The Golden Circle Rule of B Station Marketing

After manually restoring the Sanxingdui golden mask, the B station UP host "Cai Qian, a person with limited talent and learning" recently launched a new work that amazed everyone: it took him three months to hand-build a "Chinese Space Station" using the intangible cultural heritage filigree craft!

As for why they chose to build the Tiangong Space Station instead of replicating cultural relics like in the past, Cai Qian said that filigree inlay craftsmanship is one of the pinnacles of ancient craftsmanship, and the Tiangong Space Station is one of the pinnacles of my country's modern industry. He hopes to combine the two.

“Like for those born after 1995!”

“Intangible cultural heritage inheritance needs more young people”

“Salute to the craftsmen who carry on the traditional culture!”

This video became another masterpiece after He Tongxue's "Hardcore Table" and became a phenomenal content of Bilibili at the beginning of 2022.

Both have high-energy cores and are hidden marketing experts, but the logic behind He Tongxue and Cai Qian's hit products is actually different - He relies on innovation to attract attention, while Cai Qian relies on craftsmanship to win.

Let’s listen to Party A Finance’s analysis of the “Golden Circle Rule” of B Station’s marketing behind this masterpiece

Cai Qian creates a filigree inlaid Chinese space station

A double feast of "vision + craftsmanship"

"The talented and the unlearned", a famous craftsman on Bilibili. With a video of hand-restored Sanxingdui golden mask, he attracted countless fans and was even reposted by CCTV.

Recently, he used traditional filigree inlay techniques to hand-make a video of the Chinese space station. With 2.88 million views and 111,000 barrages, the video became the first hit of the new year and was selected into the 147th issue of Bilibili's weekly must-see column.

Why is he popular again? Let’s first review the highlights of this issue.

——Presentation, simple and high energy.

Continuing the usual style, due to the high threshold of cost and technical requirements, the main purpose of Cai Qian’s video is to present the sense of process, reality, subtlety and belief of the overall production, which makes people feel plain and natural, but also very shocking.

The narration of the video still maintains the third-person perspective, and the storytelling style is neither flattering nor exaggerating. The Up master claims that he is "untalented and uneducated", but makes the audience of the barrage feel his own inexperience.

The most exciting hand-made part is the first-person perspective. When it comes to relevant production details, "panoramic + close-up" lenses are used to maximize the sense of immersion. The audience seems to be "pinching wire" with their own hands, and the degree of stress relief is comparable to pinching plastic bubbles by hand.

——Plot, sophisticated documentary.

On the one hand, the content is a true documentary, on the other hand, it closely follows the hot topics of aviation current affairs; on the one hand, it takes into account the connotation of traditional culture, and on the other hand, it focuses on the popularization of craftsmanship and fun. Qie Caiqian recorded the process of cooperating with Chow Tai Fook and going to the Shantou factory to learn skills from the filigree master, which was full of sincerity. Therefore, when the final product - the handmade space station appeared, the audience shouted "You have the coins".

——Interaction, natural expression.

The strong sense of immersion in the whole process of DIY is an "addiction" that most young people cannot get rid of. Watching the strands of golden silk magically transform in Cai Qian's hands, the audience spontaneously interacted with the comments: "Genius", "He seems to be really trying to teach me", "The boss is awesome", "One-click triple combo is a must"... …

——Spread, long tail and lasting.

What is national is eternal. China's traditional crafts have been passed down to this day, carrying not only the wisdom of our ancestors but also the touchpoints that are most likely to trigger emotional resonance among Chinese audiences.

Whether it was the previous handmade golden mask video being forwarded by CCTV, Cai Qian himself was invited to participate in the recording of the Youth UP program; or relying on the work of this China Space Station to appear on CCTV again, "@Youth, 2022! 》Achieve exposure through main channels, which is essentially the spiritual resonance inspired by Chinese culture and traditional craftsmanship, and externalized into social-level communication volume.

The national trend is just right

The rise of a generation of cultural confidence at Bilibili

What people are looking for is the new generation.

Behind Bilibili's transformation from a niche community to a core gathering place for young people is the historical backdrop of the awakening of national trends and culture. To give you the most direct data: According to Crawley statistics, in the past decade, the number of searches for the term "national trend" on e-commerce platforms has increased by 528%.

