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If you've worked in advertising, you know that when we run a campaign for a client, there are usually several steps: strategy communication, creative concept generation, execution, and launch. Specifically, we analyze market conditions, competitors, and users, find the product's differentiated positioning, derive several communication concepts, and let the client choose their favorite for execution. Based on the target audience's touchpoints, we create a media plan and adapt the creative into different formats for different media.
So in digital, most companies create various banners, text links, and video pre-rolls that click through to a flashy KV or a dynamic Minisite, or they set up a WeChat mini-game where users can share to their Moments and win prizes. They then praise their advanced brand awareness.
Strangely, after years in digital marketing, I've never heard of a company failing to meet a client's KPIs. The data is usually excellent, often exceeding expectations. As the saying goes, "How bold you are, how much you produce."
If you, like us, smirk and sigh "Heh!" at this kind of digital marketing, then let's discuss why this approach rarely brings real marketing results.
From the marketing environment perspective. The environment that traditional advertising theory was built on no longer exists. The current marketing environment is more complex.
Specifically, the four key factors in marketing activities have all undergone major changes.
The development of internet technology has caused a media explosion, with online media competing with traditional media.
Media is an extension of man. In the new marketing environment, people—consumers and users—are no longer in a weak, isolated position where they are brainwashed and can only listen to brand messages. They can freely connect, form communities, speak out, and create powerful word-of-mouth. They are becoming more and more omniscient, able to know everything about a brand and product, and even participate in product development and optimization. Consumers have ascended to the altar and become true gods.
On the product side, companies are moving from closed, internal development to a more open stance, welcoming user participation from the start.
On the channel side, the traditional physical, one-way, multi-tiered distribution model where shelf space determines sales is being broken by e-commerce. Sales channels are becoming increasingly flat. Whether you can buy a product is no longer the issue; the question is why you should buy it!
The result of these changes is that the user has become the center of everything.
Traditional advertising theory, however, is essentially product-centric.
Under traditional advertising theory and operation, ad agencies rarely get involved in product development, production, or optimization. They simply take the product given by the client, find a Unique Selling Proposition (USP), dig out functional selling points, deduce the benefits and emotional value these features bring to users, summarize a powerful communication concept, and execute it. In reality, they are matching a few of the user's many needs to the given product features. Heh.
From an industry perspective, it's rather sad! Although digital marketing is booming, most digital agencies are still selling execution—they're like laborers. They rarely get the chance to enter the early strategy or BIG IDEA phase, becoming appendages to major 4A agencies and losing initiative. Traditional agencies, on the other hand, firmly believe that digital marketing is just an extension of traditional advertising on digital platforms—different in form but the same in essence.
So, today's digital marketing is constrained from the start. If advertising is dancing in chains, then digital advertisers are not only chained but also hooded!
To win the initiative, digital agencies must do true digital marketing.
So the question is: What is true digital marketing?
It's not our style to only talk about problems without solutions, or to destroy without building. We are still exploring what true digital marketing is. Let me share our view—feel free to like, criticize, or even curse (but no profanity, please!).
We believe true digital marketing should be user-centric, using digital methods to reshape the relationships among product, media, channel, and user.
To do true digital marketing, we must get involved in the product stage.
Collaborating with clients to create an ultimate product is crucial for us. The so-called ultimate product doesn't mean the best product in the world, but one whose experience exceeds user expectations.
MIUI is touted as the Android OS most suitable for Chinese users, but when the first generation MIUI was born, it was just one of many ordinary Android systems. Through positive interaction with users on online platforms, it continuously optimized and upgraded, eventually standing out.
If Xiaomi hadn't done it themselves but had come to your company, could you have done it?
To do true digital marketing, we must win fans for the client's brand and product.
There are many ways to win fans. We need to:
● Convince brands to lower their posture. No longer aloof like a big brother, but approachable and friendly, making friends with users. ● Maintain authenticity. Don't tell stories; just state facts. The more real, the more moving. ● Win over the "loser" demographic. Losers are the original inhabitants of the internet. In digital marketing, those who win the losers win the world. ● Enhance user participation. Build connections, let users participate in brand building and product innovation, and create brand identity. ● Create an excellent user experience. Meet user needs, improve convenience, and provide delight.
The benefits are obvious: once users become brand fans, they will give back to the brand with concrete actions.
● Buy, buy, buy—spend real money to purchase products. Think of the box office of the "Tiny Times" series and the membership fees of Luoji Thinking. As Luo Pang puts it, this is "love's support." ● Like the brand, actively recommend brand products, and spread word-of-mouth. ● Protectiveness—when the brand is attacked or faces a crisis, fans will step up to defend the brand's reputation.
To do true digital marketing, we must create explosive content that ignites the internet, not just hard ads + Minisite.
Simple hard ads + Minisite is like Sisyphus pushing a boulder uphill—you can't stop the advertising. True digital is more like rolling a snowball downhill: the initial push is just the start, and then the snowball rolls forward, growing bigger and bigger.
This snowball is explosive, high-quality content.
You can't just follow trends or ride on others' coattails (too many companies are good at that). Creating explosive content requires originality. Here are some directions to explore:
● Too funny! Life needs a little spice; watching funny people gives you a better mood. Like the Jiangyin reversing guy, or the mysterious emotion brought by Pang Mailang's divine song "My Skateboard." ● Too awesome! Unbelievable, mind-blowing! I want to share this with friends. Like the parking god in Jinjing Town, Jinjiang, Fujian, or Red Bull's supersonic freefall from the edge of space. ● Too stupid! Give onlookers a sense of intellectual superiority and spread it. A Mr. Chen from Nanjing is a master at this—smashing Mercedes, party classes, selling air, wearing green hats, building a Great Wall of RMB, and collecting the New York Times. (The golden three B's for explosive content: funny, stupid, and awesome; different from traditional advertising's golden three B's: Beauty, Beast, and Baby.) ● It moves me! Content touches emotions and moral bottom lines—after all, we are social animals. Event marketing: a 12-year-old Norwegian girl decides to marry a 37-year-old uncle, or a post-95s cute girl trades her body for travel (the event was hot, but the Youjia app got burned). ● It aligns with my beliefs! It matches my values and helps me express myself, so I'll share it with friends. ● It makes me think! A heavy topic that makes us pause and reflect on life's trajectory and major issues. ● It's not something you'd see in mainstream media! Anti-intellectualism, contempt for authority, satire or provocation of related news events, sparking discussion. ● It makes others smile! Share something light and cute. ● It's classy! A spiritual enjoyment, something high-level that must be shared. See how refined my taste is. ● It's embarrassing! Exploiting the psychology of wanting to look but not wanting to look. ● It's a bit stimulating! Can't resist sharing something harmless but edgy. ● New technology! New experiences from new tech—novel and fun!
Before you start, recite the mantra: "The internet has everything. What makes me different? Why should they watch mine, share mine, or participate in mine?"
To do true digital marketing, we must start taking responsibility for sales now.
Marketing activities that don't take responsibility for sales are just hooliganism. In the digital environment, the distance between communication and sales is a stone's throw away. If you still don't dare to be responsible for sales, you really can't play happily anymore!
So, to my friends in digital: Can your company collaborate with clients to create an ultimate product? Can your company win fans for clients? Can your company create explosive content that ignites the internet? Can your company help clients open online sales channels? Can you pat your chest and guarantee that the money clients spend with you will bring sales?
I hope your answer is "YES!"
Note: The views in this article represent only the Publicis Wangfan Explosive Content Team and do not represent the position of Publicis Wangfan.
Source: Digitaling