On September 7, the 2022 IAIFESTIVAL International Creative Festival with the theme of "Learning from the Trend and Growing Longer" opened grandly at the Beijing Dongyi Tianhong Studio Hall. Xiao Mingchao, founder and CEO of Zhimeng Consulting, attended the event and gave a keynote speech on "Foreseeing 2023, Exploring Brand Marketing Trends" in conjunction with Zhimeng Consulting's IAI Chuanjian International Advertising Awards. The following is a transcript of the speech. When we talk about marketing trends, we still have to turn our perspective back to the changes in China’s consumption. Zhimeng releases its predictions about future trends every year. Through continuous trend insights in the past six years, we believe that China’s consumption trends are on the right track. In the "turning" and "jumping" stages. China is a market where diversified consumption patterns coexist. Judging from the overall trend in the past few years, Chinese consumers have begun to transition from outward expression in the past to inner exploration. What have been the changes in the past six years? Based on our observations and research, we believe that Chinese consumers pay more attention to quality, the meaning of consumption and the meaning of the brand. At the same time, they also pay more attention to health, experience and themselves. China's social and demographic structure has also undergone great changes. Today, China's population growth has slowed down, the demographic dividend has ended, and the consumer market has begun to shift from scale dividend to structural dividend. There are three demographic changes worthy of attention: First, the aging of the population , China’s population over 60 years old currently accounts for 18.7%. Therefore, brands that truly pay attention to the needs of the elderly and serve the elderly will have great development opportunities in the future. The second is the downsizing of families. The average population per household in China is now 2.62. From four generations living under one roof, to a three-generation family, to a world of two, families are getting smaller and smaller. This has also made the packaging design and brand positioning of many products difficult. Changes need to be made around the shape of the family. Third, with the advent of the era of living alone, products such as small packages and mini packages for people living alone and singles have also ushered in a new wave of growth. In the past two years, consumers have been living in an uncertain environment and will focus more on themselves. In response to this change, Zhimeng proposed the trend of "inner bloom" this year. Chinese consumers are increasingly pursuing inner world satisfaction and self-comfort. Faced with the spiritual changes of consumers seeking inward, brands must also Return to your true heart, abandon the anxiety caused by traffic, and think about how to bring more humanistic warmth to consumers and create the roar of the spirit. In such a consumption environment, where will the marketing ship sail in 2023? We selected some of the gold medal cases in this year's IAI Chuanjian International Advertising Awards for analysis, and found that the reason why these cases are excellent is because they all have common concepts and rules. These rules can also be regarded as outstanding in our industry. Marketers are the first to create and lead trends. Through the analysis of our team, we have summarized the following eight marketing trends. #TREND1: DISCOVER THE EXTRAORDINARY# In ordinary life, there are many great things. From praising the ordinary to discovering the extraordinary, the perspective of consumers also focuses from the whole to the individual, and the brand needs to become a light that shines on consumers. , find narratives and expressions from multiple perspectives. Among the gold medal cases from IAI, La Mer protects the ocean, JD Finance donates dog food, and Meituan’s “Old Flower” TVC calls for care for the elderly. These brands express ordinary life through their concern for nature, animals, and family and friends. temperature in. Johnson & Johnson's public service video "Look at Me, See Me" with the theme of "Breast Reconstruction after Breast Cancer Surgery", the heart-warming short film of Ronald McDonald House, and Junlebao Chunhu's care for people who have had cesarean sections. Let us see the "toughness" under suffering. In addition, Honor Magic 3 captured the faces of 100 pioneers of the times, including Academician Zhong Nanshan and Dr. Tao Yong. Yonghe Hair Transplant focused on hair loss strugglers, allowing society to find extraordinary "sharpness" from another perspective. #trend2:sensorycomfort# In this fast-paced era, faced with the burden brought by life, work pressure and information overload, consumers’ senses are tired and trapped. Subsequently, their consumption attitudes have also changed. They are looking forward to shopping in the future. There are more interesting sensory experiences in consumption that can directly touch the spirit and soul. If brand communication gives consumers spiritual comfort, energy injection and emotional resonance, it will surely be deeply rooted in the hearts of consumers.

