​KOL marketing IPization!

This is a golden sentence said by the star Ning Jing in the hit TV series "Sisters Who Make Waves" (hereinafter referred to as Sisters). This sentence also confirms the differentiated communication value of "Sisters".

In 2020, there are numerous "girl group" variety shows, including "Youth With You 2" and "Creation Camp 3" which are designed to train newbies, and "Sisters" which is a group of veteran female stars. But as Ning Jing said, Shiqu found that "Sisters" actually relies on the natural popularity and exposure of stars, which has two significant differences in communication with "Youth 2" and "Creation 3":

Difference 1: The elder sister became popular quickly, while the younger sister was slow to warm up, and there was a difference in the potential energy of the spread;

Rising star talent shows such as "Youth With You 2" and "Creation Camp 3" are all processes of building the popularity of newcomers from "0" to "1". The "character IPs" formed are also independent of each other, so the explosive power of communication is weaker, but the sustainability is stronger. Each season requires a process of accumulation.

However, the integration of various well-known actresses in "Sisters" happens to bring together well-known characters and build on the basis of "character IP", so that the program has the potential to explode and spread faster, and also enables IP symbols such as Sisters to be quickly established.

Difference 2: The younger sister is dependent and the older sister is giving back, and there are differences in the subjects of spreading topics;

"Youth With You 2" and "Creation Camp 3" were the first programs to become IPs, and then continued to create fans and traffic for the participating new stars; in "Sisters", the phenomenon of feeding back appeared. The sisters relied on their own fan power and attention, as well as the collisions, conflicts, dialogues, etc. in the program, to feed back to the program and create wave after wave of hot discussions, making the program quickly become an IP.

To sum up, the communication potential is that "Sisters" is obviously more popular than before, and the communication subject is the program itself that is popularized by "Sisters". So if "Sister" is replaced by the brand's own campaign, it can just happen to guide the brand to a new KOL marketing strategy.

By comparing "Youth With You 2" and "Creation Camp 3", we can see that "Sisters" brings together well-known stars, and this program idea obviously has more communication advantages. This is a very simple logic. For example, the Spring Festival Gala and Harper's Bazaar Charity Gala all connect celebrities together. But the core difference is that the stars in these shows perform independently of each other, or simply appear on the same stage, and there is no design at the creative level of the content to create a "chemical reaction" between the stars.

Image source: Harper's Bazaar

At the same time, in the current KOL communication method, the brand still uses the idea of ​​"evening party", using many KOLs in one campaign to communicate to their independent fan groups under one communication theme, forming only a simple theme aggregation.

However, according to Daka, the head of strategy at Shiqu, under the idea of ​​programs like "Sisters", the future trend of KOL marketing is:

1. Combine KOL marketing in a content-based and entertaining way;

In the future, brand owners can use creative ideas to design several or several categories of key KOLs for effective and in-depth interactions, so that they can produce a strong chemical reaction, arouse more fan attention, more concentrated voice, more diverse content dissemination points for the brand, and even make it a new brand IP, which will then have a stronger and greater influence on brand communication.

2. Brand owners need to own their own KOCs and KOLs;

In the future, brand owners need to build KOLs into die-hard fans of the brand. Through scientific screening and management, on the one hand, some KOLs and KOCs can become official social spokespersons. On the other hand, it will be easier to mobilize them to participate in their own content creative design within the brand's capabilities and control the premium ability of KOLs.

In short, this is an idea of ​​"IP-izing KOL marketing" : using IP-based content creativity ideas to integrate KOL linkage communication. For this purpose, brand owners must also establish their own exclusive KOL library in order to better mobilize these KOL resources.

In Shiqu’s view, KOL marketing IPization will also bring four significant advantages to brands:

1. Based on the fan economy, create new fans with new IP;

Fans of the stars in the "Sisters" show must have attracted some fans of the "people" to become fans of the "show" after watching the wonderful content of the show.

Brands should note that the core value of KOL marketing is fan economy: fans’ admiration and trust in KOLs need to be contacted and expressed. When KOLs recommend or use a brand, it is the embodiment of this contact and expression for fans. Finally, fans choose brands and help companies realize monetization.

However, the fan economy has never been limited to the "people" level. This is because the essence of the fan economy is a community economy, that is, a social relationship chain derived from a group based on a certain point (interest, hobby, identity, demand). So in addition to "people" as a basic element, an IP program can also build its fan base.

To convert fans of "people" to fans of "brand IP", it is necessary to build on the KOL combination required by the brand, creatively design some interactive programs with variety show elements, and use high-quality creative content to shift the attention of fan users from "people" to "programs", and ultimately convert KOL fans into new fans of the brand IP itself.

2. Ignore KOLs’ fake traffic and create new traffic with new IPs;

In October 2019, an article with over 100,000 views titled "A video became popular overnight, but our traffic was 0!" exposed the painful reality of KOL "brushing" in the digital marketing industry, and once again put the issue of KOL brushing on the table. On the one hand, this shows that what brands desire most is the traffic value of KOLs, but on the other hand, it also reveals that there are hidden dangers in the authenticity of KOL traffic.

