Learn how to promote new products from "What's Peppa Pig?"

When I woke up early last Friday (January 18), I believe many people were flooded with messages on the short film "What's Peppa Pig?" and the little Peppa Pig made of a blower in the film! People outside the industry think that the content of the short film is heartwarming and the toys are hardcore, while people in the industry have expressed their admiration for the production, creativity and dissemination of the short film.

There is no need to pay attention to the keyboard warriors online who nitpick about the so-called rationality of the plot. This short film is undoubtedly a masterpiece. What is more worthy of our learning is the excellent new product launch promotion strategy behind the screen-sweeping phenomenon.

1. Clear promotion goals and user expectation management

Movie promotion can be said to be the most hardcore way to promote a new product. It is also the most stressful and the one that tests precision and explosiveness the most in the entire marketing industry. The reason I say this is:

1. Short product life cycle

The release cycle of a movie is about 2 weeks (the product life cycle is only 2 weeks), which means that the performance must be harvested within 2 weeks, and all investments must be recovered and profits must be realized within these 2 weeks.

2. High pressure on sales after listing

The four days from the release of a film are a crucial period that determines whether a film will ultimately be a hit or a loss. After that, the box office and word of mouth of these four days will determine whether there will be sufficient channel resources (screening schedule) and performance in the future.

3. Expected management requirements are high

The goal of movie promotion is to attract people to the cinema with appropriate topics. If the box office and word of mouth are good, the movie will occupy a high screening rate; it is like opening the first screen of Taobao and 80% of the pages are recommendations for a certain product, so this product will definitely be popular. In other words, if the box office is good but the word of mouth is average, at least the screening rate will not be bad, and an average performance can be guaranteed.

Therefore, movie promotion must be ruthless and accurate to ensure that enough people have reasonable expectations and serve as guinea pigs during the critical period when the movie is just released. "Peppa Pig Celebrates Chinese New Year" will be released on February 5 (the first day of the Lunar New Year), and the promotional video "What's Peppa" was first released on social platforms on January 17. The purpose is to encourage parents to bring their children and even the elderly to the cinema to watch Peppa Pig together on the first day of the Lunar New Year.

At the same time, the audience's reasonable expectation is that the family enjoys the joy of reunion! Obviously, this wave of publicity and preheating has achieved its purpose very well without raising expectations to an unreasonable level! (Because the audience can create their own happiness, they don’t have too high requirements on film production/plot, etc.)

"Key point" When we promote new products, we must have clear goals and strategies! The first step is to have a full understanding of the consumption characteristics, channel composition, etc. of the category, and then clarify the behavior or ideas of the target users.

2. Innovative communication perspective

Unlike most movie trailers we have seen before, which are often clips of highlights. However, this promotional video was actually a short film shot by the film director. The angle used was a story about watching a movie, telling the interesting, warm and joyful reunion story that the big movie brings to the whole family. The plot design, shooting and production of the entire film are at the level of a qualified commercial film.

1. The trailer itself is a topic

The whole film breaks away from the routine of ordinary movie promotional films. Instead of editing the shots, the director shot a separate story about watching a movie as a promotional film. These are already topics in themselves.

2. Compact plot and gags

The 5-minute short is full of jokes. The main suspense plot is whether the grandfather can figure out "what Peppa is", followed by "what will Peppa make look like" and "will the child come back for the New Year?" It can be said that the whole process is full of suspense and there are no boring moments. In addition to being captivated, the audience will also be fully immersed in the play and resonate with it!

3. Rich character creation

The three jokes vividly describe the grandfather’s stubborn yet loving personality. Finally, a “hardcore Peppa” elevates the image of a “hardcore grandfather” to a high point. At the same time, the image of "Hardcore Grandpa" can also resonate with many people. ——Whether they are their own parents or themselves who are already parents, they often try to satisfy their children's wishes in their own way, even though it may not meet their children's expectations sometimes.

▲ The grandfather who wants to paint the spotted pig red is very hardcore

Just like many product advertisements we have seen, there are often a pile of product selling points and simple introductions. Such advertising is like a clip-edited movie trailer. Unless the audience is a die-hard fan of the brand/IP (such as children who love Peppa Pig), they will most likely be ignored and fail to impress potential target audiences (like parents who actually pay to go to the cinema).

In contrast, this film does not simply talk about the "product advantages", but describes the "user usage scenario" (the whole family watches a movie together during the Chinese New Year) and exaggerates the "user consumption emotions" (the joy of family reunion and the warmth of trying to satisfy children's little wishes). Only such advertising can truly stimulate the user behavior and ideas expected by the brand (bringing the family into the cinema and hoping that the family can enjoy the joy of reunion).

