Behind those popular cases, there are 4 replicable promotion and marketing routines

This year, rejuvenation has become the norm for brands. The rise of domestic brands has triggered waves of domestic trends. Major brands have shown their talents, all wanting to become the next trend pursued by young people.

This year, Douyin, which netizens "can't understand", rose rapidly, Pinduoduo, which they "looked down upon", went public, and the "outside the Fifth Ring Road" population, which had been "ignored" by the mainstream for a long time, stepped onto the main stage under the Internet spotlight for the first time;

This year is another turbulent year in the marketing world!

Due to the changes in both the main consumer groups and the consumer market, the marketing methods used by various companies to cope with the situation have also blossomed and changed dramatically this year! Every company wants to be the winner of this battle!

Based on reports throughout the year, Marketing Frontline observed the cutting-edge and popular Internet marketing cases of the year, and summarized the marketing trends that led to the year's traffic flow, and the routines that are worth learning!

I hope this will provide you with reference and inspiration, so that you can get ahead in 2019!

2018 was a year of great changes in the way social media was used. Tencent, which had been firmly in control of its position, felt threatened for the first time. Short videos have become a new form of entertainment pursued by the younger generation!

The Internet is magical. More and more information distracts our attention, but it is magically focused under the big data algorithm and 15-second short videos one after another. We, who used to fall asleep after reading for a few minutes, watch short videos like eating melon seeds. In the blink of an eye, several hours are gone.

Because of the complexity of information, people's brains are becoming more and more "lazy". Short videos one after another create countless fantasy scenes. Under the stimulation and temptation of dopamine, these short videos are like pacifiers, forming a quick feedback of happiness, which makes people addicted!

So, this year, Tik Tok became extremely popular!

There is a legend about Douyin everywhere: "5 minutes on Douyin is equivalent to 1 hour in the real world"…

With its rapid growth, Tik Tok has become the entertainment platform for the younger generation.

Then one trend after another emerged from TikTok, and one grassroots after another quickly rose up! Like all new things that have emerged, Douyin has become a new marketing bonus for ordinary grassroots to create miracles and rise rapidly. In this "wild" fertile land, as long as you master the routine of communication, anyone can grow wildly!

So Answer Tea became popular overnight on Tik Tok! Why did it become popular just because of a few videos?

Different from traditional milk tea, Answer Tea has an additional function - "divination". The creative idea of ​​subverting cognition is eye-catching, which can easily arouse the curiosity of netizens and trigger the first round of dissemination;

What’s more important is the secondary dissemination that followed. Everyone is an island, and loneliness is the eternal norm, so we all like to gather in crowded places. The fundamental reason is our inner desire to get attention. The “low cost” of 15 seconds not only makes Douyin a gathering place for young people, but also a stage for attracting attention, so Douyin “following the trend” is rampant!

The secondary communication of Answer Tea is based on the insight of "following the trend", so a simple design is made to start the divination in three steps:

1) Ask questions and write them on the waistband of the milk tea;

2) Recite silently 5 times;

3) Open the lid and the answer will emerge.

Isn’t it simple and easy to “follow the trend”?

Let’s look back at the things that have gone viral on Douyin, whether it’s Haidilao’s internet celebrity way of eating, or “Tattoo Peppa Pig on your body, applause to the social people”, or various offline creative challenges such as the Douyin Challenge... they all cannot escape the word “magic”: the “high points” that make people’s eyes shine and the routines that are easy to copy (manufacture).

In the new marketing battlefield of short videos, pacifier pleasure is the essence of short video addiction, and "magic" is the "poison" that stands out among the pacifiers and triggers the whole nation to "follow the trend"!

In the 2019 short video marketing world, Lao Pao hopes that you will become the next trend to be followed!

2018 was indeed a magical year. Contrary to the rise of new forms of entertainment such as short videos, a strong earthy smell began to permeate social networks.

The Internet has always been an "amplifier". Over the years, the public has been overwhelmed by the high-end "Internet celebrity style". In this monotonous "chaos", the public needs a strong contrasting "mudslide" to wash away the mainstream aesthetic that they have long been "tired of"!

The rustic style came into being, especially the rustic expression battles, which have become a daily routine in social interaction.

Marketing is about taking advantage of the situation, so this year many brands and IPs became popular because of their earthy taste: Dior's earthy "Happy to Get a Saddle Bag" advertisement, the hairline boy Xiao Wu, Peppa Pig's social person, Douyin's "Everything Superme"...

