Wang Ju from "Produce 101" is now famous! How should we leverage marketing opportunities?

"Produce 101" is the most popular variety show recently. Among them, contestant Wang Ju has emerged as a dark horse and has become an internet celebrity. Let's take a look at how businesses are taking advantage of this marketing opportunity .

1. Background

Tencent Video 's hit talent show "Produce 101" has been read over 6 billion times on Weibo and has attracted over 43 million discussions as of May 31, 2018, making it the most popular variety show at the moment.

Among them, contestant Wang Ju's popularity has soared. In the past 7 days, her WeChat index has exceeded 10 million, even far higher than Wang Junkai, Wu Yifan and other popular young actors. The daily year-on-year growth rate reached an astonishing 453.32%. She can be said to be a new traffic star that has emerged out of nowhere.

Among the contestants of "Produce 101", Wang Ju's popularity is far ahead.

In the past 30 days, Baidu Index has experienced a significant growth, surpassing Lehua's popular trainees Wu Xuanyi and Meng Meiqi, leading the whole field.

On the micro-index, the sudden rise of Wang Ju’s fans, led by bloggers such as @老鸡灯儿, also contributed to the impressive performance of the data report . On May 25 and May 28, the overall trend showed a relatively obvious upward trend, which was a significant change from the previous sluggish trend. It has great potential and cannot be ignored.

It can be said that Wang Ju is the biggest dark horse in "Produce 101". She successfully broke out from a bloody road, broke the original restrictions of the girl group idol image, and attracted countless fans for herself in a roundabout way. She also successfully evolved into a popular online phenomenon.

Many viewers who have never paid attention to the variety show also said that they had heard of Wang Ju and were brainwashed by the "Vote for Sister Ju" campaign slogan. It is undeniable that there is indeed a herd mentality among netizens, but the further promotion of the "Produce 101" program cannot be ignored.

The fans’ demands are very simple and plain: to vote for Wang Ju, promote her, and help her make her debut.

From the earliest Weibo tap water, WeChat drifting bottles, funny copywriting , emoticons , millions of artists... to the later organized and disciplined WeChat group operations, and collective control of comments and apologies under the Weibo posts of black fans, they all show the different characteristics of the Ju Army and the traditional low-age idol fan circle: more playful, mature, and interesting. What is similar is that they are full of endless enthusiasm to "send her debut."

The merchants also keenly captured the operational focus and, with the help of marketing accounts, attracted a lot of attention. Two-way marketing can not only maximize the popularity of the players, but also promote the publicity and promotion of the sponsor's related businesses/products. It is a typical case in new media communication.

2. Marketing Cases

This section analyzes 4 typical marketing cases, explaining how to guide and release the powerful fan support capabilities of "Tao Yuanming/Xiao Judou" and combine it with the marketing promotion of merchants to create a win-win situation.

Especially in these four cases, except for Yingshu and China Toothpaste, the other two are not well-known, and the App is even unheard of.

It can also be said that small businesses have also taken advantage of this favorable situation to achieve a turnaround in brand promotion.

Marketing Case 1: @咪爪声音

Number of fans: 60,000

Tencent App Store downloads: 620,000

Resources provided: Customized cards (cost 18 yuan), totaling 200,000 yuan

The official Weibo account of Xiamen MiZhua Network Technology Co., Ltd., to which MiZhua Voice belongs, was updated (now deleted), claiming that the company's boss personally came out to canvass for votes, with over 10,000 reposts and comments and 2 million likes. Once the Weibo post was published, it was immediately forwarded crazily by fans, showing the amazing productivity of the female workers in the carousel. It had already been forwarded over 10,000 times before the Weibo post was deleted.

Later, the boss of the company used his personal account to narrate the cause of the incident, and purchased a voting card for Wang Ju for 200,000 RMB. The voting was conducted by internal members of Wang Ju's voting team to avoid fraud or impersonation by other fans. Regardless of the original intention, for Wang Ju's fans, this kind of sincerity is quite sufficient.

Marketing Case 2: @嗨住租房

Number of fans: around 10,000

Resources provided: APP splash screen ads

Tencent App Store downloads: 500,000

As an app with hundreds of thousands of daily promotion traffic, HiZhu Rent is not a good promotion channel , but the gimmick of its splash screen advertising still attracted a group of fans to forward it crazily.

The atmosphere in the comments is also very harmonious, and many fans have expressed that they would use HiZhu when renting a house.

It can be said that for Hizhu Rent, this is a highly profitable business: the App splash screen ads have less than one million PVs, and even the design, copywriting, and materials of the ads can be provided by the voting team (not to mention that there are several design masters from the Central Academy of Fine Arts lurking among the fans), and there are several top KOLs who help to repost them for free. All in all, the company saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in publicity and promotion expenses.

