4 classic routines for brand marketing in 2020

As the pages of the December calendar turn, it indicates that the indescribable year of 2020 is about to pass. Two days ago, Bilibili released the barrage of 2020, and "My Youth is Back" ranked first.

At the same time, Baidu also released the annual buzzword list: Jimei, Let's go hiking together, u1s1, Deep in blue, etc. became the top ten buzzwords most searched by netizens this year.

Hot spots and marketing always go hand in hand. The year 2020, under the shadow of the epidemic, has also created many legends in the marketing industry.

From the domineering marketing of Douyin buying the copyright of the movie "Lost in Russia" for 630 million yuan during the Spring Festival and inviting people all over the country to watch it for free, to the popular self-deprecating marketing of DingTalk, to the chairman of Lao Xiangji Shu Congxuan who tore up the joint letter and held a tacky strategic conference, to Luo Yonghao's live streaming of goods and the public opinion frenzy aroused by a promotional video of "The Next Wave" on Bilibili in the middle of the year.

Then there are Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves, the first cup of milk tea in autumn, and the traffic momentum brought by Versailles, Working People, Ding Zhen, and Ma Baoguo...

This year's marketing hotspots are really too lively. The purpose of brand marketing is nothing more than to achieve four goals: break out of the circle, break the mind, resonate with others, and generate traffic. After looking through the marketing hotspots in 2020, I summarized four strategies for brand marketing !

1. It is fundamental to go beyond the circle and leverage social issues

Faced with an increasingly segmented marketing environment, with traffic reaching its peak and communication channels fragmented, it is extremely difficult for many brands that want to increase their visibility to break out of their circle. There are always two sides to a coin. This year's epidemic, as a public event affecting the entire nation, has provided an excellent opportunity for brands to break out of their circle.

At the beginning of the year, the difficulties encountered by the catering industry under the epidemic situation once became a social hot spot. First, the chairman of Xibei’s remarks complaining about his suffering went viral on WeChat Moments, and then the chairman of Lao Xiangji tore up a joint letter from employees, which went viral and triggered heated discussions among netizens, contributing one brand public relations communication model after another.

Enterprises are social organs and bear their own social responsibilities and missions. A good enterprise must make achievements that benefit the people; this is the foundation for the longevity of the brand. Under such severe circumstances, Shu Congxuan insisted on putting the overall situation first and doing his best without fear of loss, which fully reflected his brand temperament and social awareness of sacrificing his own family for the sake of the public.

In June, Mango TV's variety show "Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves", which focuses on people aged 30+, became popular before it was aired. In addition to its innovative program format, the reason why the show quickly became popular is that it changed the society's prejudice against women aged 30+. "Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves" is like a self-rescue activity for women, and the audience's eyes were suddenly opened. It turns out that after years of baptism, 30+ sisters can have both cuteness and mature charm.

The sisters' gorgeous return broke all definitions with their strength, creating new discussion space for social topics about women over 30, and telling everyone that no matter who you are, at any time, as long as you want to set out bravely. Whether it is brand public relations under the epidemic or topics about women over 30 , social issues are appearing more and more in brand marketing activities and are becoming an important strategy for brands to awaken user perception and recognition.

There is also the popularity of “working people”. When "996" is a blessing, when overtime becomes a habit, and when "paid shitting" becomes a luxury, everyone is a "worker". Against such a social background, the popularity of the term “working people” reflects the helplessness and self-mockery of contemporary young people about the difficulty of changing the status quo. Indeed, every brand that has successfully broken out of the circle has gone through long-term accumulation, whether it is the brand voice driven by Lao Xiangji or the popularity of "Sisters Who Make Waves".

As a brand with significant influence on social topics, the reason why it has attracted so much attention is largely because it has successfully used social topics to establish a brand image related to it. When brands participate more proactively in discussions on social topics, it also encourages users to examine brand behavior from a social perspective. In this process, consumers have been awakened to pay attention to social issues, making "boundaryless" social issues a bridge connecting brands and the public. Ultimately, the "national attributes" of social issues have provided brands with a tool to stand out.

