The Certainty and Imagination of Brand Variety Show Marketing in 2024

In the past two years, as variety shows have lost momentum, the traditional variety show promotion model has become sluggish. In addition, brand owners have shrunk their budgets and have become more cautious about investing in variety show sponsorships. So how should brands conduct variety show marketing in 2024? Let's take a look!

In the past, when I was working in an advertising company, I helped many brands develop annual media strategies. The main approach was "variety show + hard advertising resources (digital and traditional) + segmented vertical media projects". With this main line, we would match promotional activities, big promotions, influencer placements, etc., and finally form a complete annual plan.

In the plan, the value of variety shows is to serve as an annual topic event for the brand, to increase exposure and traffic, and to spend big money on big things; hard advertising resources are used to strongly output brand propositions, enhance brand image, and strengthen exposure in key markets; segmented vertical media are used as special projects to capture segmented scenarios and segmented populations.

In this entire media placement strategy, variety shows are often the highlight of a brand's annual case. As a carrier of high-quality content, variety shows are not only the key to brands obtaining large traffic, increasing their visibility, and creating brand public issues, but brands also have expectations for them to shape their image, strengthen their value, output products, and achieve sales.

However, in the past two years, as variety shows have lost momentum, the traditional variety show promotion model has become fatigued. In addition, brand owners have shrunk their budgets and have become more cautious about investing in variety show sponsorship. In this new year, how can brand owners make good use of variety shows to maximize their marketing value?

1. Finding the deterministic traffic of variety shows

When it comes to variety show marketing, what brand owners are most concerned about is undoubtedly how much traffic the variety show can bring to them.

Nowadays, in order to obtain greater traffic effects, on the one hand, brand owners' marketing budgets are further tilted towards the top variety shows with more guaranteed ratings. According to Endata, in 2023, the number of brand partners in variety shows reached 426, accounting for 60.9%; on the other hand, with budgets shrinking, brand owners have put forward more requirements for exposure in variety shows. In 2023, the total exposure time of variety show sponsor brands reached 7.35 million seconds, an increase of 14.2% year-on-year.

These data are typical reflections of the mentality of brand owners, which is to pursue more certain traffic. But the biggest challenge we face today is that this is an era of fragmentation.

Consumers' time is fragmented, traffic is also fragmented, and entertainment consumption continues to migrate to short video platforms. According to the "2023 Douyin Variety Show Promotion White Paper" (hereinafter referred to as the "White Paper"), 96% of variety show users will frequently visit short video apps, and 80% of users will participate in interactions on short video platforms after watching variety shows. At present, Douyin's daily entertainment content playback volume is as high as 10 billion, and the number of deep entertainment users who consume more than 20 minutes per day exceeds 100 million. These entertainment users are full of desire to express and creativity for the content they are interested in, and have actively become participants in the promotion of variety show content. With their active enthusiasm for secondary creation, popular content can achieve the effect of breaking through circles in a short period of time.

Under such circumstances, the promotion methods and channels of variety shows have also changed accordingly, and Douyin has become the core position and new traffic entrance for variety show promotion.

In view of this, nowadays, major variety shows have started to use a promotional model that integrates long and short videos, and short and direct videos. In addition to the main content of the program, on the one hand, they increase the release of short videos to create high-frequency and hot topics, and use official accounts, creators, and experts to form a diversified content ecosystem. Different accounts release content in different directions to strongly attract user attention; on the other hand, through live broadcasting, they expand the value of IP and improve user stickiness.

"Flowers and Youth: Silk Road Season", which premiered in October 2023, has been a hot topic since its launch and has received widespread attention. The secret of its success is not only the proper selection of topics and true records, but also the fact that the program team not only broadcasts the main film, but also releases various tidbits and material clips, and promptly responds to the audience's hot discussion topics on social platforms during the program, enriching the user content experience, and increasing the exposure and topicality of the program.

The promotion and marketing position of variety shows has changed, so brand owners who are sponsors of variety shows should also adjust their marketing strategies accordingly. When sponsoring variety shows, brand owners should not only care about how much placement and exposure there is in the show itself, but should also take advantage of the promotion and marketing process of the show and pay more attention to the value of Douyin's promotion and marketing position for variety shows.

The labor documentary variety show "Let's Farm" which was popular in 2023, owes its popularity to the meticulous cultivation of short videos. With 50 episodes of feature films and 24 episodes of longer content + daily check-in live broadcasts + VLOG short variety shows + creative videos + challenge competitions, it has achieved an unexpected traffic effect.

