The video marketing of scrambled eggs with tomatoes has become popular. What kind of routine is behind the controversy?

Starting from midnight on November 2, China Merchants Bank's "Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes" video marketing became popular. The WeChat index soared 68 times that day to 24.45 million, far exceeding keywords such as "Honor of Kings" and "housing prices". Although the marketing did not reach the level of the "New World View" marketing in 2016, it has to be said that it is a remarkable work of short video marketing in 2017. Along with the hot marketing that went viral on WeChat Moments , there was endless controversy: What does it have to do with China Merchants Bank? The video content contains major bugs, the male protagonist is a mama's boy and his parents are masochists, and there is contrived emotional marketing... What kind of routine and background are behind the controversy?

1. Marketing that can trigger widespread discussion is the truly popular marketing

Hegel said: Everything is contradictory in itself. Contradiction is also the most direct expression of dramatic conflict and thus drives the drama to its climax. From the perspective of communication, China Merchants Bank's scrambled eggs with tomatoes was undoubtedly a success. It successfully provoked public discussion. Whether it was portal media such as NetEase and Tencent, or social media such as WeChat and Weibo, professional technology platforms such as Huxiu and 36kr , or self-media such as 007 in the public relations industry, they were all discussing the marketing from different angles. Whether it was positive or negative discussion, it was essentially a display of China Merchants Bank's brand. More importantly, the fierce conflict of ideas between the positive and negative sides allowed the marketing to spread in a chain again, allowing more users to watch the video and then join public opinion to become a part of the marketing. This is the most difficult part of marketing.

For marketing, the most feared thing is not negative voices, but that no one discusses it at all. No one discusses it means that the marketing insights have not touched the hearts of users at all. Such marketing projects need to consume a lot of PR resources and channels for public discussion. Even if there is cost investment, it is nothing more than self-entertainment marketing and it is difficult to become a truly influential event.

Therefore, no matter it is 4A or enterprise, the most basic insight in event marketing is to find social phenomena and visualize them, because social phenomena themselves have an excellent mass base, and using this as an insight itself brings a discussion effect. This is why the family relationship of scrambled eggs with tomatoes and the emotional effect of escaping from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou can quickly get the response of the majority of Internet users. For brands, event marketing requires a big heart and the ability to accept a certain degree of negative voices. If you want to 100% guide public opinion in a positive direction, it is doomed to be a failed project. However, if you embed certain conflicts in advance while maintaining a positive outlook on life, it will be of great benefit to marketing. After all, the "pregnant woman effect" means that everyone will only see what they want to see, and no content can satisfy everyone.

2. It is extremely difficult to achieve both communication and branding, and marketing must break away from delusions

For marketers , at the beginning of a project, they will face three soul-searching questions: Will it be a hit? Is it effective? Can it be cheaper? After the project is launched, three new questions will arise: What is the relationship with the brand? Can it bring results? Can it be transmitted by itself? The three soul-searching questions before and after a project has become a nightmare for almost all marketers.

The biggest problem with the CMB and scrambled eggs with tomatoes incident is indeed that the two are completely unrelated. Adding most of the products at the end of the video would be very discordant, including CMB's credit cards. Unless you watch the entire video, you will have no access to any information about CMB. This is exactly the same as the previous criticism of fleeing from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. This is also a problem that plagues almost all marketers and advertisers: if you want to spread the brand, you must control the brand display mode; if the brand is too strong and the project is displayed too early, it will be difficult to spread. Indeed, the entire scrambled eggs with tomatoes marketing has nothing to do with China Merchants Bank in the video itself, so it is justified to be criticized. The public has sharp eyes, but the marketing is not that bad.

From the perspective of communication, if China Merchants Bank only uses the short video model for marketing, it will undoubtedly be a great failure. No matter how successful the event communication is, if it has nothing to do with the company, it is equal to failure. Communication cannot bring any attention or memory to an unrelated brand.