2. Breaking the mindset of “serving users” is the best way to take advantage of the situation

In brand marketing, we often talk about occupying the mind. The book "Positioning" proposes that in order to leave an indelible message in the minds of users, the first thing you need is an empty mind, a mind that has not been occupied by other brands.

What I want to say is not about occupying the blank spots in the market, but about solving users' pain points through marketing. In this process, the boundary between marketing and products is not so clear. To use the popular term today, it is called Versailles marketing. We have also heard a saying: use product thinking to do marketing. NetEase Cloud Music is the epitome of this marketing model.

In the process of brand marketing, products are used to trigger certain feelings and values ​​for users, rather than just promoting a certain function. For example, a music review train actually conveys the public's resonance with emotions, life, and music, rather than the function of spreading music reviews. In fact, we can also see similar marketing thinking in some screen-sweeping marketing cases this year.

For example, at the beginning of the year, after fierce competition, Kuaishou won the naming rights for the 2020 CCTV Spring Festival Gala. Its brand voice is extremely high among all Internet companies, overshadowing its rival Douyin.

But with the outbreak of the epidemic, all Spring Festival films were withdrawn, which gave Douyin an opportunity.

After quickly purchasing the broadcasting rights for "Lost in Russia" and announcing that "people across the country can watch it for free", it quickly attracted attention, and the hot topic was formed before it was broadcast on CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and its volume completely surpassed that of Kuaishou. From this point of view, the effect of ByteDance spending 630 million yuan on "Lost in Russia" may be more immediate than the 2 billion yuan prepared for online red envelopes, which can be described as "spending little money to do big things."

The marketing logic behind this is that when all Spring Festival films were withdrawn, the public's inherent entertainment needs could not be met, and Douyin's move just solved this pain point.

Another incident was the DingTalk incident where it received a large number of negative reviews from primary school students during the epidemic. In response to this, DingTalk did not take conventional measures, but instead "begged for mercy online" in a self-deprecating manner. In fact, during the epidemic, many products have launched similar online classroom functions to help students across the country return to school.

However, DingTalk did not directly promote its online classes, but used self-deprecating methods to dispel the negative feelings that this kind of positive communication could easily cause. The logic behind this is also to transform from the conventional "brand-centered" thinking to the "user-serving" thinking. During this process, neither Douyin nor DingTalk used the method of riding on the popularity to indirectly express their product selling points or brand value. Instead, we take how to better serve the various needs of the public as our starting point and carry out marketing communications in the role of a social service provider.

3. Resonating with consumers’ emotions is the key

When brand marketing transitions from product marketing to emotional marketing, people have more emotions. Self-esteem, the desire to be recognized, and the desire to express one's own opinions all influence consumers' choices. As a result, marketing has shifted more towards emotions as the center to meet consumer needs. In other words , brand marketing must tap into consumers’ personal emotions and even the emotions of the times to resonate with them. There happened to be such a case in this year's screen-sweeping marketing.

During this year's 54th Youth Day, Bilibili released a "Speech Dedicated to the New Generation" - "The Next Wave", which swept the screen, expressing envy, praise and tribute to young people, and sparked widespread discussion. We have to admit that there is always some prejudice against young people in every era. In this fragmented era, we are easily attracted by some harsh voices, deny the entire group of people because of some phenomena, and forget to pay attention to and praise the majority of relatively silent and positive people.

Some people "can't stand" young people and think they are "out of touch". Some even label young people as the "degenerate generation" or the "rebellious generation", lamenting that each generation is worse than the previous one. In fact, each generation has its own youth, and each generation will shoulder its own responsibilities and missions in its own way. "The Next Wave" starts from this kind of contemporary sentiment, and through praise and encouragement, it allows the public to re-recognize the majority of young people, while also awakening the public's resonance.

