How to carry out brand promotion on Bilibili?

Bilibili is facing the new generation of young people who are full of vigor and vitality, have strange ideas in their minds, and are the main consumer force in the future market. How can we impress this generation of young people? How to do brand marketing on Bilibili? The author of this article expressed his own views on this and shared them with you.

Before the beginning:

I haven’t updated for a long time. Some time ago, Bilibili released the 2021 brand marketing manual. Many brand friends asked me what I thought of this manual, what the core points are, what effect it has on them, or some related questions.

Because brand marketing actually corresponds to brand advertising, and as a researcher in the advertising industry, I would like to take this opportunity to talk about Bilibili's commercial advertising business in the next updated article.

I will interpret Bilibili's commercial business in three major chapters: brand marketing, UP host marketing, and performance marketing. The enterprise account position is an additional fourth chapter, which is equivalent to the interpretation of product infrastructure.

Today's article mainly talks about the "bilibili 2021 Brand Marketing Manual". The significance of the manual is that the brand chooses appropriate solutions based on marketing scenarios.

A marketing PPT has never been able to solve all scenarios and all customer problems. This time the content should be the marketing links and marketing strategies derived from the core demands of advertisers on B Station, to help advertisers solve their main marketing needs.

I think the main focus of Bilibili's "Marketing Manual" this time is to establish a correct perception of Bilibili: to convey what Bilibili is like from the perspective of the community, the content, and the user, and then what solutions Bilibili provides.

Usage scenario: Applicable to marketing interpretation for middle and senior management of the brand (if not middle and senior management, then it should be a specific project or a single case for docking)

The first section is "The Wonderful Z Generation": the overall content is a bit abstract, mainly conveying some thoughts and insights on young minds and concepts, and three key words derived from insights into the Z generation: new aesthetics, new creation, and new consumption.

The second section, "Bilibili Ecological Atlas", mainly introduces the Bilibili platform, including users, content and community.

The third section "Bilibili Marketing Strategy": It mainly derives the marketing direction of Bilibili and what kind of needs it solves for advertisers.

1. "Wonderful Generation Z"

The background of an era has undergone a huge change. The post-90s generation is now in their thirties, and the post-00s generation has left school. Under the influence of their generational background, their consciousness may be different from that of their predecessors.

Bilibili used three consciousnesses to make its argument: local consciousness, retro consciousness, and humanistic consciousness.

The local consciousness corresponds to the national style and national trend. The example is "Fog Mountain of Five Elements" on Bilibili, a domestic masterpiece of 2020. The first episode received a high score of 9.2 on Douban shortly after it was aired. With its ink painting style and suspenseful plot, "Fog Hill of Five Elements", which is said to be "four years in the making", lived up to expectations.

The corresponding retro consciousness is to create new styles of content with a sense of the times. The example given is Zhang Qiang's disco across the network of Bilibili, which aroused Bilibili's creative enthusiasm.

The humanistic consciousness corresponds to the knowledge content of social sciences and humanities beginning to be actively accepted and absorbed. An example is the content of criminal law taught by Professor Luo Xiang. Behind each of his case analyses of the law, he would make a summary statement to popularize the humanities and the thoughts behind the issues of human nature. This can attract the attention of today's young people. This kind of content with humanistic consciousness can strongly attract their attention and resonance.

Under the new consciousness, three new changes have emerged: new aesthetics, new creation, and new consumption.

New Aesthetics: For example, there was unexpected content in Bilibili’s two New Year’s Eve parties last year and the year before. The year before last, it was Fang Jinlong and an orchestra of 100 people, a traditional Chinese folk music, and a Western symphony. The concept of one against a hundred, a national musical instrument, it can compete with a project of 100 people and a symphony orchestra. This is the collision and fusion that occurs in the process.

New creation: This kind of aesthetic also occurs in individuals, in the creation and expression of young people. Not only will they appreciate what we provide, but they will also develop new and different modes of expression in their own creative expressions.

Is the reason why Mr. He became so popular because his reviews of digital products are particularly professional or in-depth? Actually, it is not like that. It is because every time he operates, he has a different starting point. The starting point is actually how my technological digital life can change our individual lives and how it cares about people.

