Summer is the peak season for sales of frozen food products and ice cream. Compared with winter, the hot summer climate provides a naturally favourable condition for ice cream sales. Most ice cream products on the market are sold for CNY¥2 to 5. Although ice cream cannot be compared with luxury goods or daily necessities, as a little snack, it has the advantage in profitability, easy to buy, and has a huge market.
With people’s crave for ice cream, many merchants have jumped on the bandwagon of ice cream business. However, as consumers’ requirements for ice cream flavours and packaging are becoming higher and higher, compared with the leading brands on the market, including Mengniu, Yili, Haagen-Dazs, Wall’s etc., the influence and competitiveness of small- and medium-sized enterprises are relatively small. Statistics suggest that there were more than 200 frozen food product companies in 1995, but now only a few large companies are left to compete with each other. Hence, room for survival of small companies is shrinking, and their situation is becoming difficult.
So, how to do ice cream marketing well? In below we are going to take the three frozen food product companies Haagen-Dazs, Wall’s, and Gemice Ice Cream, in which thay have launched marketing campaigns in the same time period, as examples to discuss ways in opening the frozen food product market.
[Opening up the young market: Celebrity spokesperson as the first choice]
In order to beat the competitors to the punch of the summer market, as well as to activate purchasing power through the influence of celebrities with devoted fan bases, brands have already given a huge build-up for the official spokesperson in spring: Gemice Ice Cream has invited Li Xian as their spokesperson, for the advertising campaign of their new raw milk ice cream. While Haagen-Dazs has invited Xin Liu to be their official brand ambassador; and Wall’s Cornetto has invited Esther Yu as the official spokesperson.
In the IP era, the influence of celebrities with devoted fan bases cannot be underestimated. Fans are not only willing to pay for their favourite stars, but even take the initiative in promoting them and increase their exposure. The fan economy has brought a new marketing possibility to brands. Besides using the fan effect by inviting popular star Li Xian as spokesperson, Gemice Ice Cream also released a series of activities such as “Scan QR Code to Adopt Gemice Calf” in which encourage consumers to actively participate in their campaign and win prizes. Combining the three elements of brand spokespersons, cartoon images, and the brand itself, can help increase consumers’ memory of the brand.
At the same time, Gemice Ice Cream is also bundled with the hot variety show “Life is Beautiful”. The popularity of the show has also turned their fans into potential consumers. In the live stream of Li Xian, aside from garnering a swathe of fans, the interaction between fans and him is increased, which is more beneficial to enter the young market.
【Data Analysis】
At present, the amateurs of Xiaohongshu publish feeds about Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream accounted for 65.79%, KOCs accounted for 23.68%, and junior bloggers accounted for 10.53%. The structure is relatively simple. In terms of content, there are 12 brand contents, 1693 KOL contents, 4 other brand contents, 861 KOLs, 4,795,351 Weibo interactions, a total of 2,163,520 likes, 2,184,351 reposts, and a total of 4,795,351 interactions. Although those in Xiaohongshu are less than that in Weibo, it has reached 7855 times, with a media value of 7856.
There are 22 KOLs in Xiaohongshu of Gemice Ice Cream, among which 50% are amateurs, 13.64% are junior bloggers, 13.64% are KOCs, and 22.73% are top KOLs. The sound is mainly created by the top KOLs, reaching 70.28% of the sound volume, while the KOCs provide 27.35 sound volume. Currently, feeds about Gemice Ice Cream published on Weibo have received 441,624 likes, a total of 1,367,084 interactions, a total of 274 content, and 43,025 comments.
The time where sound volume of the feeds about Cornetto published by Wall’s reached the highest point on Weibo is on April 21, 2021. The volume of content was 52, and the volume reached a peak of 98,969. The volume of follow-up volume continued to fluctuate, maintaining a relatively high level.
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