If we also take into account Wang Ju's celebrity endorsement fees, image copyright fees, and the eye-catching effect of being the first to try something new, this marketing campaign is something that the merchants should be very grateful for.

Marketing Case 3: @英树

Number of fans: 150,000

Source: Hangzhou Metro Advertising

As one of the sponsoring brands of "Produce 101", Yingshu's activities are more systematic, complete and organized than the previous two. Open a new voting channel to provide offline exposure resources for the contestants with the highest number of votes.

Yingshu's boss also posted a Weibo post to add fuel to the carnival:

In fact, this is not the first time that Yingshu has used the overbearing president-style publicity resources of "This subway section is contracted by you" as a gimmick. In 2016, promotional materials of spokesperson Christine Fan appeared in many subway stations in Hangzhou.

This time, the resources provided are the Hangzhou Metro Line 2, which has a large flow of people. Not only can they use popular figures as endorsements, but they can also leverage the opportunity to promote their own products. In particular, these resources are also the company's inherent promotion platforms. The overall activity is very cost-effective in terms of exposure and word of mouth.

The tie in votes between Wang Ju and Meng Meiqi also cast a shadow of suspense on who will win the subway award.

Marketing Case 4: @中国牙膏Official Weibo

Number of fans: 1.18 million

Resources: Filming promotional videos + Spokesperson for the Chinese Flower Cleansing Toothpaste + Banner position on the #魔丽101# topic page + 12,000 votes for the Magic White (early stage resources, now closed)

For Wang Ju, who failed to make the top 11 debut spots, more publicity and wider-reaching marketing resources mean higher exposure and a higher chance of advancement. The two tough battles of subway and toothpaste are Tao Yuanming's important places for ranking and must be defended.

The merchants also used marketing opportunities very effectively: the high mountain white chrysanthemum version of China Toothpaste can clear away heat and relieve internal heat, leaving the mouth full of chrysanthemum fragrance, and the promotional slogan also won the favor of fans. Wang Ju's ranking has jumped from the bottom to the top four, and she is expected to become the spokesperson.

In summary, subway and toothpaste are some of the higher-quality marketing resource promotion cases among Weibo marketing, and are suitable for medium-sized enterprises. The cases of MiZhua Voice and HiZhu Rental are suitable for promotion by small businesses with fewer resources and can be used as reference.

The implementation of the four operation plans is very simple and not complicated. But tactical simplification does not mean strategic simplicity. The sensitivity and response speed of merchants are very worth learning.

3. Marketing Plan

Since the event emphasizes timeliness and is difficult to promote through a complex, long-process model, a short, flat and fast marketing strategy is considered. It is recommended to focus on providing high-quality online/offline promotional resources for chrysanthemum fans instead of physical prizes, emphasizing brand exposure and product promotion, avoiding forwarding → consumption barriers, and resulting in low marketing conversion rates that are inconsistent with expectations.

Take traditional retailers as an example:

Such merchants may not have sufficient online promotional resources and cannot support online activities with large traffic, so they can use the platform and rich offline resources to carry out linkage.

The most basic plan is to initiate a forwarding campaign on Weibo, and if the number of likes/forwards/comments exceeds 10,000, you can make an exclusive roll-up banner for the contestant, provide promotional resources in multiple offline stores, and place the contestant's canvassing roll-up banner. Encourage and guide users to take photos in the store, upload them to Weibo, and include relevant topics to participate in the lucky draw. Prize: Customized likes card for each contestant (cost: 18 yuan/card).

However, such marketing activities are only for short-term popularity and fail to truly combine the players' personal characteristics and brand image. More gameplay still requires strong technical, operational, publicity and other resources to support it.

For example, the images represented by Wang Ju, such as feminism, LGBT minority, and eccentricity, are all worth exploring in depth.

This plan focuses on exploring the marketing opportunities of small and medium-sized enterprises and provides possible reference plans. The way big companies play is beyond the scope of this article.

It must be pointed out here: with Wang Ju's trend, no matter it is a false fire or a real red, any merchant who wants to take advantage of it must act decisively and not wait and see for too long and miss the opportunity.

Firstly, as Wang Ju's popularity continues to grow, commercial bargaining chips such as endorsement fees are increasing, and are no longer affordable for small and medium-sized enterprises. Secondly, popularity is fleeting, and there is no guarantee whether there will be other unexpected trainees in "Produce 101", and the marketing countdown can be measured in hours.

Those who are in the front are pioneers, and those who are behind are followers. Especially for small and medium-sized businesses, opportunities are fleeting, so cherish them while you can.

The author of this article @迟雨落 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games