How to transform your advertising from dissemination to “broadcasting”?

Recently, I took out Teacher Hua Shan’s "Super Symbols are Super Creativity" and read it again. I have to say that these two paragraphs in the book are really more interesting the more I read them!

The essence of communication is not "communication" but "broadcasting". We need to mobilize consumers to spread the word for us.

The brand super discourse is not a sentence I say to consumers, but a sentence designed for consumers to pass on to their relatives and friends. An advertising slogan is not something I say, but something designed for the consumer to say.

Yes, the main battlefield of marketing has never been on the screen, on posters or in magazines, but in the scenes of our daily communication with others.

In fact, almost all successful marketing activities are always completed by consumers, and advertising only serves as a trigger. Think about it, any product you consume, whether it is clothing, beverages, cosmetics, electrical appliances or even brand circle public accounts , it is more because you see people around you using, recommending, discussing and sharing it, rather than advertising.

Therefore, the focus of advertising is not on "broadcasting" but on "transmission".

So, how can we turn communication into "dissemination"?

On this point, there are very few cases in Hua & Hua’s book, which is a pity, so I summarized them myself later.

I listed all the slogans I could think of that were widely circulated, and found that the reason why they were able to achieve the effect of "spreading" was because most of them met the following specific conditions. (PS, these conditions are not completely independent, they are often met at the same time)

1. Colloquial

This is the most basic and most important condition.

If you want consumers to recite your copy everywhere, you must first ensure that your copy is not written language, but spoken language. This is what we often call "down to earth" or "speaking the language of the people."

So how do you judge whether your copywriting speaks human language?

It's simple, take this sentence out of the office and say it to other people and see if you can say it.

For example, Audi ’s slogan “Breakthrough in technology, enlightening the future” is not human language. It only appears on posters or on podiums. No one will say such words in daily life.

If you don’t believe it, just imagine this: if your friend wants to buy a car, he asks you what brand of car he should buy? You told him to buy an Audi, he asked you why, and then you told him: "Breakthrough in technology, enlighten the future!"

What do you think your friends think of you? He will definitely think that you are a fool who can't speak human language.

Therefore, this sentence has no "spreading" effect.

In contrast, "driving a BMW and riding in a Mercedes-Benz" is very colloquial. Even if you haven't seen a formal advertisement, you can hear it everywhere:

“Why buy a BMW?”

"Driving a BMW or riding in a Mercedes, haven't you heard of that?"

2. Scenario-based

Asking consumers to recite your copy to others is essentially asking them to imitate and learn.

And what is learning?

In psychology, learning is defined as changing the probability of behavior in a specific scenario.

For example, when you are driving, as soon as you see a red light ahead, you know you have to stop - "the light turns red" is a specific scenario. Through daily observation and training, you will gradually increase the probability of "seeing a red light, releasing the accelerator, and stepping on the brakes", and you don't need to do this when the light is other colors. This is a kind of learning.

The same goes for advertising copy - it should be targeted at a specific, concrete scenario, such as a specific time, place, person, event, data, psychological state, etc.

This is equivalent to telling consumers: "I don't care about other scenarios, but as long as you are in this scenario, you should think of me!"

The most common example is Wang Laoji - when a few friends go to eat barbecue together, if one of them says he is afraid of getting a sore throat, the others will most likely say, "Are you afraid of getting a sore throat? Have a bottle of Wang Laoji!"

Here, "fear of getting angry" is the red light, and "thinking of Wanglaoji" is equivalent to stopping the car.

On the contrary, if the copy does not target the scene and is too broad (such as "XX, makes life better"), wanting consumers to help you spread the word is like asking others to stop regardless of whether the light is red or green, which is obviously difficult to do.

Even Tmall , which has over 10,000 categories, knows the importance of targeting the scene (specific time):

Of course, the case of Tianqi toothpaste in "Super Symbols Are Super Creativity" is a more creative one - it recreated a new scene: taking photos has nothing to do with toothpaste, but through a large number of advertisements, people learned to shout "Tianqi" to show their teeth when taking photos, thus forcing people to do free publicity for Tianqi when taking photos.