In addition, Bilibili may have a program called "Rap New Generation" last year. This program is also very interesting. It has produced many hit singles, and the songs are more popular than the singers. The reason why the songs are more popular than the people themselves is that these creators are using a very hip-hop and popular entertainment approach to directly address some rather sharp and serious social puzzles.

As for today's young people, they can use more tactful but also entertaining or sharp ways to create and express themselves, and directly address such a proposition. This is a transformation and change in their creation.

New consumption: People in their thirties will gradually show their strong purchasing power in the fields of automobiles, home furnishings and even maternal and child care. This kind of influence may, for example, become a symbol of consumption in the category of new energy vehicles.

Based on three key words obtained through insights into Generation Z: new aesthetics, new creation, and new consumption. The new aesthetic system we are talking about is more about a change in thinking.

It is mainly reflected in three elements:

• The first element is to make an aesthetic counterpoint from the aesthetic aspect and match the corresponding product attributes.
• The second element: the resonance created by the new way of creation.
• The third element: At the same time, you need to give them more consumption experiences that are not just product attributes, but more of an upgrade in experience.

Only by growing together with them can we build some mental resonance with young users and attract today's young Generation Z consumers.

2. "Bilibili Ecosystem Atlas"

In the soil of the entire content ecology of Bilibili, the first thing to talk about is the user's data and user characteristic information, and then the second part talks about what the entire user in Bilibili pays attention to and what is the industrial chain it has laid out. This industrial chain contains three parts: the first is IP, the second is content, and the third is entertainment experience, and then a detailed explanation is given.

The attributes of users on Bilibili are explained through the link of young gathering → active stickiness → potential release. Here we look at some key information:

• "In China, one out of every two young people is on Bilibili." This refers to the youthfulness of Bilibili's monthly active users.
• "Bilibili's users are active and sticky, and they live on Bilibili" expresses users' love for the community through their average daily usage of 75 minutes and average monthly submissions of 5.9 million.
• "As Bilibili's users grow and expand, its user base becomes richer." As Bilibili's old users grow older, we will see a large-scale growth in users over the age of 30. In fact, it’s not that there are only new users over the age of 30, but that the original users are growing. The ratio of men to women is balanced, the population is from first to third tier cities, and the quality is very high.

From the perspective of user characteristics, user characteristics include three parts: young people are all here, young people are playing very actively here, and young people are releasing their potential here. Several data are used for this part. The first is the user share data and monthly active users. The second is the stickiness data of the entire B station users, using its playback volume and usage time to prove its stickiness. The third is to use the data of users' age groups and regional groups to illustrate the user structure and the process of new and old replacement of users as they grow.

How has Bilibili grown with young people over the past 11 years and become a way of life for them?

Then, connecting with the insights of the first section, "aesthetics", "creation" and "experience" are used to introduce the three major industrial chain levers of Bilibili. The entire section is about the content industry that Bilibili has laid out based on user needs.

Handle 1: Source IP supply

The areas covered by IP are mainly concentrated in comics, domestic creations, film and television, variety shows, Japanese animation, documentaries, virtual idols and events. There are three key words. The first one is serving the ecosystem (IP content is created to promote the supply of B station’s community ecosystem), the second one is quality (small quantity but good reputation), and the third one is IPization.

In the field of domestic creation, one clear point of the domestic creation layout is to actively establish IP in the entire industrial chain, starting from the source.

In film and television/documentary, we extend and develop IP, and create an ecological layout for closed-loop industrial projects such as production, promotion and marketing.

In the field of variety shows, Bilibili’s thinking is actually centered around the ecosystem and serves the value of the overall ecosystem. For example, when the new generation of rap was launching the project, they wanted to plan for a music track. Rap is just a music category. The core goal is to make the music content of Bilibili explode through popular programs.

Transformers Brothers is a content column originally created by the UP master of Bilibili. B Station saw that users liked it, so it turned it into a content column and used a more refined and professional production team to produce it, enriching the entertainment experience of young people. This is the starting point of ecological incubation.

Regarding the track of the event, it is mainly e-sports. From the perspective of e-sports live streaming, Bilibili's acquisition of the exclusive live streaming rights for the League of Legends S League for three years and hosting of the E-sports Masters Tournament are actually also part of its overall e-sports layout.