Comfort can come from scenes in life. Xiaohongshu opened a "slow pop-up store" in the cold winter to deliver sweet sweet potatoes and winter warmth to users; Zhihu joined hands with Li Xueqin on the eve of the college entrance examination to publish "All Xueqin's Answers" , soothed the candidates’ pre-exam anxiety. Comfort can also come from the appeal of female power. Libresse uses the brand proposition #Menstruation is not hidden to attack the prejudiced views on menstruation in the traditional context; the SK-II "VS" #RewriteDestiny animated series uses six Based on the real experiences of Olympic athletes, through animation, it encourages women to make their own choices bravely. By exploring subtle emotions and amplifying details, brands can find more connections with consumers. #Trend3: Entering the Heart# As the growth rate of Internet users declines, traffic peaking has become a new growth anxiety for brands. Traffic is important, but for a brand, traffic is only the starting point. The ultimate pursuit of brand building is to establish a link from consumer awareness to recognition to subscription to fans, and build a chain that can communicate with consumers. Zhen's "heart flow experience" transforms public domain traffic and private domain traffic into "heart domain traffic", thereby establishing a solid and sustained relationship with consumers. How to create a "flow" experience? The IAI Gold Award case tells us that we can take advantage of traffic hot spots to tell brand moments from a unique perspective. For example, on the eve of the opening of the Winter Olympics, P&G took advantage of the hot spots of the Winter Olympics and the traffic of Wu Dajing to release the short film "Winter Olympics on the Island", creating pornographic content through a dramatic plot. There are also some brands that create "flow" based on the core proposition of the brand. For example, Wong Lao Kat, which takes "everyone has good luck and every family has good luck" as its core brand concept, launched the "surname jar" during the Spring Festival. Wong Lo Kat is not just Wong Lao Kat. , or Zhou Laoji, Zhang Laoji, and Sun Laoji can use packaging as the content medium to incorporate New Year blessings. #TREND4: Content breaks out of the cocoon# With the continuous evolution of consumption upgrading, the content industry is also constantly iteratively upgrading, with pictures, texts, short videos, live broadcasts and other forms making people dizzying. Behind this dazzling content ecological landscape, technology is changing, users are changing, and consumer mentality is also changing. Consumers have gone from extensive browsing and absorption of massive information to pursuing valuable "sense of content acquisition." The content track will Ushering in a new "breaking cocoon" upgrade. Faced with content fatigue caused by information overload, consumers are more thirsty for content that provides a sense of gain. How can brands do this? The "Road Submarine" pure electric car underwater roaming activity launched by Volvo breaks through the traditional public perception with an unprecedented "tram diving driving" difficult and eye-catching challenge, making the content more experiential scene value and providing a new "sense of gain" perspective. Baidu Marketing's annual promotional video "A Carrot Business" starts from the story of a person who wants to buy Fanbang radish, and tells a series of ridiculous "marketing anecdotes" with the help of AI technology, allowing the imagination to be creative and bringing interesting information to consumers. content. #TREND5: Virtual Reality Unbounded# With the concept of "metaverse" becoming popular, Internet giants are taking advantage of the situation to create virtual people, and brands are also innovating in content and marketing through the interconnection of virtuality and reality. From AI to the metaverse, what opens up is consumers’ future imagination of full-sensory, immersive, and instantaneous connections between virtuality and reality. In today's society, everyone hopes to have a rich self, one can travel in the virtual world, and the other can travel in the real world. Driven by technology, virtual and real will eventually have no boundaries, and virtual and real will be interdependent. For brands, interactive technology can open up new retail scenarios. The AI ??makeup trial jointly created by Estee Lauder and Baidu allows you to quickly understand the makeup effect of Estee Lauder's lipstick and foundation products on your face without complicated makeup steps. Speed ??up consumer decision-making through a highly immersive makeup trial experience. As the cornerstone of the Metaverse, digital humans are naturally the first choice for brand innovation. Nayuki’s Tea has launched its first brand ambassador, the digital human NAYUKI, and has also officially launched a collection of trendy art based on NAYUKI, with a limited edition of 300 copies. About NAYUKI's NFT digital art works and sold in the form of blind boxes. The birth of the Metaverse has given this era new impetus for progress. At the same time, the diversified development prospects have also brought about marketing possibilities that cannot be ignored. The new virtual world is on the road to rise with new concepts.

Instead, they adopted a "two-pronged" approach, trying and developing while adhering to their core concepts. "We hope that our presentation of the gold medal cases of the IAI International Advertising Awards combined with Chinese brand marketing trends can provide some direction for the development of the marketing industry in 2023, and also give everyone confidence in our industry.