Nowadays, many products are labeled as internet celebrities with constant traffic, but their quality is not good. In this era of traffic, too many people invest a lot of energy and financial resources into traffic promotion in order to sell goods, while ignoring the value of the products themselves. The author of this article has conducted a detailed analysis of this, let's take a look together.

1. Crosstalk and Spring Festival Gala

In the 1985 Spring Festival Gala, crosstalk master Mr. Ma Sanli received an invitation to perform.

Mr. Ma attached great importance to it and prepared a work specifically for this Spring Festival Gala, named "Great Joy"; under the attention and expectation of the public, Mr. Ma Sanye took the stage to perform.

It is still a very Ma-style crosstalk, delicate, natural and unobtrusive; Ma's performances in his later years have reached perfection, generous and relaxed, with top-notch rhythm and scale, absolutely a master of his generation.

If you are a senior crosstalk lover, you will definitely think this is a classic work; it is very enjoyable when you listen to it, and it is full of aftertaste when you think about it, and the more you think about it, the happier you will be.

Unfortunately, the crosstalk received a mediocre response at the party.

According to Shao Ma Ye (Mr. Ma Zhiming, the son of Mr. Ma), the old man admitted that he was not suitable for such a stage; after that, Mr. Ma never appeared on the Spring Festival Gala again, and "Dale Te Le" became Mr. Ma Sanye's swan song on the Spring Festival Gala.

Is it that Mr. Ma Sanli’s crosstalk has no market anymore? Or was it that Mr. Ma’s crosstalk was no longer suitable for the times?

If this happened today, there would definitely be self-media outlets that would produce inspiring articles like “ The times have abandoned Mr. Ma San without even saying hello to him .”

That's not true.

Sixteen years later, in 2001, Mr. Ma bid farewell to the stage with a performance. The Tianjin People’s Gymnasium was packed and the surrounding traffic was paralyzed.

Ma Lao said three words on the stage: "Am I worth it?"

The whole audience stood up and cheered, many people clapped, laughed and even shed tears at the same time; crosstalk lovers across the country and young and old men in Tianjin really love Ma Sanye; he is a monument in the crosstalk world and a totem of the people of Tianjin.

Coincidentally, Guo Degang, a representative figure of crosstalk in the new era, has also had a similar experience.

They became famous in the theater and their fame spread through the Internet. At the call of thousands of fans, Guo Degang and Yu Qian finally appeared on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala. However, the response was still mediocre. Guo, who used to often mock TV crosstalk for being unfunny, this time also felt what "unfunny" meant.

The clever old Guo never appeared on the Spring Festival Gala again.

2. TV crosstalk is doomed to be unfunny

Many crosstalk fans like to attribute the unfunny nature of TV crosstalk to two main reasons.

One is duration.

A good crosstalk punchline needs to be laid out smoothly and with emotions building up layer by layer. Television crosstalk generally does not have enough time, so it is difficult to achieve good results.

The second is the system.

This view was advocated by Guo Degang, who attributed the decline of the crosstalk industry to the system. People within the system are financially supported and receive salaries, so they only need to report to their superiors and do not need to face the market, so they don't care whether crosstalk is interesting or not. This has led to the abandonment of business, the formation of cliques, and the suppression of dissidents.

These two reasons cannot fully explain the decline of crosstalk on television.

If you ask a TV station to broadcast a 45-minute crosstalk, it still won't have a good effect; some local stations have tried to broadcast long crosstalks, but were not successful.

As for the system, although it sounds exciting and addictive, the facts are obvious; Lao Guo, who is outside the system, has also been on TV, but he is still not funny; and the most glorious era of crosstalk was the radio era in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when all the actors were from the system.

Even masters like Ma Sanli and Hou Baolin are within the system, and the system has cultivated great men like Ma Ji, and famous artists like Jiang Kun and Feng Gong.

Crosstalk on television will definitely become less funny, and television will definitely ruin crosstalk; from the perspective of marketing and communication - this is common sense.

"The medium is the message" is the most important concept of social thinker and communication master McLuhan.

Technology determines the media form, and the media form determines the message content - in plain words: different lands grow different crops, and the local water and soil support the local people.

As the media format changes, the standards for quality content also change. The criteria for good and bad products have also changed.

What is good crosstalk?

If there is cola, then crosstalk is good; if there is no cola, then crosstalk is not good - this is correct nonsense.

Different scenarios lead to different feelings, and different feelings lead to different product experiences.

The cola crosstalk in the theater may not be funny when it is put on TV; the classics on TV may not sell tickets in the theater.

Different media forms have different product selection mechanisms; theater crosstalk competes for commercial performances, and competes for the crowd that is willing to spend money to listen to crosstalk, and how much money people are willing to pay for your tickets.

Therefore, the first factor in measuring the quality of theater crosstalk is the ticket price; in this form, Ma Sanye is the master and the leading figure.

Television crosstalk is a platform competition, and what counts is how many people are willing to listen to your crosstalk for free, without pressing the remote control or changing channels, and facing the entire audience.

Therefore, the first factor in measuring the quality of TV crosstalk is the ratings.

Under this format, crosstalk cannot beat sketches, sketches cannot beat reality shows, and reality shows cannot beat "Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves".

In terms of ticket sales, Zhao Benshan is definitely not as good as Ma Sanli, but when it comes to the Spring Festival Gala, ten Ma Sanyes are not as good as one Zhao Benshan, or even as good as Yue Yunpeng.

