Brand IP marketing advanced from 0 to 1!

When it comes to " IP marketing ", it often means finding a popular IP to cooperate with, either to jointly launch a product, or to launch a set of joint posters, then create topics and find KOLs to post them. Of course, some brands also choose to create IPs, and a common way is to create festivals. These are the states of brand IP marketing 1.0, and the core purpose of the brand is still brand exposure and brand building.

But when the brand has higher demands and expectations for marketing, the brand will advance to IP Marketing 2.0, such as how to achieve a larger scale of dissemination, how to attract more users, how to let the IP settle, and how to let users settle?

The key to solving the problem of brand IP marketing 1.0 to 2.0 lies in digging deep into the essence of IP marketing and transforming marketing ideas and strategies.

The reason is: behind an IP actually lies a cultural phenomenon and circle culture. Although the brand is doing IP marketing, the focus is still on circle marketing.

However, it is not an easy task to go from "IP" to "circle". First of all, IP marketing is traffic thinking, and circle marketing is user thinking + operation thinking + traffic thinking, which means that the brand marketing paths are very different. Secondly, the latter poses more challenges to the brand, such as the IP circle’s language system, value system, and the integration of niche culture.

Recently, more and more large brands have been attracting users and interacting with them by creating their own holiday IPs. Once the holiday IP forms a stable brand awareness in the public's mind, it can become a new marketing node for the brand and may even continue to bring commercial value to the brand in the future, such as Double Eleven, 618 or the B Station Spring Festival Gala.

01. Brand IP Marketing 1.0: Build a community before creating an IP

Events like "TME Sweet Sugar Festival" are also the product of brand IP marketing. The "TME Sweet Sugar Festival" project originally originated from TME's public relations and communication plan for the second anniversary of its listing, but in the view of the TME project leader, "the second anniversary of the listing is an industry-oriented event, and ordinary users will not pay attention to it. TME hopes to communicate and dialogue with users rather than an action that users cannot perceive."

Therefore, when the "TME Sweet Sugar Festival" IP was first created, the brand did not use event marketing thinking to promote something to users, but hoped to give users and music fans more benefits through festivals.

As a brand agent, Shiqu has carried out higher-dimensional thinking on IP marketing from aspects such as brand, industry, musicians, fans/users, etc. in the project, and has thus infiltrated the thinking of circle marketing into the underlying logic of brand IP creation. Specifically, the IP of this festival is not only guided by brand communication, but also requires multiple parties to participate in the festival IP activities, such as integrating copyright holders and celebrity artists upstream, integrating the four major internal platforms and third-party brands in the midstream, and reaching users and providing music entertainment experience downstream, so that all parties can gather together because of one thing and form a circle.

02. IP Marketing 2.0: Circle Marketing, Focusing on User Experience

After successfully creating the "TME Sweet Sugar Festival" IP, the brand's challenge in the promotion of "TME Sweet Sugar Festival" 2.0 in 2021 is to achieve upgrades based on the existing IP. After 1.0 has achieved resonance on the spiritual level, how can we bring users more physical perceptions and make the brand IP memorable based on a better user experience?

Based on the previous IP creation and execution experience of 1.0 TME Sweet Sugar Festival. This time, Shiqu and the brand joined forces again to jointly complete the challenge of IP marketing upgrade.

First of all, Shiqu has insight into the auditory perception that music brings to users. After 1.0 has created a spiritual resonance between music and users, what brands and IPs need to solve is how to be perceived by users, that is, at the content level, through what kind of medium to truly connect TME (homonymous with sweetness) and music.

This is a consideration from the brand IP level, but returning to the user level, how the brand can be integrated into the relationship dialogue between music and users without being weakened is also a problem that needs to be solved.

Shiqu further analyzed how to make consumers have physical perception of the brand. In addition to the auditory perception brought by music, it is actually possible to use carrier materials to give the brand or IP physical attributes such as touch, taste, and vision, making it easier for users to perceive and form memory points.

