Source: Liu Run's Official Account (ID: runliu-pub) Today, let's start with China's richest person. In the past decade, the Chinese rich list was dominated by real estate tycoons, and later joined by internet nouveau riche. But if you look closely, you'll notice that even water sellers have produced two richest persons: Zong Qinghou of Wahaha and Zhong Shanshan of Nongfu Spring. Many might think selling water is simple, so how can they become the richest? Ding Lei, who also once held the title, used to dismiss the water business. But one year, during a trip to Xinjiang, in a remote place, he wanted to buy a drink, and the small shop had no cola but had Wahaha. From then on, Ding Lei gained respect for the channel management and deep distribution capabilities behind the water business. Why suddenly talk about the richest? Because the private domain case we're discussing today, Oreo, is a company that excels in deep distribution and channel management. As a household name, when you think of Oreo, you might hear the jingle "Twist, Lick, Dunk." No matter when you want to buy, the convenience store near you likely has it. Our previous articles mentioned that private domain is an important tool for merchants to increase channel touchpoints, boost repurchase rates, and increase sales. But Oreo's channel touchpoints are already very deep. Is there still value in doing private domain? Fortunately, a few days ago, I had the opportunity to have an in-depth conversation with Holly Yuan, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Mondelēz International's Greater China region, about Oreo's private domain initiatives. She unreservedly shared why Oreo does private domain and how they do it. After listening, I was deeply inspired and benefited greatly. Now, let me share our conversation with you, hoping it will inspire you as well. How to Achieve Commercialization? Why does Oreo do private domain? To increase repurchase rates and sales? No. Oreo's primary purpose for private domain is not sales, but to improve marketing efficiency and validate new products, ultimately feeding back into public domain. What does that mean? To understand this, you first need to understand how Oreo does marketing and channels. That is, Marketing: be top-of-mind; Channels: be available for purchase. What does top-of-mind mean? Oreo invests heavily in marketing each year, advertising on various public platforms, hiring celebrities as brand ambassadors, placing products in popular TV shows, and conducting large-scale brand marketing activities to increase brand awareness. These are all to make consumers think of and remember Oreo. To achieve "available for purchase," Oreo extensively expands channels through distribution and profit-sharing, including e-commerce, offline, O2O, etc., so that once consumers have the desire to buy, it's within reach. That's top-of-mind and available. So when Oreo launches a new product, it accompanies with massive public domain advertising, and consumers can immediately buy and try it after seeing the ad. But achieving these two points also brings a huge challenge. What if the advertising isn't effective? Or consumers don't like the new product? The massive public domain marketing investment can't be recovered, and the products distributed everywhere can't be taken back. This is a huge investment that cannot afford failure. What to do? Build a private domain. Through private domain, establish deeper one-on-one relationships with consumers, let private domain users help validate new products, and improve advertising efficiency based on feedback. For example, we recently launched a new zero-sugar Oreo product. Through our private domain community on WeCom (Enterprise WeChat), we understood consumers' specific needs for sugar control, launched it first in the private domain, tested it for a period, and only after the test results met our expectations did we decide to promote it widely in the public domain. The results have been good. How does private domain help improve advertising efficiency? When we advertise in the public domain, we always find ways to settle users into the private domain. Because in this entire chain, each node has data feedback. We can compare the feedback with our pre-advertising assumptions, evaluate, and adjust our advertising results. For example, in one campaign, a landing page guided users to a mini-program to participate in a game. Based on past experience, we expected a conversion rate of about 3%. The actual result might be 5%, higher than expected, indicating the campaign was effective. So we summarize the