"Key Points" When promoting new products, we must first forget the product selling points and instead communicate based on user usage scenarios and consumer emotions! This is the only way to arouse users' interest and attention, stimulate their purchasing/trial behavior, and create reasonable consumption expectations.

3. Create social communication elements

In the screen-filling content of "What's Peppa?", a large part of it is made up of Peppa Pig the blower. Maybe you may not click on the short video link sent by others, but even if you haven’t seen the short video, it will not affect everyone’s admiration for Peppa Pig the blower, which is “cool and hardcore enough”! The blower Peppa Pig, together with the theme "What is Peppa", are known as the two elements that spread the fastest and widest.

1. Closely follow product communication strategy

"What is Peppa Pig?" is not only the theme of the short video, but also the main plot of the whole story. Behind it is the old man's persistence in constantly pursuing the answer to fulfill his child's wish.

Peppa Pig, the blower, is the answer to the suspense of the whole story. This "hardcore gift" successfully portrays the image of a "hardcore grandfather" who does everything he can to fulfill his children's wishes.

At the same time, the two elements always revolve around the core IP "Peppa Pig" - this is the image that children love and the wish they want, and it is also the element that creates reunion joy throughout the New Year and the whole year.

2. Easy to spread among people

Just forwarding a picture is enough to arouse the curiosity and likes of friends in the circle of friends - this is because "Blower Peppa Pig" is really hardcore enough! And the phrase "What is Peppa Pig" is easy enough to be used to attract attention.

▲ Blower Page, you deserve it

Perhaps many of the initial "trend-chasing" communications were seeds planted by the publicity and marketing team themselves, but in the subsequent follow-up of various online brands/self-media/netizens, we can see that "blower Peppa Pig" and the phrase "What is Peppa Pig" are the elements most easily used by everyone. Put a blower Peppa in various posters and pictures, and directly use "What is Peppa" in the copy or make a simple word game, so that the two core elements can be spread rapidly.

"What is Peppa Pig" (a text spell) and "Peppa Pig Blower" (a graphic symbol) are like the "index" of the entire communication campaign and content. They are constantly spread among people, which makes the communication content continue to be opened up and the product appeals continue to be exposed and recognized.

"Key Points" When we promote new products, we must not only consider how to make the products accepted by target customers, but also how to spread word of mouth about the products and make it easy to spread! A good social communication element can be a down-to-earth product nickname or an easy-to-spread "meme" (graphics or text). Of course, this element is not for the sake of topics or socializing for the sake of socializing. Behind this "index" must be the ability to closely follow the product communication strategy and well reflect and connect the core content of product communication (user usage scenarios and rendering of consumer emotions).

4. Three-dimensional promotion operation

Finally, leaving aside the quality of the trailer, the entire promotion of the blockbuster is exemplary. The topic trailer used a large number of WeChat tweets to attract attention, followed by the keyword advertisement "This is Peppa Pig" on Dianping.com, and the special page that appeared after searching the keyword on Taobao. For a while, everyone was discussing Peppa Pig.

▲ Media support and traffic support

On the one hand, the promotional video itself contains many jokes that can be discussed ( China Mobile’s product placement, live broadcasts by internet celebrities, etc. ), and after the video was released, social promotion articles and content from various angles immediately appeared.

On the other hand, at each touchpoint of the target audience, the publicity and marketing team also uses various promotional methods to further stimulate communication and promote user behavior. But considering that the film was produced by Alibaba Pictures and distributed by Tao Piaopiao, it is not difficult to understand why the publicity and marketing team was able to make good use of Alibaba's ecosystem resources to conduct three-dimensional communication and promotion to users and ultimately achieve behavioral conversion.

[Key Points] The launch of a new product promotion cannot rely solely on creative communication elements/hot content that goes viral and expect to achieve a detonating effect through simple delivery. Only by careful planning from the perspectives of audience contact point layout, information fermentation, and behavioral paths can the behavior be realized.

Of course, there are still two weeks before the official release of "Peppa Pig Celebrates the New Year" on the first day of the Lunar New Year. In the future, we will need to further continue and maintain the attention on the film, stimulate user purchasing behavior conversion and secondary word-of-mouth dissemination, achieve box office explosion and word-of-mouth level in the first few days of the New Year, and then affect the subsequent scheduling of screening resources and user purchases, and ultimately reap high box office during the release period. I believe the publicity and promotion team will have another series of actions in the future, let us wait and see!

Source: Zhongyin Zhixing Salon