Some time ago, the topic of # 中中中 is a new type of social relationship # was on the hot search, and some netizens began to understand what the word meant, while others had already extended the relationship of "中中中" to all aspects of life. Food sharing partners, learning partners who urge each other to make progress together, idolize partners and concert partners who share the same star, game partners who organize games, and shopping partners who make up the whole list. ……
"I can’t live without a partner." "Losing a partner is worse than being lovelorn."
What is the difference between a partner and a friend? Is it that important? Why are young people so addicted? What kind of social changes and social psychology are reflected behind this?
"Partner" is a new social relationship.
Partner relationship only became a popular word this year, but it actually existed for a long time. In Shanghai dialect, playing cards together can be extended to partners, and there are similar words in Northeast dialect, that is, partnering, meaning partnership, partnership, such as dining together and traveling together. Whether it’s a dialect or a buzzword today, a partner can be understood as a partner, that is, a person with the same purpose.
Partner relationship can be understood as a relationship based on interests, common needs and value recognition. This kind of relationship is farther away from friends and closer to strangers. They accompany each other when needed and don’t disturb each other when they are apart. It is a kind of stress-free social interaction. In the partner relationship, both sides can meet each other’s social needs most cost-effectively.
Friends are connected by emotions, while partners are connected by needs. On the platform of Little Red Book, many netizens posted posts to find their own partners, such as reading, watching exhibitions, eating, traveling, fitness, etc., and found the most accurate companionship in the segmentation field.
Partner exists not only between people, but also between brands or products.
From the brand point of view, joint name and group cp can actually be understood as a partner relationship. In the past few years, we have seen all kinds of joint names, some of which are strongly combined with the track, and some of which are completely different from the two categories. Joint names are nothing more than two brands grouped together to jointly improve brand awareness and topic, increase premium and sales volume, and create new products to meet consumer demand. In short, we hope to go hand in hand and strengthen brand competitiveness.
Juewei Duck Neck and Zhen Huan Chuan jointly signed, source: Juewei Duck Neck.
From the point of view of products, the relationship between partners is even richer. The second cup is half price, two people walk together and one person is free of charge, and the combination suit is all between products.
Take the second half-price cup as an example. When two products are put together, the second half-price can be obtained. From the economic point of view, it is not only bundled sales, but also the diminishing marginal utility, which also involves price discrimination. Half price of the second cup belongs to voluntary bundling. Consumers think that this way will make them profit, and in most cases they don’t want to miss the preferential opportunity. From the perspective of diminishing marginal utility, the satisfaction of the second cup is not as strong as that of the first cup, so the willingness to buy with the original price of the first cup will be weakened, and the effectiveness of price discrimination strategy will be exerted at this time.
Price discrimination means that merchants charge different prices for the same goods and services, and the second cup belongs to second degree price discrimination at half price, that is, when the willingness to buy the second product is reduced, the low-price preferential strategy is adopted to promote the purchase behavior, so that consumers get benefits and merchants sell more products, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone.
The combination of brands and products can be understood from the point of view of both merchants and consumers, but the combination of people needs further analysis.
Why does the "partner" relationship poke young people?
Relevant surveys show that more than half of the young people have a partner, and among the 31% young people who don’t have a partner, more than half still want to have a partner. What is the attraction of a partner?
Reduce social costs and avoid emotional internal friction
From the phenomenon of rectifying the workplace and rectifying the marriage and love market, we can see that today’s young people have completely different attitudes and ideas in social and relationships from the previous generation. They are generally skeptical and exclusive of complicated and troublesome interpersonal relationships, and are tired of maintaining relationships, but they still have social needs, so it is their choice to draw social rules in advance, define boundaries or pay for social experience.
Making friends needs to pay a large sunk cost, but friends can’t completely share the same interests and always accompany them, so it is better to find a partner to reduce social costs and avoid emotional internal friction. The data shows that 53.7% of young people think that finding a partner is an efficient interpersonal communication and even a learning lifestyle.
Make friends with interests and improve communication experience.
The biggest feature of the partner relationship is to make friends with interests. When people with the same hobbies get together, they can deeply understand each other’s joy and happiness, and also understand each other’s sadness and troubles, and the experience of communication is greatly enhanced. With the continuous development of the Internet, the scope of interpersonal communication is also expanding. From the agricultural age to the information age, social relations are also changing from kinship to interest, and the interest relationship with universality, diversity and equality just caters to the lifestyle of contemporary young people.
As netizens said; People with common hobbies will have a sense of security when they form a partner. Just for hobbies, they will gather here, start at any time and end at any time, which is similar to a "burn after reading" relationship and a semi-open spiritual collision.
