How to film a real "business war"

Creators of business war dramas and professional dramas can find materials and inspiration on the Internet, because every time a new product is launched, it is the scene of business war among major brands. Following this article, let’s take a look at how major brands seize the consumer market. It is recommended for Internet friends to read.

Watching reality-themed dramas to understand reality is usually a dangerous approach, second only to finding a partner based on romance novels. Professional dramas and business war dramas are particularly hard hit. It's 2024, and people are still relying on drinking to attract orders, or engaging in short selling and mergers and acquisitions that would make Soros silent and Buffett cry.

It doesn’t mean we can’t be simple. In the real world, we have seen many business wars involving snatching official seals, stealing contracts, and even poisoning. But we can’t be illogical. The topic #商战实战版# was a hot search on Weibo, and netizens from all over the world were crazy about their imaginations. The most popular one was:

The business war in Guangdong is to kill the opponent's money tree with boiling water; the business war in Fujian is to replace the opponent's God of Wealth with Ultraman; the business war in Shanghai is to destroy the opponent's coffee machine; the business war in Xi'an is to report to the state that there is an ancient tomb under the opponent's company ... It sounds outrageous, but if you think about it carefully, it is in line with the local characteristics.

I am also puzzled. Nowadays, any brand with a little fame is engaged in social media operations, and they are active on official blogs, Douyin, Xiaohongshu and other platforms every day. Most brands have to launch new products every year. When it comes to this time, the competition among them is even more fierce. Opening these accounts, we can immediately find materials and inspiration from real combat. Who is the counterattack dark horse, who is the absolute top stream, and who is the purple star from the sky, it can be said that it is clear at a glance. It is strongly recommended that the creators of business war dramas and professional dramas surf the Internet more.

1. New products are more important than the right time, right place and right people

Propp said in Story Morphology that the magic story is not only diverse, but also has a variety of colors, and its repetitiveness is so amazing. The wonderful business war dramas such as "Genesis", "Heart of Greed" and "Wind Blowing Midsummer" almost all have similar plot paradigms - the key to success lies in who thinks of it first, who makes it first, and who makes it popular first. In real business wars, it is similar to what we often say "new products".

But the real process is naturally not as simple and exciting as business war dramas, where a new product launch conference can amaze everyone. Leveraging external forces, finding the right battle position, mobilizing personal resources, etc., all kinds of details will affect the final effect. How does that sentence say? Once it is specific, it is profound. The right time, the right place, and the right people are all indispensable.

Let's talk about the time first. When it comes to festivals and solar terms, brands will launch new products in batches just to follow the time. Therefore, at special moments in the world, users will have a stronger interest in some specific themes, rituals, and consumption symbols, and even have a strong desire to buy. Don't believe it? When you mention the Spring Festival, do you unconsciously think of food, gifts, and fun?

Especially since the Internet has become the norm for celebrating the New Year, every year at the end of the year, live broadcasts, long and short videos, and social media are all in full swing, and people from all walks of life are afraid of missing out on the overwhelming wealth. In the past, there were also some special industries, such as health care, which were inevitably in an awkward situation due to the public's fear of taboos during the New Year.

Now the situation is changing. Every time during the festival, everyone will eat and drink a lot, which may cause indigestion, diarrhea, indigestion and other problems. On such a good day, you are afraid to see a doctor, right? Then I will change my identity and show up!

In this year's Spring Festival marketing, peers may still be worried about how to find a breakthrough point, but the pharmaceutical brand Smecta has transformed itself into a "must-have item" for home travel. Focusing on the warm concept of "Healthy New Year", it solves intestinal problems caused by different scenarios for users' movements such as traveling, returning home, and returning. The attribute of companionship weakens the terms such as medicine and illness, and can help users deal with sudden life troubles, and the brand's favorability has risen. Don't ask how Hard Candy knows, the greedy girl with food accumulation has to be proud.

Let's look at the location. In simple terms, it's about where the brand chooses to launch new products. The location you choose means what kind of group of people you are heading for, and it also determines whether you can really penetrate the core group . Some business war dramas are not unfairly criticized. When a blockbuster product is launched in an ordinary offline scene such as a drinking party or a shopping mall, the company's valuation immediately soars. How the news is spread, how the product is planted, and how the user is converted, that is not considered at all.