As the exclusive title sponsor of the program, Yuanqi Forest has also unlocked a variety of variety show marketing methods, such as guest endorsements, factory visits during the program, live concerts, etc. In addition, Yuanqi Forest also handed over the advertising planning rights to the program guests. The Yuanqi Moment series of creative short films created by the farming team led by them were reposted crazily by users on Douyin, breaking through Yuanqi Forest’s past advertising style and allowing the brand image to be spread in a more three-dimensional way.

Therefore, variety show title sponsorship is no longer limited to product placement and verbatim broadcasting, but should pay more attention to the creation of short video content. The main battlefield for brands to carry out variety show marketing is no longer just the program itself, but also the social platform outside the program.

Moreover, with the help of Douyin, not only can the variety show's own traffic exposure be expanded, but brand owners can also further accumulate traffic to their own positions. In the Douyin ecosystem, brands must strengthen their own position management capabilities and truly put the additional traffic brought by Douyin to the variety show into their own pockets and accumulate it in their own blue V accounts and stores.

For example, after sponsoring the variety show "Longing for Life 7", Mengniu Zhensu not only achieved multi-dimensional exposure through various content forms such as brand implantation, creative cooperation, derivative videos and topics, but also relied on Douyin's live broadcast, e-commerce and other channels to effectively divert and convert users. During the broadcast of the program, the number of fans of Zhensu's Douyin official flagship store increased by 5.8%, which effectively helped the brand to open up the entire chain, so as to better carry out long-term brand management and user management in the future and achieve incremental conversion.

2. How should brand owners carry out variety show marketing today?

On January 8, Douyin launched the "2023 Douyin Variety Show Promotion and Marketing White Paper" for variety show industry practitioners. Through the analysis of variety show trends and popular cases, combined with the platform's ecological advantages, a set of variety show promotion and marketing methodologies was summarized. However, its value is not only reflected in promotion and marketing, but also inspired me to think about how brands can do a good job in variety show marketing.

Specifically, I believe that brand owners can use the TikTok platform to fully develop variety show marketing from three dimensions: content highlights, communication links, and account matrix, so that the variety show sponsorship fees can be spent effectively and wisely.

1. Diversified implantation to discover the highlights of the content

As mentioned earlier, this is an era of fragmented variety show watching. As an audience, think about it: when we watch an entertainment program and discuss and share it with friends, will we tell them in detail what story the program tells and what happened from beginning to end? Actually, no.

What we share and recommend to friends are usually some very exciting and highlight clips in the program, such as some details, some pictures, or some lines. It is these clips that move the audience, and then they comment, share, and forward them.

Especially in the TikTok ecosystem, variety shows will be disassembled like a butcher cutting a cow, with more diverse, delicate and vivid content highlights. A highlight content will be constantly disassembled, extended and amplified, so that one moment has the opportunity to expand to 100 hot content, thereby bursting out with greater traffic and popularity.

For example, in the 2022 leading variety show "Sisters Who Make Waves 3", Wang Xinling's "I love you" blew up all the old fans on the Internet and quickly topped the Douyin hot list. Later, Wang Xinling initiated the #王心玲爱你合拍挑战, which further stimulated the enthusiasm of the whole nation to sing together. "Sisters Who Make Waves 3" thus became the number one variety show on Douyin in terms of the number of hot searches, and the exposure of popular content exceeded 14 billion.

In such an ecology and atmosphere, what do brand owners really need to do when conducting variety show marketing?

It is not about simply increasing the frequency of oral broadcasts, increasing exposure of hard ads, or embarrassing game exposure, but about embedding the brand more closely and natively into the highlight content of the variety show during the production process of the variety show. With the explosion of highlight content on Douyin, the accompanying exposure can be effectively increased.

When I talk about content marketing, I often talk about a point: content marketing needs to be "systematically constructed and detonated by a single point." As long as one point is established, the brand's sponsorship of the entire variety show will be successful. Although this is difficult for brand owners, including artists and program producers, it is a long-term and effective topic.

Therefore, brand owners need to analyze variety shows from multiple different directions, including various small details in the show, behind-the-scenes footage, guests' daily lives and character settings, the social and cultural psychology reflected behind the show, including more specific content points such as songs, dances, lines, stage, and emotions. They can find highlights for implantation and dissemination from them to detonate brand variety show marketing.

