Source | Kong Shou
Scenario marketing has a long history. In 2005, Xizhilang jelly signed diving queen Guo Jingjing as its spokesperson. The TVC script at the time read: "Xizhilang jelly with fruit... One for leisure and entertainment, one for exercise and fitness, one for friend gatherings, one for traveling... Xizhilang brings us relaxation and joy. Jelly, I want Xizhilang." The leisure, fitness, and other contexts mentioned can all be considered scenarios. A couple of years ago, Juewei Duck Neck did similar creative work, such as "Without Juewei Duck Neck, how can you work overtime?" "Without Juewei Duck Neck, how can you binge-watch dramas?" "Without Juewei Duck Neck, how can you watch the game?" "Without Juewei Duck Neck, how can you go shopping?" etc. Juewei also placed these ads in corresponding life scenarios, such as office buildings, communities, and shopping malls, creating a consumption atmosphere where you eat Juewei for everything. During the 2025 Spring Festival, I saw a TVC at Guangzhou South Railway Station for the well-known Japanese cough and throat lozenge brand Ryukakusan. The ad listed three New Year scenarios that strain the voice: "Take Ryukakusan, eat spicy food without straining your voice; Take Ryukakusan, sing loudly without straining your voice; Take Ryukakusan, chat freely without straining your voice," ending with the slogan "Eat Ryukakusan for the New Year, no voice strain." In March, I went to Chengdu on a business trip and saw an ad at the airport for Baishixing Food's Drunkard Peanuts. The overall slogan was "Drinking calls for Drunkard Peanuts," split into three visuals: "Camping and traveling, Drunkard Peanuts," "Bar drinking, Drunkard Peanuts," and "Old friends gathering, Drunkard Peanuts." These ads all follow the same pattern, gathering multiple scenarios into one TVC or two or three key visuals. Since each scenario can only be presented with one sentence, one image, or a few seconds of footage, the reach into each scenario is shallow. So, forget about making consumers perceive the brand; it's probably hard for them to even remember all these scenarios. Of course, many ads focus on a single scenario, using a scenario-based slogan as the core of communication, such as "Chew Extra after eating and drinking," "Use your brain often, drink more Six Walnut Milk," "Fear of getting angry? Drink Wanglaoji," "Tired and sleepy? Drink Red Bull," "Going home for Spring Festival? Jinliufu," etc. Compared to slogans that simply tout product functions or boast about sales and category status, I think these are much better. First, because they tell consumers when and where to consume the product, embedding the brand into consumers' lives and serving as a consumption directive. Second, although the ads don't directly state product functions, they imply them, allowing consumers to imagine the benefits the product brings in that scenario. For example, seeing "Use your brain often, drink more Six Walnut Milk," consumers naturally realize that Six Walnut Milk has brain-boosting benefits and is suitable for students who frequently use their brains. However, having just a slogan has the same problem as the multi-scenario ads above. They are all hard ads. Although they mention scenarios, they don't deeply engage with the scenario or fully demonstrate the value of scenario marketing. In the traditional era, hard ads were the main form of brand communication, mainly referring to TV commercials (usually 15-second TVCs) and print ads placed outdoors, at retail points, and in newspapers and magazines (usually 1-3 key visuals), centered around a catchy, memorable slogan. The main mechanism of hard ads is memory-recall, which builds long-term brand memory through a single message and repeated exposure, so that consumers can recall the brand at the moment of purchase. The advantage of hard ads is "rememberable and recallable," but the disadvantage is limited information. Even if they can establish a brand-scenario association, they can't delve into the scenario to uncover specific consumer pain points and problems, nor clearly present product value. Moreover, they are just ads; consumers can't participate in the actual scenario, so they can't empathize or feel it personally. However, in 2023, two waves of hard ad placements were widely welcomed by consumers and achieved excellent communication results. One wave was Didi's placement in May. The creative for this series was very simple and pure. Visually, it only used sticky notes, and the copy was tailored to the specific placement location. For example, on a mall's central atrium screen, Didi's ad copy read: "Hi, face me on the first floor of the mall, 20 meters directly behind you is 'Gate 1'. Set your ride-hailing pickup location there, and the driver can find you more easily." Didi also said: "In an indoor mall, don't rush to hail a ride. Find the exact exit first; it's convenient for you and the driver." Another example: at a residential community gate barrier, the ad copy was: "Are your 'phone, keys, wallet, and ID' all still there? If you left them in the car, we'll try our best to help you find them together." It also included specific methods and icons for how to use Didi to find lost items, and informed users: "In 2022, we helped passengers recover 252,851 phones, 6,731 computers, and 7,204 