However, after a brand establishes a fan base through KOL marketing IP, in addition to the basic exposure and conversion value, it also includes a much larger traffic dissemination value.

In "Sisters", when users see different characters, plots, and details, they actually extend new topics on social media, constantly bringing new social discussions to the program, thereby attracting new traffic. This is exactly the idea of ​​"IP creating topics and creating new traffic". The traffic generated by the program will also create more real traffic value for brand KOL marketing.

Especially the young mainstream consumer groups as natives of social networks, their purchases and recommendations are becoming increasingly inseparable, and they are full of very strong social attributes. For the fan group, almost each of them has become a more effective communicator than professional PR, and the content they share is often more influential and persuasive.

Let’s take a similar case that Shiqu has done recently. In a KOL marketing case for the promotion of Biotherm Men’s toiletries gift box, the project selected couples as KOLs on the Xiaohongshu platform and designed KOL stories and plots that were closely integrated with the product in the promotional content. For example, when giving a gift to a boyfriend, the details of the man’s performance were captured, etc., so that when users pay attention to the recommended content, it is like watching a variety show, which prompted fans to have a lot of interactive discussions, making this promotion win a very strong amount of interaction.

In this case, only two people were combined, but it generated a lot of discussion. If more KOLs were combined, the traffic value generated would definitely be stronger.

3. Global cross-circle cooperation to create diversified and integrated communication;

In "Sisters", each star has a different personal style, and the fan portraits of each star also have their own characteristics. But for a brand, the user group that a communication wants to influence cannot be defined by a single KOL fan group, but is based on a combination of fans of multiple KOLs.

At the same time, the challenge that companies face in KOL marketing is not only that the brand faces a huge number of KOLs, but more importantly, it faces the different communication values ​​​​undertaken by different KOLs. KOLs with different attributes appeal to fans' personality and emotions, creating different scenarios of empathy, resonance and communication; each has different advantages in terms of influence, interaction rate and sales rate; for brands, the purpose of KOL marketing has also become four aspects: increase awareness, improve word of mouth, increase interaction rate, and increase sales conversion rate.

In terms of KOL fan classification and function classification, KOL marketing in the past was often fragmented. For example, food products mostly look for food bloggers, and skin care products mostly look for beauty bloggers. KOLs that increase brand awareness may not bring good sales results. This difficulty can be simply stated as follows: brands are faced with isolated fan groups and KOLs with a single communication function, but what they actually want to achieve is a marketing goal of diverse fans and multiple functions.

Then, after gathering different KOLs to create an IP, different KOLs attract different fan circles, and KOLs that focus on different marketing functions can be aggregated together to exert stronger brand and effect value, which happens to solve this core problem for the brand: integrating KOLs with multiple circles of fans, multiple vertical fields, and multiple communication functions together to create a more powerful comprehensive communication effect.

4. The brand builds its own IP to create continuous communication value;

In the past, the core purpose of brands choosing KOL marketing must have been to promote products. However, when a brand is implanted in a variety show, it is often restricted by various terms and there is not enough space for implantation. However, when KOL marketing is IP-based, it can not only create a sustainable communication IP for advertisers, but also allow brands to have a higher degree of freedom in this content.

In the "Sisters" program, we can see that the fan traffic of different stars is fed back to the program, allowing the program to reap the value of rapid growth and sustainable development, and the life cycle of the program is also getting longer. Then, after KOL marketing is IP-based, even if a different KOL is cooperated with later, it can still create sustainable communication value for the brand based on the IP fans.

For example, in a case created by Shiqu for Unilever Food Planning, the project invited different celebrity chefs or internet celebrities KOLs to create a program in a pioneering way using the brand's own variety show method, allowing users to be unconsciously involved in an entertainment marketing event. Not only can they choose their favorite flavors and dishes, but the brand can also use the high degree of self-control of the self-made program to intersperse products and brands in it, thus strongly occupying the minds of users.

It can be seen that when a brand creates a content IP through KOL that can generate continuous attention and topics among consumers, its cost is actually much lower than a traditional TVC, but its ability to empower the brand will be stronger and longer-lasting.

In summary, Shiqu believes that KOL marketing IP is a marketing idea that is worth trying for brands, but it also tests the core capabilities of the brand in two aspects:

On the one hand, KOLs should be managed scientifically. When brands select and build their own KOL databases, they should be logical, data-based, and technical. Instead of simply screening or placing KOLs, they should propose a complete set of KOL management processes based on specific customer needs, including KOL screening, evaluation, content customization, release tracking, precipitation, recommendation, and elimination.

On the other hand, it is an upgrade of the creativity of KOL marketing; the core of KOL marketing IP is content creativity, which requires marketing agencies with strong strategic and creative capabilities to provide solutions and execution.

Author: Heron

Source: Shiqu Research Institute