The reason why Bilibili is regarded as the last battleground for brands by the marketing circle is that it perfectly meets the spiritual demands of young people in the new era. It can be summarized in four key words:

●Confidence: Behind the awakening of the national trend is a kind of cultural confidence that is no longer based on worshipping foreign things, an identification with national culture, and a profound enhancement of national confidence. "National Trend" can not only interpret traditional culture in a trendy way, but also combine traditional culture with fashion creativity, opening up new horizons for brand content marketing. As the content platform that carries this new world, Bilibili is a fertile soil.

●Independence: Chinese local brands have ushered in spring. The rise of national trends is also the rise of Chinese manufacturing. As China's manufacturing industry is making inroads into the world, traditional companies have also completed the optimization and upgrading of innovation and quality services, realized the transformation from "Made in China" to "Created in China", and gained recognition from consumers in the new era. During this process, local brands need a channel to effectively communicate with young people.

● Freedom: Generation Z consumers, led by those born in the 1990s and 2000s, are the most original inhabitants of the Internet. They are bombarded with explosive amounts of information day and night. The traditional advertising reach model has gradually become ineffective in front of Generation Z. Open, interesting, novel and fun marketing methods and content are the attractions that make this group of users willing to stay. Bilibili has 128 million Generation Z users, and on average one in every four young people uses Bilibili.

●Self: Before becoming popular, Bilibili was essentially a niche content community that focused on user self-expression, and the community’s atmosphere carried the genes of circleization. This will better match the needs of local brands. In addition to single brand marketing activities, local brands that share the same origin or even grew up with Generation Z can more easily find the same spiritual resonance with users, and then achieve the co-construction of cultural spirit, absorb users into their own cultural circles, and precipitate them into brand assets.

Confidence, independence, freedom, and self.

Behind the seemingly complicated and eccentric environment of Bilibili is a rebellion and return of young people to the traditional model. What we are rebelling against is the stereotyped and insincere marketing; what we are returning to is the traditional national trend that is inherited in an orderly manner and keeps pace with the times.

Marketing Alchemy

Co-creation, co-suffering, co-heartedness, co-feeling

It is well known that the fans of Bilibili are of high value. The value of a fan on Bilibili in terms of interaction, dialogue, and communication will far exceed the combined value of a hundred fans on other social media platforms. This has also led to a surge in the commercial value of UP masters.

However, many brands are accustomed to the crude and direct ROI logic of information flow, and do not really understand what kind of UP host their own brand is suitable for and what kind of content output is suitable for.

Or they make a patchwork of a popular internet meme or a hot video with some of their own implanted content; or they simply cook up a hodgepodge that lacks color, flavor and appearance and try to feed it to users; or they believe that hard work can work wonders as long as traffic is available, regardless of the content, and they wave money to let UP hosts "eat"...all of these can be considered ineffective marketing.

Cai Qian's style and performance in this video can be said to have created a perfect chemical reaction with the brand Chow Tai Fook. Not only did it achieve positive word-of-mouth feedback on Bilibili, it also released Bilibili's marketing potential.

Objectively speaking, the approach of this collaboration was extremely restrained, and the fans' barrage of feedback became the best proof: As a traditional jewelry brand, Chow Tai Fook still inherits the classical craftsmanship and ingenuity in the era of traffic, which deserves recognition and respect.

Next, we will analyze the intentions of Chow Tai Fook as a brand behind this marketing campaign from four perspectives.

●Co-creation

Chow Tai Fook’s brand gene is craftsmanship. As the first Chinese jewelry brand to enter the Basel Jewelry Fair, Chow Tai Fook’s design style is to integrate traditional cultural elements into jewelry fashion design, and it has always been adhering to the mission of inheriting and innovating China’s traditional gold and silver craftsmanship.

This is the brand confidence of Chow Tai Fook. On the premise of strong brand strength, we should find suitable KOLs as the core of content, and in the form of co-creation rather than dominance, cooperate with the topics and content characteristics of KOLs such as Cai Qian, and show our own craftsmanship heritage and brand heritage to users directly but not stiffly, so as to achieve a secondary interpretation of brand marketing content and complete a brand imprint.

In this process, the choice of content platform is also extremely critical. Short videos are too fragmented and can only be distributed but not promoted. Bilibili, where medium and long videos are the main culture circles, is obviously the most suitable.