experience and maintain it. If the actual data is poor, only 1%, it indicates a problem. We adjust promptly, identifying whether the target audience, platform, or creative materials need optimization, and optimize in time. The above is just one data point in the chain. In reality, for a single campaign, we set expectations for many key data points and monitor them in real-time. These assumptions include what price consumers would accept for this product, in what scenarios they are more likely to be moved, and what kind of gameplay they would prefer. This greatly helps us in future public domain advertising on larger platforms and e-commerce operations. Finally, besides new product testing and advertising efficiency, private domain also allows us to cultivate many KOCs (Key Opinion Consumers) or seed users, helping them lead more people to choose Oreo. So, our purpose in doing private domain is not to increase sales or repurchase, but to value private domain's role in feeding back into public domain from the perspectives of new product testing, advertising efficiency, and KOC cultivation. That's the value of our private domain. I see. So to achieve such value, how does Oreo operate its private domain user pool? That is, how do you maintain these private domain users on a daily basis? How to Operate the Private Domain User Pool? In a word, play together. To play together with private domain users, we customize exclusive trendy apparel for them; customize exclusive Oreo souvenirs; limited editions and co-branded products are only available to private domain users; we develop different dishes and desserts based on users from different regions, playing together with private domain users. Where do users get these? On the mini-program. Why mini-program? A mini-program is an entrance that users don't open frequently. Many merchants treat mini-programs as a tool to complete the commercialization loop, essentially a transaction tool. I asked Holly. Because we don't focus on sales; we focus on user experience and building deeper relationships with consumers. The development capabilities provided by mini-programs allow us to achieve this through interactive games and more. For example, in our recent public domain campaign "Ink Painting Depicting the Elegance of Chinese Music," we limited the release of ink-style Chinese pastry cookies to our private domain users on the mini-program. Another example, for the same campaign, we developed a custom fun pitch-pot game to play with private domain users. We also combined Jay Chou's Chinese-style music to create a delightful music box game. Moreover, playing these games on the mini-program earns users points. With enough points, they can redeem exclusive private domain customized gifts. For instance, the Oreo custom Gomoku and creative mahjong are particularly popular. These are the ways we build deeper relationships and play together with private domain users on the mini-program. Of course, besides the mini-program, we also operate official accounts and video accounts. The main operational action is pushing our activity information. Since much of our content is created for public domain advertising, the quality is very high. So when we distribute on official accounts and video accounts, we sometimes see self-propagating articles with 100,000+ reads and highly-liked video content. Finally, we have also opened WeCom (Enterprise WeChat) to start receiving public domain traffic. These are our specific practices for operating private domain. In summary, to provide users with better interactive experiences and build deeper relationships with consumers, we chose to mainly operate the mini-program, with official accounts, video accounts, and WeCom as auxiliary. I see. The mini-program can indeed increase interaction with users, but it still doesn't solve the problem that users don't open it often. How does Oreo solve this? Or do you not solve it? We solve it with saturated notifications. Indeed, compared to WeChat and official accounts, users may not have developed the habit of opening mini-programs casually. But we can use five methods to saturate our private domain users with notifications, prompting them to open it. What are the five?

  1. Official account mass message notifications.
  2. Video account notifications.
  3. We set up check-in tasks and daily point incentives on the mini-program to encourage users to open it frequently. Only by doing so can they earn exclusive prizes, like the attractive creative mahjong and Gomoku mentioned earlier. These can only be redeemed with points earned on the mini-program.
