Brand promotion: Where is the entry point for offline interactive advertising?

1. The advertising industry’s thoughts and concerns about “effects”

"I know that half of the money we spend on advertising is wasted, but I don't know which half." This is a famous saying in the advertising industry. The hidden meaning behind this is whether the advertisements are "effectively disseminated", and the word "effective" has different meanings depending on the different advertising purposes.

For example, whether the brand occupies the minds of consumers, whether it forms purchasing motivation, whether it forms purchasing conversion, etc. The methods for evaluating whether an advertisement is effective have evolved from the previous cost per thousand, reach, average exposure frequency, and contact rate to the CPM (cost per thousand impressions), CPC (cost per click on online ads), CPA (cost per action, which is calculated based on the actual effect of the advertisement, that is, charging based on the valid questionnaires responded to or orders), and CPS (advertising costs calculated based on actual sales volume) in the Internet era.

Various calculation methods are designed to make advertising effects easier to count, easier to quantify, and more effectively estimate advertising effects. It can be seen that the effectiveness of advertising has always been a concern of the entire advertising industry and brands, and has also brought about constant thinking and troubles.

2. The proposal of precision marketing

"Party A" puts forward the demand, and "Party B" produces the creative ideas and conducts media placement to cover as many target consumers as possible and effectively.

The advertising industry's traditional operating model is facing huge challenges. Practitioners have never been so confused and insecure about consumer insights (which is the foundation and core of the entire industry) as they are now. A more mobile life has changed all this. As consumers jump between various screens and allocate their time and attention at will, marketers' belief that "where the consumers are, the advertising money will flow" has lost its "bull's eye". The era of television advertising has completely ended, which has almost become an industry consensus. However, in the dazzling and complex digital marketing environment, what is the most effective marketing, at least for now, there is no clear answer. Every role in the industrial chain has undergone fundamental changes.

With the development of the Internet, the concept of "precision marketing" has been mentioned and pursued by countless parties.

Precision marketing is to establish a personalized customer communication service system based on precise positioning and relying on modern information technology to achieve a measurable and low-cost expansion path for enterprises. It is one of the core concepts in online marketing. The essence is that companies need to complete more precise, measurable and high-return-on-investment marketing communications, and need marketing communication plans that are more focused on results and actions.

3. Changing Roles of the Advertising Industry

Under this guiding ideology, advertising companies claim that they understand consumer portraits and have more creative thinking, and can help Party A with precision marketing; Internet companies claim that they have big data and can help Party A with precision marketing; consulting companies also want to get a piece of the advertising market, claiming that they can provide business trend analysis and consumer behavior analysis, coupled with business models to achieve precision marketing; even Party A has set up its own marketing and branding departments, believing that their knowledge of their own products, brands and consumers is better than Party B's, and thus can achieve precision marketing.

Regardless of the type of company, they have become actual practitioners in the advertising industry. The essence of advertising is to produce content and communicate with consumers.

Brands have always asked advertising agencies to produce marketing content, but advertisers are starting to build their own teams to do it themselves.

Advertising companies may have entered an era that places the most emphasis on "research and development", establishing data laboratories, incubating, and building data integration platforms;

The media, which originally only sold time and space, had to get involved in creativity because advertisers required that the media "must conform to its own tone and style."

PepsiCo opened a creative studio in New York called Creators League. According to the plan, the studio will produce marketing content ranging from music albums to TV series, movies, reality shows and other forms for PepsiCo's brands in the next few years. Like other fast-moving consumer goods companies, PepsiCo has always been a generous sponsor of advertising. According to financial report data, PepsiCo's annual advertising and marketing expenses were between US$2.3 billion and US$2.4 billion over the past three years. In the past, the production of marketing content was basically handed over to advertising creative companies, but now advertisers are doing it themselves, at least that's what it seems.

"I think they are taking a gamble, a gamble against the entire industry," Rob Norman commented. He has worked in the advertising industry for 25 years and is currently the global chief digital officer of GroupM, a subsidiary of WPP. In his opinion, this practice, which does not conform to the rules of the advertising industry, "is a very dangerous thing." “They are experts in food production and distribution, there is no doubt about that, but I don’t know why they have the confidence to produce marketing content that is attractive to consumers.” Norman’s doubts about brand owners are not unreasonable. Brand owners are not good at telling stories for their brands, which is also the consumer insight that advertising agencies have always talked about. But Norman immediately added, "But I can understand why they do this. This is the current situation faced by large companies. Including ourselves." A more accurate description of the "current situation" might be "confusion" or "bewilderment."

4. The development of “two Weibo and one Douyin”

No one doubts the importance of digital marketing anymore, and the budgets allocated by brand owners to digital advertising have been growing.

