Product Marketing Revelation: Hangzhou Asian Games from Different Perspectives

The two-week-long Hangzhou Asian Games is coming to an end. The media praised it as the best Asian Games in history. What is so good about it? This article shares some thoughts from the perspective of product design and communication and promotion, hoping to inspire you.

The two-week Hangzhou Asian Games is drawing to a close. What is so good about the Asian Games, which is praised by the media as the best in history? What thoughts and lessons can be learned from it for product and marketers? What are the unknown secrets behind the excitement?

The Spring Festival Gala, also a large-scale program, has been criticized by netizens, but the Asian Games has won a lot of applause in terms of user favorability. From the perspective of product design and communication and promotion, I would like to share some thoughts.

01 Product Theory: Looking at the Asian Games from Different User Experience Perspectives

If the Asian Games is embodied as a product, this product is a hard-won breakthrough in event marketing for the city of Hangzhou. The Asian Games from the perspective of the spectators, the Asian Games from the perspective of the organizers, and the Asian Games from the perspective of the sponsoring brands are very different.

The product view of the Asian Games will look at the Asian Games from the perspective of user experience. User experience does not refer to how a product works, but to "how the product connects and interacts with the outside world", that is, how people "touch" and "experience" it.

Product strategy, implicitly looking at the Asian Games. The Asian Games is a marketing event for Hangzhou to leap from a new first-tier city to a first-tier city, which is of strategic significance. Through large-scale international events, cultural and sports penetration, the image of "International Hangzhou" is conveyed.

The digital human and electronic fireworks at the opening ceremony, as well as the robot dog "Conspicuous Bag" at the competition venue, all convey information about technology and innovation to users. From a marketing perspective, the 15-day Hangzhou Asian Games international event is a heavy marketing investment for the entire city. Even if the income is not enough to cover the expenditure, we must invest regardless of the cost.

By conveying information to users through the sports, culture and technology symbols of the Asian Games, Hangzhou 2.0 is making the transition from the West Lake cultural tourism era to the Qianjiang technology era. Just like brand marketing, product potential through event marketing has strategic significance in the long run.

Product performance, the surface is the Asian Games. The surface is the information that users can directly receive, just like the slogan and brand vision in the brand. Let's first look at the mascot combination "Jiangnan Memories", "Chenchen", "Congcong" and "Lianlian". "Chenchen" represents the Qianjiang era and the elements of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, "Congcong" represents the Liangzhu culture, and "Lianlian" represents lotus leaves and West Lake related elements.

Through sports events, the brand image is implanted and the history and culture of Hangzhou is infiltrated. What symbols do you see in the main graphic of the emblem "Tide"?

The fusion of multiple symbols such as the fan, Qiantang River, Qianjiang tide, racetrack, Internet WiFi, etc. cleverly integrates the characteristics of Hangzhou.

The torch is named Xinhuo, and its design is inspired by the Liangzhu culture of China's 5,000-year history of civilization. With its solemn and profound shape, it will be passed from hand to hand by torchbearers, showing the unique creativity of Chinese design and the hard-core strength of Chinese manufacturing to the world.

The main body of the medal is named "Lake and Mountain", and the beautiful scenery of lakes and mountains, green waters and green mountains, the rippling West Lake, the long Liangzhu source and the flowing canal are cleverly integrated into the medal design.

The product strategy layer is behind the potential products and clarifies “why” we do it.

The product presentation layer is what appears in front of the users, which directly conveys to the users the display of various elements of the Asian Games.

02 The program team, the young people who understand the users Freestyle Carnival

The Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee responded that the BGM at the games frequently went viral and was constantly searched. Can you imagine the Asian Games venue being filled with DJs and the exciting "The Most Dazzling National Style"?

The key is to seamlessly connect with the atmosphere of the scene. On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, an old song "The Full Moon" was played. This familiar melody really moved the elderly audience at the scene.

Thousands of people in the swimming pool sang "A Thousand Years of Waiting"; when Ma Long appeared on stage, his theme song "Endless Love for You" was played live; and after the swimming finals, the champion Zhang Yufei's performance on stage was accompanied by her cover of "Dawn".

When the Chinese men's table tennis team defeated the Chinese Taipei men's table tennis team, the song that was played was "A Loving Family". For example, the song "I Can't Stop Loving You" where Ma Long appeared was a hot topic. Only young people who are good at doing things can make it spread again.

Compared with the red songs in traditional events, this one really captured the hearts of young people. During the men's basketball game, "See You Again" was played on the scene, and all the fans paid tribute to Kobe together.

Behind every song, there are stories about the people involved and the scene. The small touches hidden in the subtleties often burst out with great energy.

The atmosphere group's background music reflects the Asian Games group's tolerance, openness, and innovation. If the organization is not open and inclusive, it is estimated that it will still be a red song that makes people shake their heads for a hundred years.

It is understood that the sports DJs at the Hangzhou Asian Games do not compose music based on personal preferences, but will give priority to choosing music from the library of more than 60 songs authorized by the organizing committee. If they want to arrange some music outside the library as BGM, they can just make a reasonable and efficient application.

Behind every BGM is the careful thinking of the atmosphere group. Music marketing is also one of the rules for new media to break the circle. Do you still remember the song "You love me, I love you, Mixue Ice City is sweet"?

