6 Marketing Inspirations from Black Myth: Wukong

As a highly anticipated game, Black Myth: Wukong has not only caused a sensation in the gaming industry, but also brought profound inspiration to the marketing industry. These inspirations are of great reference significance to any brand that hopes to stand out in the fiercely competitive market.

1. Super IP means super traffic

The common pain points of contemporary marketers: no traffic for content, no impact for communication, and no audience for advertising. Why is this so? Because they don’t know how to leverage the situation.

Black Myth: Wukong will take advantage of this trend. It takes advantage of the Chinese super myth IP Journey to the West, which has its own traffic and topics. It has a wide audience and emotional resonance, and has the most basic element of communication: cultural consensus.

Want to create a hit product? You have to use a super IP as the subject. Journey to the West is such a super IP. From the end of the Tang Dynasty to the present, various folk legends, operas and storytelling have involved it. Especially in contemporary cartoons and TV series, the image of Sun Wukong has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and is well-known to every household.

Advertising communication must rely on existing content in the minds of the public to leverage everyone's consensus, which is more labor-saving and efficient. This is the case with "Black Myth: Wukong", the cartoon "Nezha", and the movie "Investiture of the Gods".

2. Product power is self-propagation power

The game itself is also a product, and Black Myth: Wukong is definitely a good product. Good products have several common features: 1. Excellent functions, 2. Outstanding appearance, 3. Strong emotions, and 4. Correct values.

As a 3A game, the immersion and playability that players want are common in Black Myth: Wukong. The mission design is extremely complex, and it is integrated with the story of Journey to the West. It can be said that you have entered an amazing science fiction world. This is an excellent function.

In addition, the art design, image quality design, and boss modeling in the game are not inferior to Hollywood science fiction blockbusters. The scenes also incorporate many scenic spots and historical sites across the country, which are vivid and amazing. This is the outstanding appearance;

Third, each ultimate boss in the game hides a Buddhist story. It is not only about killing monsters, but also about clearing the "six impurities". Each boss has an animation that is closely integrated with Buddhist culture and has a strong sense of experience. This is emotional power;

Finally, Black Myth: Wukong is not only a story about Wukong, but also a story about spreading the values ​​of Chinese stories to the world. This is why the official spokesperson supported it, and the value system correctly transformed the product's values: from a game that only allows people to lose themselves in pleasure to a representative of Chinese stories.

By creating perfect product power, "Black Myth: Wukong" has the natural ability to spread itself and possesses the elements of a hit.

3. The story prototype will not change for thousands of years

"Black Myth: Wukong" tells the story of a man with a destiny. He has an idol since childhood, the Monkey King. However, the Monkey King was persecuted by the gods in heaven and his body is dead. The man with a destiny needs to find the six roots to finally revive Wukong.

The last chapter of the game is the decisive battle between Tianmingren and Wukong. After the decisive battle is successful, Tianmingren puts on the golden hoop to restrain his mind and take over the name, equipment and spells of "Sun Wukong" to become the next "Sun Wukong".

Of course, it is said that this is only the first ending of the game, the ending for speedrunners, and there are many other different endings. But no matter what the ending is, the plot design of this kind of story is nothing more than a prototype of a cool story: an ordinary person wants to counterattack, so he needs to fight monsters, and then he goes through various twists and turns and finally reaches the goal, but after reaching the goal, he suddenly reverses and finds another new goal, then he completes the task again and finally reaches a new ending.

You can see that palace fighting dramas have the same structure, as do Hollywood heroic movies. Usually it’s a small character who breaks the original status quo and sublimates into a new self through constant conflicts and contradictions. This is a typical story prototype.

4. Mass communication cannot be separated from three elements

No matter what form of communication, there must be a communication carrier, a communication content, and a communication audience.

To put it simply, there are three elements of communication: what to communicate? (content creation) how to communicate? (media selection) and to whom to communicate (audience acceptance).

"Black Myth: Wukong" undoubtedly chose the video pilot format. Because its content is shocking enough, it chose the content format of a series of videos, selecting game plots as feature films, and then distributing them on Bilibili and short video platforms, thereby gaining an explosion of word-of-mouth from the audience.

Communication is about understanding the audience, media, and content, and managing this process in a refined manner to maximize efficiency and profits.

5. Product pricing determines the life and death of an enterprise

First of all, let me say a counterintuitive point of view: there is no real product at a good price in the business world. Because the real product at a good price is "product value = selling price", and the product has no profit margin, that is the absolute real product at a good price.

The real world cannot be priced this way, otherwise there would be no meaning in exchange, and there would be no motivation for commodity circulation. Doing business is to make money, and to make money in the long run. Therefore, product pricing must be greater than product value.

(Of course, this pricing model is not suitable for the "free model" business type, such as 360 free antivirus, Grab the Goose free game, but make money from advertising fees, etc.)

On the basis that products have prices, let’s look at product pricing models. There are only three types:

One is "value for money", a low-price strategy, lower than all peers and competitors, and making the cheapest products.

This strategy is not suitable for 3A games like "Black Myth: Wukong", but is more suitable for puzzle games and board games that cost one or two dollars.

The second pricing strategy is "great value for money", creating "ultimate value for money", with high-quality products and moderate prices.

Obviously, Black Myth: Wukong is such a game. The basic version is priced at 268 yuan, which is almost painless for most players. After all, it costs 100 yuan to watch a movie now. There are more versions for more income players to choose from, expanding the profit space.

The third type of pricing is "out of reach", which is the logic of luxury goods. Products are priced sky-high to meet the needs of high-end luxury groups or high-end luxury consumption scenarios, and to meet the "need to be respected" of such consumers. Black Wukong is obviously not this type, because games are also fast-moving consumer goods, and fast-moving consumer goods are best to choose the second pricing method.

6. Cross-border marketing is the only way to break out of the circle

Each industry is a small circle, and a product often becomes famous in its own circle and has the first batch of seed users. For example, the sponsors of Xiaomi's 100 dreams, the 1,000 players of Black Myth: Wukong in 2023, and the car reviewers' test drives organized by many car companies all started from their own circles and gained the first wave of traffic.

After that, I have to break the circle. The purpose of breaking the circle is to let more people see me, know me, use me, and spread me, so that I can become a hit.

"Black Myth: Wukong" has become popular as a new fast-moving consumer product through various cross-border collaborations, such as the "Tenyun American" launched with Luckin Coffee; in addition, "Black Myth: Wukong" will also have dream collaborations with more than 10 brands including NVIDIA, Hisense, Lenovo, JD.com, Didi Qingju, Jikos Industrial, ZHITAI, INART, etc., to continue to become popular.

In fact, there is a cruel reality in brand marketing, that is, everyone wants to take advantage of the popularity of a hot product, which becomes even more popular. However, a mediocre product will remain mediocre if it is not promoted.

This is the "Matthew effect": whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have an abundance; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.

Black Myth: Wukong is a work that has been loved by many people. It has many inspirations for the marketing industry. For example, its story, copywriting, and art can all be taken out for study and reference. I still hope that it can be used as an excellent game to let more marketers see the "charm and value of good products", especially for the current situation, advertising marketers must firmly believe in the "meaning of good content and good products".

If your product or content is not popular enough, you may need to look for the reason in yourself first. The best answer lies in yourself.