B station's "soft core" marketing

2020 is the year when Bilibili’s marketing began to become “softcore”.

DingTalk, the giant of office software, never expected that one day it would be defeated by primary school students. Suffering from the fear of being dominated by primary school students, it posted a post on Bilibili titled "DingTalk, the real Ding, begs for mercy online" and begged users to give it five-star reviews in full.

The video went viral quickly due to its weird and funny format, brainwashing melody and magical lyrics. It has been played 13.89 million times on Weibo and 13.24 million times on Bilibili. It has also topped Bilibili's daily rankings for several consecutive days, winning a wave of likes and attracting the attention of 1.1 million Bilibili users. From then on, DingTalk changed its original serious and formal style and mingled with young people.

Tencent followed closely and published a post on the official account of Bilibili titled "【Tencent forced to operate】Bilibili shareholders perform art to get on the front page."

"Magic moments" like those of Alibaba and Tencent are hard to find on other websites. This is the core expression of Bilibili. No matter who the other party is, it is clearly arranged by the Z generation group on Bilibili.

McDonald's has always been good at youth-oriented marketing, constantly launching personalized new products and interesting and fun peripherals, and cross-branding, and it can always mobilize young people's enthusiasm for consumption. This time, McDonald's is about to release a new product and has also set its sights on Bilibili, making its first appearance on Bilibili !

Rap, rhyme, multiple language contexts, magical and brainwashing. The official ghost videos are the most deadly. Many netizens were amused by McDonald’s ghost video style and offered comments one after another.

The reason why the giants are so willing and trying so hard to curry favor and seek attention is that everyone feels that Bilibili's Generation Z group is a rich traffic mine that has not yet been overdeveloped.

The successful breakthroughs of brands such as DingTalk, Tencent, and McDonald's are enough to prove that if brands want to attract young users, they need to play with young people, integrate with the Z generation in a way that young people like, and enhance fan stickiness.

Unlike previous brands that pursued "hardcore" marketing and showed users and consumers the high-end and classy side of the brand, Bilibili's marketing style is so fresh, unusual and even a bit "soft-core", selling cuteness, misery and trying hard to please.

This is directly related to the group characteristics of Generation Z and the unique circle culture of Bilibili...

Generation Z active on Bilibili

As Generation Z quickly integrates into mainstream society, it has become one of the main groups in the domestic consumer market. Some organizations predict that Generation Z will account for 40% of the overall consumer power in 2020, which also sounds a wake-up call to brands: brands that fail to capture young people have no future. For this reason, Bilibili, the base where Generation Z gathers and known as the largest cultural community for young people, is becoming a new battlefield for brands to focus on.

According to KANTER's "Z Generation Consumption Power White Paper", China has the world's largest Generation Z population of 150 million. The high GDP and low birth rate living environment enable those born after 1995 to enjoy far more disposable resources than others.

The Circle Effect summarizes the four characteristics of Generation Z:

1. Preference for a sense of gain , expecting a product to provide a sense of gain that exceeds its own.

2. Label preference , not only paying attention to the product itself, but also paying attention to the label behind it.

3. Direct expression , barrage culture is a direct reflection of this.

4. Certainty preference : high requirements for certainty and lower tolerance for errors.

As the "natives" of the mobile Internet world, Generation Z has formed various circles during their growth process. If they cannot enter the circle, business giants will lose the ability to "please" young people and face difficulties in monetizing traffic and lower conversion rates.

B station's circle culture

"The magic of Bilibili lies in its unique community culture that is rooted in the two-dimensional world. No matter who you are, when you come to Bilibili, you will become very Bilibili, which is different from other content platforms." After 10 years of development, Bilibili has been continuously expanding its cultural boundaries in its development, bringing all the interests and preferences of Generation Z closer to the expression of Bilibili culture.

Through more than 20 years of continuous research, Thomas Kolopoulos and Dan Kelderson summarized the six characteristics of the post-95s circle effect in their book "The Circle Effect":

1. Age inclusiveness : The upcoming population redistribution will be extremely disruptive, and the criterion for dividing different groups of people will no longer be age but circle. Circles may not necessarily be divided by age, but they are definitely divided by hobbies. For example: the technology circle, the animation circle, the literary and art circle... Different circles have their own characteristics and will accommodate people of different age groups.

