How can a brand create a hit product?

01 Content drives traffic

The concept of "content is king" was proposed in the 1990s. Today, it is no longer just a slogan.

Traditional marketing relies more on traffic to promote brands, and content is secondary and subsidiary. As long as the brand can be exposed frequently and advertised extensively, consumers will become aware of the brand and ultimately make purchases.

Traditional super brands have always been typical representatives of the business model of "large-scale production + big brands + big media + big channels". Usually, super brands first clearly define their brands through market segmentation, then promote them through high exposure in mainstream media and celebrity endorsements, and finally achieve purchase conversion through entry, display and promotion in large channels.

With the advent of the Internet age, media forms have become completely fragmented, attention has become increasingly scarce, and what changes have taken place in the status of content?

Amidst massive and complex information, high-quality content becomes the key to grabbing users' attention. Content is becoming more and more important because only good content can maximize the value of traffic.

Without the support of high-quality content, traffic is just traffic, and its value is limited to exposure value and limited immediate conversion value. From the perspective of brand assets, traffic can only bring brand awareness, while content can give the brand personality, emotions and values.

02 Content connects users

In the modern era of media diversity, information explosion and abundant creativity, users are becoming increasingly demanding in terms of content. What consumers need is not a flood of homogeneous content, but original, high-quality and valuable content.

Good content deserves to be seen by more people.

Behind good content lies the collective wisdom of brand owners, agencies and self-media. These companies, brand owners and creative people who have invested their creativity, time and effort deserve to be seen.

As the main battlefield of content marketing, new media produces a large amount of high-quality marketing content every year. The Golden List Award came into being in this context. It is the first award in China that focuses on the selection of outstanding cases of new media social network content marketing, live streaming e-commerce and private domain operations, and is hosted by Xinbang.

After studying the 92 winning cases of this year's Golden List Awards, I found that the content marketing cases that people are willing to spread spontaneously have some common characteristics. I summarized three characteristics: good stories, strong connections and interactivity. These underlying commonalities are what truly connect brands and users.

The "Hello Pioneers" documentary series, produced by ThinkPad×New World, People's Daily and Weibo, tells the stories of Su Bingtian, the 100-meter sprinter who has entered the 10-second club seven times, Tao Yong, the protagonist of the Beijing Chaoyang Hospital doctor-beating incident, Zhang Wenhong, the anti-epidemic doctor, Song Yin, the female captain of the maritime rescue, Wang Shuang, who helped the Chinese women's football team get tickets to the Tokyo Olympics, and Ci Luo, who climbed to the summit of Mount Everest to remeasure the height. The stories of these six "ordinary heroes" reflect the brand spirit of ThinkPad: always support those pioneers of the times who lead mankind forward and solve the problems of the times, and use the stories of pioneers of the times to connect with users.

The documentary short film "Wuhan at Four in the Morning" by Xin Shi Xiang x Kuaishou records the people who bravely went against the flow to fight the epidemic from late at night to early in the morning during the most serious period of the epidemic in Wuhan. The camera is focused on ordinary people who are still working hard late at night to keep the city of Wuhan running, including delivery boys, sanitation workers, traffic police, security guards, convenience store clerks, volunteer drivers, emergency center operators... The memory of the fight against the epidemic is closely related to everyone. The courage, warmth and love of ordinary people on the front line of the fight against the epidemic are moving.

Nissin Cup Noodles×NetEase Cultural and Creative's "Not Everyday Noodle Plan" uses the "ritualistic" lifestyle of young people and the popular "blind box culture" as a breakthrough point, implants the instant noodle blind box product information into the content, and interacts with the target consumer groups. More than 200 users from platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and Bilibili spontaneously posted videos of the Cup Noodles unboxing.

Today's brand marketing needs to create topics through content, achieve interactive communication with users through emotional connections, and enter the hearts and social circles of consumers in order to ultimately stimulate consumers' interest and desire to buy.

03 Content builds brand

The success of a brand depends on consumers' perception of it.

As the media environment changes, consumer groups and user experience are also undergoing profound changes. Each generation has different requirements and aesthetics for products, and they seek different sense of identity or satisfaction in different consumption processes.