Especially Wang Ju, who suddenly became popular in the online variety show Rocket Girls 101, who interpreted the rustic marketing vividly;

First, in a talent show full of internet celebrities, the rustic-looking Wang Ju established a unique personality through her sharp words and straightforward behavior, becoming a different kind of "mudslide";

Then the organizer Tencent Video released a short film called "Hello 101 Founder" to look at Wang Ju from a different angle, comparing and complaining about the girl's appearance and inner drama. This short film just fits Wang Ju's personality and provides valuable material for Wang Ju's seed fan Tao Yuanming's action to protect chrysanthemum.

Wang Ju's various earthy expressions were generated from this;

Then, Wang Ju had down-to-earth interactions with her fans and formed the Ju Army, which spread Wang Ju's emoticons and canvassing messages crazily on various social channels, triggering wave after wave of dissemination.

In social media, emoticons can certainly express complex emotions vividly and have become an essential element of communication. But it is difficult for celebrities to break out of the fan circle, let alone Wang Ju who has no good looks?

The real reason why Wang Ju broke through the barriers of the circle and became the idol of the whole people lies in the symbolic meaning hidden behind the seemingly relaxed and funny "earthy" taste of Wang Ju :

Some people dug up the fact that Wang Ju once had fair skin, beautiful looks and long legs.

But when the program asked her if she wanted to change back, she answered "No", because "In fact, I didn't know what my standard of beauty was at that time. Since I became a model agent, I have been myself. This is my own creed... I hold my life in my own hands. I think financial independence and spiritual independence are too important. "

"Good-looking skins are all the same, but interesting souls are rare." The world has suffered from "Internet celebrity faces" for a long time, and Wang Ju's experience, words and deeds represent a symbol of breaking through the public's external aesthetics and pursuing women's inner spiritual independence:

In China, there are a lot of "chrysanthemum girls". They are girls who are not "beauties" in the popular sense, but who work hard to live beautifully. They are the majority of girls besides Wu Xuanyi, Meng Meiqi and other girls who are in the spotlight. The appearance of Wang Ju has enabled them to feel a sense of participation and self-identity in the chrysanthemum protection campaign.

As Zhihu netizen Li Xiaozhou said: "In the massive nationwide campaign to pick Wang Ju, Wang Ju has become more of a symbol. The affection that the masses have poured into Wang Ju has far exceeded the personal image that Wang Ju has shown in "101". Voting for Wang Ju is more of a symbol of the young group's euphemistic expression of rights: they don't like the girls chosen by the goose, and they don't like universal aesthetics. They emphasize personal characteristics, emphasize differences, and hope to achieve inclusiveness through "official" channels.

This is the significance of Wang Ju. To put it simply, she is pursuing the position of a unique girl in "101", but you and I know in our hearts that we are pursuing a dream that is difficult to achieve. ”

In fact, in 2018, no matter whether it was Wang Ju, Xiao Wu, or superme, these magical earthy-flavored celebrities became popular, funny emoticons were just social media for dissemination. Just like Wang Ju, what really catalyzed the dissemination was the "earthy" flavor of the emoticons behind the funny things, which represented a certain symbolic feeling for the public. Just as Ma Dong said to Wang Ju, "Only when you are different to the greatest extent can you be needed to the greatest extent"!

2018 is still a year of "carnival". Many brands (companies) have begun to directly take out part of their marketing expenses and give them as rewards to consumers (users)!

Consumer demands are becoming increasingly complex and consumer emotions are becoming increasingly diversified. It is obviously not easy to impress consumers by relying on brands and companies themselves. “To untie the bell, you must find the person who tied it.” Really powerful marketing, like martial arts, requires using the least effort to gain the greatest benefit. Just like Tai Chi, where one uses the force of the user to counter the force, marketing can also use the power of the user to attack the marketing jade!

Last year we talked about how easy it is to inspire young people with their own UGC content; this year it is even more powerful. You can directly use rewards to turn consumers into a part of your marketing promotion, and use red envelope codes, bargaining, and lucky draws to let consumers help you promote.

What makes young people excited is the koi marketing that is all over social networks. Lottery on Weibo is actually a very common thing, but the koi "carnival" created by Alipay is different in three aspects:

1) Do not work alone, but cooperate with various brands to accumulate rewards one by one to make the rewards become the rewards that ordinary people dream of, accumulate the publicity of major official blogs, and make the first round of official publicity reach a wide enough range;

2) Compared with such generous rewards, the forwarding lottery method has a low threshold and everyone can participate quickly;

3) Combine the reward activity with "hot" things that young people are interested in. The word "koi" itself is very popular, and the self-propagation behavior of "sucking luck" is itself an inertial behavior of young people, which becomes the driving force for continued dissemination after the lottery results are announced;

The company that made the most of the clever use of the opponent's strength was none other than Vatti, the marketing dark horse of this year's World Cup. On May 31, Vatti released a statement signed by its chairman: "If France wins the championship, Vatti will refund the full amount." These ten short words sparked heated discussions on the Internet and became a hit!