Grasp 2: Content Reconstruction and Expansion

The content section is mainly composed of two parts. The first is live broadcast, and the second is that a large part of PUGVOGV comes from content creators.

Content co-creation stimulates content re-creation and allows IP to bloom more flowers in this soil. We can see that it is a topic that drives related incentives, allowing users to create content with content creators, and then derives many categories of expression.

IP is the core quality of the content. Through this combination, it triggers discussions within the site. People can watch, chat and discuss here, which will give full play to the IP effect, bloom more flowers and produce more different fruits.

Along with the overall needs of users, including changes in user interests, behind them are actually young users exploring a wider world.

Therefore, the community operation of Bilibili will gradually expand its areas of interest and territory.

For example, in the fields of knowledge, food, and animals, are these the areas that Bilibili wants to focus on? In fact, it is not. The essence comes from users. Only when user demand is too high and the content scale has increased, will the partitions be separated. This is the logical idea of ​​community operation.

Focus 3: Upgraded entertainment experience

Bilibili’s online and offline activities are integrated with young people’s consumption scenarios.

For example, BML and BW are cultures that are particularly unique to Bilibili. Bilibili should hope to provide users with more immersive interactions from online to offline, and to ferment three-dimensional attention and consumption experience in the community atmosphere.

B Station is constantly upgrading and expanding its facilities and infrastructure. Including Bilibili Comics, which focuses on the introduction and fermentation of IP, and Maoer, which is in the field of audio and meets the needs of users in this field.

The entire 11-year ecosystem of Bilibili has attracted young people to come for the content of the entire community and stay for the community.

The reason to open Bilibili is the infrastructure established by its source IP, the reason to stick to Bilibili is its content creation which leads to the construction of its new atmosphere, and the reason to live in Bilibili is that its experience extends to many new scenarios, allowing users to come to such a community because of the content and stay because of the community.

After 11 years of development, the core of B Station's ecology and system concept is to express that B Station users come because of the good content, and there is no way to attract users without good content.

3. "Bilibili Marketing Strategy"

The three major elements mentioned at the beginning of the first section are: aesthetic counterpoint, creative resonance and experience upgrade. (The last page of the first chapter, that is, page 8, mentions the mental connection brought about by aesthetic creation and experience, and then page 14 of the second chapter also mentions the three major levers that Bilibili uses to lay out such an industrial chain in such an environment of aesthetic creation and experience) The marketing environment for brands on Bilibili is deduced, and Bilibili also has and provides such a marketing environment.

At Bilibili, this young soil fosters mental connections and helps brands occupy young marketing positions. We can see that the entire core value is focused on the core point of young minds that resonate with each other.

Use the communication context that young people understand to provide a young soil for brand building and adapt to the scenarios and needs of brand marketing. Young people are all in new positions, and brands also need to frequently switch to new platforms to achieve the purpose of continued consumption.

Another marketing scenario is new products. From a brand marketing perspective, the brand will be promoted in the form of products. Constantly innovating and launching new popular items are some of the problems that brand marketing often faces today.

In the marketing environment of Bilibili, the three key words that come out of the brand's marketing thinking combined with Bilibili are:

• Look: What content users pay attention to
• Creation: What content should be created to communicate with users?
• Play: Really play with users in the community

What are strengthened and emphasized through these ideas are two marketing scenarios: the brand renewal scenario and the new product creation scenario.

Two sets of practices are provided according to the two scenarios: the corresponding practices for brand renewal are IP buff and call to action; the corresponding practices for new product explosion are new product day and B station hot spots.

1) Brand Renewal-IP BUFF

Core key:

What brands need to understand is that a content IP should not simply be implanted on the Bilibili platform. To open up the entire chain of the marketing model. First, we communicate mentally and create content. Then, we use IP to empower causality or improve offline reach. We use IP authorization to place advertising materials, extend and empower some offline consumption scenarios, and form communication in a young context.

Example:

The cooperation between Audi and Linglong is a good example. Audi is an old brand that specializes in high-end cars. In order to continue the youthful vitality of its brand, it chose to cooperate with such a large IP with a sense of technology.

Overall, Audi has a dream, and this dream is a concept car. For Linglong, this domestically created animation helps him fulfill his dream and shows his concept car in this entire sci-fi domestically created animation.

