A review of the top 11 marketing cases in 2019

November is over, and there is not much left in 2019. In less than a month, we will enter the sci-fi year of 2020.

In the first 330 days of this year, the marketing world is still turbulent, with various screen-sweeping cases like the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each showing their magical powers.

"What's Peppa Pig" in January, Starbucks' cherry blossom cat claw cup in February, Kindle's self-deprecating cover in March... There is at least one textbook-level marketing phenomenon almost every month.

While 2019 is not over yet, let’s take a look at the 11 most representative marketing cases that went viral in the first 11 months of this year.

January's most popular case

Peppa Pig The Movie & China Mobile

What is Peppa Pig?

The story begins with an old country man named Wang Yubao calling his son on an old flip phone in a deep valley in the mountains, asking him when he will be home for the New Year and what New Year gift his beloved grandson wants.

The old-fashioned mobile phone had a bad signal. Wang Yubao only heard that his grandson wanted Peppa Pig, but before he could ask what Peppa Pig was, the antenna on the old mobile phone fell off and disappeared on the ground like a ginseng fruit.

The only thing left in the valley was the old man's mumbling: "Peppa? What is Peppa?"

After returning home, Wang Yubao put on his reading glasses and carefully looked for the name "Peppa Pig" in the dictionary.

After finding no answer in the dictionary, Wang Yubao went to ask his fellow villagers: "What is Peppa Pig?"

After searching all over the village, he only found "Peggy" shampoo, a man named "Zhang Peiqi", and a "Peiqi" strategy for playing chess. It sounds like these are probably not the "Peggy" that his grandson wants.

Finally, a farm woman who worked as a nanny in the city told him: "(Peppa is) a little pig, red!"

In the next shot, Wang Yubao, determined to make his grandson happy during the New Year, squatted in front of the pigpen with red paint in his hand...

…

After eighty-one difficulties, New Year's Eve finally arrived. The old man still couldn't contact his son, so he had to go to the valley where he lost the mobile phone antenna to look for it. After finding the antenna and talking to his son, he heard his son say: He won't come to celebrate the New Year.

Wang Yubao hung up the phone disappointedly, and when he was walking along the road back to the village, he met his son's car. It turned out that his son wanted to pick up the old man to go to the city to celebrate the New Year.

At the New Year's Eve dinner, Wang Yubao took out various local specialties from his sack. Finally, in the rather disgusted eyes of his son and daughter-in-law, he took out a "gift" wrapped in red cloth.

A pink hardcore peg welded with a blower!

…

In fact, as a trailer for the movie "Peppa Pig Celebrates Chinese New Year", the content of "What's Peppa?" has almost nothing to do with the feature film. Some netizens even said that "this doesn't seem like a promotional film, but more like an excellent short film."

However, while taking into account the texture of the shots, "What's Peppa Pig?" perfectly blends elements such as warmth, humor, reunion, and transitions in just a few minutes, successfully evoking the softest homesickness in the hearts of the Chinese people, so it has been well received since its release.

As the first screen-sweeping marketing case of 2019, "What's Peppa Pig?" is not only the well-deserved No. 1 marketing in January, but can even be regarded as one of the best performing marketing cases in the whole year of 2019.

February's most popular case

Starbucks

Cat claw cup

At the end of February, Starbucks launched a series of cherry blossom-themed cups in its stores in China. Among the new spring products is a glass that became an instant hit on social media before it was officially released.

That is the double-layer cherry blossom cat paw glass cup that integrates cherry blossoms, pink, cat paws and other cute elements.

The cat claw cup with a capacity of only 8oz not only has a small and pink appearance, but also has a unique internal double-layer cat claw design. Just pour the drink into the cup, and you can immediately get a cute cat claw.

Subsequently, Starbucks announced on Weibo that the cat claw cups would be sold online starting at 3 p.m. every day, with a limit of 1,000 cups per day and a limit of one per ID.

Of course, all 1,000 pieces are sold out in seconds every day. In this shortage period of "price available but no demand", the cat claw cup has broken the limit again and again. The official selling price of 199 yuan has been driven up to 1,000 yuan by scalpers.

Some people even got into fights over cups in Starbucks stores.

