How to plan a super event promotion?

Regarding event planning, I have written an article before. It was quite lengthy, with several thousand words, mostly on methodology. This time we would like to take this opportunity to talk about something down to earth. Let’s take Alipay’s Koi activity as an example. I will explain it briefly and please listen patiently.

An activity generally goes through these steps. Clarify the purpose - determine the goal - activity form - activity theme - sort out the communication points - plan the communication rhythm. So, let’s talk about it step by step.

1. Purpose comes before form and is above all else

When planning an event, you must first have a clear purpose. This should not only apply to activities, but also to life. When you have clarity of purpose, form will follow.

When companies organize events, they generally want to achieve three goals: enhance user experience/deepen brand value/accelerate user consumption behavior . Event planning is about solving one or more of these problems.

Alipay's Chinese Koi event can be seen from the first official Weibo update: taking advantage of the National Day Golden Week to promote Alipay's overseas payment function. At the same time, in order to expand the momentum of the event and consolidate Alipay's domestic position, this Koi event was launched for all Alipay users.

There is not much to say about the purpose, only the planner needs to be clear. The setting of activity goals, etc. should be quantifiable and data-based as much as possible.

2. The form is fixed, but the details are always new

The form of an activity is the skeleton of an activity. Many planners like to be innovative in the form of their activities. This is not impossible. Only through continuous attempts can there be better forms.

But this does not mean that you cannot express your creativity by using a form that has been used by others. If you count them on your fingers, there are only a few types of activities: discount promotions/crowdfunding/lottery/accumulation/doubling of deposits for e-commerce. The form is fixed, but the details are always new. Looking at the format of the Alipay Koi activity, it is a simple lottery. The advantage of this format is that the threshold for participation is low. Apart from that, there is nothing else new and innovative.

But I think the reason why it was able to go viral is that it ensured two things. One is the core interest of the event, which is the prize setting; the other is the packaging of the event, which is the theme of the event. These two, one determines the lower limit of this activity, and the other determines the upper limit of this activity.

1. Core interests of the activity

This event has brought together more than 200 brands, including strong brands such as Samsung and Huawei; the total value of the prizes has reached 100 million yuan, and it takes three minutes to read the entire prize list. This determines the lower limit of this activity. A super marketing campaign has too many uncertainties, and it is normal for it to fail. Only a few can break out of the traffic black forest and appear in your circle of friends.

One way to reduce this risk of failure is what Xin Shi Xiang calls a sense of scale . Including sense of spatial scale/sense of cold start scale/sense of digital scale and brand potential. The Koi campaign has united 200 well-known manufacturers, which means that in terms of brand potential and cold start scale, it has surpassed most activities. Therefore, core interests determine the lower limit of this activity.

(II) Activity Packaging

What determines the upper limit is the packaging of the event, that is, the theme of the event. If you have a lot of subsidies, spend the money more wisely. I advise all my friends in operations to polish your creative themes yourself.

After all, the number of new users = channel * creativity. A good creative theme can make your event spread like a virus and the number of participants will grow explosively.

The theme of this Alipay event is Koi. "Koi" has been a highly saturated image in Chinese culture since ancient times. In addition, with the help of the recently popular internet celebrities Yang Chaoyue and Wang Sicong, the word "koi" has been on the Weibo hot search list many times. Retweeting koi fish for good luck has become a trend that has spread widely on Weibo, and the Alipay event is taking advantage of this trend. Using "koi", a symbol of good luck, as the communication medium for one's activities greatly reduces users' cognitive barriers and increases the spreadability of the activities.

3. Activity rhythm

Someone once asked a question online: Why are some jokes funny when told by some people, but not funny when told by others? The answer is just two words: "rhythm". If Guo Degang tells the same material, you will laugh out loud. But if someone else tells it, it won’t be so funny. Ultimately it’s a question of rhythm control. When talking about Su Dongpo's paintings and calligraphy in "The Biography of Su Dongpo", Lin Yutang said that the essential issue of all art is the issue of rhythm.

Event planning also requires rhythm. I often tell my friends that knowledge can be learned, but skills can only be acquired . This article can tell you the knowledge about event planning, but will you become an expert after reading it? Absolutely not. I don’t have that ability. If you want to improve your event planning skills, you need to practice continuously. Find a popular case, break it down thoroughly, and then ask yourself, what would it be like if you were the one planning it? what will you do? This can gradually improve your ability to plan events and your ability to control the pace of events.

The planning of an event can generally be divided into four stages: launch/momentum/climax and fermentation. Alipay’s Koi event is no exception. But the difference between experts and ordinary people lies in the ability of experts to control the entire activity. He will not let the whole activity get out of his control, just like a crosstalk artist. A good crosstalk artist may not make loud jokes, but they will not be mute, and will not affect other jokes.

