"Strange Talk": How to play "strange" entertainment marketing with brands

When " The Rap of China " reached its fourth season, its sponsors included Xiaomi mobile phones, Chunzhen yogurt, Head & Shoulders, Xianyu APP, and Mirinda fruit soda. This time, "The Rap of China" was just as creative. Let's take a look at how "The Rap of China" and the brands are working together to create "weird" entertainment marketing.

In recent years, the Internet has had a huge impact on traditional media, with user habits shifting and excellent content production teams flocking to Internet platforms. For example, Ma Dong and "The Debaters", the representative of this online variety show, has become a hot topic of all kinds. The sponsorship amounted to 50 million in the first season, over 100 million in the second season, over 300 million in the third season, and now to nearly 400 million in the fourth season. It can be seen that the money-making ability of an online variety show is extraordinary.

Why did so many sponsors choose "The Debaters"?

1. Traffic: "The Debaters" has been loved by netizens since its broadcast and has attracted a lot of attention. Naturally, its number of views is also far ahead. As of the third season, the total number of views has exceeded 1.7 billion.
2. Content: Debate topics are combined with current hot topics, such as the previous "Is this a society that values ​​appearance?" and the fourth season "The air quality in the city where I work is getting worse and worse, should I leave it?", "If you can customize a perfect life for your child with one click, would you do it?", "Is it really a "virtue" to not cause trouble to others?", etc.
3. Characters: From Ma Dong and Cai Kangyong to the fourth season host He Jiong, mentors Luo Zhenyu and Zhang Quanling, as well as debaters Ma Weiwei, Yan Rujing, Huang Zhizhong, Xiao Xiao, etc., as well as stars such as Xu Jinglei, Song Jia, Huang Lei, and Zhao Youting, they are all superstars with their own fans, and the advertising effect can be imagined.

When "The Rap of China" reached its fourth season, its sponsors included Xiaomi mobile phones, Chunzhen yogurt, Head & Shoulders, Xianyu APP, and Mirinda fruit soda. This time, "The Rap of China" was just as creative. Let's take a look at how "The Rap of China" and the brands are working together to create "weird" entertainment marketing.

1. Brainwashing

Voice-over product placement is a common method in TV programs and online variety shows. However, since the launch of "The Debaters", voice-over product placement has reached a new level.

Brainwashing in the fourth season of "Strange Talk":

• Xiaomi mobile phone: "The Xiaomi mobile phone with high-tech camera that is used for making things happen";
• Pure Zhen Yogurt: "The truth comes out after milk";
• Head & Shoulders: "Don't let your dandruff stay with me overnight";
• Xianyu APP: “Fuck, this can also be sold”;
• Mirinda fruit soda: "If you don't play big enough, don't drink Mirinda."

2. Brand founders participate in the program

In the fourth season of "The Rap of China" updated on May 19 and 20, Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi, the exclusive title sponsor, became the guest of honor. The show was even more entertaining with magical ghost videos and He Jiong calling for his godfather to save the day... This is the first time in the history of online variety shows that a sponsor's boss was invited to the show to participate in the full discussion.

During the warm-up phase, the program team of "The Rap of China" released viral materials around Lei Jun's English meme "RU OK" and released a Weibo warm-up event in advance, inviting fans to translate the phrase "Take it out and make trouble". The content of this episode reappears Lei Jun's side as a soul singer on Bilibili, and a ghost version of minitalk introduces Xiaomi's own products. Ma Dong and debater Chen Ming embed Xiaomi's brand spirit of insisting on making good products into their arguments throughout the whole process. Lei Jun frequently made famous quotes such as "Mobile phones are industrial products, and life is a work of art" during the show.

3. Interesting Interaction

When brand owners look at entertainment marketing, they don’t just look at the brand name, the frequency of product exposure, or how clever the content is implanted. If there are more interesting ways to interact with fans, then that will naturally be very attractive. "The Debaters" has many tricks in this regard.

1. Play H5

Xiaomi launched the "Xiaomi "U Can U Bibi" Fancy Advertising Competition, tell me your creativity and Ma Dong will read it to you!" Through H5 users can enter custom text, or select a template text, and then you can see Ma Dong in the video really reading it to you (through speech synthesis technology), and he can even mention his own name. It's amazing!

2. Play with products

There are many scenes in the program where products are cleverly implanted. For example, the mentors participating in the debate in the program use Xiaomi phones to show their sides throughout the program, and every time they raise a Xiaomi phone, it is to cause trouble.

Xiaomi uses its own media Weibo platform @小米手机, creates the "Xiaomi Weird Brain Research Institute" series of content, combines Xiaomi's black technology attributes, designs a brain-opening product around the debate topic of "奇葩说" every week, and explores black technology to the end.

There is also Chunzhen yogurt, which is drunk by the wonderful mentors and debaters throughout the show. It has become an inspiration tool in the debate arena and is deeply integrated with the wonderful talk scene.

