观夏(To Summer): Consumers’ Memory of scents
Being away from home can be frustrating at times, especially when I miss out on incredible brands dedicated to promoting Chinese aesthetics. One such brand I discovered during this summer vacation is 观夏To Summer. A friend took me to one of their in-person stores in Beijing, and I was blown away. The store was set within a stunningly restored piece of ancient architecture, blending traditional beauty with modern retail.
After visiting the shop, I decided to explore To Summer’s social media presence and came across an intriguing video on Xiaohongshu. In this post, To Summer revisited one of their iconic perfumes, “昆仑煮雪” (roughly translated as Boiling Snow on Kunlun Mountain), which they first released five years ago.
What caught my attention was how the brand organized and reposted customer comments about this perfume. I was genuinely curious about how this perfume smells after watching this campaign. These were not just generic reviews; they were vivid, heartfelt descriptions of personal memories and emotions tied to the scent. Kunlun Mountain, a legendary and culturally significant range in Chinese mythology, represents purity and natural beauty. These comments reflected a collective nostalgia, with users describing how the fragrance evoked images of when they were using it.
The Ideal of Branded Content
This post is a successful piece of branded content since it merges marketing with media naturally, creating a hybrid that blends advertising into personal experience sharing from audiences. This marketing strategy is often characterized by subtlety, storytelling, and a focus on user engagement. This perfume campaign embodies these principles in several ways.
@Lady_Elaine 2021/06/17
“Like clouds, like flower petals,
Like pressing your fingertip against the soft belly of a peach.
The scent makes you drowsy,
The scent makes you want to hold it tight.”
@晓雾 2021/06/23
“When the harsh winter melts away,
It releases the crisp, icy freshness of snow.
Snow melts, and grass emerges.”
- Emotional Engagement: The campaign centers on personal scent memories, a deeply evocative theme that resonates emotionally with audiences. By aligning its brand with nostalgia and cultural identity, the campaign creates a connection that transcends the transactional nature of traditional advertising. According to Jonathan, branded content frequently emphasizes human-centred experience design to foster deeper consumer loyalty.
- User-Generated Content: By reposting user comments, the brand uses user-generated content (UGC) to add authenticity to the message they are conveying. This approach aligns with the trend of brands using trusted third-party endorsements over direct advertising claims, which enhances credibility while embedding the brand within a community narrative.
- Cultural Storytelling: The brand’s focus on connecting Eastern art and scents integrates cultural values into its messaging, turning its products into symbols of heritage and identity. For instance, the name choice of products and the poetic comments selected. This reflects how branded content often intertwines marketing with cultural narratives to create deeper resonance.
Issues Rising with Branded Content
@zyk 2021/06/24
“On the snow-white earth,
The sky, clouds, mountains, and water—
All are blanketed in white.
The only distinct presence is the fragrance of tea and pine.”
@bruuushbin 2021/07/22
“Mr. Lin Qingxuan said, “In the Arctic, whenever people speak, their words freeze into ice and snow, making them inaudible to others. They have to slowly thaw them to hear.”
Fragrance is similar—it transcends time, like love sealed in a letter.”
- The Shift Toward User-Driven Content: This campaign highlights a growing shift where users are not just consumers but co-creators of brand narratives. The rise of social media has transformed advertising by enabling users to contribute content that brands can repurpose. While this fosters engagement, it also raises questions about the boundaries between organic and commercial content.
- The blurring of Media and Advertising: By presenting user stories as part of its campaign, the brand obscures the line between editorial and promotional content. This reflects larger concerns about the transparency of branded content, where audiences may not always recognize such narratives as marketing.
- Emphasis on Cultural Hybridity: The campaign’s cultural framing reflects branded content’s potential to promote Chinese culture and literature while appealing to global audiences. However, as Jonathan states, this approach can sometimes verge on cultural commodification, raising ethical questions about authenticity and representation.
In the end, although the campaign feels natural, it is ultimately a strategic marketing plan in order to promote products. Branded content often walks a fine line between authenticity and commercialization, the brand obviously carefully selected positive comments to repost and promote the brand. However, once the audiences decode the campaign as manipulative, the brand might lose the trust of customers. It is also important to take the ethical implications of UGC under consideration. Reposting users’ personal stories for commercial gain highlights the tension between celebrating user participation and exploiting existing customers. This reflects broader debates about the ethics of branded content, particularly when its consumers became unpaid labourers of the brand.