Faced with a new generation of consumers, brands need to transform from “product sellers” to “lifestyle leaders”, meet the diverse needs of consumers based on content value, and create different stages of content marketing: from the simplest functional use that meets the basic needs of consumers; to providing consumers with visual enjoyment and emotional interaction; to entering a group of people’s social circles and becoming a social currency; and then to shaping a new lifestyle and becoming a symbol.

Brand building should showcase brand personality and brand values ​​through topical and interactive content on content platforms, and convey brand stories and establish user connections through a combination of content and interaction.

Where are today's consumers? The rapid development of new media platforms such as WeChat, Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou, Douyin, and Taobao Live has redistributed and attracted traffic.

In December 2020, the number of live broadcast users had reached 620 million, the number of online shoppers reached 780 million, and the average daily usage time of short videos was 1.42 hours, a year-on-year increase of 39.7%. The huge user base of live streaming and online shopping and the long-term use of short videos have created a good scenario for the development of content seeding and live streaming e-commerce.

"Content planting + anchor sales" occupies more and more time of consumers. Content planting is a key link for consumers to form product awareness, and it achieves users' emotional identification through social sharing and diversified content.

Compared with the text and image format of traditional e-commerce, live streaming e-commerce uses live video to explain products, integrating text, pictures, and audio. It has the characteristics of high information density and strong interactivity. In addition, the top anchors have built up consumers' perception of "super low prices", greatly shortening consumers' decision-making time and improving sales efficiency.

Domestic cosmetics brand Juduo and hundreds of aesthetic fashion bloggers from Zhaixingge jointly created and launched a co-branded eyeshadow palette - the Zhaixing Palette. In the early stage, more than 200 notes were released on Xiaohongshu to promote the product, and 15,000 limited edition co-branded Zhaixing Palettes were sold out through live streaming at night. This is the first time in the industry that a brand has collaborated with an MCN agency across industries, opening up a new model of cooperation between brands and traffic agencies.

In the AOEO×Ruhnn “618” Xiaohongshu KOL communication case , Ruhnn Culture established brand awareness of AOEO’s functional skincare with a focus on formulas and effective ingredients by implanting KOL content. According to the water storage period, pre-sale period and spot period, word-of-mouth promotion and KOL endorsement were carried out on social platforms for two star products and one new product of the AOEO brand, and content promotion was carried out in conjunction with the three stages of "618", so that the popularity of the brand on the Xiaohongshu platform continued to rise.

In the Douyin live e-commerce case of Weier×Feitu Culture , Feitu Culture joined hands with Zhu Xiaohan, a top influencer under Xindong Media, to drive the product publicity and e-commerce promotion of Weier sanitary napkins, creating a closed transaction loop of "brand planting-product conversion".

In addition to showcasing product highlights and brand patents during the live broadcast, water absorption rate comparisons were also made on the spot to strengthen fans' product awareness and favorability of Weier sanitary napkins, converting traffic into consumer power for live broadcasts. The cumulative number of online viewers for a single live broadcast exceeded 1 million, the number of live broadcast shares exceeded 100,000 times, the total number of transactions in a single broadcast exceeded 10,000, and the repurchase rate was as high as 86%.

Through the video series "100 Chinese Girls' Homes", Rebecca records the homes of 100 Chinese girls - the beautiful spaces and attitudes of women of different styles and professions. The video quickly went viral, and more women began to realize the many possibilities of home and the diverse possibilities of life, and more women began to pursue their own desired lifestyle and beautiful space.

The World Trade Center Xixi Chenyue×Rebecca's Fantasy World has created the first opinion leader joint model room in Hangzhou, China, to build momentum for the launch of new products at the World Trade Center Xixi Chenyue. Leverage the help of lifestyle aesthetician and fashion blogger Rebecca to expand the brand's influence, accurately match female consumers who have the ability and demand to buy a house, communicate with Rebecca to share home buying experience and a better life attitude, and direct traffic to offline to achieve conversion.

Content is the best traffic entrance in this era.

Content connects the spiritual world and lifestyle.

In the future, all businesses will be content businesses, and all organizations will become content-based organizations.

This is the best time for content marketing.

Author: The Beauty of Marketing

Source: The Beauty of Marketing