Secondly, the goal is to further strengthen the IP positioning, and "TME Sweet Sugar Festival" is evolved from the homonym of TME, TME=sweetness=sugar, and sugar and sweetness are exactly in line with the taste perception.

If music and sugar are combined to create a dual experience of hearing and taste, it will definitely give users an unforgettable experience.

In addition to user-level considerations, brands also need to pay attention to cultural exchanges within the IP circle and allow the circle to interact so that the IP can have sustainable vitality. At the same time, it also allows the brand and IP to have the possibility of self-propagation and influence more people.

Therefore, the project combined brand IP, user experience and cultural circles to customize the overall communication strategy and creative content. Specifically, at the "TME Sweet Festival", the brand implemented a "three-step" approach to gradually provide users with an immersive experience, gradually penetrate the circle and penetrate more scenarios:

01. Immersive experience, black technology "music candy" can be listened and tasted

TME continues the beautiful meaning of "sweet candy" and invites 11 groups of artists including Mayday, Rene Liu, Jike Junyi, Shan Yichun, INTO1, Li Wenhan, Liu Shuang, Deng Shejun (Deng Yujun), GAI Zhou Yan (DMG), Yao Chen and Zhang Yuan to jointly create a "TME Music Sandwich Candy", filling the stars' songs and blessing audio into the lollipops and transmitting them with the help of bone conduction sound technology.

When the user holds this lollipop in his mouth, he can experience the sweetness brought by the taste on the one hand, and enjoy the sweetness of the hearing on the other. Obviously, the combination of lollipop and music, through this fresh creativity, can allow users to fully experience the brand warmth and fun of TME.

02. Penetration of circles: Double sugar distribution and joint promotion

In addition to real sweet moments, the "TME Sweet Sweetness Festival" deeply explores the emotional needs of users behind their music appreciation, and invites 31 artists including Jay Chou, Times Youth League, Ivy Yu, Mao Buyi, Hu Yanbin, and Lai Meiyun to record their IDs and participate in the "sweet moments", sending sweet blessings to music fans in winter. This wave of double sweetness not only became extremely popular among music fans, but also directly sparked discussions on all platforms. In the end, the main topic #TME甜蜜发糖节# had more than 150 million Weibo readings, 522,000 discussions, 650,000 cumulative interactions, and 3.7 million video views in total.

In addition, TME has also created an online interactive event to collect the "Sweet Moments of 2021", and joined hands with Mayday, Rene Liu, Jike Junyi, Shan Yichun, and INTO1 to participate, using TME music sandwiches as prizes to collect the "Sweet Moments of 2021" from music fans across the country. In just three days, 59,981 sweet memories were collected, which also caused a wave of online craze.

03. Infiltration scene: offline filling, continuous rendering of atmosphere

This year's "TME Sweet Festival" not only has a layout for online social communication, but also has a new upgrade in offline scenes. It has realized sweet broadcasts on large screens with a total area of ​​more than 510 square meters in 17 Joy City stores across the country. In conjunction with Joy City stores in Shanghai Jing'an, Chengdu, Kunming and Yantai, music fans can receive sweet new wishes and gifts through offline fun interactive gameplay.

Users only need to go to Joy City during the event and fulfill the "Three Sweet Steps to a New Wish": 1. Wear any blue element (clothes, accessories, name or mobile phone screensaver, etc.); 2. Consume any sweet element (such as milk tea, desserts, etc.) in Joy City in the four locations; 3. Find a sweet spot, check in, take photos and post them on WeChat Moments, and you can get TME music candies or other music-related gifts. The full sense of ritual and atmosphere further enhances the festive atmosphere of the "TME Sweet Sugar Festival".

It is precisely because of the layer-by-layer analysis of the Shiqu team that the core creativity of the project was positioned as TME music candy. The TME Sweet Candy Festival truly achieved [Sweet Candy]. While strengthening the brand IP, it also achieved an upgrade from the spiritual level to the physical perception, allowing users to truly obtain creative benefits. In addition, the innovative gameplay combined with different channels hit the emotional points of users. Finally, the addition of audio of celebrity artists also made the circle platform flow and interactivity, and the brand was deeply integrated into the circle.