But the reason why the author says that China Merchants Bank is not that bad is that in terms of communication media, the release channel of the video itself has become a link to strengthen the connection between China Merchants Bank and marketing events. The author only received video dissemination through two channels on WeChat. One was the CMB Micro Magazine official account , and the other was the CMB Moments advertisement H5 about two hours later. Both pages can clearly expose the brand information of CMB, which can strengthen the association between the brand and the event to a certain extent. If creativity is not enough, using other channels can be regarded as a compromise solution.

Whether it is the scrambled eggs with tomatoes that has swept the screen this time, or the previous book-throwing campaign, the brand association of escaping from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou is extremely weak. This is a common problem in this type of event marketing. However, it must be said that it may be precisely because of the weak brand reflection that caused the event itself to be widely spread. After all, young users' advertising threshold is getting lower and lower, and it is becoming more and more unbearable. When they see inappropriate brand exposure, they will leave immediately. Even if they eventually finish reading the content, it will have a serious impact on subsequent sharing. Apart from the marketing circle, no users are interested in marketing creativity itself. Users only care about the content itself, while the brand has a strong interference with the content itself. The two are mutually exclusive, so 4A and enterprises are fighting wits and courage on the two different demands of event marketing communication breadth and brand expression. 4A advocates weakening brand expression for the sake of communication, while enterprises advocate strong implantation for the sake of brand implantation. The two are always seeking a dynamic balance. But decades of experience of 4A and enterprises tell us that communication and implantation depth are not quite unified, and a trade-off must be made. In order to achieve wider communication, the depth of brand implantation must be sacrificed, and in order to achieve depth of brand implantation, the brand must be weakened. So how do we balance these two goals? Yang Yexin, co-founder of Tianyukong, proposed a methodology that may be used as a reference (roughly): Marketing requires the breakdown of goals, and each different stage requires different goals, but not every stage is suitable for or requires brand implantation. Corporate marketing is a funnel, harvesting or more suitable at the back end of the event.

3. Marketing needs to grab user attention. Marketing’s competitors are all the content that attracts user attention.

In the current era of information fragmentation, user attention has become the most scarce resource. In a sense, whether it is marketing, variety shows, or celebrities themselves, they all exist to grab user attention. Only in this way can they gain the favor of users and then realize the chain dissemination of content. The same is true for advertising. Advertising itself is a way to grab user attention. The result is that the competitor of advertising is not actually other advertisements, but all factors that may attract user attention. Only when it can maximize the PK of other products that divert user attention at a specific point in time of dissemination can advertising be successful. This is a huge challenge for advertising. Users themselves like content rather than advertising, so advertising must first turn itself into content or combine advertising and content in some special way before it can PK other content and gain wide dissemination. Scrambled Eggs with Tomato uses video content to stimulate users' family affection, Escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou uses text as a medium to tease users' fragile nerves, and NetEase Cloud Music Subway Train organically combines replies and advertisements to achieve unique content-based advertising, which have all been widely disseminated. But the pessimistic thing is that for most corporate marketing, many companies’ marketing cannot even compete with other advertisements, and cannot stand out in the advertising industry, let alone compete with content for user attention.

4. Marketing that goes viral is rare, so playing it safe is equally effective

Tens of thousands of advertisements, hundreds of variety shows, and thousands of movies are produced every year, but only a handful of them can really dominate the screen. For most marketing, it is unlikely to stand out. Even with the same marketing, the same brand and creative company, it is difficult to produce hot products continuously. Therefore, although there are routines for dominating the screen, the results are still highly uncertain. It is almost an impossible task to hope to dominate the screen with a project. Therefore, for brands, it is better to base themselves on the current situation, convey the brand's appeal clearly, and take steady steps to make it more replicable and feasible. "To buy and sell used cars , of course, go to Guazi" and "Charge for five minutes and talk for two hours" continuous advertising bombardment has also achieved excellent results, and the results are more controllable.

Since ancient times, deep affection cannot be retained, and people’s hearts are always won by tricks. There are always negative voices behind the screen-sweeping marketing cases (even for charity). The controversies have triggered larger-scale discussions, forming two very different camps. But marketing is marketing, and most marketing cannot become works of art, are not worth in-depth discussion, and cannot withstand discussion at all. For marketers, in event marketing, only by grasping the routines and stirring people's hearts can they create their own marketing cases.