Favored by the media and young consumers, they are gradually converging into a voice that cannot be ignored. Right now, this trend has a replica in China, which is embodied in the army of new consumer brands that emerged during the Double Eleven this year.

Although the superficial appearance is constantly changing, the deep essence remains unchanged. The idea of ​​advocating direct communication with consumers is not new. Well-known advertisers Leicester·Wai Men early In 1967, the concept of Direct Response Marketing was proposed. Similar to DTC, direct marketing also emphasizes “Direct”. Weimen believes that the initial transaction form of human society is direct. Therefore, it can be said that direct communication with consumers is extremely important regardless of the age.

The rise of China’s new consumer brands in recent years has been affected by the background of the times. For example, the increasingly fragmented attention of consumers has challenged the tried-and-tested large-scale communication model of traditional FMCG giants. The data shows that the average number of Chinese users who come into contact with apps every month reaches about 25. In such an environment, agility is obviously more important than pure volume. At the same time, the decision-making behavior of a new group of consumers is becoming more inclined to seek diversified purchases. When people no longer believe in big brands, this trend also provides the soil for the rise of new brands.

But before new brands can achieve conversion, they must always reach consumers as a prerequisite. Although in China, nearly 80% of transaction conversions are still completed on platform e-commerce, when the competition between brands is becoming increasingly fierce, companies’ demands for brand content have also become stronger. In this context, the status of platforms that are worth buying for such strong consumer content has become more important than ever.

It is not just about making products, but also making content to achieve deeper communication with consumers. This is what most new consumer brands have to lay out before the rise. As the leader of the domestic building block brand, Blue, President Sheng Xiaofeng mentioned that while developing building block products, My own company has also started to launch an animation called “Bruco”. This 3D animation was warmly welcomed by children after it was launched on the market. It has been produced and broadcast for five seasons. A total of 100 episodes.

In Bruker’s development process, a virtuous circle has formed between products and content: content has brought a steady stream of customers to products, and the continuous growth of product sales has made content production more adequate support. Bruker’s case may be enough to inspire new consumer brands that are in desperate need of emergence-in the current increasingly fierce new consumer environment, strong sales-oriented one-way sales are no longer feasible. Compared with placing a large number of advertisements and inviting celebrity spokespersons, consumers increasingly believe in the power of authentic content. This is particularly evident in the consumer content community represented by what is worth buying. It puts those consumers with expertise in certain fields in a more important position, and uses them to “plant grass” to consumers before buying. It has become an indispensable link in the transformation chain.

Different consumers

“I hope China’understands China best'”, Sheng Xiaofeng said.

For Sheng Xiaofeng, Bruco should have a bright future. He hopes that his brand can become another big building block brand comparable to Lego. Such self-confidence comes from two levels: First, China is a huge market; second, Chinese consumers are becoming different, and it is not low to reach effective communication with them.

In fact, if we examine the rise of China’s new consumer brand corps, it’s not difficult to see their leaps and bounds

At this time, the value of consumers is reflected. Before the launch, the team led by Wang Meng will produce hundreds of samples of different types and then give them to consumers for trial. Although the whole process is very subjective, it can still pick out three to four products with potential to market under large-scale consumer trials. Wang Meng mentioned that his team’s advantage lies in actively embracing changes. He puts a lot of energy on the operation of major content platforms. This not only allows brands to always follow traffic changes and accurately reach consumers, but also helps companies find the batch. The most innovative and influential users. For example, on what platform is worth buying, many consumer experts are willing to share their shopping experience, and the suggestions provided by these experts with professional knowledge and the ability to create high-quality content can often greatly improve the success of new consumer products. The probability.

In fact, you can find similar traces in almost all new consumer brands. Sun Qimeng mentioned that the Rock Zoo introduced a brand co-creation mechanism to incorporate consumers into the product development system; and Bruker’s team always went to the real family scene to observe the children using toys before officially launching the product. The process, from which we can find something that can be improved. Of course, there are gains from this kind of observation. Bruker’s Sheng Xiaofeng mentioned that children and adults have completely different needs for building blocks. The fun of adults lies in construction, and the fun of children lies in the cycle of construction and dismantling. This insight eventually made Brooke’s toys more granular, and this change also made it easier for young children to immerse themselves in it.

Finally, these brands are also good at communicating with consumers.

The ability to tell stories has long given European, American and Japanese companies a huge advantage in brand marketing. The relatively introverted characteristics of Chinese society make Chinese companies face many difficulties in communicating with consumers. But fortunately, you can see no signs of hesitation in the new consumer brand leaders; on the contrary, they believe in what they do and are capable of convincingly conveying their culture, ideas, and values.

Ma Wenfei mentioned that he had to live in Japan for a period of time because he had to think about the direction of his life. He raised a cat there, but he could not buy a good litter box. This prompted him to return to China to start a business in the field of pet supplies. idea. The brand-new brand pidan he created shows unique values ​​in many aspects. For example, the cave house where cats live is no longer a regular cube, but a sphere.

In Ma Wenfei’s view, although the cube is more stable in industrial structure, its sharp edges and corners make it spatially destructive to the home environment, and its large size and small volume compress the living space of pets. Many families put the cave house on the balcony, which makes him a little sad. He believes that the cat is also a member of the family and should not be discriminated against. Therefore, he made the cave house into a sphere to make it more beautifulThe living environment is integrated, and the kitten can live more comfortably in it.

