How were those “koi marketing” that exploded the circle of friends created?

Among the many keywords in the second half of 2018, if "koi" can only rank second, then I believe no one can rank first.

I saw that friends around me changed their WeChat profile pictures to Yang Chaoyue.

Millions of netizens forwarded and worshipped Xin Xiaodai:

Even an ordinary girl named "Yidi Jin" can rely on her koi-like personality to get more than 100,000 readings and go viral on WeChat Moments .

Why are Koi fish so popular? What kind of demands of the public are hidden behind the fire? How to create such a miracle of operation ? Let us explore the secret behind this.

Through this article, you will gain:

1. Review of the Koi Case that Sweeped the Screen
2. The operational enlightenment brought to us by the Koi activity
3. User insights behind the Koi event

1. The Koi Cases That Sweeped the Screen in Those Years

Let’s go back to August 9, 2018. It was destined to be an extraordinary day for the “national first girl group - Rocket Girls 101” which had been established for less than 50 days. The agency of the first and second girls in the group publicly announced their withdrawal from the group on Weibo, which made the original third place, Yang Chaoyue, the first in line, that is, "debuting in the C position."

The majority of netizens who had been questioning her ranking third immediately became restless. Even the national husband Wang Sicong immediately posted a koi Weibo, sending Yang Chaoyue to the hot search list.

This means that koi, which originally represented good luck, has broken away from its original form of "fish" and turned into various emoticons , bringing more topics.

Subsequently, on the eve of National Day, Alipay joined hands with a number of overseas merchants to hold a lucky draw event on Weibo, with the promotional slogan "May you become China's koi". In less than 7 days, it set a record-breaking corporate Weibo marketing performance in history: 200 million views on a single Weibo post, 3 million reposts, and more than 2 million new fans. The merchants who cooperated with it also received more exposure and attention than expected. According to people familiar with the matter, the marketing cost of this event was only 500,000.

After the National Day holiday, everyone was surprised to find that the koi fish active in the circle of friends had changed from Yang Chaoyue to the smiling girl lying in the prize banner in the picture below. Koi has gone from being an unattainable star to a title that ordinary people can also hope to achieve.

At this point, the curtain has been raised on the era of national koi.

Businesses that are good at taking advantage of the situation have launched round after round of koi-finding activities in various places. It quickly expanded from first- and second-tier cities to third- and fourth-tier cities, and finally even county-level cities were using this term.

2. Inspiration from Operational Activities

1. The number of awards can be small, but the amount must be “sufficient”

In today's world of rampant marketing, the majority of users have long been educated to "not release the eagle until they see the rabbit". If merchants just prepare some unnecessary vouchers to attract more users, I'm sorry, it's just like the flyers that can be seen everywhere, and most people think it's a waste of time if they don't even take a second look at it.

Two "super value" options are available:

1. Put the budget first to create a jackpot effect.
2. Transform the prizes and replace the money with multiple commodities or experiences of equal value. For example, 10,000 yuan = a luxurious meal + a round-trip ticket to XXX + a VIP seat at a concert + a one-month experience of a new car of a certain brand + a custom-made suit in a clothing store... (covering the user's experience in multiple dimensions of clothing, food, housing, and transportation).

Although the second method is not cash, as long as it can bring enough attraction and experience, I believe that many people will still be attracted to it. A bonus of 10,000 yuan may only be posted once on WeChat Moments, but if it is replaced with experience, it can correspond to countless pictures.

2. The cost of participation is low enough (cost mainly refers to education cost and operation cost)

Koi, which traditionally represented good luck and blessings, has now evolved into a symbol of lucky people and the chosen ones, greatly reducing the cost of education and communication for users. Needless to say, the operating cost is self-evident. It takes less than a minute for users to complete the action of commenting + forwarding. There is no need to post photos, collect likes, or canvass for votes. It is truly a blessing for users.

This low-cost operation forms a huge contrast with the high-value rewards, which can easily create a strong sense of drama and bring about topics and attention.

3. The matching degree between the merchant's purpose and the user's needs should be high

Any activity can be done, as long as it can bring good returns. Never do it just for the sake of doing it. Therefore, before the event, you must be clear about the " purpose of the event " so that you can figure out the "process of the event" and finally quantify and evaluate the "effectiveness of the event."

