After studying ofo's actions for nearly half a year, I discovered these 4 interesting truths

Since shared bicycles officially entered the public eye in 2016, various combinations of "rainbow bicycles" such as ofo, Mobike , and Bluegogo have spread across the country, and the competition between the various bicycles can be described as fierce and full of smoke.

Ofo has been making continuous external moves in the first half of this year, from accumulating financing to holding red envelope battles , and then to its recent cooperation with the Minions . Its performance has always attracted much attention from the industry and users. Therefore, whether in brand marketing or event operation , the logic behind ofo's marketing activities is worth exploring .

1. Free riding promotion , grasp the user psychology

Ofo initially focused on on-campus cycling, but later expanded beyond campus to face the market, and its promotion methods have also been constantly changing. Taking Beijing as an example, in addition to placing bicycles in densely populated areas, in order to facilitate users to travel from home to subway entrances and from subway entrances to companies, ofo has launched activities in different time periods, such as "Free Rides on Mondays", "Free Rides on Weekends", and "Free Rides on Haze Days" . These include free rides during the Two Sessions and the Belt and Road Summit, as well as "red envelope bikes", "free rides for the college entrance examination" and the recent "ofo monthly card" activities. Some users even reported that there are so many free ride activities that they no longer need to recharge the platform.

It can be said that a subsidy war for ofo has begun. Similar to Didi 's early model, both capture the user's habitual desire to obtain benefits and subsidies. Through these activities, on the one hand, it stimulates user usage and consumption to increase platform activity, and on the other hand, it spreads social information and acquires new users through users sharing coupons.

2. Brand + product upgrade to form differentiated competition

At the end of April this year, ofo announced Lu Han as its brand spokesperson, positioning the brand users as healthy, sunny and positive young people. In May, ofo changed its brand name from "ofo shared bicycles" to " ofo little yellow bikes " . At the same time, it comprehensively upgraded its brand elements in terms of logo, slogan, domain name, etc., and incorporated the concept of "light" into the brand, advocating a relaxed and comfortable riding experience.

In the Running Man episode aired on June 2, eight members including Lu Han appeared on the show riding different models of ofo yellow bikes, successfully catching the attention of audiences across the country. As soon as ofo's yellow bikes appeared, discussions about ofo and "Running Man" appeared in large numbers on social platforms, and the reading volume of the Weibo topic "ofo's yellow bikes join the show" quickly exceeded 100 million.

At the same time, ofo has also come up with a lot of new ideas in product design . Different models such as "muscle car", " princess car ", and "special-shaped car" bring users a brand new experience. On the road of product innovation, user experience is the core of the product. The product design of ofo's yellow bikes is closely centered around brand elements and positioning. Its co-founder Zhang Siding revealed that more than 15 models have been designed and produced.

It is not difficult to find that through the continuous upgrading of brand image and product design, ofo's core competitiveness has become increasingly mature. Among the colorful shared bicycles, technological barriers no longer exist; what matters is brand marketing and operating models. Ofo positioned its brand image at young people, and implanted "light" and "little yellow bike" into its brand image . It also updated product design based on user experience. The user interaction and sense of participation generated by this enabled ofo to form differentiated competition with other bicycles in a short period of time.

3. Online + offline cross-industry resource cooperation to master scenario-based marketing

In terms of cross-industry resource cooperation, ofo also takes various aspects into consideration, including products, users, and brands.

01. Ant Financial

Through cooperation with Ant Financial, ofo users with a credit score of over 650 points can activate the "credit unlocking" function in five cities, including Hangzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xiamen and Shenzhen, which means unlocking the shared bikes without a deposit. At the same time, ofo has also customized a credit scoring mechanism for users. If users engage in hit-and-run or illegal parking, their credit points will be cleared and they will not be able to use the bikes.

02. Minions Collaboration

The cross-border collaborative marketing campaign with the Minions has been attracting everyone's attention throughout July . If you ride the Minions version of ofo on the street, you will surely get a lot of attention. Watching the entire marketing campaign, its online and offline cross-industry cooperation reflects certain rules and logic.