wallets." In business districts, targeting the scenario of shopping with friends, the copy was: "Share a ride with friends going the same way, add a stop, and you won't have to keep changing the destination." At the airport taxi waiting area, Didi reminded you: "Don't forget your luggage in the trunk when you get out!" This series of ads left Didi's reminders in every corner of the city, not only conveying Didi's brand spirit of "treating every journey seriously" but also directly hitting consumers' pain points during travel. As a result, it garnered a lot of "organic traffic" online, with many people feeling the ads were practical and useful. Some said, "Solving consumer problems is the real deal," others praised it as "top-notch copy without literary flair" and "top 10 ads of the year," and some asked, "Can this be promoted nationwide? We really need it." The other wave was Xiaohongshu's "Travel Guide" ads during the summer vacation. To align with consumers' travel scenarios, Xiaohongshu and its media agency Wavemaker conducted in-depth field research on 867 national 5A and 4A tourist attractions, examining the specific flow and distribution of visitors. They ultimately selected 203 core scenic areas in 17 tourist cities and placed ads at 2,168 outdoor hard ad points along the necessary routes to these attractions, designing 211 creative visuals matched to the corresponding attractions. These points can be divided into two categories: one is the travel-in-progress scenario, with a strategy focusing on transportation media, such as high-speed rail platforms, airport baggage carousels, city sightseeing buses, bus shelters on main roads, and high-traffic subway platforms; the visuals were city-card-style creative. For example, when you arrive at Beijing South Station, you'll see "Go to the National Museum to see the '6,000-year-old' cute pottery eagle zun"; When you arrive at Guangzhou South Station, you'll see "Go to Yongqing Fang to see Xiguan arcade buildings, where every corner hides Guangzhou's old soul" and "Shrimp dumplings, siu mai, char siu bao, and egg tarts are the 'Big Four' of Guangzhou morning tea; you can try them first"; At Chengdu East Station, Xiaohongshu tells you: "Huahua (the panda) is at the 'Juvenile Giant Panda Villa' from 7 AM to 4:30 PM; if the temperature exceeds 25°C, she'll leave early" and "Chengdu has many types of chuanchuan; for summer, we recommend cold pot chuanchuan and bobo chicken." The other category is the in-scenic-area scenario, with a strategy of selecting media points near key entrances and exits, as well as bus shelter light boxes at subway stations corresponding to scenic area exits. The visuals were matched to different attractions, providing very specific and relevant suggestions for tourists. For example, around West Lake in Hangzhou, you'll see Xiaohongshu's suggestions: "From the Sakyamuni Hall at Jingci Temple, you can see Leifeng Pagoda at a glance," "Go to 'Jiuyao Pavilion' next to Taiziwan; it takes about half an hour to climb up and overlook the entire West Lake," "Yanggong Causeway is full of West Lake's essence; locals love it too," "From 6-8 AM and 4-6 PM, the West Lake lotus flowers are 'I want to bloom'; during high-temperature hours, they're 'I'm closing up'." Near East Lake in Wuhan, you'll receive Xiaohongshu's reminders: "For East Lake cycling, the top route is Huzhong Road, with lake and mountain views all the way!" and "Don't ride the electric bikes on East Lake Greenway out of the area to return them, and don't return shared bikes inside the scenic area; you'll be charged a dispatch fee!" All this copy comes from real Xiaohongshu user creations, the experiences of "those who have been there." So the overall theme of this series is "Every travel tip is a personal experience." Moreover, each visual and each piece of copy appeared in the most appropriate place, offering thoughtful advice and solutions for the situations, problems, and real needs travelers might encounter at that moment—whether upon arrival, on the way to the scenic area, or while exploring the surroundings. This series of ads thus hit the hearts of tourists, received widespread praise, sparked heated discussions on social media, and many people photographed the billboards they encountered and shared them online, passing on practical advice to later travelers. Didi and Xiaohongshu's ads also share a common feature: they are based on scenarios, doing useful things for consumers in appropriate scenarios and creating value for them. Although they are also hard ads, they dug out real consumer needs and pain points in real scenarios and provided substantial help, so consumers love to watch and share such ads, and can truly feel the brand's value in the scenario. The lesson for us is— Scenario marketing should first be done in consumers' real scenarios. Companies should choose media and sales channels that are infinitely close to consumers' actual usage scenarios, ideally setting up channels, implementing promotions, and operating users within the scenario. Advertising should also go into scenarios. The creative itself is about telling consumers what the solution is, and even the ad itself is part of the solution (providing knowledge or services). Of course, this is the ideal situation. But for most products, consumers see the ad, buy the