The approach is to implant Audi's concept car into the Ling Cage film, and at the same time obtain the authorization of this IP to attract the attention of young people across the Internet through Audi's online and offline channels. This kind of integration strategy is to inspire brands to have a good continuation and expansion in IP marketing, and to connect online and offline in all aspects.

2) Brand Renewal - Call for Action

In addition to IP, there is also a set of practices called calls for action.

The call to action is actually a Pro version of a special topic or a super topic concept of Weibo. It can gather all the articles related to this topic in Bilibili on the entire topic page, making the entire topic page very rich in content. Then, there are some participation methods around the theme and tags of the entire topic page, allowing users to generate more articles and ugc content around this topic, allowing them to have discussions here.

The topic page is mainly used to spread the voice and conduct some discussions. It can also be used to increase the number of followers for the entire corporate account. A common way is to follow the corporate account, and you can get a chance to win a lottery. You can also make some external link jumps, jump to the store, jump to the official website, and so on.

On Estee Lauder's call to action:

Estee Lauder held a graduation makeup contest. We once again included it in this way. The core of it is that it launched such a graduation makeup contest, calling on everyone to participate, spreading this event through high-quality traffic, and the up-hosts actively participated in the high-quality content and placed it on the entire call page, and then used high-quality resources to attract more users after seeing this, and then promoted its brand renewal process.

The Call to Action is a community platform for gathering topics, where you can pay attention to everything you may be concerned about. High-quality content creators publish their own content creations and use more youthful contexts to go deeper. In this position, communicate with young people.

3) New product launch - New product day

New Product Day is to use B station’s live broadcast resources to promote new products.

Warm up before the live broadcast, use Bilibili tools and interactive live broadcast functions to attract attention on the day of the live broadcast, customize the live broadcast room, and then re-create the live broadcast content and highlights after the live broadcast and spread them again.

Judging from the new product launch case of IQOO:

Reservation resources: It means spreading a lot of resources on the entire page to achieve the effect of advance reservation. For example, you can see the entire live broadcast program flow and time period by pulling down the half-screen page, and know when your favorite up master will come into the live broadcast room to participate in the live broadcast.

On the day of the live broadcast: the first customized background is a theme skin, and then there is the Chosen Moment. This is a product that everyone on Bilibili likes and recommends very much. When you click to participate in the lottery function, it will automatically post a barrage on the comment and participate in the lottery. It can achieve the effect of full-screen barrage during live broadcast.

After you click to participate in the lottery, a barrage will be automatically generated. This barrage can be posted regularly, for example: #Follow the official account Charlie's words to learn about B station marketing#. Then after you click to participate, the entire screen will display #Follow the official account Charlie's words to learn about B station marketing#. Finally, the entire secondary fermentation of the release is a secondary diffusion, which can be a process of re-editing and dissemination.

4) New product hits the market - B is the hot spot

The main difference between B Hot Spot and the above new product day is

New Product Day is suitable for relatively short-term use of strong traffic resources to win the attention of users across the entire site; B occupying hot spots is a marketing approach that leverages B's own hot spots to create new consumption scenarios with brand combinations.

What is B hotspot?

B hot spots are some native hot spots within the B station, including BW, BML, New Year's Eve and other activities that are more characteristic of B station. In addition, they also include native activities initiated by the main site of B station, such as Brain Hole Festival, Halloween, etc. These within the site are relatively smaller.

We can see that, in fact, the entire hot topic of Bilibili mainly relies on official endorsement and then integrates into the process of young users, because there is still a gap between the brand and the users on Bilibili. This gap can be filled through the function of processing and translating these contents.

Overall, the brand acts as a sponsor and uses official endorsement to integrate with prospective users.

Finally, brands on Bilibili must start from building good content, leverage Bilibili’s own good content, and work together with users to create together. Take advantage of the B station community's advantages and conditions to spread and ferment some community topics.

The overall scene gameplay of Bilibili is relatively fixed in each model, and the dimension is to achieve deeper penetration and fully mobilize the core resources of Bilibili.

This 42-page manual discusses a lot of macro-level content, and the amount of content is not small, so it needs to be viewed and used flexibly. The key throughout is to communicate mentally with young users, which is suitable for interpretation in the workshop stage.

Author: Charlie Yixishuo

Source: Charlie Yixishuo