From the perspective of event operations, why is the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics so popular?

Editor's note: The Beijing Winter Olympics officially kicked off during the Spring Festival. The stunning opening ceremony won praise from audiences at home and abroad. The author of this article analyzes the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics from the perspective of event operations and summarizes reusable experiences. Let's take a look.

Here, first of all, I would like to wish you all a happy New Year and a prosperous Year of the Tiger. May all your wishes come true!

During the Spring Festival (February 4), the Beijing Winter Olympics officially kicked off. The grand opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, full of technology, came slowly amid the anticipation of the public, and every audience was excited. As one of the business cards of the national brand image, the Winter Olympics carries too much connotation and value. At the same time, as the event with the largest number of users in the world, the Olympic Games, on the one hand, successfully and smoothly launched online, is of great significance, and on the other hand, it is more important to be able to present and display the country's strength, cultural connotation, scientific and technological innovation, humanistic care, etc. in a very short time, and achieve very good results and explosive word of mouth!

As we all know, "event operation" is a very valuable, frequently used and effective operation method in the Internet operation module. Typical examples include the online Double 11/618 and the offline Olympic Games.

The Olympic Games are the most important and representative events in the world. On the one hand, they cover the widest range of users in the world (I believe that all major Internet companies including BAT are very envious of this user acquisition ability). On the other hand, they are also an excellent window for a country to showcase its overall image. Therefore, each Olympic Games often brings together the best of the country to comprehensively present this magnificent interactive performance, with not only a visual feast, but also a smooth project organization process for large-scale events, an immersive atmosphere design, and user acquisition and communication cases...etc. Therefore, there are many things worth learning and drawing lessons from in every Olympic Games.

Well, this article will break down the "Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony" event one by one to explain in detail the highlights and what awesome event strategies are worth learning and referring to!

The core of an event often includes the following 7 points: ① Event cycle planning; ② User-side incentives! ③ Event gameplay! ④ Atmosphere/immersion design! ⑤ Innovation ability! ⑥ The "brand theme" inheritance of the event! ⑦ Actual scene presentation! (Offline promotion venue design and exhibition layout, online demo and visual design)

01 Winter Olympics丨Event Cycle Planning

Good event planning often has a clear rhythm, compact steps, tacit coordination, a clear time frame, and no procrastination. Especially for large-scale events such as the Winter Olympics and Double 11/618, they will not be stereotyped, and different nodes will be planned to ensure that there is freshness every day during the event, and there will often be different content, so as to generate more topics and drive the participation enthusiasm of different audiences.

The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, held at home, will start with the opening ceremony on February 4 and last for 16 days. But in fact, the Winter Olympics had been in the bidding process for a long time and in preparation for several years before February 4. Therefore, the overall cycle planning of the entire Olympic event includes five important nodes: the early bidding process → project preparation period and continuous warm-up → event opening ceremony → the cycle of each competition event → event closing ceremony.

A similar example is the Double 11 promotion, which often includes different rhythms such as the warm-up period, the day the activity goes online, the category period, the climax period, the return period, etc.

Therefore, any planning of medium to large-scale events includes the entire life cycle planning, including the application/project establishment stage → preliminary preparation stage → opening ceremony/official launch → normalized operation stage → climax stage → closing ceremony/encore end stage, etc.!

02 Winter Olympics丨User Incentive Strategy

Regardless of the type of event, whether it is held online or offline, user acquisition capabilities, or the number of users participating in the event (DAU or PV/UV), is the most direct factor in determining an event.

One of the most important reasons why the Winter Olympics is so important to the world is that it can reach the widest range of users around the world. So why is the user acquisition ability of Olympic activities so strong? And every Olympic Games has such a strong ability?

Fundamentally speaking, it all comes down to "user demand". The general public yearns for a better life, and has many beautiful needs for spiritual pleasure and entertainment beyond the daily necessities. And the Olympics itself happens to have the five star rings, which can attract users' attention and participation in this event.

03 Winter Olympics丨Activity gameplay: sense of ceremony

The quality of an event is closely related to the gameplay introduced in it, especially for events with a longer span, which must introduce several different gameplays to avoid user visual fatigue. This is very similar to driving. If you drive in the same posture for a long time, you will easily get tired and your body functions will easily become less active.

In the preparations for the Beijing Winter Olympics, as well as during the opening ceremony, the games were brilliant and beautiful. From the design of the Winter Olympics emblem and Bing Dwen Dwen, to the countdown to the 24 solar terms at the opening ceremony, the warm-up green ocean, the president's speech, the national flag raising and the national anthem, and the athletes' entrance ceremony...

The opening ceremony ceremony:

04 Winter Olympics丨Atmosphere design, with a "New Year flavor"

When searching for the Winter Olympics on Baidu, this design atmosphere will be presented, and the entire search results will be presented in the overall background and theme of the Beijing Winter Olympics. When users see this, they will naturally form a sense of self-immersion in the scene.