It is important to note that when setting awards, they should be as relevant to the needs of the winning users as possible. For example, in a gym's event, when attracting new members , the prizes can be corresponding sports equipment/private training courses/sportswear/pedometer bracelets, which will be more effective than simply using SLR cameras, Apple phones and other products as rewards. Because simply using high-value gifts to attract users may make them have no interest in fitness and just want the prizes, which will increase the difficulty of retaining and converting users in the later stages.

4. Optimization of the transmission chain

An activity will hardly be successful if it does not receive enough attention. Therefore, every event designer needs to think about how to use "leverage thinking" to promote amplification of communication. Here we can consider the time nodes of the activity:

1. Pre-launch warm-up: necessary entrances (app banner, opening page display), related brands work together to create momentum
2. During the event: users participate in forwarding, influencers follow up, and design topics (slot points, cool points)
3. After the event: create a sense of ceremony and surprise (interview the winners, put up eye-catching banners, help expose them, etc.); offline activities can also use very eye-catching banners, display racks, electronic screens in shopping malls, nearby bus stops, staff clothing logos, set up a stage, etc. to help expose and spread the event, but I won’t go into details here due to space limitations.

3. Psychological insights behind users

1. Curiosity

No one will refuse to play a new game . The more you have never experienced something, the more you will be tempted to try it. This curiosity drives people to keep moving forward, constantly stimulates the production of dopamine, and then rewards themselves for continuing to do so.

2. Follow the trend

How to attract the attention of passers-by?

As long as you get a group of people lining up or gathering there, people will naturally come. People usually have the psychological suggestion of blindly following the trend. When everyone is doing it, I should also try it. Many Internet celebrity stores hire people to queue up and take advantage of this point. This has nothing to do with the education received, it only has to do with how many people saw it at the time, so the only thing we need to do is to let users continue to repeat and expose, and then wait for new users to continue to do so.

3. Self-propagation

Any successful event and community platform will have two forms of content: PGC (official content) and UGC (user-generated content). There is nothing more interesting than new content created and spread by users themselves. At the same time, self-propagation can also help the event maintain its popularity and vitality in the minds of users.

Emojis related to the content, users' heartfelt comments, interesting complaints, and interesting interactions with officials can all become the direction that any operator should think hard about.

4. Superstitious symbols

According to psychologists' analysis, no matter which country or region they come from, different cultures will have their own superstitious symbols. This means that users already have a clear understanding of its meaning. It can be a number, color, animal, specific shape, etc. For example, in Western culture, 13 represents bad luck, 7 is the lucky number for the British, and knocking on wood represents good luck; in Eastern culture, red can ward off evil spirits, and yellow represents auspiciousness and wealth.

Behaviors such as praying for blessings through koi fish can give participants a psychological hint that "forwarding seems to really bring good luck." Doing so can strengthen users' motivation to participate. Even if they fail to win the final grand prize, it can be used as a ritual to pray for a smooth future, which is not a loss in any way.

IV. Conclusion

Any popular event is inseparable from the three aspects of event purpose, process design, and user perception . Let’s sort out the ideas for planning explosive activities:

1. Purpose of the activity

What is the purpose of this activity?

To increase user attention, what is the corresponding data goal? For example: attract 10,000 fans.

2. Process Design

1. What are the target platforms? WeChat public account /Weibo/ TikTok ... (clarify the interaction and rules)
2. Who is the target audience? Where are you from? Relevant personnel in a certain vertical field and relevant channel contacts;
3. Are there any successful cases and experiences to draw on? Determine the corresponding interactive form, such as: poster forwarding, scanning QR code to follow, support by 3 people, corresponding fission needs and corresponding technical support (Taskbao);
4. Corresponding award setting: Get a data package worth 1,000 yuan;
5. Data preparation, copywriting planning, and image design;
6. Whether there is authoritative endorsement: industry bigwigs.

3. User Perception

1. Is this award helpful to me?
2. How long will this process take me?
3. How do others evaluate this behavior? Do you want to participate too?
4. What are the user’s emotions about this experience?

From this point of view, planning a hit event needs to be based on user psychology and cognitive symbols, fully mobilize user emotions and participation, simplify user participation costs, increase user dissemination links, form a flywheel effect, and ultimately achieve the established goals.

Source: Mumujun is me