Sharing the suffering

A big reason why Bilibili fans have high commercial value is that they are authentic. Because of authenticity, they casually resist perfunctory commercial activities, and they are particularly disgusted with the behavior of UP hosts trying to make a living, and there are many cases of such behavior going wrong.

The most user-recognized part of this collaboration between Caiqian and Chaohongji is the fusion of authenticity and content matching between Chaohongji and Caiqian: whether it is Caiqian's obsession with traditional skills or Chaohongji's own corresponding craftsmanship, the filigree master where Caiqian learned his craft is in Chaohongji's Shantou factory, and the Guinness World Record-winning handmade treasure filigree wind and rain bridge displayed by Caiqian is also standing in Chaohongji's jewelry museum.

On-site learning, personal experience, and post-polishing, the video about Chow Tai Fook’s appearance is not long, but the sweat behind the craftsmanship displayed throughout the video reflects the ingenuity of the Chow Tai Fook brand.

●Concentricity

This is no longer an era where channels are king. Every opportunity to interact with users is valuable because users are exposed to so much marketing content and marketing methods every day. The achievement of effective marketing should be a model that focuses on content and supplements marketing, rather than just shouting. This is determined by the positioning of Bilibili as a content platform.

For brands, they can focus on products and content, and marketing is just adding fuel to the fire. Chow Tai Fook was even willing to wait for a content production cycle of just three months in order to polish the content, which may be a potential reason for the success of this cooperation.

Empathy

This video by Cai Qian has a hidden main thread that runs through the entire video - filigree metalwork, one of the traditional Chinese crafts. Behind the filigree craft lies the profound history and national culture embodied in the entire traditional Chinese handicraft.

From the Forbidden City to Chow Tai Fook, from the works of the ancients to the handcrafted space station, the flowing sense of inheritance creates a resonance among the brand, KOLs and users, and in disguise transfers the cultural pride and national pride aroused by the audience to the brand characteristics of Chow Tai Fook itself.

Marketing implantation that makes people accept it naturally, enjoy it purely, and applaud and cheer is YYDS.

think

Craftsmanship is the best marketing without leaving any trace

Wang Shiyuan, a Tang Dynasty writer, wrote a preface for the Collected Works of Meng Haoran, in which he included the sentence "His writing does not follow the ancient style, but is unique and ingenious."

The original meaning of craftsmanship refers to all kinds of clever ideas, rather than the "craftsmanship" of working hard and being inflexible. The same applies to branding and marketing.

For example, the inherent attributes of "community + content" of Bilibili means that fans have full say in the commercialization of UP, which also limits the threshold for brands to cooperate with UP owners. Apart from the crude and direct direct delivery of content from Bilibili, the "hard-coded" approach of short video platform algorithms that disregards account attributes and content tone will only cause double disgust towards both fans, UP hosts, and brands.

The attribute of Bilibili is a content community, and the channel of Bilibili’s communication is the cultural circle. The fan users on Bilibili are mostly gathered under a certain UP name based on their sense of identity with circle cultures such as the second dimension, handicrafts, home dance, and technology, and use themselves as the second source of information for circle-based transmission. In the process of transmission, content with too heavy marketing attributes will naturally be screened out, leaving only those that are interesting enough, interactive enough, and worth forwarding.

The most suitable marketing model for Bilibili is to create content and pay attention to craftsmanship.

This may be in line with the inherent characteristics of the Chow Tai Fook brand. The brand itself focuses on integrating traditional craftsmanship with oriental culture into modern fashion jewelry. The company's own ingenuity is to persist in inheriting traditional craftsmanship and promoting innovation in the new era. Such brand characteristics, when transferred to marketing actions, demonstrate respect for content.

The success of Chow Tai Fook's collaborative marketing video may be the best reward for its persistence in craftsmanship.

Traditional craftsmanship takes time, it is time itself, and has been passed down for thousands of years; content takes time, it requires creators to spend time and think to show the vitality beneath its skin; marketing takes time, and brands need to clarify their original intentions and achieve a balance between extroversion and restraint.

Just like the gold thread craft, every thread is made by hand, and the threads are put together to form an object, which is a unique and ingenious work. Don't be impatient or rush.

Author: Party A Finance

Source: Party A Finance