The brand marketing is amazing, even if it’s a spoof, it can play with emotions!

This year, emoticons and mourning culture represented by mourning have emerged in an endless stream. Whether it is the popularity of the sad frog, or the catchphrases such as "aimless decadence", "not wanting to do anything", and "lying dead until death", they all illustrate the popularity of mourning culture. It also reflects the current state of life in society where people like to entertain themselves, do not like socializing , and like to entertain themselves in their own world.

This is a common social psychology in society, and behind the ridicule, it actually reflects the venting and helplessness of young people today who are under too much pressure in work and life. At the same time, because our lives are occupied by social activities and work, we neglect our friends and real social life, and gradually become accustomed to entertaining ourselves.

Recently, a game brand focusing on chess and cards - Tongchengyou saw through this and planned a theme marketing campaign of "It's more fun to play together" - not only released a brand TVC that was spoof but full of emotion, but also cooperated with more than 50 blue Vs to launch more thoughtful scene posters, which really created a wave of popularity on Weibo and WeChat . Today, I will review this case and talk about the current culture of mourning.

Review: Using a point to spread information, with various ways of communication and a rhythm that is closely linked

This project of Tongchengyou is quite interesting. It is a combination of “brand TVC” + “brand day” promotion . In fact, it is somewhat difficult in terms of planning and execution. But after looking at the whole case, I found that Tongchengyou did a pretty good job.

First, we captured the common psychology of the target group, the post-80s and post-90s young people - sadness; second, based on this social sentiment, we determined the "breakthrough" theme of "it's happier to play together"; finally, around the unified theme, we developed content that matched its tone, and selected corresponding "sea, land and air" channels to "encircle" the post-80s and post-90s young people.

Obviously, the same-city tour adopted a "point-to-surface" communication strategy, with a variety of forms and an interlocking rhythm.

1. Pre-heating: offline street interviews

In mid-August, Tongchengyou randomly interviewed "passers-by" in several different locations and scenes, and invited them to call their friends to play interactive games. The activity content was to invite at least one friend to form a team within the specified time to challenge the interactive game of "You gesture and I guess". If you can challenge 10 groups of words in 1 minute, you will be considered successful.

But surprisingly, on the one hand, few people invited their friends, and they said it was difficult to invite friends and their willingness to participate was not strong. On the other hand, although those strangers who invited their friends played reluctantly at the beginning, as the game progressed, the participants had a lot of fun and laughed a lot in the end.

After the experiment, Tongchengyou made a short video of the experimental process and sent it online for dissemination. The topic #It’s more fun to play together# was launched, which aroused heated discussions and triggered content explosion.

2. Ready to go: Blue V topic linkage

After the street interview, Tongchengyou immediately joined forces with nearly 50 Blue V companies to launch the topic #Play together to be happier#, using the popular slogan "It's better to share happiness with others than to enjoy it alone, and it's happier to play together" to call on you to play together. The topic quickly caused heated discussions on Weibo and occupied the top 1 of Sina Game Topic List on the same day.

3. Concentrated blasting: brand TVC exposure

After the collaboration, Tongchengyou released its big move and made a brand TVC that was a bit spoof and a bit dirty. Of course, this TVC still uses "It's more fun playing together" as its promotional keyword .

At the beginning of the TVC, the three protagonists are busy with their own things. The tattoo artist is smiling and enthusiastically tattooing a boss. The designer is being tortured by three bosses who have different opinions. The man in a suit is on a date with his girlfriend at a critical moment when he receives a mysterious invitation on his mobile phone and is suddenly pulled into an alternate dimension. After the familiar mahjong table and background music sound, the audience suddenly realizes that it is an invitation from their mutual friend to start a mahjong game.

Once this TVC was released on Sina Weibo , it was forwarded by many KOLs and quickly became popular on social media . At the same time, it was also shared by WeChat celebrity @冷笑话精选, and the article received over 100,000 views in less than an hour after it was published. At this point, the same-city tour project has achieved a closed-loop communication path from preheating to closing.

Thinking: "Making sense" does not necessarily rely on chicken soup, spoofs also contain value propositions

This year, many brands have been talking about their own value propositions, whether it is NetEase Cloud Music ’s slogan changed from “Hear the good times” to “The power of music”, or Ele.me ’s slogan changed from “Don’t call mom when you are hungry, call Ele.me” to “I want it when I am hungry”. In fact, both of them reflect the transformation from “practical value” to “value proposition”, which is also a transformation from a product to a brand.

