With 470,000 followers on Weibo and 30,000+ followers on each article on his official account, how did NetEase create the internet celebrity Wang Sansan?

Do you still remember the “ Sangcha ” that was all the rage in Shanghai and flooded your circle of friends ?

In April this year, NetEase News and Ele.me jointly launched the offline pop-up store "Sangcha". The event quickly became a hit online and offline as soon as it was launched. Major mainstream media took the initiative to report or reprint it, making it a screen-sweeping hit event. You may have forgotten how depressing Sangcha was, but when you mention Sangcha, your first reaction must be the decadent alpaca manager Wang Sansan.

Taking advantage of the popularity of mourning tea, NetEase's Wang Sansan became the spokesperson for mourning culture . Wang Sansan's sudden popularity was not accidental or unexpected, but a carefully planned marketing campaign .

(Appointment email of Wang Sansan from NetEase in 2016)

Sangcha was originally a small joke made by netizens to criticize Heytea . The Photoshopped virtual work caused quite a stir on the Internet, but it was not as popular as it later became offline. Wang Sansan took up the position of NetEase's wild content officer in November last year. Before April this year, he claimed to be an editor-in-chief who was not popular , and the number of reposts on Weibo was pitifully small.

When the somewhat popular Virtual Sangcha meets the not-so-popular Wild Editor, a magical reaction occurs.

In addition to lamenting that someone really made the sad tea a reality, netizens focused on Wang Sansan, the alpaca. "That alpaca is so funny..." "Hahahaha that alpaca must be poisonous!" For such a depressed store manager, everyone wanted to hook up with him and get to know him...

( Live broadcast of Wang Sansan's inaugural speech)

Wang Sansan became a new Internet celebrity , but at this time, Wang Sansan's popularity was only at the "fun" level, just like Sangcha's popularity, which was short-lived. So how can we keep the popularity for a long time and realize the benefits quickly? NetEase struck while the iron was hot and made the internet celebrity Wang Sansan more content-rich, more diverse, and more substantial, and no longer just a funny alpaca.

(Wang Sansan's inauguration cartoon)

NetEase's Wang Sansan's Weibo account quickly attracted 470,000 followers. In May this year, NetEase's Wang Sansan opened a WeChat public account . At the same time, NetEase comics serialized Wang Sansan's image. Both Station A and Station B have columns with Wang Sansan's book titles, with tens of thousands of clicks and reposts. What marketing strategies are worth exploring behind Wang Sansan’s sudden popularity?

1. Negative energy resonance

Negative energy marketing is actually the result of reverse thinking. When mainstream chicken soup can no longer feed the "miserable young people" and simple positive energy cannot comfort contemporary young people, "sorrowful tea" and other mourning cultures go against the trend and create a loophole for "miserable young people" to vent their negative energy with negative energy.

(Sangcha menu and promotional H5)

"Red tea for doing nothing", "Green tea for wasting life", "Macchiato for not being able to afford a house"... these bring more than just fun and novelty to consumers. In fact, the naked truth is the voice of young people, which will give people a resonance of "you understand me" and "Hey? You too" . If you can't complain, the culture of mourning will help you complain.

What's more, the mere act of rebelling against mainstream chicken soup can make consumers excited. Rebellion can bring pleasure. Do you think that the culture of mourning really provides sorrow? What it essentially provides is for consumers to feel like they are at odds with reality.

2. Fan Culture Marketing

After Wang Sansan became popular as the manager of the Sangcha Tea Shop, NetEase struck while the iron was hot and gave it a more full-bodied image, making it an alpaca with personality, stories, life and more connotation.

In the comic "Drama Queen's Dormitory", Wang Sansan does not have a role, but he is everywhere, on pillows, dolls, slippers, school bag pendants...every possible way to put the image of this alpaca on peripherals. On Weibo, the most forwarded Weibo post in the "Drama Queen's Dormitory" series has been forwarded more than 76,000 times, and has been read more than 3.7 million times on NetEase Comics.