The "geographical advantage" of real business wars is more reflected online. This is easy to understand. There are physical limitations such as time and space offline, and the efficiency of information dissemination is far less than online. Even if a brand holds a show or a press conference, it will eventually have to move the content to social media to achieve mass dissemination.

This also explains why platform activity IPs that gather a lot of resources and attention will become the new main battlefield for brands. Firstly, these IPs have a large number of topics and hot spots, which can give new products the advantage of becoming hot-selling products. Secondly, the platform sets the stage and the brand performs, which can also help find an operation method that satisfies users.

Brands such as Armani and OPPO have launched new products at Weibo Night, and their products have participated in the creation of content for the event as "big dramas", which has achieved a relatively objective amount of publicity. Among them, OPPO has successfully attracted the attention and heated discussions of netizens by producing a large number of celebrity photos, showing its strength in master imaging.

As for harmony among people, it can be said that all "shaking people" operations are a manifestation of harmony among people, including but not limited to celebrity endorsements, cross-border joint ventures, etc. Brands use the power of more groups to complete the first round of breaking circle communication at a faster speed. If you want the love of consumers, you must become one of their own.

A typical example is that the emerging brand CROCS found two global brand ambassadors at once, Liu Yuxin and Wang Junkai, and asked the former to wear co-branded holey rain boots during the rehearsal of her first solo concert, and jointly launched a limited gift box with the latter. The thoughtful gameplay earned waves of goodwill for the brand and attracted a large number of fans to post their orders online. During this process, CROCS also strengthened its sense of social interaction through posting on Weibo, checking in, and drawing lucky draws, greatly increasing the opportunity to make friends with more people.

Fierce business wars may start with the launch of new products. A successful brand launch should have the right time, right place, and right people. Choose the right time, find the right place, and attract more people. Don't worry about not being able to handle the overwhelming wealth. The difficulty lies in finding a public opinion platform that can meet multiple advantages.

2. How to create the most attractive character

New product launches are a key scenario for brands and users to complete a two-way journey, but before that, both parties need to go through a long process of building trust - before buying, consumers have to rate the product first.

Creating a brand’s “personality” is the key to this process. Whether a brand has a personality and is likable enough will affect the brand’s reputation and user decision-making. According to my observation, the “personalities” of the most successful brands today can be roughly divided into three categories: powerful kings, social tough guys, and contrast players.

The real king focuses on controlling users with technology, which is a killer move in the field of technology and digital. Today, the desire to change phones is decreasing, and the competition in the mobile phone industry has already entered a fierce stage. The marketing window period for new product launches has also been compressed, which also means that the brand's flexibility and adaptability are increasingly tested.

In the traditional mobile phone business war, each company generally likes to display parameters, compete with data, and make a long poster to cram all the technological innovations in. The problem is that this form of information has a certain threshold. If the public is too lazy to read it or does not understand the selling points, it will become the official self-admiration, which cannot drive dissemination at all, let alone purchase conversion.

Mobile phone brands must find ways to quickly create memorable moments for users. For example, when vivo released a new phone, it was discovered that young netizens who love to play with memes actually called this product "Thanos". Therefore, the brand took advantage of the situation and used memes to create topics around Thanos' "personality" from aspects such as batteries and images. While making its presence felt in hot searches, it also allowed more people to see the hardcore strength of the new product.

It is worth noting that, today, brands attach as much importance to social value as to content value. To put it bluntly, marketing is the process of making friends. A large number of brands try every means to form emotional connections with users, showing the attributes of social bandits. Among them, national brands prefer to take the "white moonlight" route. For example, Jiannanchun launched a collection activity in the New Year, sending the wishes of thousands of netizens to the sky, attracting new and old fans to pray and make wishes.

New and cutting-edge brands are not afraid of this either, and insist on dancing on the aesthetic tastes of the younger generation, giving them a romantic and passionate experience. For example, this summer, Bananain, which has two spokespeople, Wang Yibo and Zhao Lusi, has put on a posture of "a good partner for sunscreen." This in itself caters to the summer needs of users, and the brand's altruism also shortens the psychological distance with users, making it easier to form hot topics, such as #I dare not wear sunscreen when going out again#, #Changes after not wearing sunscreen for a year#, etc. This kind of genuine user discussion helps brands capture more potential users.

In addition, contrast is also a magic weapon for brands to gain popularity. The source of this contrast can be that the brand breaks the inherent image, or it can be that the brand explores and rides on new trends. This is particularly evident in the automotive field. The rapid rise of new car-making forces has made automotive marketing increasingly younger, and even old car companies have been swept up in it and started to do fancy things.

Among them, the executives of Great Wall Motors collectively began to surf the Internet, read fan comments, popularize automobile knowledge, and share new product technologies, successfully entering the social circle of contemporary netizens and completing an update of the public impression. Not long ago, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, live-streamed a test drive of Great Wall Wei brand's new car, the Blue Mountain Intelligent Driving Edition, which sparked heated discussions in the technology, automobile, and travel circles, and hundreds of millions of exposures created momentum for the new car.

Numerous successful cases are enough to prove that a good "personality" determines the success or failure of a business war. And these personalities do not come out of thin air. They require brands to always grasp the rigid needs of the public, truly take root in the front line and have close contact with users, and hone them through rapid iteration.

3. Add more drama! Add more drama! Add more drama!

The rise and fall of brands in business wars is as unpredictable as the migration of traffic in the entertainment industry. At first glance, brand operation and idol operation seem to be two different things, but in fact, the core logic is the same.

After an idol has made his debut successfully and established his image, he must continue to operate the business without stopping, so as to retain old fans and attract more new ones. The same is true for brands, which should not only make a big splash when launching new products, but also "add drama" to themselves on a daily basis to maximize user value in long-term operations.

Looking at the entire consumer sector, new tea drinks are undoubtedly one of the most competitive fields in the past two years. Just looking at this year, Heytea, Nayuki, Shuyi Herbal Jelly, Bawang Tea Princess, Chayan Yuese, etc. are all looking for partners, doing joint names, and launching new products. Anyone who slacks off will be left behind by his peers in a matter of minutes.

In the battle of new tea beverages, Bawang Chaji was able to overtake others by "adding drama" in a timely manner. On this year's International Tea Day, Bawang Chaji seized the opportunity to launch a new product "Wanli Mulan" and issued a free order on Weibo, which first attracted a group of netizens who wanted to get some free tea. These people turned the order into a patch advertisement, which attracted another group of new users to watch and play with the meme. It has to be said that secondary creation is really prone to "human-to-human transmission".

Often, rather than unilaterally outputting information, brands need to guide consumers to interact, allowing them to approach, understand, and even appreciate the brand during the game. The password activity of Bawang Tea Princess is itself a "play-adding" game. Participants take the initiative to obtain free coupons for new products. At the moment the password is issued, their identities have changed from consumers to communicators . Bawang Tea Princess adds drama to herself by adding drama to users, and ultimately users add countless dramas to the brand itself.

Hot spot marketing, celebrity marketing, cross-border marketing... these are actually tricks to "add drama" to business wars. Brands find the right entry point, and then give users some space to express and perform, allowing them to amplify their sense of participation and experience, and then be willing to be planted. Collective participation and happiness for both parties and guests are the business wars that the people like to see.

I have never worked on a brand, but we have synaesthesia. The biggest difference from traditional media to new media is that you start to know who your users are and who you produce content for. You can know whether readers like or hate this article at the first time, so that you can quickly correct yourself.

Whether it is the King of Tea Princess who added drama to the show, Great Wall Motors who saw the trend, or Vivo who found the right "personality", they have all had long-term practice of attracting fans directly from users, thus attracting more and more fans. If you don't believe me, open the official Weibo of these brands, and you will find that they update more frequently than professional creators.

In summary, I would like to offer three strategies for business wars. First, when launching a new product, find a platform that has the best timing, location and people to attract attention. Second, find the right persona, which can win the favor of users for a while and also give you some advantages in the competition. Third, be active on social media for a long time, always grasp the public's aesthetic taste, and communicate well with users. Accompanying is the most lasting confession.

In modern business, success and failure, counterattack and fall often happen at the same time and at any time. I will continue to watch and explore on Weibo. Art imitates life, and life imitates art. If you want business war dramas to no longer be suspended, you still need to add some real cases.

Author: Liu Xiaotu

Source: WeChat official account: "Entertainment Hard Candy (ID: yuleyingtang)"