product, and use the product at different times and places. That is, the media and channels chosen by the company are not in the final consumption scenario. Strictly speaking, the time and place where consumers are reached by ads and receive brand information (media) and make purchase decisions (channels) cannot be called scenarios. Because according to our definition, a scenario is a job-to-be-done in consumers' lives, that is, the scenario where product use and consumption occur. Scenarios are mainly consumption scenarios. There are only a few exceptions, such as dining, where consumers buy and consume the product in the same scenario. Another example is the two waves of hard ads above; their effectiveness is based on the fact that for travel and tourism scenarios, outdoor ad placements are themselves in consumers' usage scenarios, and consumers see Didi and Xiaohongshu ads while using Didi and Xiaohongshu products simultaneously. But for other categories, such as home appliances, daily chemicals, and milk powder, outdoor ads are not in the usage scenario; they are just pure advertising media. If media and channels are not in the scenario, what companies need to do is simulate real scenarios in media and channels through content creativity, using scenario-based content to help consumers better perceive product value and activate their needs. A company's advertising strategy should either advertise directly in the scenario or create scenario-based creativity, associating with the target audience in the scenario, showing consumers' problems in the scenario, and presenting the results the product brings in the scenario. For example, long ago, Cold Sore Ling had a classic slogan: "Hot, cold, sour, sweet—eat whenever you want." Its TV creative first showed consumers' problems in eating and drinking scenarios, such as tooth pain when drinking cold drinks, eating oranges, hot pot, or cake, and then after using Cold Sore Ling toothpaste for a while, they could eat anything without issues, enjoying all kinds of delicious food. This is also a classic creative technique. Another example is Harbin Pharmaceutical's New Gai Zhong Gai high-calcium tablets: "Go up five floors in one breath, no effort." It's the standard three-part presentation: Problem introduction - Product demo (product use or mechanism demonstration) - Result display. Now, companies have richer communication tools, not just hard ads + terminal displays + promotional activities, but also topics, events, installations, IPs, co-branding, short videos, seeding notes, live streaming, performance advertising, etc. And no matter which tool, it should be oriented toward scenarios. Develop content around scenarios, use content to present scenarios, and let consumers deeply perceive the brand in real scenarios and vivid content, being moved and persuaded. Just like the Cold Sore Ling mentioned earlier, how should it communicate "eat whenever you want" today? It's no longer about blasting hard ads and shouting slogans, but rather co-branding with ice cream brands to create buzz, doing user experience and promotional activities in hot pot restaurants and Hunan/Sichuan restaurants, and doing user operations for cold drink lovers and dessert lovers, etc. Next, we'll use two complete cases to illustrate the importance and necessity of shifting from advertising logic to scenario creativity. In March 2025, bird's nest brand Yanzhìwu launched a new product, CEO Bowl Bird's Nest. In addition to bird's nest, the formula includes 7 traditional Chinese medicinal herbs such as ginseng, Cistanche, and Dendrobium officinale. The price is 3,168 yuan per box, with each box containing 6 bowls of freshly stewed bird's nest. Subsequently, ads featuring Wang Shi began to be heavily placed at airports and high-speed rail stations, with the slogan "Yanzhiwu·CEO Bowl Bird's Nest, the bird's nest for men." The TVC showed Wang Shi—as a successful person—living a lifestyle of mountaineering, rock climbing, fitness, etc., and then told consumers: "Yanzhiwu's world's first bird's nest for men—CEO Bowl Bird's Nest—helps you reach new heights and achieve every challenge." This sparked heated debate. Some questioned whether men's bird's nest is a "tax on intelligence," while the industry doubted its success. According to media statistics, from the March 18 official announcement to April 14, Tmall flagship store sales were only 61 boxes [3]. Of course, this data is not accurate because Yanzhiwu also has over 750 offline specialty stores. Later, Yanzhiwu itself announced sales, claiming they had exceeded 10,000 boxes. However, this data may also be inaccurate, as some media reported that Yanzhiwu customer service revealed this was shipment data [4]. As for why Yanzhiwu launched a men's bird's nest? The reason is simple: just a few days before the product launch, on March 14, Yanzhiwu, as the "first bird's nest stock," released its 2024 financial report. The report showed that Yanzhiwu's annual revenue was 2.05 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.37%; net profit was 160 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 24.18%. This was Yanzhiwu's worst performance in five years, with revenue growth falling to single digits for the first time and profit experiencing its first negative growth (from 2020 to 2023, Yanzhiwu's revenue