With the last 3,000 cat claw cups gloriously sold out, this "Holy Grail Station" also came to an end amid a whirlpool of public opinion.

From the announcement to the official launch, the topic of the cat claw cup on Douyin has been played over 30 million times; the reading volume of the cat claw cup topic on Weibo has reached 130 million times; and there are more than 6,000 notes about the cat claw cup on Xiaohongshu.

In the era of the rise of the cute pet economy, Starbucks first preheated the topic through platforms such as WeChat, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu, and then quickly released it when market expectations were highest and the small commodity market had not yet had time to copycat, successfully creating the first hit product in 2019.

In fact, this is not the first time that Starbucks has used a cup to ignite marketing and the scalper market.

In 2018, Starbucks launched the rabbit ear thermos. Due to the multiple influences of appearance + practicality + brand halo + limited time sales, the rabbit ear thermos was sold out at the same speed as the cat claw cup, and was sold at a high price of 600 to 900 yuan in the scalper market.

Really good at playing...

March's screen-sweeping cases

Kindle

Instant noodle magic tool

There is a legend that goes like this: instant noodles made with Kindle always have a refreshing scent of ink!

In the topic of "What is the thing you regret buying the most" in major forums, Kindle, a reading device that every literary young person has, always ranks at the top, so much so that many people simply retort that "I bought a Kindle not to read books, but to cover my face"...

What is unexpected is that this joke, which was originally a complaint from netizens, actually got the official stamp of approval from Kindle.

At the end of March, Kindle released a new youth version. When fans rushed to the platform to place orders, they saw the following copy: Cover with Kindle, the noodles will taste better.

Kindle's self-mockery hit the funny spot among netizens, so the topic #kindle官方塞内面盖底# immediately became a hot topic of the day, with a reading volume of 200 million, and quickly became a hot search.

On Kindle's service account, the top-rated painting also looks like this:

Obviously, Kindle's self-deprecating marketing was very successful. Not only did it not really damage the product's reputation, it also created a very high brand voice and left a good impression of being "down-to-earth" and "daring to complain" in the minds of consumers.

However, despite all the complaints, Kindle's self-deprecating marketing is not something that anyone can easily imitate.

After all, China is not only the country with the strongest digital reading habits, but also the largest market for Kindle in the world. In the six years since entering China, Kindle's sales have reached millions of units, with impressive performance every year on Double Eleven.

Therefore, if the brand is not well-known or interesting enough, it is better to be cautious.

April's screen-breaking cases

The first black hole photo in human history

Leverage Marketing

The biggest hot topic in April is undoubtedly the first photo of a black hole in human history and the series of copyright issues caused by this photo.

After confirming that the photos were open source and commercially available, major manufacturers quickly began to use memes to leverage the marketing momentum. Within just 24 hours, several brands released "new black hole ads."

Black Hole Series Poster

Slide to see more pictures

This wave of marketing by taking advantage of the hot spots has become a big competition among various creatives, copywriters, and artists. Many excellent posters have stood out from the crowd. Some netizens even said, "You can't even catch up with the hot spots of black holes, and you still call it marketing?"

In this large-scale marketing campaign, almost every company participating in the event gained a lot of exposure and word of mouth. If calculated by marketing scale, Black Hole Marketing is undoubtedly the strongest online marketing carnival this year.

The most popular case in May

White Rabbit 60th Anniversary

Cross-border collaboration

What is the biggest trend in marketing in 2019?

It is undoubtedly a cross-border collaboration.

Li Ning collaborates with Hongqi Automobile, NPC collaborates with Tsingtao Beer, and the Forbidden City collaborates with Oreo. There is a massive cross-border marketing campaign almost every month.

The one that performed the best and gained the most marketing volume this year is the national milk candy White Rabbit.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of White Rabbit. On May 23, White Rabbit and Smell Library joined hands with Tmall's National Trend Action to launch a new product on Tmall - the Happy Childhood Fragrance Series.

The White Rabbit gift box, which includes a full range of products including White Rabbit perfume, White Rabbit shower gel, White Rabbit body lotion, White Rabbit hand cream, etc., became very popular after the pre-sale started. 610 fragrance gift packs were sold out in 3 seconds, and the lipstick jointly launched with Maxam also created a sales miracle by selling out 920 lipsticks in half a minute.