3. Play with topics

In the interaction between the program and the brand, topic gameplay is closely related to fans and can easily trigger social sharing and create a sense of participation. For example, creative ideas like #奶后吐真言# exploded on social networks from within the program, and the topic with the same name on Weibo received 190 million reads.

Each issue releases a poster of the golden quote "Speak the Truth After Milking" and initiates a creative Weibo golden quote voting, attracting thousands of fans to participate in the voting and in-depth interaction, and unites 5 brand blue Vs to speak the truth after milking.

Based on the appeal of Chunzhen yogurt being "flavor-free", the Miwei program crew, in addition to advertising in various ways within the program, also customized and shot a creative and magical short film for Chunzhen, setting the creative story scene in the "My Fair Princess" that the post-90s audience grew up with. When the familiar plot was reversed by the popular and eccentric artist duo Xiao Xiao and Yan Rujing, the audience was brainwashed again by the sentence "The yogurt is well chosen, the emperor returns to the palace early, the yogurt has no flavors, the emperor is really happy". You can see this wonderful short film idea in the subsequent programs.

In addition, leveraging the internal topics of the sponsor has also greatly improved the activity of the product. For example, the Xianyu APP launched the "Xianyu Qi Pa Shuo", which is reflected in the interaction and team selection of the debate topics of Xianyu Qi Pa Shuo each time. Each issue has about 13,000 to 38,000 users voting and interacting, and there are no advertisements at all in all the comments (in the past, there were always advertising comments under Xianyu posts, but in each discussion of "Xianyu x Qi Pa Shuo"), and the content quality is very high. It can be seen that this combination makes users very enthusiastic to participate and express their opinions, which is the biggest difference from the past.

4. Play with content

In terms of brand and program cooperation, in addition to oral broadcasts and product exposure, whether the integration with the plot is clever and interesting will make advertisers like it more. No wonder many netizens think that "The Debaters" has taken advertising to another level.

For example, the program team adapted the short film of Borrowing Arrows from the Straw Boat and made a clever transition to "it turns out that the 100,000 arrows were bought from the Xianyu APP." Such nonsensical content is closely related to the brand appeal.

The content setting is also closely related to the brand. For example, in one issue, when you thought it was just a small survey on "What do you want to bring when traveling with your loved one", it led to an activity where you could get "money" by scanning the Head & Shoulders logo with Alipay. At the end, Ma Dong personally guaranteed that if you didn't have money, you could ask him. This strong impact aroused consumers' desire to try it.

Not only did it conceal the relationship between men and women that Head & Shoulders wanted to express, it also directly presented the marketing campaign to the audience. At the same time, there was also a magical short film starring the eccentric debater Ali, which further deepened the audience's impression of the Head & Shoulders brand and this marketing campaign.

Mirinda has cooperated with the largest gaming platform in the country. After purchasing the product, consumers only need to scan the QR code in the bottle cap to win a prize and receive a game gift package from Mirinda. In line with the appeal of "open the lid to get prizes", "The Debaters" produced a magical short film about Prime Minister Turtle for Mirinda. When the Dragon King shouted "open the lid to get prizes", the shrimp soldiers and crab generals were eager to open the lid of Prime Minister Turtle. In the end, it turned out that they were going to open the lid of Mirinda, and "open the lid to get prizes". The magical brainwashing of the short film is deeply in line with the propaganda appeal of Mirinda's "Open the lid and get a prize" campaign.

At the same time, in order to further deepen the audience's impression, in the next episode He Jiong asked the mentors and guests present, "What is the thing you have persisted in the longest?" When He Jiong himself answered that the thing he persisted in the longest was when he was young, Ma Dong said that the spokesperson for Mirinda has always been the youngest idol, and presented Mirinda with a golden tortoise shell with a "100 million" medal hidden inside the tortoise shell, cleverly following the "opening the lid" plot in the Prime Minister Turtle short film, and once again spreading Mirinda's "open the lid and get prizes" activity.

5. Play live broadcast

In addition to the interactions within the show, the brand owner has signed contracts with some eccentric artists and used live streaming during the brand marketing activities. On April 26, Head & Shoulders live streamed a "Weird Bedside Chat" on Tmall Supermarket. The format of four eccentric artists live streaming in bed for the first time also attracted many netizens to watch. The number of views of related topics on Weibo on that day reached 56 million, making it the brand with the highest volume on Weibo that day.

On May 11, Head & Shoulders also conducted a live broadcast on JD Supermarket, inviting Ma Dong as the chief single-matching expert to launch the "Head & Shoulders Ma Dong Single-matching Hotline."

6. Play with peripherals

Xiaomi's brand cartoon character, the Mi Bunny doll, was the most active member in the audience. Not only did its costume change 72 times to match the show content, it also acted as the warm-up director, appearing on stage hand in hand with Lei Jun, and interacting with the show by holding up signs that read "Do something" and "RU OK", vividly interpreting the personality traits of an AB type Aries product manager. "Dongqimen", a self-media under Miwei Media, the producer of "The Debaters", published a more in-depth article to interpret the story behind Mi Rabbit. In the post-production packaging, a full set of Mi Rabbit emoticons will be used to match the program content.

