In 2020, where will the wind of short video content marketing blow?

The so-called "building on the past" refers to the short videos at the "highlight point", which have almost harvested most of the attention of mobile Internet users during their general entertainment time. In a niche track, the emergence of two apps with a DAU of over 200 million is itself a strong proof.

The so-called "beginning and ending": With the continuous improvement of short video platform products and functions, the value of short video traffic has been upgraded and fissioned: from pure entertainment traffic to grass-planting and goods-carrying traffic. Based on this, the commercial value of short video platforms has also been expanded exponentially. 

Everything is ready.

It is foreseeable that in 2020, short videos will continue to shine, and the two driving forces of revenue realization - "advertising" and "e-commerce" - will also drive short videos to a higher level.

Li Hao, CEO of Mars Culture, revealed that in 2019, the advertising scale of the two platforms, Douyin and Kuaishou, is expected to exceed 75 billion, of which celebrity advertising accounts for less than 8%. It is expected that in 2020, this figure will double, and the celebrity advertising revenue of the two platforms is expected to reach 12 billion.

Compared with advertising, Li Hao is more optimistic about the growth potential of e-commerce sales using "short videos" and "live broadcasts" as content carriers in 2020. "In 2019, the GMV of Douyin and Kuaishou centered around short video sales and live-streaming e-commerce approached 100 billion, and is expected to exceed 400 billion in 2020. " With such a growth momentum, the concept of short video platforms will become increasingly blurred, and the boundaries of the value of short video traffic will also be invisibly expanded.

▲ GMV estimates of each platform around the e-commerce/live streaming ecosystem, data source: public data compilation

Take Kuaishou as an example. When many people installed and used Kuaishou in the early days, their motivation was mostly for leisure and entertainment. They hoped to use funny jokes to pass their leisure time and get some relaxing entertainment and information. But now, many people regard Kuaishou as a social platform and a shopping platform.

Li Hao talked about his visit to CP Lotus on November 12. When the supermarket was about to close, a cashier asked the cashier next to her, "There are a lot of discounts in the supermarket today. What did you buy?" The reply she received was: I didn't buy anything. Basically, everything I needed at home was bought on Kuaishou. "For this lady, Kuaishou may not just be an entertainment platform, but also her preferred platform for daily shopping."

Changing individual user habits is just the beginning.

But it sends a big signal to brands in their marketing communications in 2020: there should also be a change in the understanding of short video platforms and the value of people. Only if brand marketing keeps up with the changes in users and can take advantage of the traffic and product dividends of short videos, will it have a chance to take the center stage in 2020.

Here, let’s recall the brands that stood in the spotlight in 2019. Most of them were domestic beauty products. If we divide them into the first and second half of the year, Half Acre Flower Field successfully won the first place in the Tmall 618 body care sales list through high-density Douyin KOL placement in the first half of the year, and continued to occupy 20% of the sales share of domestic body care products;

In the second half of the year, Huaxizi and PROYA were mostly tied to an ICON, Li Jiaqi. Through Li Jiaqi's professional recommendation, they gained "fame and fortune". As for the marketing strategies of these three brands , they have the utmost trust in the value of influencers and have placed more than 70% of their investments on the TikTok platform.

Let me ask: Is this strategy still effective in 2020?

Mars Marketing Research Institute believes that it is possible, but the cost of planting grass is infinitely high, and to achieve success, the tests that need to be endured are also multifaceted. But as the saying goes, once you plant the grass, you will pull it out. 2020 is the best year for brand building and short video marketing.

01 User Changes

Let’s go back to the “user changes” in 2019 to look at this issue.

From the perspective of the types of short video content that users pay attention to: With the advent of the short video content feast, users' tastes have become extremely picky and elusive. A user is active on multiple topics not only for entertainment, but also hopes to increase his value and even gain recognition from the circle with the help of short video platforms.

According to the "2019 Annual Data Report" released by Douyin not long ago, Douyin has become the largest knowledge dissemination platform in China. In one year, Douyin's knowledge creators with tens of thousands of followers released a total of 14.89 million videos, among which food preparation, language teaching, subject education, vocational education and knowledge popularization were the five most popular categories among users. This shows that users are no longer just using short videos for easy entertainment, they are also constantly improving on short video platforms.

▲ The top 5 most popular knowledge categories on Douyin, data source: 2019 Douyin Annual Data Report

At the same time, there has also been a change in users' online consumption behavior: from the previous "people looking for goods", through active search behavior to purchase "urgent need" products; to the current "goods looking for people" model: when users are browsing Douyin and Kuaishou, they are unintentionally recommended a good thing, and in order to please themselves, coupled with their strong trust in the KOL (who recommended the product), they instantly decide to buy the product.

Compared to "people actively looking for goods" which requires a longer consultation and price comparison cycle, "goods actively looking for people" is mostly an unplanned consumption that takes place anytime and anywhere. From the perspective of the products consumed, they are not essential necessities, but are only for the satisfaction of certain needs.

The advent of the model where people actively look for goods has benefited from the rise of "algorithmic media" represented by Douyin and Kuaishou, which can always hit the needs of users and recommend the right information in the right form to those who need it. Users are immersed in the information cocoon created by the algorithm for them, recommending good products while also buying good products.

On the other hand, thanks to the rise of live streaming sales, because watching live streaming sales is highly "exclusive" in terms of time - you can only stay in the live broadcast rooms of 1-2 anchors to avoid missing out on the pre-planned purchases. During the longer viewing period, users may also buy many unplanned goods because of the anchors' well-versed sales routines, as well as the attractive bottom prices and promotional methods of the goods.

