Looking to engage young customers this summer in China? Hosting music festivals might be your answer. With their rising popularity and economic significance, music festivals offer a dynamic platform for brands to connect with young audiences. Companies like Mizone Sports Water and Mixue Ice Cream & Tea have successfully harnessed the power of music festivals to enhance their brand image and engage consumers through innovative and interactive experiences.
The Power of Music Festivals
In recent years, music festivals have become an important economic driver for urban cultural tourism in China. According to the 2020-2024 China Music Festival Market Development Research Report, 560 festivals took place in 2023, with prime activity periods during the May Day and National Day Golden Weeks. Qingdao, Hangzhou, and Chengdu were the top three festival cities, with music permeating local scenic spots, small towns, and cultural tourism hubs.
Music Festivals and Brand Engagement
Brands are increasingly recognizing the significant traffic generated by music festivals. By sponsoring or organizing these events, brands can achieve substantial exposure in a short period, enhancing brand awareness among young consumers. Leveraging the fanbase of popular singers and stars, brands can boost their popularity and goodwill, which can lead to increased sales.
Innovative Interactive Experiences
At the recently concluded Strawberry Music Festival in Changsha in June, Mizone Sports Water created a series of innovative interactive experiences. A group of strikingly tall individuals, dressed in uniforms, scouted the crowd for audience members in “poor condition,” offering them Mizone Sports Water to “revitalize.” These audience members were then invited to enjoy the coolness under a waterfall, helping them recover and return to the festival in high spirits. This interactive game ignited enthusiasm among fans and reinforced the brand message that “Mizone means ending all boredom and sleepiness.”
Mizone’s Festival Strategy
Fans could also receive various refreshing items such as hand fans by participating in on-site games. Additionally, Mizone utilized Xiaohongshu as the main platform for communication, inviting influencers to join the on-site activities and encouraging fans to share their real experiences. This strategy helped stimulate active sharing among fans, creating a seamless offline-to-online communication path and increasing the event’s social media presence and discussion.
This year, Mizone partnered with the Strawberry Music Festival in Beijing, Hangzhou, and Changsha, continuously upgrading the interactive experiences at each location.
Enhancing Brand Personality
Music festivals provide a multi-dimensional promotional space for brands. The event logo, stage venue, banners, and promotional materials like roll-up banners, umbrellas, and peripheral products all serve as promotional mediums between the brand and consumers. At the Mixue Ice Cream & Tea Music Festival, the main stage featured the largest Snow King model, nearly 20 meters tall, alongside an 8-meter-high inflatable Snow King and bouncing Snow King dolls. These eye-catching displays frequently triggered cheers from the audience.
Mixue Ice Cream & Tea’s Approach
In April 2023, Mixue Ice Cream & Tea, known for songs such as “Mixue Ice Cream & Tea Sweet Honey” (蜜雪冰城甜蜜蜜), held an exclusive music festival. The brand invited popular singers among young people to perform. The most notable aspect of this festival was its ticket pricing. Known for its cost-effective products, Mixue Ice Cream & Tea set the festival ticket price at 199 RMB (approx. 27.38 USD), cheaper than early bird tickets for many other festivals. This pricing strategy led netizens to joke about the brand “rectifying the sky-high price of festivals,” aligning with Mixue Ice Cream & Tea’s image as a friendly and accessible brand.
Product Trials and Market Interest
Mixue Ice Cream & Tea also introduced new products through trial activities at the festival. Consumers could follow a map around the event site, collecting stamps to receive limited edition merchandise. On Weibo, the topic #Mixue Ice Cream & Tea Music Festival# reached 79.41 million views, highlighting the high level of market interest.
Platforms Leveraging Their Own Advantages
Music apps like Douyin (China’s TikTok) and social media platforms like Xiaohongshu (RED) are also capitalizing on the unique advantages of organizing music festivals. These platforms leverage their content resources to create synchronized online and offline interactions, deeply integrating promotional efforts.
Douyin’s Nice Planet Music Festival
In June, Douyin created its music festival IP for the first time: the Nice Planet Music Festival. It capitalized on Douyin’s unique advantages by adopting a format of simultaneous online and offline livestreaming. The festival showcased various styles, including pop, rock, folk, and rap, across different stages over two days and featured a diverse gathering of creators from various fields. The event also collaborated with ByteDance’s other products, such as Ulikecam and CapCut, to create an offline exhibition area, offering fun interactive games for a relaxed and engaging experience.
Xiaohongshu’s Slow People Music Festival
Xiaohongshu held the Slow People Music Festival in June, inviting several well-known slow music artists to perform together for the “slowest” music festival in history. To allow more users who couldn’t attend in person to experience the festival atmosphere, Xiaohongshu hosted a livestream. Users could search for “Xiaohongshu Slow People Festival” on the platform and enter the “Slow People Tribe” app to become certified slow people. Through this IP, Xiaohongshu aims to help people rediscover the power of feeling in real life and provide users with the inspiration to “allow me to return to myself.”
Music festivals are proving to be an effective way for brands to engage with young consumers in China. By hosting or sponsoring these events, brands like Mizone Sports Water and Mixue Ice Cream & Tea are creating innovative interactive experiences that resonate with their target audience. Additionally, platforms like Douyin and Xiaohongshu are leveraging their unique advantages to integrate online and offline promotional efforts, enhancing the overall festival experience for attendees.
As music festivals continue to rise in popularity, they will remain a powerful tool for brands looking to increase their visibility, engage with young consumers, and build lasting relationships with their audience. By staying innovative and responsive to the evolving preferences of festival-goers, brands can ensure their continued success in this vibrant and dynamic space.