For example, in "China's Top Rap Showdown 2022", Yili Yogurt, as the exclusive title sponsor, not only had standard brand exposure in the program, but also created content highlights such as rap broadcasts and live rap performances that fit the program's characteristics. Top rappers such as Vinida and TizzyT performed a rap broadcast in the Yogurt exhibition area, or improvised rap lyrics for Yogurt. These flash contents were put on the Douyin platform and achieved very good communication effects, with the audience exclaiming "Yogurt won the game."

Douyin has fully unleashed the traffic potential of variety shows and also provided brand owners with a larger platform for variety show marketing.

2. From point to surface, create a full communication chain

After reading the above content, some friends may think that brand variety show marketing is too scattered and disorganized, but it is not. In variety show marketing, brand owners can not only find the highlights of the program content, but also form a complete communication link.

Today's Douyin variety show promotion will follow the process and rhythm of "shooting-preheating-hot broadcast-long tail". The main thing for the brand is to follow the whole process of this promotion, track and accompany it throughout the whole process, find the appropriate content and highlights at each stage, deeply intervene and cooperate, not miss any link, and not miss any opportunity to increase exposure.

During the filming stage of a variety show, the official account of the variety show will start to constantly use Reuters short videos to attract attention. The main creators will cooperate with the official account to lock in core fans, and the expert account will also cooperate with the official account to track Reuters, constantly hyping up the attention of the show. Then, what the brand owner can do at this time is to turn their sponsorship into part of Reuters, increase attention as the popularity of the show increases, and take the initiative in marketing.

For example, "Let's Farm" was initially thought to be a "muddy variety show" and even the business had to be attracted by the fans of the show. As a result, it really attracted Luyuan electric vehicles. Therefore, as soon as Luyuan sponsored "Let's Farm", it attracted two hot searches #Fans really brought sponsorship to "Let's Farm" and #Follow the wishes of variety show fans and join the sponsorship, helping the brand to gain a wave of goodwill first. As the hot videos continue to ferment, the brand #Luyuan liquid-cooled electric vehicle topic has been played more than 700 million times so far.

It is the warm-up stage. The official account of the variety show will rely on fancy pre-operation and welfare distribution to grab the audience's attention. The creators will also participate in team building to attract traffic for the program and cooperate with experts to push the program to the peak of traffic. At this time, the brand side also needs to deeply participate in this fancy operation, deeply bind the variety show IP through multiple implants, and occupy the user's cognition of "companion for chasing variety shows".

For example, Lvyuan has naturally integrated various scenes that require cycling in the show "Let's Farm", such as the creators going to the market to buy things, catching shrimps in the fish pond, and selling agricultural products in the vegetable market, which are both real and full of life. In addition, Lvyuan's official account has been constantly releasing pictures of products and farming teams, Reuters photos of migrant workers, and weekly reports on migrant workers, etc., to keep following the show and attract viewers.

In the final long-tail stage, variety show producers will not only explore multiple ways to realize their own revenue, but also extend the popularity of the show by reuniting the main creators and creating an atmosphere of separation. This is also what brands need to do. As long as they are within the authorized cooperation period, they can make good use of the residual heat of the long-tail to ensure the long-term effectiveness of marketing and activate crowd assets.

It can be seen that before the end of the program, Luyuan invited members of the farming team to participate in the live broadcast of the sale of its new product Moda series, and took them to visit the Luyuan factory to learn about the production process of liquid-cooled electric vehicles. This not only demonstrated the product quality, but also led to fans' speculation about #Zhongdi2seasonisgoingtoenterthefactory. Even the warm-up for the second season of the program is ready.

In addition, Lvyuan also launched the "Catch Little Green" campaign, allowing the audience to capture Lvyuan's exposed images in the program; and created the "Farming Contest" to attract fans to spontaneously create secondary works, and gained more popular content and creative ideas.

Lvyuan's approach tells us that the main battlefield of variety show marketing is not just the title placement of the program itself, but also to use the program resources to gain a bigger stage and longer-term growth in the promotion and dissemination of Douyin. The close coordination between Lvyuan electric vehicles and the program IP promotion link has created a win-win case in which both the program and the brand have become popular.

3. Empower the full-lineup account ecosystem and establish a communication matrix

In addition to the content points and communication links, brand owners must also consider how to combine the program’s full lineup account matrix in variety show marketing.

As mentioned in the previous section, Douyin has official Douyin accounts, creator accounts, and numerous talent accounts and entertainment vertical accounts in the promotion of variety shows. They each play different roles in the promotion. For example, the official account is positioned to build a rich and diverse collection of material content, and attract audiences with constantly updated exclusive and scarce content; the creator account cooperates with the business, focusing on companionship and response, and enriching the personality. The surrounding talent accounts are used to actively organize activities, cooperate with the production, and spread the influence of the program.