In the view of the Mars Marketing Research Institute: the value of live streaming is not limited to selling goods. For many brands, it also has an important value in the process of "cognitive processing", and this "cognitive processing" is more three-dimensional and profound. When a user is attracted to a certain product in room A, even if he suppresses the urge to "buy, buy, buy", he may still reap the benefits in room B.

This means: just as brands need to plant grass through the short video matrix in 2020, brands can also rely on the construction of a "live streaming matrix" to ultimately inspire users to buy grass. Compared with selling products through short videos, this path is shorter and more effective.

02 Marketing Changes

The migration of user attention, the fluidity of user content consumption behavior, and the uncertainty of consumption themes have implications for marketing communications: compared to 2019, it will be more difficult to successfully and repeatedly recommend a product to suitable users, and marketing costs will also rise, but disproportionately, opportunity costs are also increasing. In fact, we can see the clues of this situation from the investment in the second half of 2019: many brands that followed the same approach as in the first half of the year and carried out high-density influencer investment did not perform well in the second half of the year.

According to tracking by Kas Data, as of October 31, 2019, the number of active creators with more than 100,000 fans (creators who have updated ≥1 video within 30 days) on the seven major short video platforms has exceeded 180,000 . Taking the Douyin platform as an example, in one year, the number of active creators with more than 100,000 fans increased by 1.47 times. From the perspective of the content segmentation of KOLs, they can be roughly divided into 24 major categories and more than 60 subcategories.

▲ Number of active accounts with more than 100,000 followers on 7 major platforms, data source: Kas Data

With the arrival of the content feast and the further dispersion of user attention, the most obvious pressure brought about is that the difficulty of "selecting a number" has further increased.

Regarding the commercial value assessment of influencers, Kas Data released the "KOL Nine-Dimensional Value Assessment Model" in mid-2019, which still seems to be applicable today. It revolves around three major evaluation indicators, namely: KOL influence (including: number of fans, fan interaction rate, content popularity rate, to evaluate whether KOL can influence fans to achieve effective and extensive information reach?), KOL grass-planting power (including: fan quality, public opinion health, fan content and interactive interest, to evaluate whether KOL can win the trust of fans and successfully promote products?) and KOL conversion power (including: TA overlap, commercial applicability and product sales ability, to evaluate whether KOL can convert personal trust, from improving cognition to driving conversion), 9 segmented data dimensions to help advertisers choose and use influencers more quickly and efficiently. Based on the data, it can help advertisers to conduct influencer placement, creative guidance, case closing services, etc. after screening influencers.

▲ KOL nine-dimensional business value assessment model, data source: Kas Data

In addition to selecting high-quality influencers, it is hard to justify for brands in 2020 if they do not have many resources of their own that can “help sell products”. “Most brands will consider trying to create content, cultivate their own influencers/anchors, and influence target consumers through personalized images in typical scenarios in 2020. ”

But the blacksmith still needs to be strong himself. For brands that have neither content genes nor experience in traffic management, a more stable approach is to choose to cooperate with excellent MCN agencies/guilds, and cultivate their own celebrities/anchors by investing in new (MCN) companies or joint incubation.

The reasons are: First, MCN is well versed in platform content and traffic rules, and can help brands find the right content track and accelerate growth and incubation; second, MCN's survival model has passed the test of the market and can help brands avoid pitfalls effectively; third, MCNs often have a certain scale of celebrities, and to a certain extent can lead small to big, helping accounts increase followers. In fact, many domestic brands have already carried out such practices.

In addition to KOL deployment and building its own account matrix, the Mars Marketing Research Institute also recommends that brands, especially white-label brands without brand power, pay more attention to influencers and live streaming.

“Whether it is short video promotion or live e-commerce, both are effective means to trigger users’ ‘unplanned consumption’. Compared with the brand power (looking at recommended products), users pay more attention to the function, reputation and cost-effectiveness of the product, and among them, there are a lot of opportunities for white-label products to grow into well-known brands. ”

Take the “Zhihu” paper towel tracked by Kas Data as an example.

This tissue brand has hundreds of accounts (including KOL and KOC accounts) on Douyin and Kuaishou every day, which promote its products through short videos and live broadcasts, and its sales have been in a high state for a long time. Analysis of the reasons:

First, celebrity Chen Qiaoen’s endorsement can sow the seeds of trust for both the product-carrying account and the users;

Second, the unit price of the product is low enough. A pack of tissue paper costs less than 0.7 yuan, which can satisfy the user's desire for bargains. Most importantly, users are relatively insensitive to the brand of paper products. As long as the function is satisfactory and the reputation is good enough, they are willing to place an order.

Third, the commission set for the product is high enough (30%), and the product is cheap and easy to sell, and the commission is high, which will naturally attract enough celebrities to promote the product through videos and live broadcasts.

▲Tracking of plant protection brands on Douyin, Kuaishou celebrity short videos and live streaming, data source: Kas Data

"Through the promotion of products by large numbers of mid- and low-level influencers, or even KOC accounts, we can also help some white-label brands to successfully gain popularity, increase sales while improving their popularity and reputation, and enhance the overall brand power, but the prerequisite is still excellent product strength. " said Li Hao.

2019 has passed; 2020 is the year of the storm for short videos and live broadcasts.

In this "best" era where planting grass can be done quickly, brand building cycles are shortened, and brand marketing creation methods are changing, any brand has the opportunity to debut by taking the center stage, but any brand may also be beaten to death on the beach by upstarts because of lack of innovation and inaction.

In the midst of great changes, I hope that brands will firmly grasp the "golden belt" of short video promotion and influencer sales. Let’s work hard together in the new year!

Author: Mars Marketing Research Institute

Source: Mars Marketing Research Institute