Internet leads the way, expanding social scope
Why is the Internet interesting? Because you can see all kinds of information and meet all kinds of people on the Internet, socializing in real life is far from as easy as making a friend. It starts with interest, but it may also be the starting point of a closer relationship and become girlfriends, brothers and friends. Familiar friends for many years are not around, and the group loneliness in the Internet age, the way to get rid of these is to connect with others, and the partner relationship is especially rising and continues to be hot. According to a survey data of China Youth Daily, among the 1,335 respondents, 68.9% of the young people think that "socializing with children" is a brave step to step out of the social comfort zone and seek a new social model.
The popularity of the topic of "finding a partner" on the Internet has gradually receded, but in reality, "partner" is still a social relationship that many young people admire and continue. When partner relationship and light socialization become a trend, brands that see the trend and grasp the trend have begun to make friends with consumers with "partner".
What does the new social relationship inspire the brand?
Recently, tomato novels have followed the trend and actively created a "novel partner" for users-fanjuan. As the virtual IP image of tomato novels, Fanjuanjuan, like the real "reading partner", will have similar reading emotions with users according to the story in the book, giving users a sense of companionship, understanding and substitution. The appearance of Fanjuanjuan brings new experiences to users who love reading and listening to novels in tomato novels.
Fanjuanjuan, source: tomato reading
The popularity of new social relations reflects the change of young people’s ideas. What essence should brands see through the phenomenon? What enlightenment will these changes give the brand?
The premise of the existence of the partner relationship is that both parties have the same interests and goals, such as liking the same star or playing the same game. This relationship will give people a sense of belonging, which is actually what we often call "circle". Among today’s young consumers, e-sports circle, shoe circle, idolize circle, film circle, rock circle, secondary circle, rap circle and other different circles have built barriers between circles with different interests and cultures. The hot topics in the circle may not be understood by people outside the circle, and even the hottest events can’t stir up big waves without the circle. At the same time, these circles have a tendency to gradually develop into the public, so for brands,
Secondly, it can also be seen from the partner relationship that strong social attributes are still the key link to determine the brand life cycle. If brands and products can naturally become bridges between users, they will have stronger vitality and will not be easily abandoned by consumers. Strong social attributes also mean that consumers will spontaneously get involved and take the initiative to share, which will continue to bring new attention and users to the brand.
Many games are popular because they have both competitive fun and social emotional needs, such as various relationships in the glory of the king, intimate props, skin giving and forum communities in the game, etc., as well as CROCS’ bringing goods together and Luckin Coffee’s new products, etc., all of which have strong social attributes.
At the same time, finding a partner is actually that people are looking for accurate companionship in vertical segmentation, so segmentation is an important topic for brand growth. To subdivide the track is not to subdivide for the sake of subdivision, but to meet the needs of consumers in different scenarios with differentiated characteristics according to the pain points of users within a category, and then to find opportunities and possibly to subdivide the new products in the track into independent new categories. 0 sugar, 0 fat and 0 addition in the food industry, different skin types and functions in the beauty and skin care industry and different equipment in different sports in the sports industry are all showing the possibility of subdividing the track. Finding a partner needs to be subdivided, and making products cannot be general.
Looking for a partner is to find companionship, a sense of belonging and security, and to dispel loneliness; Dopamine uses high saturation and bright colors to bring visual impact and stimulate the happiness and pleasure of the mood; Although Thai Cool Spicy has become a popular stalk, its original intention is to encourage people to be themselves and stick to their own attitudes and opinions … Looking back on this year’s buzzwords, one thing that cannot be ignored is that it has brought emotional value.
San Pu Zhan mentioned in The Fourth Consumption Era that in the fourth consumption era, the consumption pattern will change, instead of focusing on things, people will focus on "people". People will pursue full consumption, connect with people, and have a good experience and a good time. People are increasingly pursuing spiritual health, which is the so-called cure.
Therefore, the brand needs to establish correct and positive brand values, which is an important force to drive consumers to identify with the brand and the origin of brand marketing propaganda. The activities carried out around brand values will leave a mark on consumers’ minds for a long time, resonate and become an effective asset of the brand. In addition to values, brands also need to think about how to bring healing, relaxation and beautiful feelings to consumers when they are generally under pressure from all sides.
The changes of consumers, especially young consumers, are rapid. These changes seem complicated and confusing, but in fact there are traces to follow. This "trace" is the changes in consumer demand and consumer psychology. Grasping these changes means grasping the future development trend, and only by grasping the trend can we find the direction of brand and product upgrading and seize the opportunity in the ever-changing and fiercely competitive market.