was 1.301 billion, 1.507 billion, 1.730 billion, and 1.964 billion yuan, respectively, and net profit was 123 million, 172 million, 206 million, and 212 million yuan) [5]. Yanzhiwu urgently needed to find new growth points. Industry data shows that women are the core consumers of bird's nest, accounting for 76%, while men only account for 24% [6]. In terms of age structure, according to the "2023-2024 Bird's Nest Industry White Paper" released by the National Bird's Nest Committee, women aged 30-40 account for 46.4%, and those aged 18-30 account for 31.3%, with the user age continuously decreasing [7]. In response to this market structure, Yanzhiwu adopted a three-spokesperson strategy. Before Wang Shi, it had announced Gong Li and Wang Yibo as spokespersons in January and May 2024, respectively. Clearly, Gong Li was used to consolidate the female market, Wang Yibo to attract young people, and Wang Shi to target the male demographic. Since young people tend to prefer affordable bird's nest or related substitutes, breaking into the youth market means engaging in price wars. So, although Yanzhiwu launched a 100-yuan ready-to-eat bird's nest and "bird's nest+" series products like coconut and peach gum bird's nest through a light nourishment approach, this series only generated 232 million yuan in revenue in 2024, a 63.3% year-on-year increase, but accounting for only 11.3% [8]. So, against the backdrop of overall sluggish growth and a slowdown in the core female market that follows the luxury health route, Yanzhiwu was eager to break through in the high-end male market. Therefore, the Wang Shi endorsement for CEO Bowl Bird's Nest was a big move with heavy investment. I saw its ads at Guangzhou South Station, Chengdu East Station, Hangzhou East Station, etc., showing Yanzhiwu's strong determination to win men's hearts. But there are three major obstacles to persuading men to buy: first, scenario; second, cognition; third, communication and promotion methods. First, men lack scenarios for consuming bird's nest in daily life. According to industry data, the main distribution of bird's nest consumption is: pregnancy (53.1%), preparing for pregnancy (23.5%), postpartum (24.9%), daily nourishment (19.2%), and daily beauty (18.9%) [9]. It can be seen that the mainstream scenarios for bird's nest are all related to childbirth, covering the entire process from preparing for pregnancy, pregnancy, to postpartum. Childbirth is a very high-quality scenario for bird's nest, where consumers have strong demand for nourishment and higher price tolerance, but the birth rate is continuously declining. The scenario explains the key reason for Yanzhiwu's sluggish growth. So the question is: men don't have childbirth scenarios in their lives. To expand into the male demographic, Yanzhiwu needs to find scenarios for men's nourishment. Currently, middle-aged men's health and wellness needs are mainly concentrated in three types of scenarios: first, workplace scenarios, where high-intensity work like staying up late and long business trips gradually leads to lack of energy; second, health risks from smoking, drinking, and socializing, such as the "three highs" and gout; third, sexual scenarios, where with age, masculine charm declines and sexual function decreases. The product detail page for CEO Bowl Bird's Nest actually mentions four scenarios: "Full schedule, often staying up late," "High-pressure work, excessive anxiety," "Smoking constantly, lungs uneasy," and "Frequent socializing, energy worries," emphasizing that these scenarios are draining men's physical energy. But consumers' perception of bird's nest products does not match the user needs in these scenarios. This is the second obstacle: the traditional perception of bird's nest does not align with the male consumer group. People's perception of a product affects its consumption scenarios; the product's consumption scenarios also inversely affect people's perception of the product. From the scenarios above, it's clear that consumers perceive bird's nest as a product for pregnancy nourishment and beauty enhancement, and associate its users with women's nourishment. This conflicts with male consumers' health needs and self-perception. Of course, Yanzhiwu is aware of this issue, so it added some herbs that replenish vital energy and warm the kidneys to the CEO Bowl Bird's Nest formula, claiming the product can "revitalize male charm." But after all, Yanzhiwu is a bird's nest brand. No matter what's added to the formula, it ultimately has to focus on the bird's nest ingredient, and consumers ultimately pay for the bird's nest. Yanzhiwu can't abandon its existing brand assets and launch a male tonic without bird's nest. If it did, why would consumers choose Yanzhiwu over Cordyceps, JungKwanJang, Huiren Shenbao, or King's Wine? This means that for Yanzhiwu to be accepted by male consumers, it must address the typical cognitive labels of bird's nest as "pregnancy," "nourishing yin and beautifying," and "female consumption." Without breaking this cognitive barrier, it can't effectively persuade the broader male population. Some say Yanzhiwu's market strategy should focus on getting men to give it as gifts to women, rather than selling directly to men. Others say the best strategy for CEO Bowl Bird's Nest is to have women who