, let alone stimulate the desire to purchase and experience.
SocialTouch's tool to solve this problem is scenario marketing. Certain needs of people are only triggered in specific scenarios. For brand owners, finding these pain point scenarios and presenting the brand and product in the most suitable form at the most suitable time and place can convey brand value, build brand image, touch consumers' desire to buy, and thus achieve both buzz and sales.
SocialTouch selected 5 major scenarios closely related to consumers' lives - sports, food, workplace, travel, and social dating - to land scenarios and communicate deeply with consumers, stimulating purchase desire. Multi-scenario coverage improved the efficiency of brand-user communication, achieved precise matching of consumer groups, allowed different traffic to produce the best results, and reduced marketing costs.
**Each of the 5 scenarios has its own highlights.**
For the social dating scenario, Victoria's Secret supermodel Wang Yi and funny video blogger Xijin Mudan took the lead, conveying Downy's advantage of lasting fragrance during dates and parties; for the workplace scenario, the focus was on Yang Mi, the female lead of "The Negotiator," and her secret of "fragrance carrying the whole scene"; for the travel scenario, it was about not being afraid of long trips, still fragrant. Among them, SocialTouch achieved the ultimate in scenario communication through the linkage of celebrities and scenarios. At the same time, celebrity appeal combined with scenario marketing quickly enhanced brand influence and achieved sales conversion.
For the sports and food scenarios, they boldly crossed over with third parties, cooperated for win-win, strengthened O2O scenario experience and communication, and maximized marketing resources. Downy actively participated in the 2018 Yangzhou Jianzhen International Half Marathon, creating a Tmall x Downy Five Senses Fragrance Pavilion, with a special creative water mist door, allowing runners to feel the natural fragrance experience brought by Downy from the moment they entered. Victoria's Secret supermodel Wang Yi not only warmed up on Weibo but also personally visited the pop-up store to interact with runners, which was another linkage of celebrity and scenario. In addition, Downy also participated in the Guangzhou City Fun Run activity to strengthen the "not smelly but fragrant after running" amazing running experience.
At the marathon, consumers searched for the Downy event page on site
Another partner was the internet-famous hot pot restaurant Xiaolongkan. On the occasion of Tmall Happy Day on December 20, 2017, Downy, together with Xiaolongkan and late-night blogger Xu Laoshi, did a live stream called "Xu Laoshi's Dinner: Scheming in Hot Pot," with total exposure exceeding one million. Consumers watched and bought, buying both the product and the brand.
Live stream scene of the Xiaolongkan crossover
Xiaolongkan event scene
**Strategy 3: Plant grass in various ways to lure pulling grass, one-step traffic conversion**
To achieve the goal of both buzz and sales, the key and difficulty lie in how to convert buzz into sales.
The mobile internet era is an era where content is king. The great richness of content and channels makes users' interests and choices more personalized, connected in the form of interest communities, and the influence of KOLs in these communities is crucial. At the same time, media fragmentation and high coverage costs require meticulous cultivation and refined operation of social media, maximizing the coverage of quality content to target users, communicating with consumers with heartfelt content, and thus achieving a win-win in brand and performance through online word-of-mouth, maximizing the effect of PR and marketing.
So, how can this be done? SocialTouch has a methodology for this, which is to rely on "planting grass - pulling grass" to quickly convert traffic. In the Downy case, all celebrity sales and scenario marketing revolved around word-of-mouth marketing. Through word-of-mouth marketing to build brand image, it has both short-term effects and continuously builds long-term brand image, which is the only way to make Downy an internet sensation.
After the news of Yang Mi endorsing Downy broke, more than a hundred IP-level well-known bloggers and fashion and beauty accounts dug into the celebrity's secret, softly planting grass; on Weibo, more than a hundred fashion and beauty bloggers shared real experiences, WeChat promotion had multiple 100,000+ viral articles, and on Taobao, nearly a hundred influencers used text and live streams to recommend Downy products. In addition, real users collectively posted orders and shared grass-planting IP styles, plus comment section Q&A and searches, efficiently utilizing traffic resources and bringing actual sales to the brand.
In the scenario marketing line, it relied more on SocialTouch's mature "planting grass - pulling grass" marketing model to achieve the goal of both buzz and sales. For example, in the social gathering scenario, "The American clothing perfume that supermodels use, I couldn't resist and bought it a while ago, and after using it, I feel like I've fallen into a pit." In the travel scenario, grass-planting experts dug deep into travel goodies, recommending Downy products with personal usage experiences, greatly increasing credibility, and users left messages asking about purchase methods. "Planting grass - pulling grass" may actually take only a few minutes or even seconds, but it achieved multi-point contact with real consumers through diversified users, creating a hot atmosphere of everyone rushing to buy Yang Mi's style, stimulating purchases.
It can be seen that the high conversion from social content to e-commerce in the Downy case, "planting grass - pulling grass" is a key link. There is also a piece of data that makes peers envious: the proportion of e-commerce search terms for this Downy marketing activity was 2-3 times that of daily marketing activities.
The most dry-goods summary in history, see Downy's success secrets here
**Downy's three major success magic weapons for new product launch with both buzz and sales**
1. Brand positioning + spokesperson selection;
2. Celebrity word-of-mouth grass planting;
3. Crossover + scenario.
**The Happy Ending of Downy's New Product Launch Battle**
In December 2017, Tmall store (excluding Tmall Supermarket) sales:
- Ranked first among Tmall flagship stores in the clothing care (fabric softener) category;
- It was 2.2 times the sales of the clothing care (fabric softener) Tmall flagship stores that month.
(Data source: China Venn eShare Data)
Please note when replicating the Downy case:
1. Please ensure your team are heavy users of social media. (Do you believe that the young people on the SocialTouch team are themselves internet celebrities?)
2. Please ensure your team can monitor online hot spots around the clock and flexibly adjust execution strategies. (A girl on the team discovered that Korean girl group Irene was recommending Downy, and immediately collected information on Korean traffic stars planting grass for Downy, from discovery to idea implementation in one go. Who knows how she found out, it must be because of patriotism that she paid attention to Korean wave...)
3. Please ensure your team has top execution and completes tasks with quality and quantity. (The SocialTouch team reviews manuscripts from morning to night every day, almost non-stop from Monday to Sunday. They are all super men and women! Why is the baby feeling bitter...)
The young and energetic SocialTouch Guangzhou team, first left and second left, at the Yangzhou Marathon site
Source: SocialTouch (SocialTouchSCRM)
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