This marketing campaign has resulted in a 15-fold increase in visitors to the White Rabbit official flagship store, which had just opened for two months, a 160% increase in sales, and a 26% increase in the number of fans.

At the same time, a pop-up store jointly launched by White Rabbit and Happy Lemon landed in Shanghai, with queues stretching hundreds of meters. Some people started queuing up to get a number at 10:30 a.m. and did not get their milk tea until 6:30 p.m.

Online, the topic #Authentic White Rabbit Ice Cream is Here# has reached 65,000 hits and has been read nearly 400 million times.

Obviously, White Rabbit's sentimental marketing has achieved unprecedented success. This not only symbolizes the rise of new domestic products and national trends, but also means that old brands can be reborn through joint ventures and cross-border marketing.

June's most popular case

Uniqlo & Kaws

Co-branded T-shirts

On June 3, the co-branded T-shirts of Uniqlo and artist KAWS were sold in stores nationwide and on the official website. Just after midnight, the co-branded T-shirts in the Tmall flagship store were sold out in seconds. The next morning, long queues formed before the offline stores opened. The sales were so hot that it was frightening.

The joint collaboration between UNIQLO and KAWS resulted in numerous new media articles with over 100,000 views, and also caused UNIQLO’s stock to surge 4.58% the next day. After this incident, some people even joked that if a woman goes out alone at night, as long as she wears a joint piece of Uniqlo and KAWS, no one will dare to touch her, because they know that this woman can not only fight but also run...

Thanks to the rise of the Internet and the rapid spread of social media, many artists have been able to create hot topics on social media with their works. Every famous artist eventually becomes his or her own brand, and the brand connotation is the gene of the brand's commercial and artistic value.

In fact, it is no longer an isolated case that popular niche culture has become the focus of public attention. The voices of young groups can no longer be ignored, and the bottom-up trend cannot be curbed.

As the saying goes, existence is reasonable. Uniqlo and Kaws used their zombie-like sales scenes to prove to the entire market that the right to speak in this world has gradually been in the hands of young people.

July's most popular case

The Longest Day in Chang'an

Top traffic + well-received actors + conscientious costumes and props

The twelve hours that light up the world

On June 27, the ancient costume suspense web drama "The Longest Day in Chang'an", directed by Cao Dun and starring Lei Jiayin and Yi Yang Qianxi, was exclusively launched on Youku.

The combination of top-tier traffic, talented actors, and conscientious costumes and props has swept the entire network. Not only has the series itself had an astonishing number of views, it has also triggered "Twelve Hours" marketing events in multiple industries.

What contributed to the successful 5 billion views of "The Longest Day in Chang'an" was not only the actors Yi Yang Qianxi and Lei Jiayin, director Cao Dun and the original author Ma Boyong, but also the high-quality content created by countless marketers inspired by it.

August's most popular case

Shanghai Fortress

Regardless of box office and word of mouth

Marketing is successful

At the end of July, rumors about Lu Han and Guan Xiaotong’s breakup spread on Weibo. Their staff refuted the rumor by saying “That’s not true, 0809 Shanghai Fortress”. Since then, fan messages with #0809 Shanghai Fortress# have frequently appeared on Weibo. Once it’s related to Lu Han, the comment section will be filled with 0809 Shanghai Fortress.

Following the success of "The Wandering Earth", "Shanghai Fortress", which is known as the second science fiction film of 2019, has received huge attention since the moment it was officially announced. The distributor also used sophisticated marketing techniques to raise audience expectations for "Shanghai Fortress" to an unprecedented high.

The official Weibo account and the director all came out and released several very exciting trailer clips before the film opened.

The Weibo topic #电影上海堡# has been read over 3.5 billion times and received over 10 million discussions. #鹿翰上海堡# received 7 billion views and nearly 30 million discussions, and its popularity even exceeded that of "Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World", which achieved great box office success and good reputation.

Of course...we all know the ending...

On August 9, Shanghai Fortress accounted for 33.5% of the screenings on its prime premiere day, the highest among films in the same period, and the number of screenings also reached a record high of 137,000.