2. Onlineization : Hyperconnectivity between people, computers, machines, and objects is growing exponentially.

3. Low technical threshold : Develop changes in user experience and payment capabilities, apply the most advanced technologies, and enable a large number of users to use cutting-edge technologies like technology pioneers.

4. Wealth influence weakens : Communities that span age groups and other demographic boundaries are increasingly influencing world events, without the need for large amounts of financial support.

5. Cultural cross-border : enabling people of all levels and ages around the world to share educational opportunities within their economic affordability.

6. Creative thinking - a simple and effective power : breaking down barriers, finding shortcuts, and breaking through the constraints of existing systems. With a greater focus on results rather than processes, meaning and purpose become central to both the private and professional spheres.

Therefore, when brands enter Bilibili for marketing, they must have a sense of circle awareness. Only products and content with obvious circle characteristics will win the favor of more young people. Only by understanding the circle can you find the business logic that suits the post-95 market.

How do brands do “soft-core” marketing on Bilibili?

At present, there are two main types of content marketing methods at Bilibili: brand content marketing and Bilibili UP host delivery. In brand content marketing, in order to ensure that the content is "interesting and informative", most brands will choose PUGV content co-creation. For example, OPPO has made fast charging knowledge into high-quality popular science videos.

Brands with content attributes can choose to operate their official brand accounts. For example, Xiaomi was one of the first companies to enter Bilibili. An important reason for this is that it observed that the content about Lei Jun on Bilibili was highly topical and spreadable. Using corporate executives as content IP can extend the production of many different contents.

The "Bilibili singer competition" between Jack Ma and Lei Jun

First, Lei Jun’s hit song “Are you ok?” has been played over 27 million times, becoming one of the must-see videos on Bilibili. Then, Jack Ma keeps releasing new songs. Bilibili singers have officially debuted, attracting traffic and creating hot topics, while also winning unanimous praise from Bilibili users for Xiaomi and Alibaba. Maybe I can still see the battle between the two of you in my lifetime.

In addition, UP host advertising has also become a value source outside of official advertising space. Bilibili currently has 730,000 active UP hosts, of which more than 1,000 have commercial value. Finding UP host resources that are highly compatible with the brand and placing advertisements will often bring about a more real, natural, and life-like brand effect.

Coca-Cola Coffee: An Unofficial Review

Various weird challenge videos are very popular content in the life area of ​​​​Bilibili. Coca-Cola invited Jing Hanqing, a challenge-type up-host on Bilibili, to review its new product, Coca-Cola Coffee. In the review video, Jing Hanqing poured cola coffee into a humidifier and worked in an office fumigated by the humidifier to test whether it would have a refreshing effect. The final video received over 3.95 million views, with the highest daily ranking on the entire site reaching 17th.

Image: Entrepreneurship Lab

According to third-party data statistics, the top six sections in terms of cumulative viewing volume at Bilibili are games, life, entertainment, film and television, animation, and technology. In fact, among these top 6 sections, except for the animation section, the other sections are basically the main submission areas for up masters' original content. Brands from all industries can basically be placed in the top 6 partitions.

Image: Entrepreneurship Lab

Nowadays, the content of Bilibili community is becoming increasingly rich and diversified. With Bilibili's support for content and its attempts in the e-commerce field, it can also help more brands expand their marketing positions and realize traffic monetization.

Summarize

Generation Z is not a generation, but a set of values. Buddhist but fearless, dramatic but real, demanding but tolerant... express emotions more directly (bullet screen culture), respect the fruits of others' labor ("one-click three-click" culture, i.e. "insert coin, like, and collect"), and are more willing to pay for their own preferences.

Whether it's the ghost videos of DingTalk and McDonald's, or the seemingly spoof videos of the company's CEO, they are actually a way of communicating with young people in the way young people express themselves. Unlike the "two Weibo and one Douyin", when brands try out "soft-core" marketing on Bilibili, they must first understand young people's external preferences, circles, internal psychological demands, and ways of expression.

Bilibilibilibili (゜-゜)つロCheers!

author: Korean

Source: Shiqu Interactive

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