During the Chinese Valentine's Day, "Lonely Frog" and "Qixi Cuckoo" were all over the screen, and Taobao launched a customized "Qixi Frog" chat service, which attracted widespread attention and brought considerable popularity to the brand.

There are also profound social backgrounds and emotions behind this. When being single becomes a phenomenon of the times, the Chinese Valentine's Day happens to provide such a scene for self-mockery, and the "lonely frog" happens to become an excellent outlet for this social emotion. It can be said that whether it is personal emotions or the emotions of the times, no matter which kind of emotional scene marketing marketers focus on, only when the scene content is in line with the consumer's emotions, can it directly hit the consumer's heart, trigger resonance, and impress the consumer.

4. Creating traffic to activate the public's social potential is logical

Jonah Berger pointed out in his marketing book "Contagious": The reason why people like to spread information is mainly because conversation is the basic way for people to socialize with each other. When people get together, they will talk, and conversation requires topics and things to talk about. And this topic of conversation is your social currency.

It can be said that such views are extremely inspiring in the current era of rampant traffic. For brand marketing, you need to provide a kind of "social currency" (topic for conversation) so that your potential customers or even strangers will take photos of your products, post them on WeChat Moments, and discuss your products as soon as they see them, and traffic will come naturally. Such cases are everywhere in this year's marketing hotspots.

This year is the beginning of autumn. “The first cup of milk tea in autumn” went viral on WeChat Moments almost overnight. For a time, all major platforms including WeChat Moments, Weibo, short videos, search engines, etc. joined the heated discussion. In addition to netizens' crazy following of the trend, major milk tea brands and emoticon package entrepreneurs are chasing the wave of public opinion, and various fancy marketing methods are emerging one after another.

For young people who pursue personalized expression, the "milk tea stalk" incident is a hot topic that they have to pursue, providing them with sufficient social value: they can express their entertainment attitude by following the trend, and they can publicize that they are not out of date in the latest and most trendy Internet culture by following the trend.

Another example is the recent popularity of Ding Zhen and Ma Baoguo. Especially Ding Zhen, it only took him more than 20 days to go from an unknown Kangba boy to an internet celebrity. The public talked about him, the media spread the news, and he was forwarded on WeChat Moments. Even the official media cheered for him.

When "Ding Zhen's World" became a hit, the Sichuan Ganzi cultural tourism behind it became popular and attracted huge attention. The pure beauty in him is what most people yearn for. People enjoy talking about these things, and they become social currency.

The reason why people are willing to forward and spread Ding Zhen's content also has extremely high social value: one is people's yearning for beauty and innocence, and the other is the grand social issue behind Ding Zhen - the unbalanced development of society. Perhaps the public is not aware of this motivation, but it does exist objectively and implicitly.

This is the power of social currency. There has never been an overnight "Internet celebrity" with such a grand mission. This social currency allows Sichuan Ganzi Culture and Tourism (brand) to deeply integrate with the public's emotions to help spread it, and then involve the public to actively carry out the next level of spread. This is a revelation. In the current marketing environment, whether brand marketing can attract huge traffic attention, whether it can penetrate into consumers' daily social scenes, and activate the public's social potential is the underlying logic.

The marketing environment is changing, and marketing hotspots are like flowing water. Every year, countless hot events occur one after another, making it difficult for brands to cope with them, but the marketing routines and underlying logic behind them have never changed. As mentioned before, brand marketing should follow the purpose and work backwards to find the method.

Faced with the core goals of brands to stand out, break the mind, resonate and generate traffic, whether it is the marketing thinking of leveraging social issues and serving users, or hitting the emotional rhythm of consumers and activating the social potential of the public, they are all tried and tested underlying methodologies.

This may provide some inspiration for brand marketing in the coming 2021.

By: Chief Marketing Officer

Source: Chief Marketing Officer (ID:cmo1967)