  4. Of course, we also use traditional methods like SMS to notify users.
  5. Through public domain advertising, so when users scroll through Moments or official accounts, they might see our ads and click to enter the mini-program. In the future, we also plan to print our mini-program QR code on our packaging boxes, which will be a huge volume. So, through the above five methods, we can saturate our users with notifications, making them see us everywhere, and with a scan or click, they return to our mini-program. How many users do we have on the mini-program and official accounts? About 1 million. How do you acquire these private domain users? That is, how does Oreo privatize public domain traffic? How to Privatize Public Domain Traffic? In the public domain, we run campaigns targeting different demographics, move users, and ultimately guide them to join the private domain through targeted interactions. What does that mean? For example, for post-85s and post-90s young people, Oreo is a childhood memory. So we focus on nostalgia, letting them reclaim childhood memories. Take the 2021 micro-film "Three Immortals Return to the Cave" as an example. This campaign settled 500,000 mini-program members. You privatized 500,000 mini-program members from public domain traffic? Yes. How exactly did you do it? What is the film about? "Three Immortals Return to the Cave" tells the story of a grandfather performing the traditional magic trick "Three Immortals Return to the Cave" as the main thread, depicting a family and three generations longing for reunion during the Spring Festival. Why choose this trick? First, it's a traditional Chinese folk custom, a common memory for many. Second, many people share the impression of grandfathers: they seem to perform magic, always pulling out delicious snacks and fun things from their pockets. So we chose this trick. Why choose the theme of reunion? First, the video was launched during the Spring Festival, where reunion is the main theme. Second, many children live in cities with their parents, while grandparents stay in their hometowns. Grandparents and grandchildren only meet during the New Year. Finally, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many families were separated. The 2021 Spring Festival would be the first reunion for many families in two years, making it even more precious. So we chose the theme of reunion because we predicted it would resonate deeply. Where did we advertise this micro-film? We advertised on Moments, official accounts, Search, and other public domain channels. We ultimately achieved over 80 million views. How did we privatize this public domain traffic? Through mini-program interaction. Because in the micro-film, there's no interaction or gameplay. But we recreated the experience on our private domain mini-program. Users can play the "Three Immortals Return to the Cave" game on the mini-program. After playing, we encourage them to share it, sending it to their family groups. This is much better than the typical New Year greeting videos or mini-programs. This also brought us many new private domain users. These are our strategies for post-85s and post-90s young people, focusing on nostalgia to evoke childhood memories. For post-80s young mothers, we focus on parent-child themes. For example, on the recent Children's Day, we ran a campaign called "Separated Oreo, Inseparable Love." Why this campaign? Because we noticed more young parents struggling to balance work and family. According to the "2021 Report on the Growth Status of 996 Children in Chinese Cities" jointly released with Tencent News, out of every 100 urban children aged 6-12, 85 have parents working a 996 schedule. We call these children "996 children." In this context, we released the short film "Inseparable Love," documenting five real stories: a boy who scored 97 but could only share the good news with a camera, a father who takes his daughter on delivery runs because he has no time to accompany her, and medical worker parents who often work night shifts and have to entrust their child to neighbors... The advertising and interaction logic for this campaign was the same as "Three Immortals Return to the Cave," and it also accumulated nearly 100,000 mini-program members. These are our methods for privatizing public domain traffic: running campaigns in the public domain targeting different demographics, moving users, and guiding them to join the private domain through targeted interactions. Final Words: Let's summarize Oreo's private domain approach. How to privatize public domain traffic? Use content strategies for different demographics to move users and guide them into the mini-program private domain user pool. How to operate the private domain user pool? Play together on the mini-program. But the mini-program isn't a tool users open often. How to remind them? Set up openings on the mini-program, use official accounts, video accounts, SMS, advertising, and even display the mini-program QR code on all packaging. Use this saturated reminder approach so that Oreo's private domain users not only have cookies within reach when they want to buy, but also inadvertently see the mini-program entrance everywhere and click in. How to commercialize? Unlike other merchants who do private domain to increase repurchase rates and sales, Oreo does private domain to improve marketing efficiency and validate new products, feeding back into public domain marketing and new product launches. Finally, I asked Holly if she could disclose Oreo's annual advertising budget. Holly said it's not convenient, but it's definitely a large sum. However, that's not the point. The brand built over many years, accumulated experience, and the feedback from private domain are more important foundations for our advertising. Indeed. Only with such large-scale, efficient, and precise investment can we achieve: top-of-mind and available; and saturated reminders that surround you with Oreo mini-program entrances at all times, even inadvertently. A giant crossing a river needs no strategy; it just wades through. A giant fighting needs no strategy; it just crushes. Regarding private domain, it's undeniable that some use tricks to collect traffic and then monetize it. But Oreo's commercialization doesn't involve harvesting; instead, it finds ways to play with users, customizing exclusive experiences and giving back to private domain users with surprises. Wishing Oreo's private domain continues to improve, becoming more integrated with users, playing together. Are you "watching" me?