Xiaohongshu Festival Marketing Mastery: Boost Sales with KFS & BFS Models

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) has emerged as a pivotal platform for brands to connect with consumers, especially during key cultural moments like the Spring Festival. As modern consumers increasingly seek emotional and immersive experiences, brands are leveraging Xiaohongshu's unique ecosystem to craft campaigns that resonate deeply. This article explores how 14 brands successfully navigated festival marketing on Xiaohongshu, highlighting strategic frameworks, innovative techniques, and measurable outcomes. From AFU Essential Oils' data-driven approach to BeBeBus' pre-launch user research, these case studies offer valuable insights for marketers aiming to capitalize on festive seasons.

1. Introduction to Festival Marketing on Xiaohongshu

Xiaohongshu ads has cemented its role as a cornerstone of modern marketing by blending social commerce with user-generated content. Its community-driven model allows brands to tap into authentic consumer insights, making it ideal for festival campaigns. The Spring Festival, with its rich traditions and emotional significance, presents a prime opportunity for brands to engage audiences. This section analyzes 14 brands that achieved remarkable success during the 2023 Spring Festival, demonstrating how Xiaohongshu's platform-specific strategies can amplify reach and conversion.

2. Strategic Framework for Festival Marketing Success

Successful campaigns on Xiaohongshu begin with understanding user needs through platform analytics. For instance, trends like "oil-based skincare" and "emotional skincare" revealed unmet consumer desires, guiding brands like AFU in product positioning. Integrating traditional festival elements—such as auspicious symbols or family-centric messaging—with modern branding further enhances relevance. By aligning with trending topics and cultural motifs, brands create campaigns that feel both timely and timeless.

3. Case Study 1: AFU Essential Oils' Three-Phase Campaign

AFU's campaign exemplifies a data-driven approach to product selection and marketing strategy. By analyzing Xiaohongshu ads market insights, AFU identified a blue ocean opportunity in the high-end anti-aging essential oils segment, which lacked dominant competitors. This led to the strategic positioning of its flagship product, the "11 Seed Essential Oil," tailored to meet the unmet demand for premium anti-aging solutions. The brand further leveraged Xiaohongshu's "Star Dream Come True Plan" to collaborate with celebrity Dong Jie, whose endorsement amplified product visibility through livestream marketing. This multi-phase campaign was meticulously structured: First, AFU utilized Xiaohongshu's big data to pinpoint dry skin as the core demographic for essential oil skincare, aligning its messaging around moisturizing, anti-aging, and repairing benefits. Second, recognizing the platform's 159% year-on-year growth in "immersive" beauty content, AFU incorporated emotional storytelling to resonate with users seeking holistic self-care experiences. Post-campaign, AFU implemented the BFS (Brand + Feeds + Search) model to sustain momentum, establishing a dedicated brand zone and publishing high-quality content to reinforce credibility. Search optimization targeted key decision-making keywords, while DMP audience targeting ensured precise reach. The results were transformative: 20M+ exposure, 65,000+ interactions, and over 1M units sold, cementing AFU's leadership in the essential oil category. This success was driven by three pillars: (1) leveraging Xiaohongshu's trends like "oil-based skincare" and "emotional skincare" for efficient seeding, (2) creating a closed-loop conversion path via celebrity livestreams, and (3) using BFS to rebuild brand perception and accumulate positive word-of-mouth. The campaign not only revived AFU's market dominance but also demonstrated how data-driven insights, celebrity synergy, and platform-native tools can converge to unlock exponential growth.

4. Case Study 2: BeBeBus Stroller's Pre-Launch Strategy

BeBeBus revolutionized traditional product launches by integrating Xiaohongshu users into the development phase, leveraging their insights to refine product-market fit. Through collaborative focus groups, the brand identified three core usage scenarios—walking downstairs, short indoor trips, and long-distance travel—while coining the memorable "Butterfly Stroller" nickname based on the product's butterfly-shaped backrest. This early engagement not only validated key selling points but also shaped a resonant communication strategy.

To accelerate market penetration, BeBeBus implemented xhs KFS (KOL + Feeds + Search) seeding framework. Parenting KOLs created targeted content highlighting safety, stability, and ergonomic benefits for core audiences, while spine-protection features were emphasized to attract younger-baby parents. Search optimization bridged platform and external queries, aligning keyword strategies with user intent. The result was rapid traction: within seven days of launch, the stroller topped e-commerce bestseller lists for four-wheeled models, achieved store-wide bestseller status in 15 days, and surpassed 4.5 million RMB in monthly sales.

