Why is there always marketing backlash in recent years?

Nowadays, publicity and marketing are always criticized by everyone, and there have been several cases of marketing backlash. Let's take a look at why this happens~

I found that:

In the past two years, movies, celebrity IPs, and brands have all experienced marketing backlash. Marketing backlash can be understood as wanting to advertise well to attract people to buy goods or services, but the advertising is overdone and the method is wrong, so people not only don’t buy it, but also get angry and feel cheated or annoyed.

01

Why is this happening? Let’s talk about our feelings first: Have you ever thought about why people are increasingly rejecting “marketing heat”? Because heat is forcing us to adopt a protection mechanism.

Nowadays, marketing and pursuing traffic is a normal business practice. Those that are not supported by substantial content and only rely on false gimmicks will make people feel uncomfortable. Once this happens too frequently, people will become disgusted with "hot spots".

I went to Haikou and Sanya in 2022, and the memory is still fresh in my mind. Before I went there, I searched for some introductions about scenic spots and food restaurants on a certain platform, but the actual situation was terrible when I got there.

Not to mention TV series and movies. It’s okay online. You can watch a show just because of a clip, and turn it off immediately if it’s not good. It’s different offline. It’s impossible to stand up and leave halfway through a movie in a cinema. The cost of silence is very high. There is a lot of fake popularity created by capital, and people are becoming less and less sensitive to it.

In addition, marketing enthusiasm is eroding the trust of information consumers.

Nowadays, information changes all the time, and hot topics keep changing, which is really confusing. Some information may be one way today and suddenly reversed tomorrow.

Information will naturally carry some emotions, and after some conversations in some groups, the flavor will change. When this kind of thing happens too often, people will naturally lose confidence in the information. When young people encounter new hot spots, they would rather hide than be "played" by those.

There is also a phenomenon called the Spiral of Silence, which is becoming more and more obvious. What does it mean? In short, most people don’t want to feel isolated because of their own ideas or opinions.

It is easy for extreme group formation to occur on the Internet. For example, the comment area is controlled so that everyone's comments look the same. The space for free speech is getting smaller and smaller, and you have to think twice before writing your own ideas.

I have encountered this kind of situation many times, especially in the TOB industry, where everyone is nice to each other.

I remember the incident with Taobao's top seller. I wanted to write a critique of it. But then I thought, I have acquaintances in my circle of friends, and maybe I can work with them. Suddenly, a critique would not benefit anyone. There is a popular saying on the Internet: He is acting, you know he is acting, he also knows that you know he is acting, but he is still acting, and you are also acting.

It is worth mentioning that, I don’t know if you have noticed, the herd effect is also weakening. We have entered the “buyer’s era”. In some aspects, people have begun to pursue minimalist life, niche tastes, and independent thinking. Whether a product is good or not needs to be defined by the buyer himself.

As for me, I am very repulsed by the real heat piled up by "sellers".

For example: the marketing of new energy vehicles, various large screens, engine technologies, and PPT viewing functions. I am really not interested in them. You can let me work directly in the car, but these things can always be seen being hyped on hot searches.

For example, I don’t really care about the camera functions and screen technology of mobile phones. As an ordinary user, I am more concerned about the performance and whether it is easy to use. There is a saying that like attracts like. If you have been a professional for a long time, you will be out of touch with real consumers, and only your peers will pay attention to you.

Therefore, from this phenomenon of rejection of marketing enthusiasm, we can see that many people are beginning to try to escape from complex information flows that are irrelevant to themselves and consciously reject them.

02‍

So, which brands have experienced backlash?

Recently, Jia Ling is quite popular.

The movie "Hot and Spicy" has been ranked first since the Spring Festival. Not only is the subject matter itself inspiring, but the behind-the-scenes story of Jia Ling's weight loss of 100 kilograms has also moved netizens, which has resonated with them again and again.

According to Zhiwei data, "Hot as Hell" was reported the most times by Jimu News among all the released movies.

On the Douyin platform, the topic was "Jia Ling lost more than 100 pounds, which makes me feel worse than when she became famous." (149.7w likes); Jia Ling is really beautiful now. (642,000 likes); Jia Ling is so beautiful, it's hard to tell. (32,000 likes).

There is no doubt that Jia Ling's inspirational story of weight loss and the movie itself formed a successful linkage. Later, with the promotion of central media, the movie's plot and secondary topics received more extensive attention.

When something continues to ferment, different voices will emerge. After February 10, there were more and more criticisms from other platforms. Although it did not affect the box office, it left a bad impression on people. I even felt harassed.

