Every day, over 150 million people browse Douyin, with monthly active users exceeding 300 million and daily video views surpassing 10 billion. Douyin users spend an average of over 80 minutes per day on the app, launching it about 6 times daily, making short videos a new communication channel after Weibo and WeChat. Most people have developed the habit of scrolling through Douyin on their phones. Data source: Haima Big Data Unlike WeChat and Weibo, Douyin feels warmer. Through the lively performances on the other side of the screen, we can sense the emotions of others, whether resonating, captivating, or making us laugh. Douyin has harvested massive traffic and cultivated a daily browsing habit. Beyond entertainment, short videos are increasingly integrating with science popularization and consumption. For brands, after WeChat and Weibo, Douyin is becoming a "new territory" for brand communication. According to relevant statistics, about 60% of Douyin users have a bachelor's degree or above, and the user base is mainly distributed in first- and second-tier cities. Most users are aged 24-30, and they are precisely the main consumer group in the era of consumption upgrading. Data source: Haima Big Data At the end of 2018, when community group buying was being chased by various capital forces for traffic, the short video app Douyin had already harvested huge traffic. When the dividends of e-commerce platforms were nearly exhausted, Douyin not only gave young people a space to express themselves but also gave brand owners hope. Currently, brands from industries such as internet, automotive, online shopping platforms, and food have joined Douyin, attracted by its precise young traffic pool. Here, brands can access precise marketing resources. For brand owners, Douyin offers tremendous advantages. Data source: Haima Big Data Low Barrier to Entry With just a phone, a scene, and some interesting content, one can become an internet celebrity. This is Douyin's barrier. From TV ads costing hundreds of millions, to online ads costing tens of millions, to Weibo and WeChat ads priced at millions, Douyin has made the barrier for short videos almost zero. Yet the returns can even exceed those of traditional advertising. Broad Brand Awareness Douyin makes brands more vivid. Through content marketing, we can amplify a brand from a single point, attracting consumer attention. The three-dimensional and vivid visual output brings us closer to the brand and lets us perceive it. These are things that WeChat and Weibo cannot achieve. Strong Interactivity Compared to Weibo and WeChat, which only allow likes, comments, and shares, Douyin short videos offer richer interaction methods, including challenges and duets, which increase interaction with fans. For brands, interacting with consumers is their ultimate goal. High Marketing Efficiency In just a few dozen seconds, brand value is instantly amplified, something traditional advertising cannot do. Douyin has the most precise traffic, a word-of-mouth explosion point with fan participation, and is an incubator for brand hits. Douyin seems to be a natural promotional path for brands, but making a brand go viral on Douyin is not easy. In the era of short video explosion, only by attracting fans within one second can you better present your product. These marketing tactics are the most commonly used by brands. Product Showcase Short Videos: To put a product on Douyin, the first step is to ensure the content matches user preferences, attracts attention, and encourages sharing. Integrate product and brand concepts into the content to achieve product exposure. Coconut Gray is a good example.
The enticing Coconut Gray ice cream In 2018, Douyin users noticed many people showcasing a black ice cream, including some influencers. Overnight, this ice cream attracted the attention of Douyin users. That summer, the ice cream named Coconut Gray spread rapidly from FamilyMart through Douyin, becoming the hottest ice cream of the summer. Coconut Gray's popularity was entirely due to its unique product: the all-black ice cream was eye-catching, and the black-stained mouth after eating became a highlight for young people. Success Secret: Coconut Gray ice cream has a dark appearance comparable to Dirty Bun, making it stand out from colorful ice creams. Coated in chocolate and sprinkled with coconut flakes, the black-and-white contrast provides a strong visual impact. Additionally, the coconut shell activated carbon ingredient arouses consumer curiosity. Coconut Gray's success is mainly due to its unique appearance and "black technology" ingredients. Answer Tea, which reads consumers' minds In 2018, a tea drink that could divine appeared on Douyin. It first gained recognition through long queues, and then videos of Answer Tea's divination ability quickly attracted young consumers. Many from afar traveled long distances to queue, just to experience the magic of Answer Tea. Through Douyin, Answer Tea not only brought massive traffic but also received constant calls about franchising. This tea drink with divination skills let young people play in new ways: confessing love, testing, fulfilling dreams, and posting on Douyin. Whether Answer Tea can actually divine is not important; what matters is that it can read consumers' minds. Through creative gameplay and a name that sparks curiosity, it spread via Douyin. Answer Tea succeeded. Success Secret: Answer Tea's popularity on Douyin is due not only to its bustling popularity but also to its novel and creative concept. The market is full of milk tea brands, but Answer Tea stands out with its divination function, combining consumer interaction with product features. Viral Marketing: On Douyin, we often see the same content imitated by different people; this is viral spread. For products, planning creative usage scenarios and embedding popular internet memes can generate topics and trigger viral dissemination, which is effective for new products and new brands. Turkish Ice Cream that interacts with consumers During the same period as Coconut Gray, Turkish Ice Cream also dominated Douyin. To showcase the stickiness of Turkish ice cream, handsome Turkish guys played tricks on customers, not letting them easily take the ice cream they paid for. This did not annoy consumers; instead, it caused a strong reaction on Douyin. Many users even asked where to buy it, making Turkish Ice Cream quickly popular. Success Secret: Turkish Ice Cream's popularity on Douyin is mainly due to its interaction with consumers, creating viral spread and increasing its dissemination speed. On the other hand, through interaction, it showcased the product's characteristics, easily arousing purchase desire. Brands with Built-in Traffic: For first-tier brands, they already have a large consumer base, and these