Online preheating, creating suspense

Nan Nan, vice president of marketing of ofo, revealed that the company had been communicating with Universal Pictures about the cooperation with Minions since December last year. It can be seen that the preparation period for this event is very long. On June 28, ofo's official Weibo account released the topic "We are yellow together" , and released posters with the same theme together with blue Vs such as iQiyi , Wahaha, and Xiaokaxiu to warm up the event. At the same time, well-known bloggers made guesses under the topic and created suspense. ofo started joint marketing with major blue Vs, self-media , etc. As of now, the reading volume of this topic has exceeded 300 million.

On June 30, ofo’s official Weibo account revealed the answer and released news about the “Minions Factory” and H5 to spread in WeChat Moments , as well as a “newspaper” with Minions headlines to spark interesting dissemination among users.

Offline deployment of vehicles, truck collection activities to attract traffic to the App

On June 30th, in addition to revealing the answer online and notifying that vehicles would be deployed offline for warm-up, 50,000 cute big-eyed little yellow cars were deployed offline and appeared on the streets. At the same time, at the premiere of "The Super Dad 3", singer Da Zhangwei, who dubbed the characters in the movie , entered the scene on a cute little yellow bike with big eyes . It was unveiled at the same time as the premiere of the movie, attracting the attention of the audience and fans.

On July 3, through the offline exposure of the big-eyed cute little yellow car, users were directed to download the new Minions version of the App online. During the event period from July 7th to July 14th, the ofo card collection activity will be promoted in all aspects through various forms such as online advertising and offline subway advertising. If you collect all the cards, you can get a cash red envelope of 77.77 yuan .

Topic amplification, network-wide promotion to trigger topic

During the event, ofo continued to amplify the topic. Online, it involves big Weibo influencers , as well as spokesperson Lu Han’s own traffic promotion . It also includes self-media promotion , WeChat Moments advertising , media-related reports, and card collection guides. Offline promotion includes the launch of the cute little yellow bike and poster publicity, etc. Through online + offline full-network promotion methods, the event was successfully launched and attracted active participation from new and old users.

03. Star crossover concert

At the same time, ofo also hosted the "Qing Fa Beijing Concert" at the Workers' Stadium on July 3, combining shared themes with music to achieve cross-border interaction. On the day of the concert, many singers including Stefanie Sun, Cyndi Wang, Angela Chang, and Penny Tai came to support the concert, using music to build a bridge of communication with users. At the concert, many fans rode ofo's yellow bikes, which coincided with ofo's marketing purpose.

In general, the cross-border cooperation between ofo and the Minions, whether it starts from the fact that their colors are both very "yellow" or from their young and enthusiastic brand positioning and fancy marketing methods, the two just meet the right time, place and people . Therefore, ofo's marketing campaign can be said to be very successful.

4. Cleverly use charity to resonate with users and enhance brand influence

Like WeChat 's WeChat Sports step donation and Alipay 's Ant Forest tree planting charity, ofo also attaches equal importance to charity by leveraging the low-carbon and environmentally friendly advantages of bicycles. On May 17, ofo and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) officially announced the launch of the "One Kilometer Plan" on a global scale. Ofo has designated the 17th of every month as the "activity day" for its "One Kilometer Plan", and the proceeds from that day will be donated to environmental education, urban sustainability, and solutions to issues related to climate change. At the same time, on June 5, World Environment Day, Huang Xiaoming appeared on the streets riding ofo and personally set an example, leading the whole nation to green travel.

It can be said that there are many companies that enhance their brand reputation and influence through charity. Ofo started with the low-carbon travel method of bicycles , made full use of public welfare marketing strategies, established its good social image, and rapidly enhanced its brand influence.

Finally, in recent data reports , reports from data monitoring agencies such as iResearch, QuestMobile, and Trustdata all show that ofo ranks first in weekly usage frequency, active users, new users, and other data . Judging from ofo's frequent efforts in the past six months, these data fully affirm its operations and marketing activities in the first half of the year. Similarly, its performance in the second half of the year may be more worth looking forward to.