It can be seen that the soul of IP marketing throughout the "TME Sweet Sugar Festival" lies in circle marketing, and the key element of circle marketing is that the brand must understand the users. The reason why the brand is able to solve such complex circle marketing is mainly because of the brand's long-term accumulated user insights and ability to formulate corresponding strategies, which are all derived from TME's multi-dimensional content co-creation and the accumulation of advantages of various types of projects.

Taking TME live Tencent Music Super Live as an example, for circle marketing, the brand mainly considers the following three aspects:

1) Language system: When entering a circle, you first need to clarify the language system and determine the communication method between the brand and users before there can be interaction, feedback, and communication.

2) Circle relationships: There are multiple relationships within a circle, including relationships between users, between users and circle members, between users and circle members, and between brands. Brands need to pay a certain degree of attention to each relationship and find the corresponding "bridge" so that marketing can focus on the "bridge".

3) Value system: Brands need to have a deep understanding of what values ​​all users in the circle hope to obtain through the circle, such as emotional resonance, self-worth realization, social interaction, etc. Only when the brand clearly recognizes the user's value system can it find the one that can best touch the users in the circle from a bunch of creative ideas.

01. Pay attention to circle relationships and generate strong emotional connections

The essence of paying attention to circle relationships is how to use relationships to create communication and interaction with users, but brands must think about the ultimate goal of creating interactive communication, which is to establish an emotional connection with the brand. At the communication level, this emotion can be recognized, discussed, and shared.

During Mayday's FLY TO 2022 New Year's Eve online concert, Shiqu discovered through insight that giving meaning to a meaningless day by creating anniversaries and important nodes is a way to quickly establish an emotional connection between the brand and users. At the same time, on an extraordinary day, discussing a social issue that everyone can empathize with can accelerate its spread beyond the circle, such as staying at home, working hard, etc.

Therefore, in this project, the project team combined the theme of Mayday's concert, "Suddenly I Miss You", which evolved from "Want to See You" to "Be with You", making the concert day an agreement between Mayday and the fans, and giving this day a promise to be fulfilled;

On the other hand, due to the postponement of the offline concert in May, fans were unable to meet Mayday, so the project team planned to continue the May appointment and the topic of Mayday's online concert. This not only increased the attention and discussion of the topic, but also guided the fans and the public to release their emotions, and brought the emotions of the May appointment to the online New Year's Eve concert, which maximized the dissemination volume of this event and created momentum beyond the circle. In the end, #五月天FLY TO 2022跨新年演唱会# reached more than 100 million people, 17 hot searches on the Social platform, and more than 1.5 billion readings of the topic on Weibo.

02. Start from user emotions and provide more experience

Based on its rich experience in music marketing, Shiqu analyzed that the reason why music is one of the most infectious arts is that everyone's emotions in different states, such as love, heartbreak, happiness, departure and other personal emotions in life, can be expressed through music, and each expression is also a kind of emotional sustenance and memory. However, the connection between ordinary people and music often only stays in headphones. What kind of form and experience would it be if there were a live performance that specially sang songs for the healing of ordinary people?

Based on this, Tencent Music Entertainment Group and Tencent News jointly created the "One-Man Concert", which is also the first charity project of TME live Tencent Music Super Live's 2021 annual charity plan. The creative form of "One Person's Concert" is simple: two chairs, one song, one-on-one singing, conveying the warmth of music. This project has a total of 8 phases. Each episode invites a well-known musician to sing for ordinary people, and in the form of an interview, let the stories of ordinary people interpret the music.