(Comics from Drama Queen's Dormitory)

With the popularity of the comic "The Drama Queen's Dormitory", Wang Sansan has occupied a place in the two-dimensional world again, continuing the purpose of the mourning culture to speak for young people and continuing to give young people the pleasure of fighting with reality in the two-dimensional world. The two-dimensional world is the home court of young people, and gaining the favor of young people here is equivalent to winning the battlefield of the three-dimensional world.

3. Pop-up stores

The key to the success of “Sangcha” is its freshness, and the means to maintain freshness is scarcity. Pop-up stores can meet both of these requirements. They can appear and disappear quickly at an appropriate time. They appear in popular places, win a lot of applause, and then leave after a quick visit, creating a sense of scarcity and freshness for consumers.

( Jiang Xiaobai pop-up bistro)

Then it becomes the "exposure show" of the participants and the regret of those who have not experienced it. In short, it earns enough affection from the public.

After the "Sorrow Tea" was over, the only one left was the Alpaca store manager Wang Sansan, who was particularly eye-catching in the crowd. Due to the inertia of scarcity and novelty, everyone would involuntarily shift their attention to Wang Sansan, and Wang Sansan kept having new content to earn the public's affection, so scarcity marketing won.

4. Multi- channel Marketing

Wang Sansan's popularity has shifted people's attention from offline to online, so there must be something online to retain this enthusiasm. New content must be immediately produced before netizens lose their enthusiasm for this alpaca. However, netizens are scattered, and if we want to make the most of the existing public enthusiasm for Wang Sansan, multi-channel heating up is the best way.

(Wang Sansan’s B station homepage has 130,000 followers)

NetEase acted very quickly, and with the support of a large company's resources, Wang Sansan almost achieved the right content quality in one step: the character images were mature, and the content quality of channels such as WeChat public account texts, NetEase comics, Weibo interactions, and Bilibili videos was excellent. This greatly reduces the time required to incubate Wang Sansan's content, so Wang Sansan can be commercialized very quickly.

5. Hotspot

Wang Sansan is very skillful in choosing topics. He does not simply choose hot topics, but rather chooses topics that can most arouse the enthusiasm of young people at that point in time. He is basically looking for topics, rather than waiting to take advantage of a topic after it becomes popular. If ordinary topic selection is to catch the trend, then advanced topic selection is to create hype.

If you look through Wang Sansan’s official account, Weibo, Station A, Station B, etc., you will find that the topics it covers are all very likely to arouse the interest of young people at that time, and almost cover the focus of most young people.

(Eating Chicken, Double Eleven and Drama Queen)

Wang Sansan’s content basically continues the spirit of mourning culture, while giving “venting” and “interest” to young people, giving them an outlet for their stress, such as “Hello everyone, I’m an atypical migrant worker in Beijing”, “Whoever loses gets to call me dad”, and “Why do you hold back when you want to post 30 Moments every day?”…

Then we will encourage them to do something with interest, such as animation or games . In short, we will do anything that can arouse the interest of young people. For example, the game "Nuan Nuan" that is popular among cute girls, Da Zhangwei who is loved by fans for his straightforwardness, and the game "Chicken Dinner" that has suddenly become popular. On the day when the live-action version of Gintama was released in mainland China on September 1, Wang Sansan released his work on Bilibili...

(Secret love, post-00s talk and winter)

The degree of sadness is well controlled. Young people can vent their emotions here, and then find resonance in their interests. It can be said that people are brought in and kept here. The breadth of the topics is just as Wang Sansan said in his WeChat public account introduction, "See a little bit of everything, understand a little bit of everything, and be a little bit better at everything."

Just like that, starting from the "Sangcha", this alpaca named Wang Sansan captured a large number of young people along the way.

This article was compiled and published by @水煮操作(Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, information flow advertising, advertising platform