3 advertising and marketing "secrets" to impress young people

It is the mid-year sale right now and all kinds of advertisements are everywhere. Naturally, we marketers are also paying close attention to it. I talked to several people born after 1995 and 2000 in the office these two days, and almost all of them said that big sale advertisements mostly talk about discounts and promotions, and they have become indifferent to them after experiencing them so many times.

Come to think of it, this generation of young people grew up in an era of fast pace and information explosion, and their ability to accept new things is more prominent; they have seen countless advertisements and marketing routines, coupled with the accelerated refinement of young people's circles, constantly improving aesthetics and convenient channels for perceiving information, it is now extremely difficult to impress young people with just one advertisement .

Under such circumstances, we can't help but ponder these questions: Can this generation of young people still be moved by advertisements? In the future, how should brands create good advertisements to impress young people whose tastes are becoming increasingly "picky"?

Yesterday, a little girl in the office took the initiative to share a traditional Chinese style comic strip at a subway station on her WeChat Moments. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a spin-off of the Tmall 618 TVC "The First Person to Eat Crabs".

You have to know that young people nowadays count every second on their commute. Being able to make them stop and pay attention shows that this creativity to attract young people's attention has achieved its purpose. It can even trigger active sharing in the circle of friends, which is really not easy. Today, let’s take Tmall’s 618 advertising as an example and talk about what kind of advertisements will impress young people.

1. Three advertising and marketing “secrets” to impress young people

1. Start from “new”

The advent of the digital age has shortened the distance between vast amounts of information, and social networking has made users' personalized needs more prominent. If you asked how to advertise 20 years ago, it was simple: spend money on TV ads. If you can still recall the memories of watching TV as a child, I believe that everyone should know the second half of the sentence "I will not accept any gifts during the holidays this year". At that time, as long as your product was not too bad, it was easy to become a household name by placing an advertisement on CCTV.

Now, everyone’s daily life seems to be more “online”. Countless social software, increasingly portable electronic devices, and increasingly sophisticated personalized recommendations have made the trend of "content over platform" increasingly obvious. Coupled with the personalized aesthetic tastes of young people, it has become increasingly difficult to create "freshness" among a host of homogeneous content .

Since young people have a stronger natural pursuit of "new" things, they are not afraid of the unknown and have beautiful hopes for the future. Therefore, if brands want to impress them, they need to constantly innovate in order to maintain attention on something in the fast-paced life.

Looking back at successful marketing cases in recent years, such as: Bilibili’s ghost song of DingTalk, RIO’s cross-border hero ink, Mengniu’s creative marketing of test questions... all of them reveal "newness". They broke the user's inherent impression of the product or brand and successfully attracted attention by "renewing" themselves.

As mentioned at the beginning, the Tmall 618 creative marketing that was noticed by our post-00s little sister changed the basic routine of traditional big promotion advertisements and chose to use the "storytelling" method to arouse everyone's original intention and beautiful yearning for "new" .

The TVC of "The First Man to Eat Crabs" interprets the classic story from a new perspective, creates grand special effects scenes through new technology, and reveals scenes of new life experiences, all of which make the "new" theme stand out in a seemingly magical and retro short film.

Tmall "The First Person to Eat Crabs" screen

Advertising and marketing in unexpected ways is essentially the essence of "newness".

This year, Tmall 618 conveyed the core concept of "dare to try new things, there are always new surprises in life" through a short film. It not only matches the renewal trend of the 618 promotion node well, but also fits the characteristics of young people who like "new". When seeing such advertisements, the audience’s first reaction is not disgust and they are willing to continue watching. This is why Tmall stands out among a number of big promotional marketing campaigns.

2. Start from the “shape”

Do you still remember the Fliggy “Air Ticket Blind Box” that became popular during this year’s Labor Day holiday? Although it is essentially still a special air ticket, why does it become a hit by adding blind box elements?

One of the important reasons is that Fliggy has grasped the "form" that young people are interested in, and through such a novel form carrier, it has cleverly matched and associated the discount products with it. On the surface, it seems to be just a formal "grafting", but precisely because it has found the "form" that young people like, it is not difficult to break out of the circle.

Understanding the formats young people like is a must for brands that want to achieve effective communication with young people.

When “packaged” in a form that young people like and are familiar with, communication has a good foundation, which can make young people feel friendly, invisibly narrow the distance between the brand and users, and greatly enhance brand awareness. There is a similar case. During the 618 shopping festival, Tmall chose to use traditional Chinese style comic strips for offline advertising in subway stations.

As we all know, Chinese comics are rising and two-dimensional culture is becoming popular among young circles. According to data from the online comics industry , nearly 95% of online comics users are born after 1995 and 2000. Tmall chose to incorporate various elements that young people like, such as immersive experience, 3D exhibitions, and traditional Chinese comics, which just hit the "appetite" of young people.

3. Start from the heart

In the above two points, we talked a lot about how to reach young people and how to attract their attention in the first place. There is also a very important aspect, which is to achieve communication and empathy with them psychologically and establish an emotional connection between the brand and users.

The personality test launched by NetEase a few days ago became popular on the entire Internet, causing many marketers to sigh: This is the nth time that a personality test has become popular! The fact that it has been popular so many times and can still become a hit naturally means that it has a replicable logic. That is to grasp the psychological and emotional expression needs of young people, win the respect and love of users through brand proposition delivery, and make it easier for users to develop psychological and emotional trust in the brand.