From the perspective of the brand, around this account matrix, the brand official account should cooperate well with the different accounts of the program and make good connections. For example, the program content released by the brand official account should be different and complementary to the content of the variety show official account, and then the brand owner should also spread the brand content and product implantation in the program through the expert account.

The above part is about content creation. In terms of social interaction, brands should also actively interact with the creators, leverage the influence of the creators’ personal IP, narrow the distance between themselves and the audience, and establish emotional connections.

For example, in "Dad is in Charge 2", Oreo, as the chief partner, released a total of 10 program-related contents on its official brand account, using segments to amplify the brand implanted content in the program and complement the content of the program's official account.

Meanwhile, during the entire broadcast period, the four families in "Dad is Home 2" posted 823 Douyin videos and gained 8.28 million followers. Mario, a cute kid who was very popular with the audience in the show, received 320,000 likes for a video of him eating Oreos. It not only showed the classic way of eating Oreos by "twisting and licking the bubbles", but also successfully promoted the Oreo panda-exclusive product.

At the same time, many influencers and vertical accounts released exciting content related to Oreo programs, successfully promoting Cloud Cake, a new product that Oreo is strongly promoting.

3. Open up the imagination of variety show marketing

Of course, in addition to the main traffic value, variety show marketing has more value to tap for brands, and these values ​​can be realized on the Douyin platform. For brand owners, the key is to open up the imagination of variety show marketing.

1. Activate the image value of brand image and appeal communication

When brands sponsor variety shows, they often use the variety show as a major event in the brand's annual marketing communication, and take on the most important brand marketing tasks, such as brand upgrading, brand image activation, the launch and appearance of a new brand image, etc.

For example, Quduoduo sponsored "The Heart-Stirring Offer". Quduoduo created the "Interesting Workplace News" content topic on Douyin, using variety show IP to strengthen the brand's communication among white-collar workers in the workplace, which not only conveyed the product value of a workplace relaxation and decompression tool, but also created a vivid and interesting brand image.

2. Help brands realize the value of scenarios in users’ lives

Today, the materials of variety shows are becoming more and more extensive and rich, reflecting the various aspects of social life. A variety show is a condensed version of social life. For brands, the many life scenes included in variety shows can form a strong bond between themselves and the scenes.

For example, in the program Let's Farm, Yinlu created a variety of display scenes: in the breakfast scene, the guests were asked to eat well before starting a day's work; in the work scene, Yinlu became a must-have tool for fighting hunger; in the afternoon tea scene, Yinlu Haozhoudao was a suitable dessert. The rich scenes helped the brand expand its exposure opportunities in consumers' lives and activated user needs.

For example, Yuanqi Forest, another sponsor of the program, has also incorporated many scenes such as daily hydration, dinner parties, relaxation and self-pleasure, and demonstrated various ways of drinking. The program also includes a factory visit, presenting the aseptic filling production line and the entire process of product production to the audience.

When a brand is integrated into a specific scenario and promoted on Douyin, it can choose influencers in the corresponding vertical category to cooperate in a targeted manner, highlighting the brand's value in solving consumer pain points and meeting consumer needs in that scenario.

3. Implement the marketing value of new product launches and promotions

In addition to brand exposure and image and scene display, variety show IP can also help brands undertake more marketing tasks, especially the launch and promotion of new products.

In the past, companies would often spend a lot of money to create product launch conferences, plan and implement brand communication campaigns, and expose products to the public in order to promote new products. But now, brand owners can directly let variety shows take on the responsibility of product launch and carry out publicity and promotion in the programs.

Black Lion Beer, for example, has penetrated into the social scene of young people with the help of the variety show Let's Camp Together, which helped this unknown brand to make a successful debut. With the sponsorship of the variety show IP, Black Lion Beer also created the topic #Take Black Lion to Camp on Douyin, which has been played over 100 million times, increasing the chances of Black Lion being recognized and chosen by consumers in the camping scene.

For brand marketing, variety show IP has the important value of increasing exposure, enhancing brand power, showcasing products and landing sales promotion. With the support of short video platforms represented by Douyin, brand owners can gain not only more certain traffic from variety show promotion, but also a richer and more complete promotion system, as well as more imaginative marketing growth space.

Author: Empty-handed

WeChat public account: Empty Hands (ID: firesteal13)