Although Messi was eliminated, Mengniu won in World Cup brand marketing!

The course of this World Cup was full of ups and downs, with many upsets. The highly favored Messi and Ronaldo both missed the finals due to the elimination of their national teams. From a marketing perspective, Vatti gained a lot of attention by offering a small profit but a big gain, but I think Mengniu is the "unexpected" winner.

As the official sponsor of the World Cup, Mengniu's advertising screenshots have been all over social networks . If you pay a little attention to the World Cup, you can often find such screenshots in Moments , WeChat groups , Weibo, etc.:

As official sponsors of the World Cup, VIVO, Budweiser and even Coca-Cola did not cause much waves, not to mention Wanda ’s promotion of Buddhism…

By observing the Baidu Index, we can also see that Mengniu's index has been rising steadily, with a significant year-on-year growth (although the index was not high to begin with).

Mengniu recent Baidu index

On the other hand, vivo 's Baidu index is gradually declining, and is declining year-on-year (but the absolute value of the index is very high):

VIVO recent Baidu index

In fact, the risk of binding marketing between stars and teams in the World Cup is relatively high. Mengniu, with its deep pockets, chose a popular football idol - Messi of the Argentina team. In any case, he has his own aura and traffic , so it is always a win-win situation.

However, Messi has been the focus of online public opinion since the match between Argentina and Iceland on the third day of the World Cup (Beijing time). Regardless of whether he plays well or not, he is always the focus of public attention.

Mengniu harvested a wave of unexpected traffic

Due to Messi's poor performance in the first game, spoof screenshots of Messi lying on the grass in the Mengniu advertisement began to circulate online. Although the result of the game was not ideal, the public's attention was focused on Messi.

The user's attention is the traffic value. What's more rare is that Messi's attention is tied to the Mengniu brand in the form of emoticons . Whenever people talk about Messi during the World Cup, they think of that spoof picture and naturally associate it with the Mengniu brand.

Messi's Argentina team played in the fourth game of the World Cup group stage, which was relatively early in time. Once Messi's spoof emoticon package was released, it could be effectively reused in subsequent game entertainment spoofs, which further increased the spread of the Mengniu emoticon package.

The subsequent games of Messi's Argentina team also had ups and downs. As the topic continued to be hotly discussed, the spoof picture of Messi and Simon Yam's advertisement continued to spread.

Was the screen-sweeping a human operation, or was Mengniu just lucky?

Based on experience, the massive screen-sweeping of emoticons was probably an accident at first. Of course, it was also closely related to Messi's performance on the field, but the large-scale screen-sweeping of emoticons should have been fueled by the Mengniu official team.

Nowadays, it is very difficult to artificially plan an event that will sweep the entire Internet. Even a wealthy company like Mengniu finds it difficult to do so. Creating an event that will sweep the entire Internet requires a very thorough understanding of the public psychology, and there are many uncontrollable factors in the process of dissemination, making it extremely difficult.

If other brands wanted to plan this screen-sweeping event, for example, by setting up some memes and reserving a spoof picture for netizens to create secondary works, then this deliberate operation would basically fail.

Is the screen-sweeping of emoticons valuable to Mengniu?

Some people may ask: There is no Mengniu brand on the emoticons that are flooding the screen. Is it useful to Mengniu? The answer is of course yes.

In fact, we can find that the things that netizens spread spontaneously and screen-sweepingly rarely have obvious commercial colors. In other words, even if the pictures really have Mengniu’s logo or brand exposed, the amount of dissemination may be far from the current level.

But Mengniu's marketing promotion this time is obviously all-round. It is not just about shooting an advertisement. The elements of green grass and Messi have been applied to various offline packaging materials. Even Mengniu's shelves have applied various grass courts, Messi and other elements. If you have time, you can go to the nearby supermarket to have a look and you will know~

Through the associative connection of elements, although the Mengniu logo is not revealed in the emoticons, it is easy to be associated with the brand, and Mengniu’s slogan “Born to be Strong” is also reflected in the copywriting of various emoticons. In addition, the element of grassland itself can be connected to Mengniu. Pastures, grasslands... these elements are naturally related to Mengniu, which is in the dairy industry.

In addition, the emoticon package itself has been widely circulated this time, and even the spectators of the World Cup will become curious after seeing it too many times, and will actively search or ask friends. All in all, Mengniu made a profit.

After Messi was eliminated, is Mengniu going to be in trouble?

Messi has been making people's hearts beat fast in this World Cup, bringing in a lot of topic traffic. Although Mengniu has already attracted enough attention through the emoticon package screen-sweeping incident, now that Messi's Argentina has been eliminated, this is a big blow to Mengniu, and Mengniu's subsequent brand popularity and exposure will definitely be affected.

At the same time, it can be clearly felt that with the advancement of the French team, Vatti has taken advantage of a wave of popularity and has once again hyped up the tactic of "refunds if France wins the championship." On the other hand, Mengniu has even less secondary creations of emoticons. Mengniu should appropriately change its promotion strategy as the event progresses.

But no matter what, Mengniu is the official sponsor of the World Cup, and there are advertising spaces on the stadium fence display screens. Even if the popularity is affected, there are still many opportunities to leverage the momentum for communication. As the event progresses, the hard exposure should only increase. It depends on how Mengniu officials create topics and trigger social media dissemination.

The three most eye-catching marketing events of this World Cup

Compared with previous event marketing, multinational brands such as Adidas and Nike did not cause much waves, while local brands stood out.

This World Cup mainly has three eye-catching marketing events:

• The first one is that Vantage "refunds the full amount if it wins the French championship", creating a gimmick to win big with a small investment;
• The second is that Mengniu's "Messi emoji package" became popular, triggering a surge in social topic traffic;
• The third is the vulgar advertising incidents by Internet companies such as BOSS Zhipin and Zhihu, which have caused constant controversy and endless traffic.

Other companies, such as vivo, have marketing actions and topics, but they have never been able to sweep the screen; and in the mobile Internet , WeChat ’s customized World Cup exclusive avatar mini-programs , various World Cup test H5/mini-programs, and DIY mini -games did not seem to have much response...

As the finals approach, the golden moment for marketing of each brand will also arrive. I believe that there will be many "big moves" released, and there is not much time left for each brand.

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

Source: Spread Gymnastics (ID:chuanboticao)