On xiao hong shu, the "Butterfly Stroller" became a top-5 searched accessory brand, with monthly search volume increasing 20x. Organic user testimonials amplified its safe-and-stable positioning, demonstrating the power of pre-launch research to streamline conversion funnels. This case underscores how early user integration and data-driven seeding can compress the traditional 3–6 month product validation cycle into a cohesive, high-impact launch.

5. Platform-Level Spring Festival IP Creation

Xiaohongshu's "Celebrate the Spring Festival" IP provided a structured framework for brands to innovate through immersive festive storytelling. Building on the 2022 campaign, the 2023 iteration introduced four major upgrades: a main venue + sub-venues model, interactive New Year greetings from brand ambassadors, localized dining/entertainment integrations, and offline interactive spaces for New Year's goods. This multi-layered approach deepened user engagement by blending digital and physical experiences. The platform collaborated with 14 brands, including Mengniu and Wanglaoji, to co-create five sub-IPs tailored to brand identities—such as Yili's "New Year Organic Favorite" and Ambrosial's "New Year's Good Luck Office"—leveraging Xiaohongshu's native festive atmosphere where "New Year" searches exceeded 6.52 million posts. Customized activations like Wanglaoji's meme-driven #UseAuspiciousWordsCanForAHundredYearsOfGoodLuck campaign resonated with young audiences, while offline Spring Streets in five cities offered immersive brand experiences. The campaign achieved 6B+ exposure (200% YoY growth), 500K+ UGC notes, and 300K+ interactions, with 300+ celebrity collaborations and 10+ trending topics. By integrating brands into authentic Spring Festival narratives through platform-level IP support and innovative interactive gameplay, Xiaohongshu enabled partners to simultaneously build emotional connections and drive sales performance during the critical holiday period.

6. Innovative Interactive Marketing Techniques

Topkee's expertise in Xiaohongshu advertising demonstrates how modern brands can leverage platform-specific strategies to create impactful interactive campaigns. By combining professional customization with diversified creativity, Topkee helps brands amplify their voice and drive sales through tailored solutions. The company's specialization in Xiaohongshu advertising operations enables it to design optimal strategies based on unique brand characteristics and target audiences.

Topkee's localization strategy further enhances campaign effectiveness by establishing regional teams that understand local user interests, ensuring content aligns with daily life and emotional appeals. This precision targeting is complemented by Xiaohongshu's unique DMP system, which leverages multi-dimensional data—including user attributes, life stages, and shopping habits—to deliver ads to the most relevant audiences. Techniques like DMP crowd packaging and keyword targeting allow brands to reach high-conversion user groups, while information flow direction ensures ideal audience alignment through filters like gender, age, and region.

Content creation is another cornerstone of Topkee's methodology. Its diverse team—spanning video production, editing, note creation, and design—produces high-quality, platform-optimized content. Graphic and video notes are crafted to align with trending topics and brand narratives, leveraging Xiaohongshu's intelligent delivery system for maximum visibility. The social sharing features of these notes facilitate word-of-mouth dissemination, amplifying brand reach. Additionally, Topkee's data-driven approach includes regular performance analysis of notes (views, likes, shares) and conversion metrics (click-through rates, ROI), enabling continuous optimization of content and ad strategies.

The company also offers specialized services like enterprise account certification, advertiser activation, and e-commerce store setup, streamlining brand presence on xhs. Ad types such as all-site smart investment, search promotion, and video streaming promotion provide flexible options to enhance visibility and engagement. By integrating these tools with insights from fan analysis—such as demographic and geographic data—Topkee ensures campaigns are not only creative but also deeply rooted in audience preferences. This holistic approach underscores how authenticity and innovation, backed by precise data and localization, can cut through festival clutter and foster meaningful consumer connections.

7. Platform Policy Support for Merchants

Xiaohongshu's "Million Yuan Commission-Free Plan" (2025–2026) significantly reduces the financial burden on merchants by lowering the basic technical service fee rate to 0.6% for the first ¥1 million in payment transaction volume per merchant. This policy, effective from September 1, 2025, to August 31, 2026, applies to all e-commerce merchants on the platform who comply with the "Xiaohongshu Store Service Agreement" and "Xiaohongshu Technical Service Fee Rules." The incentive is automatically applied during settlement, requiring no separate application.

