The Black Wukong myth is booming: 5 lessons for Chinese consumer goods

The recent popularity of Black Myth: Wukong, the grand production coupled with just the right marketing, has won a large number of player fans. The co-branded products with Luckin Coffee have also attracted many consumers to buy. Following this article, I believe you will have new thoughts on Chinese consumer products.

How popular Black Myth: Wukong is, just look at how many people in your circle of friends have been idle all day and devoted themselves to studying this game.

As for the quality of the game, I have already experienced it in advance, and I can only say that it is absolutely conscientious and worth the money.

But given that we are not a gaming media, and as players outside the gaming industry, we may not be able to see the ins and outs of this matter. We need to think about what kind of inspiration a game like Black Wukong, which is also aimed at C-end consumers, can give us in the production of consumer products. Here are six of my latest thoughts.

1. Don’t do any deliberate marketing when you have an absolutely good product

Many people will definitely argue with me, saying, "Do you know which capital they are from? Don't you know that this is a game of capital?"

If anyone argues with me like this, I suggest you unfollow this account immediately. I don’t talk to people who lack common sense.

Capital has always been used to enhance and leverage good things, rather than using money to build a product that has no demand.

Another point is that I really don’t know how much marketing costs Black Myth Wukong has invested.

Black Myth Wukong Game

But I can prove that the discussions in my circle of friends and groups are all fresh water, and no one came here because of watching the advertisement.

This fully proves that an absolutely good product means absolute voice, and absolutely good content means content is king.

Channel is king and content is king, the essence is whether you are absolute enough.

In front of absolute good, everything else is trash.

What is an absolutely good product? One that you can’t live without. One that you think about every day. You don’t need to brag about it yourself, because there are a lot of people praising you every day.

So the Black Wukong scandal should have kept many product developers awake at night. It’s not that consumers are not spending anymore, but with budgets getting smaller and smaller, I only use my limited ammunition to the absolute best.

In today's era, you are either absolutely needed or not absolutely needed. There is no room for absolute need. If you are just an optional choice for the other party, your business will be 100% difficult to do.

Second, the hot product must be grafted into an existing "matrix"

The Black Monkey King myth is grafted onto the huge known cultural phenomenon of "Journey to the West", which is well-known to almost every Chinese household.

So nothing is created out of thin air, but rather comes from a tribute to the original classics.

Image source: Luckin Coffee official WeChat account

A good product does not mean creating a giant, but standing on the shoulders of giants. The success of Black Myth is a reflection of the Chinese people’s mental consensus on Journey to the West.

The revelation to us in the consumer goods business is that we need to discover products and upgrade them rather than create them out of thin air. All business needs are based on discovering needs rather than creating them.

3. The ultimate goal of Chinese products is not to be so-called white-label products, but to be products with value propositions.

Recently, due to the influence of the entire big cycle, the voice of white-labelism has become louder and louder above the clamor, and even more and more voices believe that market and brand are not important.

Is this really the case? Brand is an externalization of values ​​and a manifestation of long-term value.

Image source: Tencent Public Library

No matter what twists and turns mankind faces, the pursuit of a better life and high-level spiritual values ​​will never stop.

Chinese manufacturing has the ability to make good products, and Chinese consumption will certainly have the ability to create Chinese brands. Chinese brands will also surely gain excess cultural product premiums with the profound inner strength of Chinese culture.

The same is true for Chinese consumption. They should not think that their industry is an involutionary industry and cannot escape the innovation cycle. We must firmly believe in Chinese consumption. Chinese brands will not regress and will continue to move forward on the path of making money for brands.

4. Absolute investment generates absolute returns, while general investment leads to internal circulation

Today, Chinese consumer products must never fall into the phase of contraction and lack of faith, and lose themselves in the low-price competition of traffic platforms.

Image source: Tencent Public Library

Many bosses always spread their hands when they see me and say, "I have no choice. Everyone is engaging in a price war and I have no choice but to follow suit."

But unfortunately, most of these bosses invest too little in their own products, R&D, and refining of their products' core selling points.

What is absolute investment?

That is, I can be sure of the value and believe that good products require large investments.

A cookie, a piece of egg cake, have you invested absolutely in the ingredients?

Most of them don’t. Absolute investment is a single point breakthrough, not a multi-point all-encompassing one. Today is not the era of making rapid progress and investing heavily.

But the only two things worth investing in today are products and public relations.

Invest absolutely in your product to gain word-of-mouth and recognition from your stakeholders.

The absolute investment in public relations can generate high-leverage communication value that exceeds general advertising revenue.

Do you dare to concentrate superior forces in a certain area and make a good product like Black Wukong did after five or six years of hard work, or choose to do the business of buying traffic and push it madly? There is nothing wrong in taking either path, but only good content is eternal.

5. The victory of Wukong in Black Myth is the return of productism

At a time when traffic has become the mainstream of the era, productism demonstrates a way for it to return naturally.

Products and traffic are in a state of mean reversion, repeatedly cycling through the process of verification to see who will be the final winner.

Image source: Luckin Coffee official WeChat account

Product is 1, and marketing is 0. Without this super 1, there would be no N 0s behind it.

If the product is 10, less traffic and marketing will be needed later.

If the product is 1, there must be more zeros behind it.

The reason why you feel that traffic is becoming more and more expensive is because the products you make are not good enough.

The harder it is to do something, the worse it is for you to do it in the opposite direction. Black Goku tells us a fact: in today's world of distracted attention, whoever can really make a good product will win.

Author: Totoro, Editor: Zhu Tian

WeChat public account: New Consumption Think Tank