But the problem lies in another data from TNS market research agency in 2016: only about one-third of marketing practitioners in China are confident in how to manage consumers' media touchpoints. "What is the most effective marketing method?" Brand owners and advertising creative companies are all looking for the answer to this question. At a time when advertising agencies may not be more powerful than brand owners at present, brands are trying to create breakthrough marketing content by breaking the traditional advertising industry chain.

Although Forbes was still educating general readers about what content marketing is in 2014, content marketing has actually existed since Michelin Tire published the first Michelin Guide in 1900. The reason why it has become a marketing method that every brand is unwilling to lag behind today, or that content marketing has been placed in an extremely important position, is largely because social media has changed people's response to information, and marketers hope to see more forwarding and sharing.

Pepsi is not the only company challenging the existing advertising model. In November 2015, L'Oréal Group also built its own "content factory" in its office in Montreal, Canada, to provide its brands with marketing content suitable for local consumers, including tutorial videos on how to put on makeup on YouTube. The content was produced by a three-person team within L'Oréal.

The emergence of social media seemed to have found a lifeline for brands and advertising companies. Later, we saw the emergence of the standard brand positions of “two Weibo and one Douyin”.

Over a period of time, we have seen the launch of various brand Weibo, WeChat and Douyin accounts, and indicators such as the amount of content, update frequency, reading volume, forwarding volume, conversion rate, etc. have been released. Various platforms have been flooded with various advertising content for a while, and the profit points of these platforms themselves ultimately fall on advertising. This situation is somewhat self-satisfied!

Brand owners are smug when they see their own content on social media.

The brand's marketing department thinks that as long as the content covers these standard media, it will be enough.

Advertising companies continue to produce so-called creative ideas.

Due to the uneven quality of advertising service providers, in most cases they are constantly producing junk information (posters for the 24 solar terms, morning and evening greetings posters, etc.), and consumers rarely care about this information.

Brands originally hoped to achieve "selling products", "brand favorability" and "personalized service" on social platforms, but very few have succeeded. Therefore, the "effectiveness" of the advertising industry is still in a state of confusion.

You can understand this as brand owners' exploration of more effective marketing methods in today's complex digital media marketing environment. If you ask me what is the most efficient way of marketing, I think nothing is more efficient than shooting a 30-second commercial and then playing it on a loop, and that era will never come back.

5. The proposal to get rid of “two Weibo and one Douyin” caused an uproar in the industry.

Five years ago, the “two micros” (Weibo and WeChat) were invented, and now the “two micros and one TikTok” (Weibo, WeChat, and TikTok) has been invented. In addition, all major social platforms hope that official brands will open accounts, including Zhihu, Douban, Bilibili, etc. How much value does a brand have in its daily operations and communications on Weibo, Weibo and Douyin?

The vast majority of brand official accounts cannot play a positive role, and a large portion even play a negative role. When Weibo and Weibo first became popular, I also made a lot of plans for them. Although I tried my best to be innovative, due to the frequency of content, charging standards and production costs, I still couldn’t escape the cliché of good morning and good night.

The current trend and Yang Buhuai’s opinion is that brand communication should be daily and not daily communication (communication without substance). Today let us think rationally about why we should not do daily communication and how we should do communication. The daily operation of Weibo and Douyin is caused by trend-following anxiety and survivor bias. Everyone only sees Durex on Weibo and Alipay on WeChat, and they believe that they can all become Durex or Alipay, so they start to work extremely hard. They change editors one after another, and agents one after another, but in the end they still cannot become Durex or Alipay. Companies often have the illusion that they can make conversions through social platforms. One thing that must be pointed out here is that Weibo, WeChat and Douyin are not traffic pools, but voices. If you treat your fans as a traffic pool for conversion, you will definitely be disappointed if you establish a dual Weibo account. The essence of self-media is a media.

Yeh Ming-Kui of Ogilvy Taiwan once said: “Advertising is an industry that disturbs people.”

I particularly agree with this statement. What you are creating is advertising content or social garbage? Are you consuming the brand or accumulating the brand? This is a question that marketers need to think about. We should be apologetic and cautious every time a brand appears, with an attitude of sorry for disturbing everyone, and do a good job before going public. This is the best respect for consumers. Regardless of the brand, the role of the character that transcends the norm is a waste, which will only backfire in the end and make people even more disgusted. The original intention of the brand in its daily work is accumulation, hoping to gather its users into a certain community for centralized management and interaction. The original intention is correct, but it is wrong to make one's presence felt by playing roles that go beyond the role. Yang Buhuai’s suggestion is that you still need to have official accounts for “WeChat, Weibo and Douyin”, but don’t do daily operations or update them every day. Treat them like official websites and update them when there is information or content worth knowing for consumers, and when there is hard content. Accumulate users' courage to open brand content instead of consuming their enthusiasm for attention.