Theater cross talk is about value thinking and brand thinking; television cross talk is about traffic thinking and platform thinking.

3. Be Mr. Ma San or an internet celebrity?

I have written several articles criticizing "traffic thinking" and received a lot of feedback.

"We all know that brands need to make good products and provide better customer value. But after the products are made, don't they still need to generate and operate traffic?" - This is a huge misunderstanding.

There is a huge difference between "traffic thinking" and "value thinking". On the surface, they are different in focus, but in essence they are different in the underlying operational logic.

Brand owners want to create added value, require precise target groups, and focus on shaping brand differences; platforms do not recognize brand added value, require category explosions, and try their best to eliminate brand differences; brand owners want to carve out a territory of their own.

Therefore, different styles will be produced according to different needs and interests. Only differentiated satisfaction of needs can bring brand profits.

The result is a competition among schools with diverse characteristics.

What platform operators think is "my territory is my territory and you listen to me"; no matter you are crosstalk, sketches, magic and acrobatics, or Meipai, Chengpai, Mapai and Yangpai, a good genre is the one that can bring traffic and GMV.

If all brands compete with the same standard, the end result will be that products and brands will become increasingly similar and mediocre.

How many readers know Professor Zhang Huoding?

If you are not a Peking Opera fan, I believe 99% of you will not know her; although little known, Professor Zhang's market value is very high and she is known as the "Goddess of Lamp" among opera fans.

Last year, when Professor Zhang's Farewell My Concubine premiered in Beijing, the ticket price was hyped up to more than 10,000 yuan per ticket. The second show in Shanghai had to switch to a real-name ticketing system, but the tickets were still sold out at more than 3,000 yuan each.

Mr. Kotler is basically unknown outside the marketing circle.

Dr. Cao Hu, President of Kotler China, met a friend at a meeting. The friend grabbed his hand and said excitedly, "I finally found you. Our kitchenware and sanitaryware are all Kohler."

But this does not prevent Mr. Ko from being a master of the hall of fame, and his IP has extremely high market value.

Whether it is Professor Zhang or Mr. Ke, putting them on TV will not increase the ratings, and if they are put on the Internet, the traffic is far less than that of "Internet Miss" and "Dear Friends".

Mr. Ma Sanye, Professor Zhang and Mr. Ke are good products based on brand thinking logic, providing customer perceived value.

"Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves" and "Internet Celebrity Sisters" are good products based on platform thinking, providing attention and traffic.

A good product according to the most extreme platform thinking standard is a traffic star: without any decent works, they are still very popular.

4. Traffic thinking and value thinking are two routes of competition

After all, the difference between platform thinking and brand thinking is the difference between traffic thinking and value thinking, just like the difference between "fresh meat" and "old drama bones".

• Young actors are all the same, but veteran actors have different styles;
• Young actors are all the rage, while veteran actors are slowly cooking;
• What the young actors sell is their characters, while what the veteran actors sell is their works...

The butt determines the head.

From the perspective of brand owners, they certainly hope to become "old actors" - speaking to users through their works and gaining their own market competitiveness.

From the platform's perspective, they hope that all brands can become "fresh meat" - easily gaining massive attention, being highly replaceable, and being able to be replaced immediately if one fails.

What the platform seeks is to gain maximum attention at the lowest cost, while what brands seek is for users to be willing to pay more premium for them.

Don’t ever think that “the more attention you get, the more profit you will get.”

These are actually two paths and there is no necessary correlation.

Ma Sanye's crosstalk has no traffic, but the tickets are selling like hot cakes; the crosstalk performed in the Spring Festival Gala is well-known to everyone, but commercial performances can only give away tickets in large quantities.

Crosstalk was brought to the big television platform, which brought traffic, but also ruined crosstalk.

Guo Degang brought crosstalk back to the small theater, cutting off the traffic but saving crosstalk.

When supermarkets were booming in the early years, all KA stores moved towards platformization: they no longer made money by selling products, but by collecting entry fees, display fees, promotional fees, etc.

The inevitable result is that all shopping malls are the same, the consumer experience has declined significantly, and ordinary people have lost interest in shopping malls - this has laid the biggest landmine for the sharp decline of today's supermarkets.

Today’s Internet business platforms are even more brutal.

They are guided by GMV, use categories and low prices as weapons, and cut off the added value of the brand. At the same time, it is also castrating the core competitiveness of brand owners.

If you are not the first or second in a category, you will have no chance of exposure on the platform; even if you can be the first in a category, your status will quickly decline without continuous traffic purchases.

The result is: brand owners have lost their brand weapons and can only look for category opportunities; buying traffic and low prices have become their only means of promotion, platforms have gained unprecedented voice, and e-commerce has become the most difficult business in the world.

Teacher Liu Chunxiong said that big brands and big manufacturers are hedges; it is not the platform but the brand owners who create added value, but the big platforms focus on cost-effectiveness and eliminate added value.

Concepts such as "traffic thinking", "new retail", "explosive products", "competition for user time", etc. are weapons used by platforms to brainwash brands, and they fundamentally deny the logic of brand added value.

Brand owners must not give up their own skills, cut off their own meridians, and just follow the platform’s traffic baton.

Do you want to be an independent veteran actor, or a traffic star who is at the mercy of others?

This multiple-choice question should not be difficult.

Author: Miao Qingxian

Source: Lao Miao Si Marketing