already eat bird's nest buy it for men, to eat together with their husbands. In fact, CEO Bowl Bird's Nest has also placed ads in subway stations and other media, promoting "Men's health gift—give to your boss, husband, or dad." But the problem is that gift-giving is also a scenario. According to our definition, the essence of a scenario is the job-to-be-done in specific life conditions. Gift-giving also requires timing and occasion. What gift to give depends on what tasks the recipient has in their life that you can help with, so the gift perfectly matches their wishes. For male consumers, if their wife is pregnant, giving bird's nest is reasonable. If not, why give bird's nest? Wouldn't a bag, jewelry, lipstick, or skincare be better? Does giving bird's nest imply urging them to have a baby? For women, they eat bird's nest because of pregnancy or preparing for pregnancy. Why would they buy it for men to eat? If they want to give health products to their husband or dad, why not choose Cordyceps or ginseng? And would consumers give a product traditionally known as a luxury women's beauty supplement to a male boss? Aren't they afraid of misunderstanding? Without a gift-giving scenario, I ask you: how do you give it? Answer me, look in my eyes! Any product's consumption must address the issues of consumption scenario and cognitive labels. When and where should this product be consumed, what problems in consumers' lives does it solve, and how do people view this product, what consumption concept and user image does it represent? Without answering these questions, simply informing consumers of the product's existence won't lead to purchase. Finally, hard ad placement is not a good way to educate users. In the case of mismatched scenarios and cognition, if Yanzhiwu wants to change people's general perception of bird's nest and persuade male consumers to try a consumption behavior they didn't have before, it needs to put more effort into communication and promotion. But Yanzhiwu is still using very traditional advertising methods. A short, powerful, catchy slogan + celebrity spokesperson + heavy hard ad placement (central TV, satellite TV, outdoor) is the most standard advertising approach, and it has been proven effective by countless brands over the past 30 years. But now, it's clearly not going to work well. Because although this approach is very useful for increasing brand awareness and shaping brand image, and can efficiently reach a broad consumer base and make more people aware of the brand's existence, Its effectiveness is based on the premise that consumers already have the need and habit of consuming that category of products. After the ad reminds them, consumers might increase consumption volume or frequency, or switch from competitors to this brand. But if consumers don't have the general awareness and behavioral habits of eating bird's nest, simply telling them about the product's functions and reminding them of the brand name won't make them buy, even if they know you. Advertising has the highest communication efficiency, but it is not a good way to educate users. If a company wants to convey complex functions or technologies to consumers, or hopes to change consumption concepts and user cognition, then hard ads are inefficient. Why? This is related to the principle of how advertising works. The biggest secret of traditional advertising is just two words: single + repetition. The advertising appeal must be single, the information concise enough, only talking about one thing. Secondly, it must be continuously placed through mainstream media to repeatedly reach consumers, forming long-term memory and creating a conditioned reflex at the time of shopping. A single appeal can penetrate environmental noise and be easy to remember. But educating consumers requires conveying a lot of information, which means the advertising medium doesn't support it (print and TVC can't say that much); and it requires high consumer involvement, with interest and willingness to listen, which means the advertising environment doesn't allow it. Ads always appear in noisy environments and are mixed with a lot of other content. In today's fragmented, decentralized, and consumer-empowered communication environment, cognitive education is even harder to accomplish. Repeated placement can constantly remind and stimulate consumers, strengthening brand memory unconsciously. It can reinforce consumers' existing consumption behaviors and make small changes in purchase choices, but it's hard to create new consumption needs and behaviors out of nothing. Moreover, achieving the effect of repeated placement today also means huge costs. In the 2024 financial report, Yanzhiwu's total sales and distribution expenses reached 671 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19%, accounting for 32.7% of total revenue [10]. Earlier, Yanzhiwu had already issued a profit decline warning. One of the main reasons the company gave was that to deepen its high-end brand layout, it signed multiple brand spokespersons, and the high endorsement fees and advertising investment squeezed profit margins. Finally, it must be emphasized that people's cognition is hard to change, and they only want to hear opinions that align with their existing cognition. In psychology, there is a phenomenon called "cognitive