As a game brand with a history of 13 years, Tongchengyou has become mature and stable both in terms of game products and users. At present, Tongchengyou has achieved a first-tier competitive position in the market in its advantageous markets: it has 580 terminal games independently developed, covering 25 provinces and more than 400 cities across the country, with 186 million registered users and more than 6 million monthly active users.

Such a brand actually needs to output its value proposition. Therefore, under such circumstances, Tongchengyou recently launched a brand TVC communication campaign. From a third-party perspective, Tongchengyou has been relatively successful and has successfully delivered its value proposition – “It’s more fun to play together” – and some of its methodologies are worth our consideration.

1. Insight into the present and call for rejection of “sorrow culture”

I believe that a brand’s value proposition should be a mental model proposition, that is, from the consumer’s perspective, the brand finds a unique position in their mind and highlights the brand’s “values”.

If local travel wants to convey its own value proposition, it should first understand the "pain points" in the minds of consumers. Obviously, the current popular "sorrowful culture" actually reflects a pain point of current consumers - sorrow.

Today's office workers are not only busy during working hours, but even their time outside of work is gradually encroached upon. There are various work groups, text message alerts that may ring at any time 24 hours a day, emails that need to be replied to in a timely manner... this invisible overtime makes office workers "under great pressure". This leads to a problem that many people are unwilling to contact colleagues, clients, etc. outside of work. However, because it is difficult to get together with acquaintances and friends in a foreign place, many people would rather choose to be alone, entertain themselves, watch TV series, play games, shop online, and start to avoid socializing.

However, this is not a correct and healthy way of life. Therefore, based on this insight, Tongchengyou combined the advantages of its own product "online + multi-person interaction" and launched the call of "If we can't get together offline, then play together online", and at the same time launched the brand TVC and slogan "It's more fun to play together" to introduce its own value proposition.

2. High-energy TVC, using spoofs to contrast sentiment

A lot of brand TVCs have been released intensively this year. Most companies’ brand TVCs express a feeling through positive words and stories. The advantage of this approach is that there is a basic score, because if you follow this idea, it won’t be too bad. After all, most people will pay for the feeling. However, because of this, users easily get bored, and it is difficult to truly get into the hearts of consumers and make them remember.

Therefore, this TVC of Tongchengyou goes the other way. It uses three spoof scenes at the beginning to show the story - a tattoo artist with half of his tattoo done, a handsome guy who has successfully flirted with a girl and is about to enjoy sex, and a designer who is tortured by his boss's nagging. At the same time, it sows a question - what would make you put down what you are doing without thinking and do it immediately without thinking? It was not until the last four people gathered around a mahjong table that the audience suddenly realized what was going on - it was an invitation from friends to travel to the same city. And with the final slogan "It's more fun playing together", the entire TVC is elevated to the emotional level.

On the surface, this is a brand TVC that is a bit spoof and a bit dirty, but it is precisely its spoof and dirtiness that make the final brand slogan "It's more fun to play together" more vivid and profound, allowing users to re-experience the original intention of the game - it's more fun to play with friends.

3. Model upgrade, multi-dimensional brand day creation

The traditional brand’s approach is a TVC and concentrated bombing by land, sea and air. With the advent of the new media era, especially Internet companies, many new models and new ways of playing have been opened up. "Brand Day" is a gameplay trend that is currently more recognized by everyone. Therefore, this time, Tongchengyou took advantage of the launch of the brand TVC to create a "Brand Day" communication, which was also the first "Brand Day" in the chess and card game industry.

From the review in the previous article, we can know that on the day of the City Travel Brand Day, in addition to promoting the brand TVC, nearly 50 Blue Vs were invited to work together to release a unified sentimental poster - "If we can't get together online, then play together offline", "Dad, the father and son duel at the card table, no need to wait for the reunion at the end of the year", "Old classmates, we parted in July, youth is over, the card game is over, but the feelings cannot end", "Brothers, it's hard to clink glasses across thousands of mountains and rivers, but we can play against each other across the screen."

These sentimental posters, through the Blue V linkage, helped the brand open up external channels, created momentum for the brand day in multiple dimensions, and further strengthened the value proposition of "It's more fun to play together." In fact, they did it. On that day, the Weibo post #Playing together will be more fun# ranked No. 1 on the game list and No. 62 on the overall Weibo list.

In summary, through the launch of this brand TVC and the creation of the brand day, Tongchengyou has output the value proposition it has always adhered to - it is more fun to play together, that is, the original essence of the game is to play with friends and relatives, experience the joy of playing together, and break the state of self-entertainment. In terms of communication, it also inspires us that emotions do not necessarily have to be expressed through shouting or sentimentality, spoof is also a way, and it may even be a bit fresh and unconventional.