4. Artist endorsement

An IP like "The Debaters" is not only an eye-catching program itself, the debaters trained in the program have also become the choice of brand owners for endorsements. For example, Head & Shoulders signed wonderful artists Ali, Ma Weiwei, Fan Tiantian, etc., and Ma Dong "made things happen" in the advertising film for Xiaomi. During the Mi Fans Festival, Xiaomi launched a pre-heating TVC advertisement endorsed by five veteran wonderful artists including Ma Weiwei and Yan Rujing.

Head & Shoulders' Weird Artist Advertisement "Weird Artists vs. MiTu: The Secret That Cannot Be Told"

5. E-commerce traffic diversion

In the episode of the program "Is it a virtue not to cause trouble to others?" broadcast on April 1, the host He Jiong preheated the content of the Mi Fan Festival promotion and used flowery words to guide fans to log in to the Xiaomi Mall to buy the products, and distributed an exclusive red envelope of 100 million yuan to the audience of "U Can U Bibi". At the same time, @奇葩说official Weibo reposted and exposed the Mi Fan Festival TVC. At the same time, the title of each program is "Xiaomi Mall" to attract traffic, and ten Xiaomi mobile phones will be given away in each episode.

Xiaomi's Mi Fan Festival also integrated with "The Debaters" to launch marketing activities. At the same time, Head & Shoulders invited the "The Debaters" team to participate in live broadcasts on Tmall and JD.com to promote product sales.

In addition, in each episode, in addition to awarding the Chunzhen scholarship to the winning party, users are encouraged to follow @蒙牛纯贞 in each episode to grab 100,000 Chunzhen Tmall Supermarket coupons.

After watching "The Debaters", I found that this is actually a program that can really "sell goods". In addition to Xiaomi and Head & Shoulders, for example, when everyone was enthusiastically discussing "What strange things do you have at home", Ma Dong revealed that long johns were a big problem for him. Until he encountered the Xianyu APP, no matter how difficult the things were, they could be dealt with on the Xianyu APP. Netizens and guests on the scene were tricked by Ma Dong again. At the same time, Ma Dong’s autumn trousers were really put up for sale on Xianyu, extending from the show to the Xianyu APP platform outside the show. It not only fully interpreted “Wow, this can also be sold”, but also converted fans of "The Rap of China" into potential users of Xianyu.

6. We-media Marketing

"Dongqimen" is a new media IP of Miwei Media, the producer of "The Rap of China". The name comes from the birthplace of "The Rap of China", "Dongqimen of Chaoyang Park". Within a month of deciding to commercialize this WeChat public account, they also completed a series of preparatory work such as investment strategy and brand locking, until they welcomed their first "old" friend - Xiaomi mobile phone.

From "The U Can U Bibi Conference" to the fourth season of "The U Can Bibi Talk", Xiaomi mobile phone can be said to have carried out its stubborn character of "making trouble" to the end. In the public eye, they are no longer a simple mobile phone brand "born for enthusiasts". "Xiaomi" has become a culture and has an unshakable leadership position in the hearts of Mi fans. Dongqimen uses its diverse values ​​to guide readers to accept new things with a positive attitude. In the hearts of fans of "The Rap of China", Dongqimen is like a tree hole, through which they feel resonance and follow it fanatically. On this point, Xiaomi and Dongqimen coincide with each other.

What has Xiaomi mobile phone and Dongqimen done?

Soft: From continuous penetration to ultimate outbreak, the release of a new machine every month is what Xiaomi has always insisted on. On May 25, the day when Xiaomi MAX2 is launched, Dongqimen will launch a content carnival of "nothing big is not joyous". But this is not sudden for readers, because before this, we and Xiaomi had carefully laid a mysterious foreshadowing of big things.

An online variety show that goes from content to brand entertainment marketing, with content as the core, fun as the "stimulant", and social interaction as the "fermenting powder". The debate topics in each season and each episode, as well as the wonderful viewpoints of the debaters, resonate with many people. The guests' appropriate comments and placements make "The Rap of China" show its unique "Rap of China mode"!

Some people may ask what is so good about the entertainment marketing of "The Debaters"?

1. Interesting: The implanted brand scenes are in line with the brand characteristics and target audience, and the language is humorous and interesting, so you will find it funny even if you just watch the advertisement.
2. Youpin: Through videos, subtitles, oral broadcasts, scenes, and various interactive methods outside the program, the quality and taste of the brand's display are excellent.

Think about it, in the content marketing over the years, there was an embedded advertisement in a TV series, in which a character in the play was forced to go to the hospital due to infertility, and another character also went to the same infertility hospital for a physical examination, and even the emergency rescue in the play was still in the infertility hospital. This kind of forced implantation that destroys the plot seems a bit low, and some people may feel helpless, but strong content and clever implantation do require thought.

The producer of "The Rap of China" is Miwei Media, which has made great efforts in program production and entertainment marketing. The "weird" entertainment marketing method of "The Rap of China" is worth everyone's thinking and learning!

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising

The author of this article @魏家东 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! Site Map