dissonance." When reality conflicts with existing cognition, people selectively pay attention to information that matches their expectations to avoid psychological discomfort. The brain unconsciously filters out information that conflicts with existing cognition, and consciously denies or distorts non-conforming information to maintain cognitive balance. Persuading people to revise their views and make changes is very difficult. Someone once said, The two hardest things in the world are: first, putting others' money into your own pocket; second, putting your own thoughts into others' heads. Marketing is actually doing both at the same time. So, my former boss often said that advertising is a job only for the sharpest minds; ordinary people simply can't do it. To persuade people to make changes and create new consumption behaviors, you need to wrap brand information in content, subtly change consumer cognition and views through content, and let consumers be in the scenario, influencing their attitudes and concepts through personal experience. Scenario is the hub connecting people and goods. Both people and goods are in the scenario, which means the best communication happens in real scenarios. The scenario itself has an educational function; it helps consumers better understand product value, stimulate their own needs and actions, and the cognitive effect is best in the scenario. But personally, I don't like the word "education," and I've always believed that cognitive education is the biggest misconception in brand building. Companies naturally tend to educate consumers, telling them what is good and what is right. But today's consumers not only won't listen, but also think you're being "preachy." There are two ways to persuade consumers: one is cognitive education, the other is scenario guidance. Scenario "education" for users is not cognitive but perceptual. It's not loud education, but gentle guidance like spring breeze and rain. Today's consumers need a sense of reality, presence, experience, participation, and ritual, and all these "senses" come from scenarios. Scenario marketing should go deep into the actual usage scenarios of products, create consumer experiences in the scenario, mobilize consumer emotions, and give consumers something to "feel." It should also create consumer expectations in the scenario, achieve the results consumers want in the scenario, and satisfy consumers' expectations of self-perception and society's expectations of them. For Yanzhiwu, the most important strategy first should be to cultivate new mainstream scenarios in the lives of its core group, i.e., female users, beyond childbirth, such as amplifying daily beauty and menstrual management. To expand into male, young, and even children's demographics, it must first find scenarios in these people's lives that can be associated with bird's nest. Beyond scenarios, it should also work to build new consumer perceptions of bird's nest products. Although there have been many product innovations in bird's nest in recent years, moving toward snackification and dessertification, such as freeze-dried bird's nest, ginseng bird's nest, yogurt bird's nest, and bird's nest with small pear soup, if consumers' perception of bird's nest remains fixed on "luxury women's beauty" and "female nourishment," then the market for these innovative products won't be large. To change cognition and create new associations for consumers about bird's nest product value and user image, Yanzhiwu needs to build a comprehensive cognitive framework. This information can't be conveyed with just a flat image, so Yanzhiwu also needs a content system. After talking about bird's nest, let's look at a similar product—Ejiao (donkey-hide gelatin). In May 2025, Dong-E E-Jiao announced Chen Lijun as its brand ambassador, launching a customized "Little Gold Bar" product targeting workplace people who stay in air-conditioned rooms all day and work overtime, with the concept of "Lazy health, good work partner," and creating Weibo topics like #Chen Lijun Work Health Partner Dong-E E-Jiao# and #Dong-E E-Jiao Air-Conditioned Room Health Partner#, spreading messages like "Afraid of cold but have to endure air conditioning? Have a warm cup of Dong-E E-Jiao Little Gold Bar" around specific pain points. In March, the traditional Chinese medicine variety show "Youth Talk Chinese Medicine" was popular, discussing young people's late-night habits, and the topic #Late-Night Debt Repair Guide# trended on the hot search. Dong-E E-Jiao combined this topic, targeting young people's mentality of "burning the candle at both ends but also supplementing," and positioned the Little Gold Bar as a must-have for night owls. On Women's Day 2024, Dong-E E-Jiao and Guangzhou Restaurant Group created a cross-border marketing campaign "Cantonese Soup, Gelatin Nourishes Beauty." At Guangzhou Restaurant's offline stores, they launched a "Dong-E E-Jiao Sea Coconut Stewed Partridge Soup," and online they created the topic #Dong-E E-Jiao Guangzhou Restaurant Co-branded Gelatin Soup#, targeting female consumers with the appeal of drinking good soup in spring for beauty. Using the dining scenario, they attracted consumers to buy Ejiao to make soup at home. Online and offline, Dong-E E-Jiao created very vivid content and topics, such as "I need to be