At the opening ceremony of this Olympic Games, when the audience saw the sense of ceremony at the Bird's Nest, it was easy for them to be drawn into it and feel the strong sense of ceremony of the Winter Olympics.

During the Spring Festival every year, every household will decorate with red lights, whether it is couplets, auspicious characters, window decorations, lanterns hanging at home, street lamps and light boxes, etc. Why? To create an atmosphere! All major platforms will design their APP homepages with an atmosphere around the Spring Festival to highlight the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival, which is what people often say: it has a "New Year flavor"!

When you are skating or skiing, you can see a vast expanse of white ice and snow. You can feel the immersive feeling. As described in the famous poem "Qinyuanchun·Snow":

The scenery of the north, thousands of miles of ice and snow

Looking inside and outside the Great Wall, there is only wilderness; up and down the river, there is no roaring sound. The mountains dance like silver snakes, and the plains run like wax elephants. If you want to compete with the sky, you need a sunny day to see the red dress and white snow, which is particularly enchanting.

05 Winter Olympics丨Innovative Performance

"The opening ceremony of this year's Winter Olympics is not the largest in scale, nor does it have the most performances, but it incorporates a lot of creative ideas, and its biggest feature lies in its innovative concept." On February 5, Zhang Yimou, chief director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Winter Olympics, said this at the routine press conference of the International Olympic Committee and the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee.

Looking back at the entire process of the opening ceremony, Zhang Yimou said that he was very proud of the design of the ignition and torch stand. "Chinese aesthetics emphasizes subtlety, ethereality and blank space. Snowflakes from all over the world gather into a big snowflake, which contains a small torch. It not only reflects the concept of low-carbon environmental protection, but also has the cultural connotation of 'a single spark can start a prairie fire'. At the same time, the care and companionship of all participating countries for a small flame also reflects the original intention of the Olympic spirit to be passed down from generation to generation and never cease."

At the same time, the "Countdown: Beginning of Spring" of the Beijing Winter Olympics is amazing and full of creativity. Most of the time, the countdown is based on the Arabic numerals 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1, but my country has a profound culture, with 12 zodiac signs and 24 solar terms. It happens that February 4 is the beginning of spring, so the use of the 24 solar terms countdown is a perfect match, and it also highlights the heritage of Chinese civilization.

This reminds me of when I was in charge of JD.com’s 618 event, I also chose to start the countdown from 6 hours, 1 minute and 8 seconds until the event was officially launched at 0:00:

06 Winter Olympics丨Brand theme, value inheritance

In the opening ceremony of this Olympic Games, many key messages are about the connotation of a community with a shared future for mankind. At a time when the world is in such a difficult time, we hope to contribute warmth and touching moments through performances. Therefore, the theme of this Olympic Games is: Together towards the future!

Events like the Olympic Games are very similar to Double 11/618 in that these large-scale events are continuously iterated in inheritance. At the same time, the concept of sustainable development is inherited in the continuous iteration, and it is an event that is held regularly at a certain time. Therefore, these events are more comprehensive in terms of brand/culture/image display, etc.

For example: Looking at the brand and slogan changes of Tmall Double 11 and JD 618 in recent years, we can clearly see how to effectively position the values ​​of a marketing campaign!

① Deep exposure of brand mission. Tmall’s LOGO image was added to Tmall’s Double 11 in 2016, and Tmall’s brand was added again during this year’s Double 11. JD.com’s 618 brand was also more clearly defined since 2017. The brand attributes of Tmall/JD.com and the sense of belonging of marketing activities are deepened and emphasized through changes in brand and slogan, and the characteristics of home field operations are emphasized.

② The inheritance and transmission of the brand, from Tmall’s shopping carnival → global carnival, from JD’s 618 party → 618 quality shopping festival → mid-year shopping festival, the brand positioning of marketing activities is constantly evolving, but the values ​​have been continuing.

③ The positioning and succession of the business, from Tmall’s shopping → global shopping, from JD’s shopping savings → quality shopping → national mid-year shopping, the business of marketing activities has been expanding and is widely publicized through the brand slogan of the event!

07 Winter Olympics丨Actual scene presentation, technology empowerment, the Winter Olympics venue is amazing

As a representative of offline activities, the Winter Olympics requires good venue construction and physical scene presentation. The venue serves as a hub connecting the event venue and users. The venue's physical scene presentation is like the operation of online activities. It needs to present the actual online interactive experience through interactive demos, as well as present the visual structure and effects through design drafts.

Good scene design often incorporates certain concepts, meanings, and connotations. For example, the Ice Ribbon Stadium, Snow Ruyi Stadium, Snow Dragon Stadium, etc. built for the Winter Olympics are all very representative!

In daily work, we often need to consider this kind of scene design, such as the following two examples. One is the demo of JD Books. Through the book scene design, the resources of JD Books are embedded in the overall scene; the second is JD France Day. There are two points in the design that are very in line with French characteristics: ① The ICON area is all in French blue + red; ② The background is designed to be the Eiffel Tower in France; very representative!

This article was originally published by @赵飞谭 on Operation Party. Any reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol