Behind the brand's "crazy learning" stands a group of post-00s

During important holidays, brands take the opportunity to "go crazy". Why does crazy marketing attract the attention of netizens? What new marketing trends are reflected behind crazy marketing?

This spring, at the Weifang Kite Festival, a group of brands went crazy.

Brands such as Weilong, Bawang Cha Ji, MINISO, Qia Qia, Pizza Hut, Didi Qingju, and Meituan Waimai made their logos and iconic products into giant kites, which attracted the attention of tourists and netizens on site through the exaggerated and funny kite images.

Long before the Weifang Kite Festival, there were signs of brands going "crazy" - for example, KFC, the originator of "Crazy Thursday literature", which goes crazy on "Crazy Thursday"; and Lao Xiang Chicken, which always posts "Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck" on Weibo, both of which have successfully become popular Internet memes.

Therefore, in 2024, it is obvious that going crazy has become a conventional marketing method: every important holiday, brands will take the opportunity to "go crazy"; on weekdays, without any reason, brands will also create festivals and carnivals, and take the opportunity to organize groups to "go crazy". Among the eight major trends of CNY in 2024 on Xiaohongshu, "going crazy" is one of them.

Why has crazy marketing attracted the attention of netizens? What new marketing trends are reflected behind crazy marketing?

1. Profound brand "crazy learning"

In summary, there are several ways for brands to go crazy:

The first type: a single brand goes crazy on its own, guiding consumers to go crazy together at a specific time.

The most typical success story is KFC. KFC first proposed the concept of "Crazy Thursday" in August 2018, mainly to promote low-priced products. The slogan was "Crazy Thursday, single product 9.9 yuan". At the same time, the brand also launched a brainwashing promotional song, but it did not cause a good response at the time - on the contrary, some consumers were dissatisfied because the song was too "magical".

But KFC chose to "keep going crazy and keep going crazy." Around 2021, "Crazy Thursday Literature" began to rise on the Internet, usually with exaggerated tones and melodramatic stories, and finally ended with "Today is KFC Crazy Thursday, who will treat me? V me 50." KFC also played the meme and directly held a "Crazy Thursday Literature" live broadcast to play the Crazy Thursday meme with netizens.

Today, "V50" has become one of the most widely spread cases of domestic brand marketing in the past decade. Having tasted the sweetness, KFC teamed up with Chow Tai Seng at the end of April this year to allow consumers to draw gold directly, with the slogan "V50, get a magical gold".

The second type is when multiple brands gather together to go crazy, consumers actively participate and support the brands out of their own pockets.

At the end of last year, Taobao established a "Golden Peach Trophy". With the joint efforts of dry hair spray Spes, Taobao and dozens of other brands, the trophy became popular before it was awarded and attracted attention from the entire network.

The whole story is: initially, Taobao decided to award prizes to products with sales exceeding 1 million, but Spes’ sales at the time were 900,000, so it could not be shortlisted. Spes’ operations went crazy because of this, and kept leaving comments in the Taobao comment area, such as “It doesn’t matter!! Selling 900,000 bottles is also amazing!!” and other comments that flooded the screen, and also “spread rumors” that the “Golden Peach Trophy” was the “Golden Butt Trophy”. Things got worse and worse, and more and more brands that could or could not win awards, such as Mala Prince and Fenghua, joined Spes and went crazy in the Taobao comment area. In the end, when the “Taobao Golden Peach Night” awards ceremony was held, Spes’ sales were over 980,000, and it won a “spiritual consolation trophy” of “one million minus two”.

In the end, "Taobao Gold Night" and a number of brands received extremely high attention from the entire network, and their voices increased simultaneously. When the brands were busy going crazy, many netizens said that they liked this sense of madness and that they were indeed happy. They simply "see how hard they work to go crazy, pick one that you like and place an order to support it."

The third type is the "madness" limited to holidays, which resonates with workers and Internet surfing experts.

Holiday marketing is a common tactic used by brands, but in the past two years, holiday marketing has gone "crazy".

For example, in connection with the hot social topic of the May Day holiday, RIO Cocktail invited the famous IP Lin Daiyu to say, "The weekend is adjusted again, what's wronged you? Are you wronged by taking a day off?" "Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, and I can be full just by eating cakes", and shouted the slogan "I am drunk at work", which hit the psychological sweet spot of the workers.

For example, during the 618 event last year, snack brand Wang Xiaolu and beer brand Wusu jointly created a three-day "High Night", with the theme of "This is High" spread throughout the Internet, and shouted slogans such as "What else can I do if I don't go crazy on the Internet?" In the end, the live broadcast room received more than 20 million exposures within three days, and Wang Xiaolu topped the category for three consecutive days.

In addition to consumer brands, cultural tourism brands have also joined this trend. During holidays, local cultural tourism will do everything they can to attract netizens from all over the country to visit. At the beginning of this year, cultural tourism in various places successively shouted raps and became popular on Kuaishou. Weifang Cultural Tourism sang "There is a girl named Xiaofang in the village, who is beautiful and kind"; Inner Mongolia Cultural Tourism sang "I am Neine Neine"... So netizens across the country flocked to the comment area of ​​their own official media and shouted "shame"; or visited cultural tourism accounts across the country and left a string of "ridicule".