The overall Alipay Koi event was well-balanced, but what was most admirable was the control over the spread of topics at each stage. Basically, there were one or two topics that aroused discussion on Weibo at each stage, and then a large amount of traffic was allocated for publicity, so the popularity of Koi would not have much of a gap during the entire event. This is extremely valuable in the Internet world where attention is extremely scarce.

The review of this event also provides us with a universal routine of 1+1 for super events. Each stage must have a topic that arouses discussion and provide a large amount of traffic for publicity of this topic.

1. Start-up phase

Generally, during the startup phase, planners will use some suspenseful means to arouse everyone's curiosity. During the launch phase, Alipay directly announced the start of the event with a Weibo post. At the same time, 200 brands responded to the post, including Samsung and Huawei, which forwarded the message and posted their own prizes, thus solving the cold start problem.

The Canadian Tourism Bureau also entered the event and offered the most generous prize of the event, a welcome speech.

Welcome to the Chinese Koi and all Chinese tourists.

It triggered widespread ridicule online and livened up the overall atmosphere. This was considered a small episode during the startup phase.

The real communication point in the launch phase was the list of prizes worth 100 million yuan, which was said to take only three minutes to read. This list was extremely communicative and visually impactful, allowing users to more intuitively and conveniently feel the temptation of the prizes of this event.

At 20:00 in the evening, Alipay used the official account platform to briefly introduce the "two things" and promoted the content of the event on the official account platform to attract more attention and participation.

During the startup phase, the main goal is to maximize the scale of the cold start and attract users to participate and forward.

(II) Momentum-building stage

When planning a super event, you should design as many gameplay methods as possible around the theme. The combination of online and offline, and the integration of end and end should include both operational discounts and some product gameplay. You can take a look at those activities that are all over your circle of friends. You can see that they are all a combination of event marketing and operational discounts, KOL promotion and national interaction.

1. Post screenshots of free orders on your Moments

During the promotion phase of Alipay’s Koi event, an activity was launched to let users who travel abroad post their free meals on WeChat Moments. Overseas free-ticket users can increase their chances of winning the koi prize by simply posting a screenshot of the free-ticket item to their Moments. This branch activity has two purposes. One is to promote Alipay's overseas payment function; the other is to bring the Koi activity to WeChat's circle of friends, thereby creating a greater dissemination effect.

2. KOL support

After the activity has been going on for a while, users will become a little sluggish. At this time, some big Vs and interesting topics are needed to liven up the atmosphere. On October 3, Alipay asked its own Weibo celebrity Gao Xiaosong to comment and repost, calling on everyone to participate in the lucky draw. On October 6, a "one in thirty thousand" probability chart was posted by a small account called "Memory". The topic continued to ferment.

(III) Climax

At this stage of the event, everyone basically knows that they have no hope, but everyone wants to know who the final lucky winner will be? Everyone's attention to this lucky winner far outweighs the value of the prize.

1. "Koi" Benli, full of sense of the net

On October 7, the lucky winner was announced, and the “lucky fish” Ben Li Xin Xiaodai appeared in the public eye. Although some anonymous users posted online that "China's koi Xin Xiaodai is suspected to be internally selected", some people even listed 9 "Alipay's criteria for selecting koi".

But it is undeniable that this koi has the physique of an internet celebrity. She kept throwing out jokes such as "no need to work for the rest of my life" and "leaving Africa and moving to Europe", which accumulated enough topics and popularity for this event.

(IV) Fermentation stage

At the end of the event, Li Xian reposted Xin Xiaodai’s Weibo, which once again pushed the topic up in popularity.

Ono Meizi, a Weibo celebrity with over 17 million fans, started a topic about koi fish, "Tell us about your experience of being possessed by koi fish." Netizens participated in the topic very much, and the number of readings of the topic reached over 100 million.

Finally, the Alipay team lived up to its original intention and created a "Global Mobile Payment Good Luck Map" to thank all the users who "brought Alipay to the world." This map is also very thoughtful: it draws on the overall form of the Qingming Shanghe Tu, and vividly displays the phased achievements of Alipay in the field of global mobile payments.

IV. Conclusion

I have said so much in a long-winded way, so don’t be impatient, I will just make the final summary.

1. The key secret to improving event planning skills: Deliberate practice: Knowledge can be acquired, but skills can only be practiced. Analyze more popular activity cases and actively imitate them.
2. The core interests of the event determine the lower limit of the event, and the creative theme of the event determines the upper limit of the event.
3. Clarify the purpose of the activity, simplify the form of the activity, enrich the activity structure, and control the rhythm of the activity.
4. Use a sense of scale to create viral events.
5. Universal template for planning activities: each stage must have a topic that can be spread + a publicity channel with high traffic.

Author: Advertiser

Source: Advertising Craftsman