gelatin-nourished," "Drink soup happily, nourish happily," "Princess, please drink soup," and "True national beauty, heart-to-heart with you." On Mother's Day 2024, Dong-E E-Jiao also created the topic #Mother's Day, Pamper Mom to Center Stage#, using celebrities like Zhao Xiaotang to promote Dong-E E-Jiao stewed soup, calling on consumers to make soup for their moms and arrange a limited edition "Daughter's Taste." Around the holiday gift-giving scenario, Dong-E E-Jiao has launched many themed activities, such as Mother's Day 2022's "Stew Dong-E E-Jiao, Show Filial Piety," jointly launching a health gift campaign with JD.com, and encouraging children to personally stew a piece of Dong-E E-Jiao cake for their mothers. The brand attempts to encourage consumers to DIY more Ejiao recipes, such as Ejiao stewed chicken and Ejiao red date tea, and share their homemade experiences, thereby creating more content. Another example is the 2025 Spring Festival, where Dong-E E-Jiao launched a marketing theme called "Small Progress Is Good," targeting modern people's fast-paced lifestyle, advocating the new era health concept of #Taking Care of Yourself Is Progress#, allowing people to achieve physical and mental nourishment through small daily changes, do good health management, and make the brand a part of consumers' small progress. In fact, like bird's nest, Ejiao's traditional consumption scenarios are also concentrated in postpartum recovery and menstrual regulation. To drive growth, Dong-E E-Jiao is now expanding into scenarios like daily food supplementation, workplace, and holiday gift-giving. Promotions around these scenarios not only help stimulate new demand and create new consumption behaviors, but also help change consumers' traditional perceptions of Ejiao. Conversely, changing the inherent perception allows Ejiao to enter more consumption scenarios. So Dong-E E-Jiao is also continuously influencing and changing people's views on Ejiao. First, Dong-E E-Jiao is committed to breaking the heavy feeling of traditional health products and Chinese herbal medicine, embracing convenient health, happy health, and health anytime, anywhere. To this end, on the product side, in April 2020, it launched the Dong-E E-Jiao instant-dissolve powder, an innovative product that has undergone three iterations and has two core patented technologies. The product uses single-bag independent packaging, is instant to drink, and easy to carry. Since the Ejiao powder is golden yellow and the packaging design is also gold, with a fashionable appearance, Dong-E E-Jiao gave it the seeding name "Little Gold Bar," with the appeal "Sprinkle some gelatin anytime, anywhere." In addition, Dong-E E-Jiao also launched products like Peach Blossom Ji Ejiao Cake, which can be eaten directly, brewed, or paired with yogurt (sprinkling the Ejiao powder on yogurt). These more convenient and fun consumption methods not only solve the cumbersome way of taking traditional Ejiao blocks, are more suitable for contemporary life rhythms, but also win the hearts of young people. Many users report that the Little Gold Bar is suitable for quickly replenishing energy after staying up late or working overtime. Secondly, on the communication side, in February and December 2023, Dong-E E-Jiao twice co-branded with Naixue Tea, adding Little Gold Bar Ejiao powder to milk tea, focusing on the concept of "Happy Health." Since the co-branded product provides the pleasure of milk tea and also has effects like antioxidant, blood enrichment, and beauty, it aligns with young people's health needs, so it was jokingly called "Mom's Approved Milk Tea" and was welcomed by "crispy-skinned young people," selling out multiple times after launch. Topics like #Ejiao milk tea is surprisingly tasty#, #Paid in full for a cup of Ejiao milk tea#, and #Mom no longer stops me from drinking milk tea# also sparked heated discussions. Co-branding marketing uses modern tea drinks to integrate Ejiao, a traditional tonic, into daily life scenarios, highlighting the concept of "medicine and food homology," which is particularly attractive to young women who care about health, hitting their contradictory mentality of "wanting to supplement and also wanting to indulge." This approach has also changed young people's views on Ejiao products and the Dong-E E-Jiao brand. Dong-E E-Jiao has in fact entered a dual-wheel drive strategy of traditional pharmaceuticals and health products plus new health consumption. Secondly, against the backdrop of the national trend, Dong-E E-Jiao is also continuously deepening the brand perception of "inheriting classics, oriental health" through various content forms. As mentioned earlier, "Youth Talk Chinese Medicine" is a traditional Chinese medicine culture program co-produced by Dong-E E-Jiao with Tencent Video and Shandong TV. In 2023, Dong-E E-Jiao launched cultural heritage projects like "Journey to the Hometown of Chinese Medical Saints," and to attract young people, it also organized study tours with students from 7 domestic Chinese medicine universities. In 2024, Dong-E E-Jiao fully upgraded it into its own content IP "Youth Talk Chinese Medicine," bringing together celebrities, Chinese medicine experts, and young college students to discuss contemporary health topics. In addition, Dong-E E-Jiao's nourishment culture