However, as the movie itself is hard to describe, its reputation was halved after its release, with a Douban score of 3.7 points. The overwhelming negative reviews directly led to a box office drop of more than 70% the next day.

But the failure of a movie does not mean that its marketing has also failed. The promoters of "Shanghai Fortress" made full use of the popularity of celebrity IP and traffic stars, and interacted with the phenomenal movie "The Wandering Earth", which achieved both good reputation and box office, and the public opinion remained high.

It can be predicted that if the movie itself can meet the passing line, this film and television marketing is likely to bring a turning point in Lu Han’s career (in a sense, it actually did so).

In any case, from a marketing perspective, the promotion of "Shanghai Fortress" was successful.

September's most popular case

WeChat Official

Flag Change Avatar

September’s screen-sweeping cases came late, appearing in the last few days of the month.

Overnight, almost everyone @微信官方 in their circle of friends, asking for the national flag avatar. Those whose avatars had the national flag smiled and said nothing, while those who did not receive the national flag made wishes all over the Internet.

In fact, this is a marketing campaign planned by Tencent News to celebrate National Day. The correct national flag avatar is actually obtained through the event H5 specially produced by Tencent News, so no matter how many times friends post it in their Moments, WeChat officials will not respond.

In the H5 of the national flag avatar production of Tencent News, the "originator" of the event, we can see that nearly 300 million people participated in this avatar changing marketing. In terms of scale, this should be one of the marketing activities with the largest number of participants in 2019.

October's hottest case

Taobao Building

In mid-October, if a friend you haven’t contacted for many years suddenly sends you a mysterious text containing garbled characters, don’t worry, he has not been kidnapped, he is just here to catch you building a building.

On the eve of Double Eleven this year, Taobao launched the #Team-up to build a building challenge and win 2 billion red envelopes# event. If the Double Eleven in previous years tested your internet speed and hand speed, then this year's Double Eleven will be a test of your friendship.

As soon as the activity of building buildings to win cat coins was launched, it took over major social platforms. The event time is the same as last year, from October 20 to November 11, 2019, a total of 22 days.

Although many netizens complained about being tired, the building marketing consciously integrated social attributes and game attributes, successfully achieving the effect of dominating major social platforms and creating strong momentum for Double Eleven. With a cost of 2 billion, it won the final Double Eleven turnover of 268.4 billion.

In terms of returns, building a building should be the strongest marketing this year!

November's most popular case

Audi & Infiniti

Oolong Advertising Crisis Marketing

In November, a platform mistakenly placed an Audi advertisement instead of an Infiniti advertisement, which brought an unexpected high-level marketing party to the automotive industry.

As soon as this happened, car companies such as Borgward, Volvo, and Mercedes-Benz all went online to take advantage of the popularity:

This farce that could have led to a breakup between the platform and the advertiser was turned into peace. Not only did the Audi and Infiniti brands both become trending searches, but other car brands that tried to take advantage of the popularity also got a piece of the pie.

In this emergency, the way Audi and Infiniti handled it can be regarded as textbook crisis public relations. It not only reveals the relationship between top automakers, which is both an enemy and a friend, but also shows the society a marketing approach of healthy competition and win-win for brands.

Well-deserved best marketing case of November!

So far, the marketing king of December has not yet appeared, but through the review of the first 11 months of this year, we can find that the cases that can successfully dominate the screen mainly include the following major characteristics:

1. Video as a medium (What's Peppa Pig?, Shanghai Fortress, The Longest Day in Chang'an)

2. Make full use of cross-border elements (Starbucks cat claw cup, White Rabbit, Uniqlo)

3. Use hot spots for collective marketing (black hole marketing, car advertising marketing, WeChat national flag avatar)

So, what will be the marketing king in December? Is it the upcoming Lunar New Year movie? Is it a business activity during the Double 11 holidays? Is it Double Twelve? Or some unpredictable sudden hotspot?

But if nothing unexpected happens, I guess the strongest marketing this year might still be "What's Peppa Pig?"

What do you think?

Author: The Beauty of Marketing

Source: The Beauty of Marketing (ID: yingxiaozhimei)