In the project strategy and execution process, the brand takes the perspective of singing songs specifically for the healing of ordinary people, starting from releasing the user's emotions and extracting different emotional keywords, such as "healing", "hope", "courage" and "strength". Judging from the results, music, as an auditory expression of emotions, combines different music + stories, which not only brings users a multi-level experience, but also creates a concert specifically for users to release their emotions. From the perspective of humanistic care, "One Person's Concert" also inspires public opinion support for positive energy in society. In the busy and fast-paced urban life, there is such a group of ordinary people who need to be paid attention to, seen and heard, which triggers emotional resonance among users and deeply links user emotions with brand value.

03. Create “content” with users using the community language

In addition to the gathering of domestic cross-era idols, the brand also focuses on the European and American music circles, unlocking the Chinese-only version of Adele's new album and concert for users to meet the music needs of different music fans.

On the one hand, many netizens have watched the concert through overseas broadcasts, but the overall viewing experience is weaker. Taking into account the user experience and the rights of core fans, the brand finally unlocked a two-day exclusive benefit for fans at TME live Tencent Music Super Live. Fans can experience the high-definition stream and high-quality Adele's new album concert in an immersive and multi-frequency online environment.

On the other hand, in terms of social communication, the brand also hopes to use Adele's concert to enjoy the music feast with users and enhance its brand value. However, to achieve this communication goal, it is obviously not a wave that can be created by a brand alone, but requires more users to be involved and participate.

Based on this, Shiqu and its co-branded brand planned two social topics: #Adele's new song makes me drunk# and #Adele's ten-year comparison mashup#. These two topics not only aroused great repercussions from Adele's fans and the European and American music circles, but also stimulated fans' enthusiasm for secondary content creation, bringing higher exposure. In addition, TME live Tencent Music Super Live has also had sessions and content to communicate with fans in the Japanese music circle, Chinese style circle, and hip-hop circle, attracting the attention of users from different circles and stimulating the widespread dissemination of the event.

From the data, as of February 28, 2022, the reading volume of topics related to TME live Tencent Music Super Live was more than 37.7 billion, and the discussion volume was more than 38.18 million; the official Weibo followers of TME live Tencent Music Super Live reached 731,000, an increase of 400,000 fans compared to the end of October.

It can be seen that whether it is Mayday’s New Year’s Eve concert, "A One-Man Concert", Adele’s new album concert, or various concert promotion campaigns, TME live is not only the organizer of live music, but also the guardian and operator of a circle. Whether it is musicians, stars, or fans, in the entire new form of live entertainment activities, everyone has gained a different experience, and the key behind this lies in the brand’s insight and deep understanding of users within the circle. This is also an important reason why the entire TME live Tencent Music Super Live can achieve breakthrough communication.

Shiqu believes that whether it is the upgrade of the IP marketing of [TME Sweet Sugar Festival] or the circle marketing of TME live Tencent Music Super Live, the underlying marketing logic of both is to understand users, follow the ideas of circle marketing, explore the emotional needs of different users, and formulate differentiated communication strategies for different users.

As long as you understand the users' real needs, grasp their interests, understand the language of their circles, and speak at the right time, you can impress them and ultimately achieve the overall shaping of brand value and maximize communication benefits.

Of course, whether it is the successful creation of the "TME Sweet Sugar Festival" IP, the breakthrough from IP 1.0 to 2.0, or the unexpected implementation of TME live Tencent Music's super-long-term and multi-project parallel implementation, one of the main reasons behind Shiqu's successful service to TME is that the service team is a team that understands music, has fun, and understands brands through Shiqu's "Creativity Galaxy" ecological service matching. In the past two years of long-term service to the brand, on the one hand, the team has continuously refined brand needs and steadily produced high-quality services. On the other hand, the team has systematically precipitated brand marketing methodology through nearly a hundred large, medium and small communication campaigns a year. During the epidemic, scientific marketing thinking helped the brand complete a highly difficult integrated marketing campaign.

In the future, the Shiqu team will maintain a keen marketing sense and stable marketing service management capabilities, face new challenges together with the brand, seize opportunities through challenges, accompany the brand's growth, and enable customers to complete brand upgrades time and time again.