“For a sphere, the cost of the mold is more than doubled, and because of the waste of space in the transportation and logistics links, the cost becomes more expensive. But we think the hole house will follow your kitten for four or five years. So I am willing to bear the increase in these costs,” Ma Wenfei said.

In fact, Ma Wenfei is just the epitome of these new consumer brand entrepreneurs. These innovators are willing to export their entrepreneurial stories, aesthetic concepts, and thinking about the background of the entire era through high-quality content, and such changes also make products not only products themselves, but a mixture of brands, lifestyles and values.

To some extent, products are purchased in real-time transactions, and brand and content “grass” are for long-term reach and conversion. If you use the commonly used quantitative indicators in the e-commerce industry to classify, it can be said that the product is aimed at ROI, while the brand and content are anchoring LTV. In this era of fierce market competition, why can new consumer brands like Bruco, Toffee Pie, Puwu Damei, and pidan gather a large number of consumers? The power of focusing on brand and content has in fact become a key factor that cannot be ignored.

Planting grass, a new node for consumer decision-making

What process does the consumer go through before finally deciding to buy a product? This problem has become the research direction of many modern marketing scholars, and they have proposed various models from AIDMA to AISAS.

However, the new consumption environment has reconstructed people’s behavioral links. Traditional marketing models have almost ignored an emerging important node, that is, “planting grass.” In the consumer content community like what is worth buying, you can see a large number of brand “grass” articles, and you can also see a lot of user feedback that “has been planted”.

As an emerging buzzword, “planting grass” can refer to the process of recommending a product, or it can be seen as the result of a successful recommendation. Different from traditional advertising and marketing methods, “grass planting” does not necessarily lead to instant conversion. It seeks to deeply implant products into consumers’ brains and realize conversion and even repurchase at the right time.

Modern enterprises have been seeking differentiation since their inception. Before the industrial revolution, the handicraft workshop relied on the exquisiteness of craftsmanship to complete product differentiation; after the industrialized production, advertising andCreativity has become an important fulcrum for brand differentiation; but when all companies begin to invest heavily in brand image, relationship differentiation has become a new theme of the times. Simply put, consumers are more willing to buy “friends” products, and brands need to be committed to becoming users’ friends.

The instantaneous information dissemination of advertising and creativity is obviously unable to build a strong relationship. The more informative content should become the top priority of business operations, which can also explain why this round of newly emerging brands Both put more energy on content. On what is worth buying, you can see more active figures of new top brands, and the content they create can often be discussed in the comment section. Under the resonance of the interaction between product information and real reviews, more and more consumers are eventually led to the transaction scene.

But in any case, “planting grass” through content is not an easy task in itself. The quality of content is only one aspect, and there are many things that companies need to consider.

As a new consumer brand with rapid growth in volume, Ramen Talk co-founder Jiu Yi knows “Planting grass” is not easy. She mentioned that when developing products with tom yum goong flavors, there was a fierce battle between the team’s product manager and the purchaser. The product manager hopes that the three pickled peppers in each bowl of ramen should be “two greens and one red”, but the purchaser believes that buying two pickled peppers will increase the difficulty and cost of supply chain management.

The reason for the product manager’s insistence lies in three words: the rate of production. “Two green ones and one red one will look better than three green ones, and it will also increase the transmission efficiency of the second or third time,” said Jiu Yi.

From such cases, you can see the secrets of the rise of new consumer brands. They even start to consider whether they can successfully “plant grass” in the content community and social media from the product development stage. And this ability to delve into details and the extreme attention to consumers may be the reason why new consumer brands have been able to overturn the consumer market in recent years.

When consumers start to act as buyers, self-propagating nodes and even product developers and other multiple identities, companies should pay more attention to platforms where they frequent and produce high-quality content.

Take what is worth buying as an example. Since it was founded 10 years ago, it has created a platform for users, creators and e-commerce,A virtuous ecosystem of win-win for brands. According to the financial report data released in August this year, the amount of user-contributed content on the What Worth-buying platform reached 3,287,500 in just six months, and the content released by merchants also increased by 13.34% year-on-year to 262,400.

Different from the more generalized content ecology of other platforms, the community attributes of consumer content that are worth buying are particularly obvious, and this booming trend just corresponds to the background of the rise of the new consumer brand legion, making it more and more “grass” “The core position. From the effect side, what is worth buying? The transaction volume of e-commerce and brand owners exceeded 9 billion yuan in half a year, and the corresponding order volume reached 60.81 million. From the perspective of long-term grass planting or instant conversion data, the value of this type of consumer content community is constantly being released.

Where the consumers are, where the business opportunities are, companies should plant grass wherever they are. This may be the reason why the consumer content community is getting more and more attention. In particular, platforms that are closer to consumers have more agile insights into the changes in the consumer market, and their value may be greater than imagined. For example, what is worth buying also helped brands such as Chivas successfully realize “reverse customization”. The “single sofa” jointly launched has achieved a double harvest of sales and reputation.

For new consumer brands, now is the best time and the worst time. While facing opportunities, they also have to face the challenges of environmental degradation such as the continued decline in the success rate of new product development. However, the ultimate destination of consumer products is consumers, and identifying and satisfying consumer needs are always rigid needs.

More new brands have realized this. What is worth buying? The disclosed data shows that in addition to launching “Treasure New Brand CEO100” in conjunction with Tmall Super Rookie, more new brand support activities are also being carried out simultaneously. At present, there are more than 1,000 grass-growing content covering more than 400 new brands on the site. They have a total of 300 million impressions and successfully drove the conversion of related brands during the Double 11 period.