Cartoon Marketing: Wear Others' Shoes And Go Your Own Way?

Throughout China's children's food market, we can easily find that: as long as it involves Children's food More than 90% of the products are in the form of cartoon. And this is mainly based on Hello Kitty, Snoopy, teddy bear, character modeling in Disney animation and other foreign cartoon characters.

Children's food has captured the minds of countless children's consumers with its silent cartoon language. Those lovely, fresh and vivid cartoon characters undoubtedly give the products more, larger and wider brand promotion significance. Many food manufacturers have built up their own brands with the popularity of these international cartoon images. They have gained huge economic benefits in the short term. But at the same time, we also see how these famous cartoon images protect the products and how to extend their brand influence to the products.

Nowadays, when cartoon food is so popular, children's food also exposes 3 major problems in product packaging and choice of image endorsement.

1, authorized confusion. A lot of food production enterprises that have famous cartoon characters in packaging have not obtained formal authorization such as Disney and other institutions in order to save costs. Moreover, the protection of intellectual property rights by ordinary consumers and the loopholes in the supervision of relevant government departments have opened a green light to the survival of these enterprises to a certain extent. It is understood that there are only 2~3 authorized enterprises in China, but there are too many food factories in China. Such a chaotic market situation has caused a serious blow to those companies that pay big price to pay for the copyright of cartoon images. For example, the Disney cartoon image of women and children appears in almost all fields, including children's clothing, children's toys, children's food, children's drinks, baby carriages and so on. From the store, the special shop to the stalls, the goods and products are mixed, ranging from image to color, and the brand value is greatly discounted.

2, the quality of products is not good. Many parents are also dissatisfied with the "irresponsible behavior" of some cartoon characters endorsing junk food. Junk food advertised by cartoon characters is the biggest obstacle to their children's healthy eating. Moreover, food companies often engage in competitive bidding activities for children to collect products or collect discounted promotions on their websites, which are attracting children to buy more junk food.

3, only pay attention to table level application, no deeper. connotation Combination. Due to the lack of in-depth understanding, many children's food manufacturers are limited to the use of cartoon images in LOGO and avatar, while in the combination of cartoons, embedded marketing, the development and operation of the subsequent product chain, promotion strategies, the promotion of the terminal, the combination of cartoon characters, and the development of new products, they often become a big weakness, which costs a lot of authorization fees, but the effect is not satisfactory.

For example: the three - century blue cat used to be a popular cartoon character. It was highly sought after by Chinese children. Many manufacturers asked for brand authorization. But soon they found that the rainbow cat blue rabbit appeared, and the bobcat appeared. As a result, how to mold the uniqueness and diversity of the brand after the brand authorization, and how to dig deeper at the level of the concept, has become the most important task. Otherwise, it will easily become a wedding dress for others.

CBCT believes in choosing Cartoon Attention should be paid to packaging and endorsement:

1, cartoon image is not highly applicable, it must be related to the product itself and brand idea.

2, cartoon image endorsement is not only a sign, it should not only stay at the level of packaging image. It should be fully integrated into the marketing system with brand as the core, which is embodied in highlighting the unique product personality, matching price combination and corresponding channel system, and striving to achieve consumers' preference and loyalty to product brand at various levels, so as to ensure the maximization and optimization of communication effectiveness and economic benefits.

3, the cartoon image is not static. With the changing needs of the social environment and consumer groups, the cartoon image of the enterprise in the specific development stage should keep pace with the times and bring forth new ideas.

Brand authorization can take immediate effect in the era of fast marketing. These cartoon images have strong virtual Star Effect in children's mind, and can enhance brand awareness and reputation in a short time. However, judging from the long-term operation of enterprises, CBCT believes that brand is a systematic project, which does not mean that having a good cartoon image can solve all problems. From the establishment of the core value of the brand, it includes covering the establishment of brand positioning, mining the brand personality, developing the brand symbol, establishing the two-way interests of the brand, defining the typical customer group, spreading the brand story and culture, etc. Wangwang group's "wangzi", "Danone Prince" of Danone Biscuits, big white rabbit with white rabbit's milk candy, golden monkey monkey's milk sugar "golden monkey" and other famous success is the best proof. The idea of cartoons for cartoons, or the idea of making a profit without authorization, is neither practical nor helpful to enterprises.

At present, the brand marketing of children's food is still at the initial stage in China. Manufacturers lack systematic understanding of brand marketing, and are still in the stage of establishing cartoon image simply. In the face of increasingly competitive market, it is the choice to "wear other people's shoes to go their own way", "brand authorization" or "wear their own shoes to go their own way" to build their own brands? Enterprises should make careful decisions based on their own resources.