On social media platforms, short, flat and fast communications should not have communication logic, but core materials. To have ICON content, a topic, a video, an event, etc. can all be considered ICON content. The official Weibo account only needs one Weibo post to carry a core content, without having to post what to post first or what to post later. In the whole network dissemination, there is no need to post what to post on Weibo or WeChat. Just one topic and one core material can be spread throughout the whole network. The ICONization of content will greatly improve the fault tolerance rate of Internet communication. If you open Nike’s official Weibo now, you will find that every post is very expensive. Almost every post is core material and a brand campaign. Sometimes there may not be a single post for a month, but every post has a good amount of dissemination. We have not forgotten Nike just because it does not post on Weibo. In fact, the more concise the content is, the more it considers the foundation.

The current situation is that many brands hope to turn this position into a high ground, and hope to make the brand an internet celebrity, so that a single word will attract a large number of responses, and eventually become an explosion point for the brand to disseminate content. This is a good wish, but it is difficult to achieve. Even if you use the daily update model, it is difficult to achieve. Because the threshold for self-media content is actually very high. Even celebrities’ daily updates may not be read by anyone, let alone brands. Among so many self-media agency operation companies in China, only Huanshi has become famous. The decision of whether to update daily or not lies in whether you can provide enough content that the audience will like. The way to become an Internet celebrity brand is not just to rely on Weibo and Douyin.

On social media platforms, consumer word-of-mouth formed by others is becoming increasingly important. When consumers consume a product, they will first check what others are saying on consumption platforms and public opinion platforms, as well as what KOLs are saying, and then decide whether to buy it. Therefore, consumer word-of-mouth platforms Xiaohongshu, Dianping, and public opinion word-of-mouth platforms Weibo and WeChat are all key areas where brands should focus their efforts. Establishing and maintaining third-party public opinion reputation on these platforms is becoming increasingly important for conversion results. Just because the official Weibo account is not updated on a daily basis does not mean that the brand has no voice on the Internet. The value and power of the trust endorsement from consumers and KOLs far exceeds the daily updates of the official platform. Therefore, what brands need to think about is how to build sustainable and constantly iterative consumer reputation without being fake or self-indulgent. Another misunderstanding that should be avoided here is to occupy all new media channels and see whether the channels are suitable. You can go to Xiaohongshu for beauty products, but it would be strange to go there for cars. This is not a set menu, it's a buffet.

In fact, when it comes down to it, the idea of ​​stopping daily updates on Weibo, WeChat and Douyin has been widely discussed in the industry. The fundamental issue of the discussion is actually the issue of effectiveness, that is, the issue of precision marketing, which is the inevitable result of the progress of the times.

The purpose of stopping daily updates is to focus more resources on creating good content and brand campaigns;

The purpose of content iconization is to refine and thoroughly refine the content, and to generate memories through concentrated repetition.

The selection of media matrix and KOL is to transform extensive delivery into refined delivery.

6. How to make Weibo, Weibo and Douyin more effective?

In fact, the answer to how to make Weibo, WeChat and Douyin more effective has already been there since the beginning of the platform’s establishment, which is high-quality content marketing. It’s just that as we work in the industry, we forget our original intentions and blindly pursue position building, content updates, etc.

Which brand became popular first on Tik Tok? Haidilao! Haidilao's products and services have already gained a good reputation. Coupled with the public's creative ways of eating (low-cost ways of eating), Haidilao not only did not stop creative ways of eating, but instead went with the flow and took advantage of the situation to increase menu options, thereby winning more attention and praise, which was then constantly imitated and spread on social media.

We can clearly see that this is exactly the same as advertising itself. The advertising industry has never changed:

① Market and consumer insights, positioning of brand products and services, and launching high-quality products and services.

② Through further insights, you can know who you should tell and what to tell, generate excellent creative ideas, and finally deliver them to the corresponding channels.

③ Evaluate the effect, then adjust the communication content and continue the cycle to create brand impression and memory (brand prototype).

Various platforms (TV, newspapers, radio, events, social media, etc.) are just media. Creativity is the foundation of advertising. Advertisements should be placed where people are. The ways of expressing creativity can be varied, but there must be content! The so-called effectiveness is nothing more than spreading brand image or selling products. We try to list some of the brand’s communication core elements, perhaps we can find some ideas from them.

Let’s take Haier as an example.

