Case Study | Advertising Hacker: A Very Low-Cost Way to Expose Your Brand

The main idea of ​​hacker advertising is "intrusion". Using marketing techniques, exposure in one media space can invade exposure in another media space, thus triggering viral spread.

There is a thing called " growth hacker " in the Internet circle. The purpose is to achieve rapid user growth at extremely low cost. Nowadays, major companies have growth hacker teams to achieve user growth .

In the past two years, the term "hacker advertising" (Hackvertising) has emerged in the marketing field. The purpose is to use some unconventional "hacker" techniques to promote advertisements and gain huge brand exposure.

The main idea of ​​hacker advertising is "intrusion". Using marketing techniques, exposure in one media space can invade exposure in another media space, thus triggering viral spread. In many cases, this invasive communication occurs between brands, which means allowing your brand topic to invade other brand topics.

This may be too abstract, let's look at a few examples:

Case 1: Volvo Super Bowl Marketing

The background is this: the "Super Bowl" is the annual American football championship game, and its status can be understood as equivalent to our "Spring Festival Gala". With such a national carnival event, advertising fees are naturally high, so the "Super Bowl" is also a feast for global big brands to compete in advertising.

The high cost of promotion makes many brands reluctant to take on the challenge. So how can Volvo compete with other car companies that spend heavily through lower costs?

Volvo did not spend a lot of money to buy a commercial during the Super Bowl, but instead aired an ad before the game started. The gist of the ad is this: During the Super Bowl, if viewers see ads for other car brands and send a tweet with Volvo information (similar to the @ and topic operation on Weibo), they will have a chance to win a Volvo car.

Volvo's amazing move is equivalent to riding on the popularity of other car brands, that is, "invading" the topic of other brands.

Imagine that when viewers see ads for other car brands on TV, they immediately participate in Volvo's interactive promotion online. Just by talking about cars during the Super Bowl, they can evoke Volvo's event information.

Other car brands need to spend millions of dollars to purchase TV advertising resources, but Volvo only spent the money for 5 cars to arouse widespread brand exposure on social networks and grab the audience's attention.

Case 2: Burger King video advertising promotion

The background is this: many people abroad have a Google Home smart home device in their homes, and often place this device next to the TV. Google Home can be awakened by the voice command "OK, Google" (similar to the wake-up mode of domestic devices such as "Xiao Ai" and " Tmall Genie"), and then control the smart home system. You can use voice to query information, control devices and other functions.

Burger King launched a video ad that made Google laugh and cry. The video ad content is a store clerk talking to the screen. The lines are:

“You’re watching a 15-second Burger King commercial, and we can’t tell you about it in real time, but I have an idea. OK Google, what is the Whopper?”

As the Chinese voice command in the advertisement woke up the Google Home system, Google Home began to introduce Burger King’s new products... I think the Google team must have been devastated at this moment.

Although Google promptly used technical means to prevent Google Home from responding to the man’s voice in the ad, Burger King released six different voice versions in advance... Well, in short, this marketing promotion plan made Burger King the absolute winner, and this case was both critically acclaimed and commercially successful.

Burger King uses voice commands in video ads to wake up the Google Home smart home system, which is equivalent to " invading " the entire home environment from the online video media space, making the home voice system an advertising medium. This not only extends the life of a single advertisement, but also breaks through the limitations of traditional promotion methods.

Just imagine that when you watch a video ad on your iPhone, the ad ends with a sentence “hey, Siri” to wake up your Siri. How deep will this ad leave a deep impression on you…

Case 3: Budweiser print advertising promotion

The background is this. Everyone knows that advertisements involving elements such as character portraits need to deal with copyright issues. Without paying high copyright fees, it is difficult to attract celebrities to help promote the brand.

Budweiser came up with a clever way, which was to let various celebrities endorse its products while avoiding copyright issues. Budweiser printed a series of posters...

The poster gives some keywords to guide users to search for pictures on search engines . If you become curious and start searching for these keywords, you will suddenly realize it, because the search results are photos of various celebrities with Budweiser, but Budweiser did not buy the copyright.

In this clever way, Budweiser "invaded" the print advertising media space into the PC and mobile media space. More importantly, the cost was not high (no huge copyright fees had to be paid) and a large amount of viral spread was achieved.

(Use Google to search for keywords in the poster)

(The first image search result is a photo of a celebrity holding Budweiser)

In my opinion, the above three cases are all "hacker-style" advertising promotion techniques, which use low-cost investment to leverage huge media voice, and while spreading across media spaces, they trigger viral spread on social networks . Their ideas are similar to those of "growth hackers" in the Internet industry.

In addition, the above three cases have also been recognized by the marketing industry. The first Volvo case won the Golden Lion Award at the 2015 Cannes Advertising Festival; the second Burger King case won the 2017 Cannes Advertising Festival Annual Award; and the third Budweiser case won the 2018 Cannes Advertising Festival Grand Prix awarded these days.

I believe that more and more brands will consider this kind of "hacker-style" marketing, and this kind of hacker advertising requires us to think beyond the boundaries of others. Here are two more small cases of Burger King:

(1) In Peru, there are regulations prohibiting moviegoers from bringing food into movie theaters unless the food is similar to the food available at the concession stands, for example: popcorn can be brought into the theater, but hamburgers cannot. Burger King came up with the idea of ​​putting burgers in popcorn packages and letting audiences take them into the cinema to eat...:

(2) There is only one Burger King store in Romania, which is the airport store. But the trouble is that passengers must use their boarding passes to enter the airport before they can buy Burger King. The solution Burger King came up with was to create a website that allowed people to buy low-priced air tickets (often less than $20), print out boarding passes, and then enter Burger King stores, where they could use their boarding passes to eat at Burger King for free...

In any case, don’t these examples all have a kind of hacker spirit of “going off the beaten path”?

It seems quite alternative and funny among the cookie-cutter marketing plans. Finding systemic loopholes and planning creative marketing solutions may give us different marketing inspirations. However, we must also note that since they are "hackers", many marketing methods involve commercial ethics and legal disputes, and we must prepare corresponding emergency plans. (Both cases above involve some legal disputes)

David, the originator of the concept of "hacker advertising" (that is, the advertising company that operated the Burger King cases mentioned above), shared 5 steps to create successful hacker advertising:

1. Define a system to be hacked: by observing the users, find a hacking moment and monitor it at all times;
2. Study the rules of the system: Do a lot of research on the entire system until you know the rules, then you can bend the rules;
3. Find the brand entry point: find the brand's perspective and goals, and insert them into the system;
4. Consult a lawyer: Prevent various possible risks and challenges;
5. Attack: Executing the promotion plan is dangerous but worth it.

Hacker advertising can always cause dissemination and sensation at low cost. Although some practices have entered the gray area of ​​the rules, don’t forget that the essence of hacker advertising is not to skirt the rules, but to "invade" from one media/brand space to another, thereby gaining rapid exposure and growth.

Author: Zheng Zhuoran, authorized to be published by Qinggua Media .

Source: Spread Gymnastics (ID:chuanboticao)