There are also some in the technology circle.

Xiaomi Automobile has caused quite a stir. After reading the comments, I found that people are prejudiced against its marketing methods, pricing, and market positioning.

Some people think that the marketing method is too old-fashioned and the price is not competitive enough; some voices believe that this approach is lowering the level of competition in the integrated industry; others say that being labeled as low-end and cheap before it is even listed is inconsistent with the brand positioning that Xiaomi wants to create.

There were quite a few in the past two years.

After the "what's too expensive" incident of Taobao live broadcaster Li Jiaqi, the Huaxizi brand was immediately affected. A simple apology could have settled the trivial matter, but the excessive and frequent "self-praise" led to a continuous decline in the brand's sales. This year's consumption off-season, it must be more difficult for the brand to develop.

In the technology circle, a female anchor of Gree was considered to be pursuing popularity without bottom line and damaging the brand image because she wore a "dismissal skirt" related to the "state-owned enterprise leaders holding hands incident."

A little further away.

During that time, brainwashing ads were played everywhere in elevators, such as "Platinum Travel Photography" that allows you to take photos wherever you want, and "Children don't like to eat and don't grow taller? Use Longmu Zhuanggu Granules", which made everyone suffer from mental attacks.

Many people complained that they were brand customers, but after listening to the advertisement, they would no longer choose the brand. I saw many people in the marketing circle saying that this was a reverse push of the advertising creativity and was unforgivable.

From a brand perspective, brands naturally want to increase their visibility through marketing. The problem is that when marketing becomes the only and absolute means in a strategy, it becomes an over-dependence, which often leads to counterproductive effects.

03

I found that brands that are often backlashed have two key problems:

First, over-emphasis on concepts

Comparing the advertising styles at home and abroad, there are big differences. Foreign advertisements tend to be more innovative and creative, just like Durex, which always catches hot spots to make a fuss. Sometimes, after an advertisement, you don’t see any obvious product promotion.

Or, you watch a creative video only to realize that it's actually promoting an automatic toilet.

In China, the method is relatively more direct. For example, in an automatic toilet advertisement, people will use a memorable slogan to brainwash people repeatedly. This method is simple and crude, and over time, people will get bored and feel it is a harassment.

Second, be good at utilizing values.

How is consumption created? One answer is: to establish a chain of temptations of desire. For example, when talking about luxury houses, do you think of luxury cars?

This association is actually a misunderstanding of voluntary consumption. You think that your choice is actually caused by consumption fantasy, and what is really manipulating it all behind the scenes is marketing.

Marketing can easily stimulate consumer desire by shaping almost invisible values. When a product or topic is repeatedly emphasized, it will have a huge impact; the impact makes the brand attract attention and promotes consumption. This constitutes a complete motivation theory.

Take the marketing of "Hot and Spicy" as an example, which can almost be seen as a complete example.

Before the movie was released, the news of Jia Ling's weight loss was kept strictly confidential. It was not until the eve of the movie's release that she made a public appearance and announced that she had "gained 40 kilograms and then lost 100 kilograms." This immediately became a hot topic and attention increased dramatically.

In domestic film production, there is a marketing team following up from the very beginning to collect a large amount of content, which may even indirectly affect the shooting and production of the film.

"Hot as Hell" prepared a large amount of materials in advance and adopted a "horse racing mechanism" during the publicity period, launching multiple publicity points at the same time, focusing on promoting the most popular ones, and ultimately achieving intensive bombardment.

For example, I remember there was a hot search saying:

"It turns out that the girl running downstairs last year was Jia Ling." This is obviously not an accidental shot, but the result of careful planning by the marketing team. Think about it, if the person running downstairs was an inconspicuous fat person, would you pay attention?

Obviously not.

After this, weight loss became a focus. Although the publicity emphasized that this was not a weight loss movie, weight loss still became the focus of the audience.

Regarding whether weight loss should be promoted, we can refer to the opinion of actor Wang Jinsong. When asked whether he really suffered from needle pricks and cold water in "The Ming Dynasty 1566", he responded that this is what actors should experience, and if these hardships are used as a show, it would be hypocritical.

The key motivation reflected here is that any marketing is shaping a set of neoliberal values ​​and trying to tell consumers to change themselves, which is actually sad.

Why do you say that?

In the past, when the economy was transitioning from a planned economy to a market economy, women got more job opportunities, not because they were women, but because they could bring value.