Haier’s core product is washing machines (Haier washing machines have the largest global market share), but what is Haier’s brand? Haier represents "love your neighbor as yourself" and protects others, helps others, and does one's best for others. Because Haier’s brand archetype is caregiver. So, when we see Haier’s official Weibo, if we have any questions, we can tag it and it will find a way to connect with us and provide you with assistance.

Let’s look at Nike, which sells shoes. It is the brand archetype of a hero, representing proving one's worth through action. So, if we look at his tweets, he has been advocating taking action with Nike.

For an enterprise, the brand archetype is the exclusive image that the brand wants to create. The brand owner must grasp the basic meaning of the category to which the product belongs, position its own products, and create an exclusive image based on this positioning. The brand archetype must be conveyed in a clever and sophisticated way, so that this image can become the antidote to satisfy the inner desires of the target audience. For consumers, brand archetypes can trigger their deep emotions. The significance of brand archetypes is that they can make a brand "come alive" in the hearts of consumers. When brand becomes an antidote, sales conversion will occur naturally. Think about it carefully, are they constantly reinforcing this brand setting (personality) in various forms of advertising and media, thereby subtly occupying the minds of consumers and completing sales?

Just like in life, we often hear young people define Coke as: happy fat house water. Sometimes when I’m not in the mood, I’d say: I want to buy an XX to prolong my life. The conversion formed by this brand impression is a natural result.

7. Where is the entry point for offline interactive advertising?

As mentioned above:

① Various companies have become actual practitioners in the advertising industry.

②The foundation of advertising lies in the creative communication of information after insight, and the form and media should be selected based on demand.

③Social media platforms and word-of-mouth platforms require more sophisticated content presentation to stimulate consumers.

So the opportunity for offline interactive advertising has arrived!

For example: Drones first came from some professional exhibitions in the science and engineering industries. It seems that their application level is not related to advertising, but advertising companies use programming to allow drone matrices to form different shapes of pictures such as "brand LOGO" at night, allowing the advertising effect to be demonstrated. The new format allows brand information to be exposed in various media.

Other similar examples, such as AR, 3D mapping, holographic projection and other technologies, are also used in advertising companies' service plans for clients.

Let’s look at a few examples:

This offline flash mob named "Running the Earth" is an event marketing activity carefully planned by Nike to cooperate with the "Let Me Run" campaign of the new running shoe Nike Epic React in Greater China.

In order to create a stunning visual effect, Nike and its long-term creative partner W+K Shanghai collaborated to transform Shanghai's most iconic spherical building, Metro City, into a globe, and built a five-meter-high curved screen on top. When different runners stepped onto the treadmill in front of the building and started running, their portraits were broadcast live on the screen. Their running speed affected the rotation speed of the globe, thus presenting the spectacle of running on top of the globe and demonstrating the tremendous power of running.

The year 2018 was the year of Audi's all-out explosion. From the launch of the new Audi A8L, the global debut of the Audi Q8 to the launch of the much-anticipated new Audi Q5L, every move made people feel: Oh no, it's like their wallet was robbed.

As for the advertising industry, Audi has to make big productions this year. While others are looking at cars, advertisers are waiting at the Audi press conference to see what kind of black technology Audi will use. After 500 drones illuminated the Shenzhen Universiade Center and giant quattro geckos occupied the streets of Shenzhen, the new Audi Q5L did not disappoint this time - a 10,000-square-meter naked-eye 3D cliff projection.

Outdoor mountain projection has always been a "minefield" in the projection industry, let alone a mountain of 10,000 square meters. The mountains are rugged and the weather in the mountains is unpredictable. 3D projection is a technology that relies on the principle of light wave refraction. The more stable the environment, the better the final presentation effect. In this way, mountains and naked-eye 3D projection are inherently incompatible.

Choosing the Guizhou Dushan International Extreme Rock Climbing Cliff, which has typical karst landform features, as the projection medium is itself an extreme challenge. If you do it well, you will be applauded; if you do it poorly, you will be laughed at.

Throughout this marketing campaign, Lian Coffee had foresight to team up with Guangming. With insights into topics of concern, they launched limited-edition cooperative products, and started a journey through memories across the entire network with a heartwarming H5. While triggering resonance, they used the brand box as a creative starting point and combined it with topics of memories, landing perfectly online and offline, creating a hit marketing campaign that made people remember the brand. Through effective connection and interaction in this marketing campaign, users were able to feel that Lian Coffee is delicious and fun, and that it is a friend who understands users and has a healing effect.

Therefore, offline interactive advertising can completely open up a business model with advertising as the entry point through multimedia interaction, offline temporary exhibitions and other forms.

This is just my humble opinion, please don’t criticize if you don’t agree.

Source: godfatheryu23