In addition, in addition to slogans, brand names can also gain more communication opportunities through scenario-based use.

Take Ele.me for example. When it’s time for lunch in the office, someone will be hungry, and then he or she may ask the person next to him or her: “Are you hungry? Let’s order food!”

There is also Qunar.com - people want to travel, but have not decided where to go, and they can't help but ask others: "Where should I go for travel?"

Even the name of the official account is the same.

For example, Li Jiaoshou did a very good job - the name of his public account is "Li Jiaoshou", and his articles are full of "Li Jiaoshou believes", "Someone asked Li Jiaoshou", etc. New readers are easily attracted to his public account.

In this regard, I have to admit that my official account has not been done well - although the name "Brand Circle" can express the theme - it is related to the brand, but it is difficult to integrate into the context of the article... (Well, maybe I should think of a new name)

3. Derived from idioms

Another great way to get consumers to memorize your copy is to incorporate idioms (fixed phrases that people often use) into your ads.

Common idioms include: lyrics, proverbs, idioms, aphorisms, sayings, poems and two-part allegorical sayings, etc.

The example in Hua & Hua's book is "I love Beijing, 50 kilometers south of Tiananmen Square" - turning lyrics that everyone is familiar with into an advertising slogan.

Similar slogans include Toyota's "There must be a road before a car reaches a mountain, and where there is a road there must be a Toyota car", and Noah's Ark's "There is a path to the mountain of books through diligence, and there is no end to the sea of ​​learning through Noah's Ark" - turning familiar proverbs into advertising slogans.

Transforming idioms into advertisements is equivalent to letting advertisements hitch a ride to people’s minds - both the memory cost and the dissemination cost are very low.

Of course, the same goes for brand names. For example, NetEase Yanxuan ’s “Black Pineapple” is derived from the homonym of “Like You” in the Cantonese song “Like You”.

It should be pointed out that: although people may not necessarily say your slogan or brand name exactly because they know this "idiom", it can also serve as a good reminder - when people see "There is a path to the mountain of books, and diligence is the way", they will think of Noah's Ark (teachers promote Noah's Ark); when people hear the Cantonese version of "I Like You", they will think of NetEase Yanxuan's black pineapple. (Deng Ziqi promotes Black Pineapple)

4. Easy to adapt

I believe you must have heard people around you say something like this:

Walk for five minutes and sweat for two hours;

Study for five minutes and sleep for two hours;

Five minutes by bus, two hours waiting...

Yes, these words are adapted from OPPO's "5 minutes of charging, 2 hours of talk time".

Although the person who said these words did not directly advertise for OPPO, when you hear these words, you will immediately think of OPPO; or when you see an OPPO advertisement next time, you will pay more attention to it, which is also a very good effect.

So why is this phrase so popular?

The reason is simple. In addition to a large amount of advertising , what is more important is that it has the potential for UGC - consumers can replace part of the content in the copy to express what they want to express - XX five minutes, XX two hours.

This is also a form of interaction in essence, or in other words, "consumers feel involved."

Similar to this is Dove 's "On rainy days, music and chocolate go better together", and consumers can also modify it themselves - on rainy days, durian and your feet go better together; on rainy days, weekends and overtime work go better together, etc...

Including Kugou Music’s recent “Nothing to say, just a lot of songs”, it actually has this potential.

Other brands can interact with Kugou on Weibo to spread this message further:

Catering brand: Nothing to say, just lots of meat;

Financial brands: nothing to say, just lots of money;

Real estate brand: nothing to say, just a lot of buildings;

A fruit tea shop: Nothing to say, just a lot of people...

Of course, you may ask: "Actually, every slogan can be transformed, so why haven't they become popular?"

The reason lies in the “difficulty of transformation” - in the above examples, as long as people replace one or two independent words in the copy, they can generate a sentence with a completely different meaning.