The plan is designed to foster long-term merchant commitment by alleviating operational costs, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses. For enterprise-owned shops, the incentive is tied to the unified social credit code, while individual or sole proprietorship shops share the quota based on the operator's ID. Cross-shop transactions under the same merchant entity collectively count toward the ¥1 million limit. Notably, orders exceeding the threshold or with category-specific rates below 0.6% are excluded from the incentive.

To ensure fairness, the policy prohibits fraudulent practices, price manipulation, or low-quality product listings. Merchants violating these terms forfeit eligibility, and the incentive cannot be combined with other platform promotions. Xiaohongshu reserves the right to adjust policy terms with prior notice, underscoring its commitment to adaptive, merchant-centric governance. By reducing barriers to entry and sustaining profitability, this initiative strengthens Xiaohongshu's ecosystem, aligning with its broader strategy to empower brands like AFU and BeBeBus, which have leveraged platform tools for growth.

8. Key Success Factors for Festival Marketing

Three strategic pillars emerge as critical for effective festival marketing: data-driven decision-making, frictionless conversion paths, and emotional resonance. Brands that excel in these areas—such as AFU and BeBeBus—demonstrate how to achieve both immediate sales impact and sustained brand loyalty. AFU's success during Double 11 exemplifies data-driven precision, leveraging Xiaohongshu's analytics to identify high-potential market segments like dry skin anti-aging and aligning with trending topics such as "oil-based skincare" and "emotional skincare." This approach, combined with celebrity livestream collaborations (e.g., Dong Jie) and closed-loop campaigns, drove over 20 million impressions and 1M+ product sales. Similarly, BeBeBus shortened its product-to-bestseller timeline to 7 days by integrating pre-launch user research on Xiaohongshu ads, uncovering key communication triggers like the "Butterfly Stroller" concept, and executing a streamlined KFS (KOL + Feeds + Search) seeding strategy. Both cases highlight the importance of embedding brand messaging into authentic consumer scenarios—whether through AFU's immersive "emotional skincare" narratives or BeBeBus's user-generated content around parenting needs. The results speak for themselves: AFU reclaimed category leadership, while BeBeBus achieved 4.5M RMB in monthly sales and top search rankings. These successes underscore that festival marketing transcends transactional goals; it requires harmonizing analytical rigor with human-centric storytelling to embed brands into cultural moments. Xiaohongshu's platform capabilities—from trendspotting to conversion tools—enable this synergy, as seen in campaigns generating 6B+ exposures during the 2023 Spring Festival IP. Ultimately, winning festivals demands treating data as a compass, user journeys as blueprints, and emotions as the connective tissue between brands and celebrations.

Conclusion and Future Outlook

The success stories of AFU, BeBeBus, and Xiaohongshu's Spring Festival IP demonstrate the platform's transformative potential in festival marketing. AFU leveraged Xiaohongshu's "Star Dream Come True Plan" to collaborate with celebrity Dong Jie, achieving over 20 million note exposures and 65,000+ interactions, with its "11 Seed Essential Oil" surpassing 1 million units sold. BeBeBus adopted an integrated production-marketing model, topping category sales within 7 days and generating 4.5 million RMB in monthly revenue for its "Butterfly Stroller." Xiaohongshu's 2023 Spring Festival IP, featuring 14 brands, garnered 6 billion+ exposures and 500,000+ new notes, blending tradition with innovation through interactive gameplay.

As digital marketing evolves, hyper-personalization and AI-driven content will shape future campaigns. Brands targeting 2026 should prioritize early user engagement (as seen in BeBeBus's pre-launch research), platform policies (like Xiaohongshu's 2025 "Million Yuan Commission-Free Plan"), and authentic storytelling (exemplified by AFU's emotional skincare narratives). Xiaohongshu's KFS (KOL + Feeds + Search) and BFS (Brand + Feeds + Search) models offer proven frameworks for precision seeding and reputation management. For tailored strategies, consult Xiaohongshu's marketing experts to unlock your brand's festive potential.

Appendix

• AFU Essential Oils Case Study
• BeBeBus Stroller Case Study
• Xiaohongshu Spring Festival IP
• Million Yuan Commission-Free Plan