In fact, behind this is the human insight of Vatti’s reward marketing. Compared with completely certain rewarders, people prefer uncertain surprises. Vatti uses the “slot machine”-like (i.e. fixed rewards, obtained randomly) reward:

1) The first key to causing controversy lies in the word "randomness". The more uncertain things are, the more likely they are to trigger human desires. A psychologist once did an experiment on pigeons pressing buttons. The pigeons were given a button and divided into two groups. The first group would get food as soon as they pressed it, while the second group would sometimes get food and sometimes not. The second group, which was uncertain, pressed the button more frantically. This is so similar to a gambler lying on a slot machine!

Therefore, the mechanism of this marketing campaign is a gamble between Vatti and consumers;

2) Another triggering point is the fixed reward, which is the second half of the sentence "Vatti will refund the full amount". The reward is directly set as "free of charge" . In terms of price discount, there is no more attractive reward than this.

Of course, if we let it go, it will easily go astray. Such fundraising cannot be achieved without the help of celebrities and KOLs, such as the mockery of the spokesperson;

(There has been a lot of controversy among the public about whether Vatti dares to pay compensation and whether it can afford the compensation. Once the celebrity said it, the topic was ignited again, making the impact of the topic even greater!)

Let users become your promotion resources, and leverage the power of rewards to easily trigger a nationwide "carnival". However, such a "nuclear weapon" is always a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it requires continuous layout and momentum, and on the other hand, it is necessary to control the cost of rewards.

Therefore, if “nuclear weapons” are not used, then they should be used with great fanfare, otherwise it will be a mere empty explosion!

2018 is the year of "national trend surge". This year, young people no longer chase foreign trends, but turn to pursue those domestic brands in their memories.

As China becomes stronger and people's income increases, young people are becoming more confident. After being besieged by the proliferation of "real and fake foreign brands" for a long time, they are eager to express their suppressed emotions with domestic brands that can make them proud.

However, China’s old brands are too mature and separated from young people. Under the promotion of Tmall, the “National Trend Plan” was launched.

Unexpectedly, it became popular overnight. In 2018, the national trend swept across Chinese young people, and all kinds of rare things kept refreshing their cognition!

Everything started at the New York Fashion Week in February this year:

In February this year , Chinese brand Li Ning took to the stage of New York Fashion Week. With a highly subversive retro design with "Chinese characteristics", it went abroad to show off its style, combining Chinese elements with modernity. The square Chinese characters amazed the world, and the national trend became an instant hit!

On that day, just like the theme of that time , "Enlightenment", Li Ning suddenly realized that both his Ren and Du meridians were opened, and a unique "national trend" road belonging to China was opened!

At the same time, with the media and official hype, Chinese young people are excited. It turns out that domestic brands can be so fashionable! The long-suppressed sentiment for domestic products was suddenly aroused!

Then a large number of domestic brands also became enlightened and started to do things other than their original business. Lao Gan Ma and Wangzai started selling clothes, and White Rabbit started selling lip balm.

Liushen and RIO Cocktail have created a "weird" cocktail with floral water flavor that young people call sour and refreshing;

Recently, the centuries-old Forbidden City has even started playing with makeup;

A year later, when we look back at these national trend brands that have swept the young people, we will find that they are all well-known old brands (IPs) that have gone against their usual image and done surprising things, with cross-border and joint ventures being their main actions. For them, cross-border collaborations in 2018 seem to be a panacea for rejuvenation!

In fact, it’s not that all cross-border collaborations are so great, it’s because the cross-border collaborations of old brands just echo the word “young”: youth has nothing to do with age, it only has to do with whether one still dares to change in one’s heart!

No one is young forever, but some people are young. For brands, the best "panacea" is to bravely change and never stop!

These are the four major marketing trends that Lao Pao summarized from the popular cases in 2018. I hope they will be helpful to you!

In fact, whether it is TikTok short videos, earthy marketing, reward marketing or cross-border collaborations, they are not only the hot marketing tactics in 2018, but will also be one of the main themes for a long time in the future.

Source: Marketing Frontline