Other advertising slogans include "When you are tired and sleepy, drink Red Bull", "Hui Ren kidney treasure is good for him and me", "Life is better with KFC ", "Use your brain regularly and drink 6 walnuts more", etc.

When they are modified, it is either difficult to break away from the original context and meaning (I am tired and sleepy, drink XX, or what to drink); or too many words need to be changed, so that the structure of the whole sentence becomes unclear (X X, drink XX, no one knows this sentence); or it is necessary to consider rhyme, which is too high a threshold...

Therefore, if you want consumers to spread your "adapted copy", you have to reduce the difficulty of modifying the copy - just change one or two words, without destroying the original structure, to express a completely different meaning.

Of course, the specific effect of this method, in addition to the copy itself, is also closely related to the following two factors:

1) Necessary delivery volume

If you want consumers to be willing to adapt your slogan, you must first make them think that "everyone around them knows this slogan." Otherwise, even if they tell others about it, they won't get their point and it won't have much effect.

2) High emotional arousal

If an advertisement can produce a high level of emotional arousal, people will be more willing to share the information in the advertisement. (including adaptation)

The so-called high emotional arousal means that after people see this advertisement, they will feel happy, awe, excitement, surprise, anger, etc. Under these emotions, people's willingness to share will be stronger than usual.

On the contrary, if the emotional arousal is low (such as satisfaction, sadness, shame, etc.), people are less willing to share and prefer more low-key behaviors, such as being alone.

This is why most of the advertisements that are spread by word of mouth will have the following features: exaggerated movements/exaggerated expressions/exaggerated dubbing/emotive background music/bright background colors, etc. - all to evoke a high-profile emotion.

Including Hengyuanxiang’s twelve zodiac advertisement, the reason why it was talked about everywhere was because it evoked people’s "anger".

5. Generalization

If your slogan or brand name is something people often say in their daily lives, or has multiple meanings, it can also achieve the effect of "spreading".

For example, Adidas 's "Nothing is impossible", Gilead's "A man's world", Rejoice's "Just so confident", etc., these are things people say frequently.

This is even more true for brand names, such as Apple, Xiaomi, Hammer, Ford, Zhonghua, Volkswagen, Geely, Jiaogeya, etc. These names all have multiple meanings - apple not only refers to the company, it is also a very common fruit.

Of course, adopting this approach usually requires a prerequisite - the brand has a story. Because this name probably doesn't sound very relevant to your business, you need to find a way to explain it.

Why is Apple named "Apple"? One of the answers is: because Apple represents a spirit. Adam, Newton, and Turing all changed their destinies because of Apple. They are all unique people who dare to break the rules, and Apple also has this characteristic.

Why is Smartisan Technology named “Smartisan”? Because someone used to laugh at Luo Yonghao : "Make a Hammer phone "...

Why is Ford called "Ford"? Because its founder, Henry Ford, was (one of) the inventors of the automobile .

Why is "Call a Duck" called "Call a Duck"? Because this name is topical and has the ability to spread, and its former founder is known as the "first person to name the Internet" - so this name has more "Internet" flavor.

6. Other factors

Of course, in addition to the cases mentioned above, there are many slogans in life that are passed on by word of mouth.

For example, "Washing is healthier", "I feel my body is hollowed out", "Which company has the best excavator technology", "My mother no longer has to worry about my studies", etc.

However, the reason why they can produce such effects is more due to their industry characteristics and advertising character images, rather than the copy itself, so they do not have a high reference value (in this article).

In addition, this article mainly discusses slogans and brand names, but there are actually more things that people can pass on by word of mouth.

For example, Haidilao ’s abnormal service is based on the service perspective - making the service a story passed down by word of mouth.

For example, the sharp edges of the Hammer phone are designed from the product's perspective - making the product itself a hot topic. (Related reading: "What are the characteristics of products that can be sold without advertising?")

In short, anything related to the brand can become content for communication.

As for "communication", the same old saying applies - the essence of communication is not "communication" but "broadcasting". We need to mobilize consumers to spread the word for us.