Why are Want Want’s marketing ads so magical?

I recently watched two Want Want commercials. They were clearly commercials, but they were as addictive as entertainment short videos.

One is a creative advertisement launched by Want Want for its IT'S OK plum wine flavored tea beverage, in which a middle-aged man plays the role of a young girl. In order to highlight the selling point of the new product, Want Want has created a magical style of painting people of different age groups. The images with extremely contrasting personalities make people laugh. For example, the mighty man is afraid of cockroaches, the uncle wants to pet the cat but is shy, the grandma wants to make a call but is afraid of losing face, and the quiet girl wants to rock.

And when the uncle and the grandmother become bolder with the help of plum wine and return to their true selves, they also respond to the brand proposition of "IT'S OK to be yourself". The magical painting style not only creates a strong contrast, but also fits the product's selling point "IT'S OK, it's okay" and is real.

The other one is an advertisement made by Want Want to promote its “Dongchi” product. It makes you want to laugh and cry at every turn... The magical style of the song “makes you want to cry at every turn” turns the whole advertisement into a “divine song” that people can’t stop listening to.

In his book Marketing 3.0, Philip Kotler, the father of marketing, divides marketing into three eras, and the marketing methods in the three different eras are different. But no matter how the marketing era changes, advertising plays an important role in marketing. However, consumers see tens of thousands of advertisements every year, but only a few of them can really leave any impression on consumers, let alone have a lasting impact on their consumption decisions.

On the marketing side, Want Want Group has shocked many people from childhood to middle age with its magical advertising style, which can be called a mudslide in the advertising industry. For example, the well-known slogan of Melatonin, “I won’t accept any gifts this year, but if I do, I’ll accept Melatonin,” pales in comparison to the slogan of Want Want many years ago, “If you look at me again, I’ll drink you up!”

Want Want’s commercials are not only magical, but also have the feeling of a TV series. For example, the classic “Li Ziming” series. Li Ziming has been with many people since they were young.

Li Ziming’s family love is reflected in the Want Want advertisement: in the Want Want milk advertisement, when Li Ziming heard the broadcast “Your mother sent you two cans of Want Want milk”, he was overjoyed and threw himself into his mother’s arms with tears streaming down his face.

There is Li Ziming’s first love: he “fell in love” with Uncle Li’s daughter, so he gave her a “Wangzai Children’s Gift Pack” and successfully won her heart.

There are also Li Ziming’s friends: when they hold the Wangzai milk in their hands, they seem to have mastered the laws of the universe, put on Thanos’ gloves, and insist that they have a bright future and will definitely beat their biological fathers on the beach in the future.

What is even more unexpected is that Want Want also brought in the grown-up Li Ziming: in the era of booming self-media, Li Ziming, as the epitome of a series of silly and magical advertisements of Want Want, successfully broke out of the circle, attracting large-scale "archaeology" of Want Want TVC on the Internet.

Want Want officials also sensed this opportunity and released the "adult version of Li Ziming" on Double Eleven in 2017 after a long hiatus. This time, the official use of memes naturally won the hearts of netizens and achieved considerable results.

But Want Want’s magic is not limited to advertising. Since 2017, it has successfully become an Internet celebrity by relying on various magical marketing methods. As April Fools' Day approached in 2017, Want Want announced on Weibo the launch of "Want Want Milk 8L Package", and successively released posters of the 8L product and photos of it being sold in supermarkets. The unconventional packaging caters to the "big thing" atmosphere of April Fools' Day, and taking advantage of the holiday's popularity, the Weibo topic #旺仔奶plus# has been read over 30 million times.

Then, on May 11th of that year, “Want Want Day”, Want Want launched 8L Want Want Milk on the e-commerce platform, turning the brand’s April Fools’ joke into a real product. At the same time, with the help of rich topic content, Want Want also produced peripheral products for the 8L Want Want Milk - a giant mug, which is completely magical.

That year, the “make a big deal” strategy continued to Double Eleven. On Double Eleven in 2017, Want Want took advantage of the situation and put Want Want gift boxes on the shelves in the brand’s Tmall flagship store, launching a “make a big deal” marketing campaign. Want Want’s four classic products – QQ candy, mini steamed buns, snow cakes and senbei – have all been “expanded”. The advertisement of Li Ziming "growing up" was also launched to cooperate with the "big event" and successfully attracted a lot of people's attention by relying on IP sentiment.

In 2020, the Wangzai Club released an interesting Weibo post: Wangzai actually imitated the recent popular variety show "Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves" and launched a small talent show #Grandmas Who Make Waves#. Moreover, Wangzai also brought in various products of the brand for a head-on battle, and said: "Zaizai is pulling the grandmas to cross the boundary; this talent show is going to be a blast; I'm not afraid of a head-on battle; I look forward to the killing part of the winner!".

Although Want Want’s magical marketing may seem nonsensical, there is a clear logic behind it: on the one hand, it uses Want Want IP as its brand image to conduct multi-dimensional extended marketing; on the other hand, it has insight into the preferences of young people who are the main force on the Internet, and adopts a large number of social games to resonate with them.

Marketing increasingly emphasizes the interaction between brands, products and consumers, and the interaction is about creating connections with each other. This kind of connection is no longer based on traditional advertising, which only relies on cognition, interest and values. IP naturally has emotional connection attributes and can create new connections and communications very well. Therefore, brands need to turn themselves into a stage for IP, or even turn themselves into IP, and also turn other classic IP elements into their own use. These are the killer weapons of new IP marketing.

Faced with the craze for IP marketing, Want Want chose to use the Want Want IP as a link to connect the brand and consumers, using richer content forms to penetrate into the communication context of young audiences and making the brand image more vivid.

In 2017, after Want Want Group reorganized its development direction and determined the IP positioning of "Want Want", Want Want further refined the image of Want Want's original lively and cute little boy attributes, including opening "Want Want Club" on multiple social media platforms, posting daily fun stories in Want Want's tone, and interacting with Want Want fans online.

Not only that, Want Want also provided Wangzai with a family bucket, adding the company of other IP characters for him to interact and joke with on a daily basis - Langweixian, Mr. Bond, Laren, Xiaoxiaosu, etc.

In the creation of IP content, Want Want tries to apply the IP image to different content forms, such as Want Want Farmer’s Calendar, Want Want Little Chef, Want Want wallpapers, comics, emoticons, and even small animations.

Now that we have an IP, how can we become popular on the Internet?

Want Want thought of the young people who lead the Internet trend. From the "Da Xue Bing" and "Da Senbei" that exploded across the entire network on Double Eleven in 2017, to the cross-border cross-border with Takasha clothing and Chando mask air cushion BB in 2018, to the national style marketing outbreak of "56 Ethnic Cans" in 2019, and later cross-border collaborations with Internet celebrity brands such as Nayuki, Want Want has always been close to the preferences of young people.

For example, lying down is popular among young people nowadays. Wangwang can actually lie down as well. If you don’t believe it, please look at the picture below.

It can be seen that for Want Want, what is magical is not just the advertisement, but the entire Want Want.

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Author: Marketing Think Tank

Source: DoMarketing-Marketing Think Tank (Domarketing-001)