people are also loyal Douyin fans. They will "play with the product" on Douyin, and in the process, the brand becomes popular again. Haidilao, which became popular passively On Douyin, brands usually create creative short videos to convey product selling points, but Haidilao is a "collateral damage" internet celebrity. Some foodies created unique ways to eat at Haidilao and uploaded them to Douyin, quickly accumulating many fans. Netizens also created the egg-stuffed gluten, which Haidilao employees eagerly learned and even turned into a new dish, now a must-order for diners. This eating method directly increased Haidilao's tofu puff orders by 17%. Under the Haidilao topic on Douyin, over 20,000 people participated in the creative eating challenge. Among them, the creative dipping sauce received 1.81 million likes, and the egg-stuffed gluten received 1.6 million likes. Some users even developed a guide on how to eat Haidilao for free, attracting a large number of consumers to experience it. Haidilao, known for its extraordinary service, experienced Douyin's powerful traffic-driving ability for the first time. Success Secret: Haidilao's popularity on Douyin was not initiated by Haidilao itself but by its fans. This also reflects the importance of brand influence. Haidilao, known for its service, has many fans, which laid the foundation for its rapid spread on Douyin. Many think Douyin made Haidilao popular, but the premise for consumers to voluntarily upload creative eating methods is that they already recognize Haidilao's brand value. On Douyin, brands commonly use these methods to showcase products to users. Function Demonstration On Douyin, many people fully demonstrate product functions in their own style. For example, Xiaomi uses videos of beautiful women and food to highlight its camera capabilities, attracting user attention. There is also the tech-savvy @Hei Lian V, who uses magical effects to showcase OPPO phones. Selling Point Display On Douyin, Yili Guliduo was "played with" by @Yang Jiawei, who used various regional dialects to show the "anti-hunger" selling point. Similarly, the earlier cases of Coconut Gray ice cream, Answer Tea, and Turkish Ice Cream all showcased product selling points in unique ways. Image Building If a brand wants to appear younger and more fun, image building is suitable. Through creative content, it changes users' previous perceptions. For example, Arawana's "Arawana 1:1:1 Dance to Good Proportions" marketing campaign included central media, variety shows, and short video promotion. It gained authoritative endorsement from People's Daily Online, gathered focus through the variety show "Let's Dance Together," and finally launched short videos. The results were substantial: the Arawana short video challenge on Douyin received over 1.3 billion views, 180,000 participants, and over 24 million likes. Concept Expression When a brand has a theme it wants to fully express, concept expression is suitable. Leveraging the original influence and labeling of key opinion leaders, it fully showcases the brand's philosophy and propositions. On Douyin, internet brands are the most creative. They often create topics, original videos, and even use professional teams to build their brand tone. They actively interact with fans. Alipay, Meituan, Koubei, and other brands appear on Douyin as storytellers. Dianping, League of Legends, and other brands create content based on their tone, consumer needs, and platform mechanisms. Of course, Starbucks, MissFresh, and CoCo Milk Tea have all accumulated popularity through short videos. On Douyin, if you have content, you get followers, and you can monetize. Creating Brand Communication Points From these brand marketing efforts on Douyin, we seem to find some key takeaways. First, there must be a communication point. Arawana's unique and easy-to-learn square dance, foodies' creative Haidilao eating methods, and the Turkish ice cream guy's pranks all provided communication points. Communication points represent the motivation for users to share, stimulating fans to share actively. When fans can quickly participate in brand interaction and have fun, active sharing is born in their minds. Discovering Trigger Points and Creating Viral Spread Second, there must be a trigger point. Coconut Gray's mysterious black color and Answer Tea's divination secret are trigger points. Traffic, challenges, and KOLs are the basic model of Douyin marketing, and viral spread is the fundamental means of driving traffic. For young consumers, "Douyin same style" becomes a status symbol. For brand owners, it's a fission process, spreading from online to offline, from local to national. Personalized accounts have also become a powerful tool for brand success. Lenovo uses a fixed female persona to interestingly showcase its products, gaining a large following. Big brands are doing well on Douyin, and small and medium brands are not far behind. Regional brands and local snacks have pushed themselves to the public through Douyin. "Good wine needs no bush" has become a joke in marketing history. Brand owners are more willing to express themselves, hawking their products on the big stage of Douyin. However, unlike traditional hawking, on Douyin consumers only pay attention to content that catches their eye. Thus, Miniso's internet-famous perfume, Starbucks' secret menu, and Sofy's "stretchability" have become main content attracting consumers. Behind Douyin is the expansion of new retail channels for brand owners. Douyin allows more direct interaction with consumers. Through comment functions and creative short videos, consumers can directly feel the charm of brand owners. Douyin's precise fan profiles provide brand owners with the most direct consumer groups. Through comments, brands become vivid; they can sense consumers' joys and sorrows, and they can flirt with consumers. For consumers, they can unfollow if they dislike, or vent reasonably in the comment section. This real interaction is unfolding on Douyin. On Douyin, for brand owners, to make products popular for longer, besides good content, the product itself is more important. When the prosperity fades, it will eventually return to essence. When Coconut Gray ice cream cools down with the end of summer, when the Turkish ice cream guy no longer appears in Douyin recommendations, when Answer Tea has its own answer, consumers will return to rationality. For consumers, product essence is very important. Big brands, relying on their own high-quality products, use Douyin to get closer to consumers. Those internet-famous products, on the other hand, are more focused on Douyin's traffic to bring a wave of sales. Over time, most of these have been forgotten by consumers. "Star" New Distribution Get the latest FMCG industry insights firsthand -END-