festivals and factory tours are also very well done. Another example is the collaboration with the popular Yue opera female lead Chen Lijun. Dong-E E-Jiao chose Chen Lijun because, as a young leader in Yue opera, her artistic image can shape Dong-E E-Jiao's brand image of craftsmanship inheritance and continuous innovation. The communication theme designed for this, "Like jade, gelatin-nourished by nature," also fits the consumer image Dong-E E-Jiao wants to create. In addition, Dong-E E-Jiao has cooperated with many ancient-style film and TV variety shows, such as "Celebrating the Years 2" and "The Story of the Rose." In "Celebrating the Years 2," Dong-E E-Jiao placed its products in the gift-giving scene of the protagonist's wedding, custom-developing gift box products for the characters; and with the offline premiere, it created a "Sprinkle Gelatin Health Workshop" to promote "Princess, please sprinkle gelatin." Dong-E E-Jiao also uses celebrity endorsements, but its approach is to sign "Celebrating the Years 2" stars Song Yi and Li Xiaoran, shoot native ads based on the plot, and use the characters' voices to say "Dong-E E-Jiao Little Gold Bar, sprinkle some gelatin anytime, anywhere." This approach naturally serves to demonstrate product value and guide consumption concepts. The producer of "Celebrating the Years 2" is Tencent Video. Dong-E E-Jiao also leverages Tencent's ecosystem capabilities, linking video accounts, Moments ads, and multi-channel IP licensing to open up the sales chain, helping Little Gold Bar sales grow by more than 3 times, becoming a top seller on Tmall's 618 in 2024. Topics, events, co-branding, media sponsorship, and self-owned IPs—a richer content ecosystem, combined with product innovation, is more helpful for expanding scenarios and changing cognition. Emphasizing "convenient health, happy health, health anytime, anywhere" in value, shaping "inheriting classics, oriental health" in image, and highlighting "sprinkle some gelatin anytime, anywhere" in behavior, continuously integrating into daily multi-scenarios. This is the cognitive framework that Dong-E E-Jiao has built. Moreover, Dong-E E-Jiao focuses on the core female demographic without wavering, shaping a confident, fashionable, and elegant consumer image through topics like "Princess, please sprinkle gelatin" and "Gelatin nourishes oriental beauties." On June 10 this year, Dong-E E-Jiao also cooperated with Disney's Snow White IP to create "Contemporary Princess Guide," simultaneously launching a Princess Guardian Gift and sharing #Snow White's Secret to Good Complexion#. Although Dong-E E-Jiao briefly expanded into the male market, launching Yan Zhenqing Ejiao Bird's Nest and Cistanche series tonics, it quickly gave up and focused on core markets and demographics. Of course, Dong-E E-Jiao still has a lot of marketing work to do, such as developing more content topics in existing scenarios, creating its own IPs, highlighting brand persona, and strengthening the association between brand and scenarios. At the same time, it should expand to more consumer scenarios like travel and outdoor sports, and for gift-giving scenarios, align with nodes like Valentine's Day, Women's Day, Mother's Day, 520, Qixi, Mid-Autumn, Christmas and New Year, and Spring Festival, combining social emotions to resonate with women's values and life attitudes. Through the elaboration of these two cases—bird's nest and Ejiao—you can also appreciate which brand marketing approach can move you more and make you consider buying their products. In summary, products are carried by scenarios, and scenarios are presented by content. Only by going deep into consumption scenarios to create scenario-based creativity and developing content that hits consumers' pain points, expectations, emotions, and values can you guide consumption concepts and change consumption behaviors. Notes [1] "Didi Chuxing: Between being interesting and being meme-worthy, we chose to be useful," Source: Digitaling, Author: Blank Advertising, 2023-05; [2] "Xiaohongshu's 'Near-field' Marketing, Stimulating Travel Experience Path Upgrade," Source: Digitaling, Author: Wavemaker China, 2024-04-12; [3] "Wang Shi Doesn't Work Either: CEO Bird's Nest Only Sold 61 Orders in a Month!" Source: International Investment Bank Research Report, 2025-04-16; [4] "Wang Shi Endorses, Yanzhiwu 'CEO Bowl Bird's Nest' Sales Nearly 10,000 Boxes," Source: Dazhong News, 2025-04-03; [5] "Yanzhiwu's Profit Plummets, Revenue Slows, What Did 670 Million in Marketing Buy?" Financial Circle, 2025-06-21; [6][9] "Insight | In 2024, the Bird's Nest Industry Is Showing These Trends," Yanzhichu Bird's Nest OEM, 2024-03-18; [7] "The Bird's Nest Market Is Facing Questions Head-On," Source: Juchao WAVE, Author: Hou Tian, 2024-11-22; [8][10] "Obsessed with Celebrity Endorsements, Marketing Costs Up to 670 Million! Yanzhiwu Annual Report Shows Profit Down 24.2% Year-on-Year," Source: Xinkan Finance, Author: Yao Wenxi, 2025-04-17; PS: Friends interested in the on-site speech content can follow the recent push from the "New Distribution" WeChat official account. We will compile and publish all speakers' speeches for our readers. ____Click Read Original to view more from the 7th China FMCG Conference & 5th China Retail Innovation Conference & 5th China FMCG Distributor Conference ...