2. Going crazy is something you have to do

The biggest commonality of the above-mentioned crazy cases is that after the official went crazy, it would attract netizens from all over the Internet to join in. For example, Spes went crazy to the point where netizens left comments like "Although I don't have a store on Taobao, I also want a trophy." With the involvement of netizens, more and more UGC jokes were born, and finally the crazy marketing became a good story.

Not all brands can become marketing legends, and some have become jokes. After a brand's crazy marketing failed, a netizen commented: "Not everyone is cute when they go crazy." It can be seen that the fundamental premise for crazy marketing to go viral is to have a good brand and good products.

By the way, how can one go crazy in order to touch the audience's heart without being ridiculed as "acting crazy"?

There are two main reasons for the formation of crazy marketing:

First, in the fierce content marketing war, if you don’t stand out, you’ll be eliminated, and brands will be forced to “go crazy”. In the era of traffic being king, consumers’ attention comes and goes quickly. “Going crazy” is a way to make the best use of traffic, maximizing the conversion of the real money that brands spend on advertising, and achieving a multiplier effect.

For example, when planning a marketing campaign for melon seeds, what else can be done besides promoting the deliciousness of melon seeds? -- Qia Qia put the focus of communication on the "eat melon seeds" and held a unique "eat melon seeds but don't eat them contest" on May Day this year. In this "eat test", the contestants and enthusiastic netizens had a lot of fun. Many netizens even asked, "Why didn't you notify me?" "How can I participate in the event next time?" This madness is a case of Qia Qia melon seeds creating an out-of-circle case in the fierce traffic war, relying on creativity, execution, and madness, and there is a chance that it will be deposited as a brand asset for a long time in the future.

Second, the language of the times has changed. The post-00s are in charge of communication, and brands are actively "going crazy". Taobao is not without precedents of awarding prizes, but in the past, it was mainly conventional awards such as "Most Popular Product" and "Best New Product Award". But today's "Ugly Things Contest" and "Golden Peach Trophy", which seem to be jokes and unofficial terms, are real and down-to-earth in the eyes of the younger generation of netizens. Even in this process, even if brands want to increase sales, it is no longer a "hidden" thing. When Spes went crazy, he conveyed to consumers countless times: I just want the Golden Peach Trophy, everyone just has to buy me, and I am the best dry hair spray. In the crazy talk, these brands have come alive.

Not long ago, the topic #Official account finally fell into the hands of the post-00s# on Kuaishou became popular, and it also brought the official accounts @Urumqi Traffic Police, @Hefei Fire, @Shanxi Fire, etc., which were creative and creative in the topic. @Urumqi Traffic Police received more than 1.38 million likes just for a video in which the post-00s officially announced that "the account will be handed over to me from now on."

This shows that the post-00s operators are the creators who understand the content needs of this generation of netizens the most; and the post-00s themselves have the generational characteristics of pursuing authenticity, and the content they produce also gives brands or official accounts the personality label of being outspoken and "crazy" at any time. Previously, a marketing service agency also shared that one of the key points of communicating with Gen Z is "empathy without preaching, and crazy with participation."

Of course, this also means that crazy marketing is probably cyclical - when the next wave of marketing comes, consumers may no longer be keen on this type of content. When the crazy marketing trend jointly created by brands, netizens and Internet platforms is in full swing, brands can actively create memes and go crazy based on their own products.

3. Marketing strategy for post-00s: true temperament

In any case, crazy marketing, a product of this era, has once again taught us an unchanging underlying principle in the marketing industry: stay true to your nature.

In 2020, Burger King planned a "moldy Whopper" advertisement and won the 2021 Cannes Lions Outdoor Award. At that time, in order to highlight the brand's commitment to not using artificial preservatives, Burger King filmed the process of a freshly made Whopper gradually growing hair and mold over 34 days. Although this advertisement brought some visual discomfort to the audience, Burger King's global CMO said in an interview that according to statistics, 95% of netizens on social media gave positive feedback.

This case further illustrates that consumers are becoming more tolerant and are willing to accept brands’ crazy and even terrifying photos as long as the brands stick to the core of “truth”.

Burger King's authenticity is the authenticity of its products and promises; while the authenticity of the crazy operation of the post-00s in China is the authenticity of the mental state of the workers and the authenticity of the brand's desire for traffic. In the end, sufficient sincerity has brought sufficient outstanding communication results.

Adhering to authenticity in marketing is a universal marketing rule. No matter how long the "crazy learning" trend lasts, the post-00s have taught us that brands must express real emotions, real joy, real tension, real competition, and even real anxiety, in order to make event marketing stand out and win attention.

Brands have long been looking for a methodology that can spark a wave of communication and invite all consumers to co-create content. Now, in the name of madness, brands have finally found it.

Author: Claire

Source public account: Morketing (ID: 1083455)