This has led some women to pursue "self-empowerment" and "self-love" and to seek so-called freedom, such as traveling, taking beautiful photos, and doing OOTD. There is nothing wrong with this in itself, but it is a bit ridiculous to regard various symbols of capitalism as symbols of "awakening".

When these things return to reality, we are back to discussing the old issue of "how much should the bride price be?" So, although it seems that feminism has made women stronger, in fact, part of the cost behind it is borne by others.

There are always people who can look at all this clearly.

When two values ​​conflict, it is bound to spark discussion, and the ultimate beneficiaries are often the manipulators. From a historical perspective, brands have turned the tables by spending money, investing in KOLs, and penetrating the media, but as time goes by, consumer trust will be "weakened."

This is the process of changing values. For consumer brands, the method is more direct. If you understand the whole cycle, you will understand the root cause of the backlash.

Simply put: over-emphasizing certain concepts and using these concepts to inspire the values ​​of different groups of people. When values ​​collide, it will inevitably trigger public opinion; brands benefit from public opinion, but also suffer backlash in public opinion.

04

Therefore, returning to real content, real products, and real information is the path to long-term brand success. To this end, I think we need to do three things well:

1. People-oriented

The core of Confucianism is people-oriented. What does it mean to be people-oriented?

Starbucks said, what we are doing is not the coffee business, but the people business. Even if you don’t come to drink coffee, you can still rest here. Gladly accepting and welcoming everyone is called "people-oriented".

Let me talk about my feelings: Before the Spring Festival, I was afraid that the food at home would go bad in the refrigerator, so I didn't save anything. After returning to Beijing on the seventh day of the Spring Festival, I found that I had to go out to solve the problem of breakfast. There was a small shop near my home before, but the owner had not returned yet, so I had to change to another one. After searching for a long time, I found Nanchengxiang.

It was my first time to this restaurant. A fried dough stick, an egg, a vegetarian dish and a bowl of porridge cost me about 12 yuan. It was very cheap and clean. What surprised me most was its service: if you feel that the food is not enough, you can drink as much porridge as you want.

Another example is "Zhenmianlang No. 68 Hutong Noodles with Soy Sauce".

It only serves one bowl of noodles, no other items, and I have eaten there at least ten times. What's good about it? The quality control is very good, each portion is 16.9 yuan, and there are free refills of noodles and sauce. These two stores have great business, and sometimes you have to queue. ‍

What they do may not seem like much, but it all revolves around customer experience. It is precisely because they do these little things well that their business is so prosperous.

2. Create high-quality or unique content

You may say, my brand is online, I can't be like them, what should I do? I think the key lies in the content provided by the brand. Content is one of the most direct touch points for customers to contact the brand, and it must be of two points: high quality or unique.

Why?

The indicators of good content are constantly changing. What people liked a year ago may not be liked now; and what was not so good ten years ago may be popular again now.

Recently, I also watched Douyin for a few days because of data collection. At first, I really couldn't stand it, but slowly I began to understand what kind of content can be considered good content on Douyin, and what kind of content can reach more people through different media.

Just like what the book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" says, the mainstream media is different in different eras, and changes in media affect the way people communicate. When some "highly educated" people in WeChat Moments say that Chinese people have low aesthetic tastes, in fact, the content that is popular on other platforms is what the public likes to see.

A boss once told me: Don’t think you can represent consumers. Consumers don’t need you to represent them. It’s important to ask consumers what they want to get from your content.

To put it bluntly, what exactly does your content provide to consumers?

3. Choose the right leverage

It is almost impossible to become popular just by relying on good content. Consumers nowadays are too lazy to even watch movie entertainment content, let alone marketing advertisements.

Behind almost all those brand cases that go viral, there is the shadow of capital; so the question is, if you don’t have much money, how should you do marketing?

To accomplish big things with a small budget, you need creativity, like a "flank guerrilla war"; to influence people more widely, the key is to use various "leverages"; as for how to maximize the use of leverage? The method of making money quickly seems to always hover on the edge of morality and law.

If you really don't want to take risks, you might as well go back to basics, put people first, and diligently form word-of-mouth compound interest. The ultimate goal is to "subtract", and what you subtract is the routine.

all in all:

Exaggerated publicity will only erode trust.

This practice of "clearing all the fish in the pond" will sooner or later make the environment worse. Social media is not completely unacceptable to commercial activities, as long as it provides good products and services and maintains good user relationships.

Author: Wang Zhiyuan, public account: Wang Zhiyuan