It once changed from a sponsor to an organizer, and from the initial popularity of brainwashing hits in stores, it extended to hosting its own concerts. Music marketing uses the interaction between the melody itself and human emotions to enhance the emotional communication between advertisements and consumers, thereby achieving a certain purpose.

Research based on music communication theory mainly focuses on the resonance model and classical conditioning theory.

The resonance model was proposed by American advertising theory expert T. Schwartz in the 1970s, which means that brand advertising resonates with the target and evokes memories deep in its heart. In this Asian Games, the magical songs played by the atmosphere group of the Asian Games Organizing Committee are the embodiment of awakening users to identify with the resonance model.

03 Marketing war, carnival linkage of many brands

This Asian Games attracted 176 corporate sponsors in 118 categories, with the sponsorship amount accounting for 83.1% of the total market development revenue, reaching a historical high, reflecting the tremendous changes in China's economy and Chinese manufacturing in participating in the Asian Games.

Zhejiang private enterprises account for more than half of the total number of sponsors, and Canon is the only foreign enterprise among the official sponsors, mainly providing support in various aspects including image input and output equipment, services and solutions, etc. This reflects that we are now in an era of flourishing Chinese brands.

There are four levels of sponsorship this time, namely official partner, official sponsor, official exclusive supplier and official non-exclusive supplier. For more than 100 sponsoring companies, we would like to share with you several representative brands with characteristics in marketing undertaking.

Geely Automobile's delivery ceremony and fancy car delivery. Geely delivered more than 2,000 official designated cars to the Hangzhou Asian Games, seizing the momentum before the opening ceremony. Zeekr planned different Asian Games marketing car delivery rules for three models.

The first type: Every time "001" is awarded, a Zeekr 001 will be given to the Asian Games athletes who won the 001st gold medal, the 101st gold medal, the 201st gold medal, and the final gold medal of the Chinese team. The concept of 001 is strengthened while the cost is controllable. According to the historical gold medal list, a maximum of 4 vehicles will be given away.

The second type: For Chinese athletes who break world records and win championships, Zeekr will give away the Zeekr 001 FR, implying the status of the performance car by breaking the record.

The third way: Send Zeekr X to the popular Asian Games champion. Zeekr has set up a national vote for "the most popular Chinese champion in your heart". The Asian Games champion who is most loved by netizens will receive Zeekr X, and the popular figures will be bound through UGC netizen interaction.

Gujia Home Furnishing, brand spokesperson portrait authorization, sports star IP power. The WinFresh Cool Technology and Asian Games New Mattress Launch Conference, 520 Super Mattress Festival and 100-day countdown launch ceremony held at the 200-day countdown to the Hangzhou Asian Games invited table tennis Olympic champion Guo Yue, women's football champion player Li Jiayue, and world champion Ma Long to participate in it, realizing a strong alliance.

By exposing the Rhythm spokesperson IP, the brand image and topic creation are strengthened.

Wanshili Silk seamlessly signed a contract with the popular 48-year-old veteran Chusovikina Chuma.

On October 5, a theme propaganda film released by the official media was deeply rooted in people's hearts. Never give up, never stop, wear a "scarf" to cut through obstacles, and release the power of softness. She didn't win a medal but won respect. There was no disappointment, only smiles. Chusovitina waved to the audience and frequently "made a heart".

To convey passion and great love to the extreme, we can only say that the brand response of Wanshili Silk is really timely.

Final words:

From a product perspective, we saw that the Asian Games had strategic significance for the city, as well as various brand expressions; from a user perspective, we saw young people’s ability to play memes and the atmosphere group’s fancy music marketing; from a brand perspective, we saw the fancy marketing of various brands and the confidence of the on-site signing.

In addition, there are also contents worth learning from in terms of dissemination. The root of self-propagation in the era of short videos is weak dissemination. Interesting, informative, witty, and heartwarming pictures are more likely to cause self-propagation.

Everyone knows that Hangzhou will host the Asian Games. Before the opening ceremony, the phrase "alien" was all over the WeChat Moments. Until the opening ceremony, the hot topics were thrown every day, and various hot searches made the Asian Games look less boring and more interesting. The behind-the-scenes footage of athletes from Thailand, the Philippines and other countries diving and frying fish, and the pictures of themselves and their coaches all smiling, dominated the hot searches for a while, which was very relaxing.

There was also the scene where Saudi and Qatari athletes went on a shopping spree in Hangzhou and showed their ability to spend money, and the scene where Indian athletes bargained for T-shirts worth dozens of yuan in Sijiqing, which formed a sharp contrast and also added some gossip to the conversation outside the competition.

There is no limit to the size of the product, no time limit for marketing, and it is not all about money. Low-cost marketing can also leverage brand value.

For the same sponsorship, why are some brands able to do a good job of secondary dissemination and amplify their influence, while some brands simply use investment to buy nothing? By thinking from multiple angles and combining feasibility strategies, brand potential can be amplified with limited investment.

Author: zhrayan; Official account: 炏的黑盒子 (zydsgj); Focus on user research and user operations. Focus on the things in the circle of influence, unravel the mystery and become a time compounder.