This generation of young people like to be "healed" under pressure. They are emotionally rich and sensitive.

As early as the 520 node this year, Tmall teamed up with young director Liu Adam to launch the emotional short film "Hello New Life", which set the emotional tone for the Tmall 618 communication and successfully aroused the resonance and emotion of young people.

What’s special is that it coincides with the special day of May 20, sublimating emotions by expressing the love for a new life, which meets the users’ consistent demand for a new life. Only by grasping the hearts of users can we truly output emotional value and convey brand proposition.

2. In the current big promotion period, how should advertising be done?

It is the mid-year promotion period recently, and many brands have tried their best. But we all know that promotion marketing is not just a battle for sales, but also a key stage for building brand image . So, based on the three marketing "secrets" mentioned above, what specific work do brands need to do in order to win the key battles at the big promotion nodes? We also conducted research and analysis on this.

1. Create keywords

The most frightening thing about doing marketing during major promotional events is that you invest a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources, but in the end users still can’t remember you and can’t figure out why they chose you. Why is this year’s Tmall 618 communication campaign so memorable? The key lies in that it has identified the core keyword "new" and has launched a set of communication combinations around the keyword.

We can know the importance of keywords to brands from a few examples: when people hear "taste the feeling", they will think of Coca-Cola; when they hear "Oriental cosmetics", most people will think of Hua Xizi. This is the value of brand keywords. They must be strongly related to the brand itself and enable the public to remember and associate with them in the fastest time, thus forming the brand's unique and differentiated core competitiveness.

Tmall 618, based on its own business characteristics and consumer needs, has extracted a keyword for this communication - "new ". This is not an isolated word, but is closely aligned with the entire brand tone of Tmall. Through a series of actions such as two TVCs that run through the concept of "new", thousands of brands expressing their new life, "Great Wall Love Poems", and user UGC activities, a communication chain that closely revolves around the keyword has been formed.

As the leading e-commerce brand in China, Tmall is the best stage for new brands to emerge, a convenient platform for consumers to experience new things, and an important position to lead new trends in industry development. All of these reflect the connection between the Tmall platform and "new".

While most people are still promoting promotional festivals with their “low prices and big discounts”, Tmall has successfully penetrated into the hearts of young people with the keyword “new”, and subsequently made generous concessions to allow more users to enjoy convenience and benefits, achieving good marketing results.

2. Grasp the key nodes

A successful communication requires careful planning, and the most important thing is the timing. Grasping the key time nodes can increase the communication effect exponentially. Usually people think that for the 618 promotion, brands will concentrate their firepower in June, but Tmall took the lead in speaking out on 520, successfully sounding the first horn by expressing the love of a new life, and setting a good emotional tone for the subsequent dissemination of the core theme of "Life always has new surprises".

Then, during the pre-sale period, the second wave of videos titled "The First Person to Try Something New" was released, which not only continued the previous popularity but also made the concept of boldly trying new things more closely linked to the upcoming Tmall 618 event.

3. Wide coverage

Wide coverage is a prerequisite for communication to be seen. We cannot simply rely on users’ natural enthusiasm and attention. There is still a certain necessity for brand coverage in the early stages. Make good use of the resources you have and combine them to form economies of scale in the early stages of content release, laying a solid foundation for subsequent marketing.

During this year's 618, Tmall and multiple mainstream media, official accounts of major brands, KOLs in various fields and other multi-channel resources jointly launched thematic content about new life, while integrating online and offline resources to achieve multi-circle coverage and multi-platform dissemination, laying a solid foundation for enhancing Tmall's 618 comprehensive influence in all channels.

4. Connect culture and emotions

Advertising and marketing that only revolves around "benefits" often causes audiences to feel rebellious, while connecting with culture and emotions can appropriately soften the "hard advertising" component and thus increase user acceptance. For example, the "Life Festival" concept created by Taobao previously allows users to feel the emotional concept of a better life conveyed by the brand, and provides convenience and a better experience around all aspects of people's lives, which can stimulate the public's emotions better than simple shopping promotions.

Conclusion

Born in an era of rapid economic development, growing up in today's culturally rich and diverse society, they are well-informed and have clear likes and dislikes. Can this generation of young people still be impressed by advertisements?

The answer is of course yes. In fact, looking at the history of advertising development, the form and content of advertising have undergone several iterations, and now it is just in the stage of another update.

The traffic dividend has passed, and the form of spending money to buy traffic is about to be replaced. Nowadays, it is difficult for brands to attract the attention of young people by simply applying marketing models that were once successful. Brands and marketers who are still confused at this time should learn from successful cases.

For example, like DingTalk’s “Ghostly Song”, it breaks the original inherent impression and “renews”; like Fliggy’s “Blind Box of Air Tickets”, it makes good use of the form that young people like; like NetEase, it enters the hearts of young people. It can also be like Tmall 618, where the entire communication chain starts from young people and revolves around their preferences, while not forgetting to combine the brand tone to achieve a win-win situation of approaching young people and promoting the brand.

Our little girl born in the 2000s has already started to recruit people to form teams to raise cats. The publicity effect of Tmall 618 can be imagined. After such high-profile dissemination, Tmall 618 has also entered its climax, and its excellent report card can be foreseen.

While some brands are still lamenting that marketing is difficult and questioning why it is so hard to impress young people, some brands have already grasped the minds of young people and launched advertisements that they love to see. Seeing such results, do you still think that this generation of young people can no longer be impressed by advertisements?

Author: Cici

Source: Cici