How brands create buzz

In this era, topics have become as indispensable as air and water. The author of this article proposes five steps to help brands do a good job in topic marketing, which will help improve the communication effect and give brand people some new suggestions.

The public's demand for "topics" is constant.

During the 2023 Spring Festival, several films including "Man Jiang Hong", "The Wandering Earth 2", and "Unknown" were released at the same time and earned a box office of over 5 billion.

Take "Man Jiang Hong" for example. The marketing team for Zhang Yimou is a company that is very good at creating topics. They constantly create various concepts, such as "reverse decline". Only topics mean there are audiences. Stimulated by various topics, "Man Jiang Hong" has earned more than 4 billion yuan at the box office.

In this era, everyone is living in fragmented topics, checking their phones and hot topics every day. Topics have become as indispensable as air and water.

Because of this, topic marketing has become an essential marketing skill for many brands: create a topic for the product, let everyone discover, discuss and spread it, and finally achieve a communication effect with little effort.

So, how should topic marketing be done?

There are five main steps for brands to do a good job in topic marketing:

1. Develop creative topics;
2. Carry out brand placement;
3. Develop an implementation plan;
4. Control the spread of topics;
5. Effect evaluation.

The first step is to set up the creativity and form of topics according to the brand communication goals

1. What is the goal of launching this topic?

When brands engage in topic marketing, they should not just create topics for the sake of creating topics, but should ensure that the topics always serve the ultimate goal.

Next, we need to analyze the current public opinion environment, what everyone is talking about, or what people are paying attention to in the target field, and come up with creative topics that are preferably novel, interesting, and fun.

For example, when China has made significant achievements in epidemic control and national confidence is high, many overseas students and elderly people working and living abroad have returned. At that time, it is easy to create topics about national trends, national style, and national confidence. Li Ning also made good use of such topic opportunities to successfully break the circle. There are also countless new consumer brands that also play with the topic of national trends, which has allowed them to gain the loyalty of some consumers. However, under the current public opinion environment, if brands are still dealing with topics in this area, it may bring risks to the brand.

2. Topics cannot be discussed by yourself, but must be spread by word of mouth.

It is not enough for a brand to find the focal point of a topic. It is also necessary to grasp the insight into the detonating point. If it can resonate with people or even vent their emotions, then the private topic will spread into a public topic, and then trigger a larger scale of follow-up attention.

This insight can be targeted at specific groups of people or social pain points. For example, Pizza Hut in Taiwan released "Teaching You How to Eat Pizza Hut Down", which hit the funny psychology of foodies; a sofa brand's "Empty Sofa Event" had a wife holding a sign to protest against her partner working overtime and not coming home, which hit the common pain of overtime.

It turns out that Mimi Meng is a master at creating topics, and his skills in discerning trigger points are first-class.

When we were doing public relations marketing for Xiaoliu Sharing, we found the topic of "peace of mind" and successfully ignited it in the field of shared electric motorcycles, making Xiaoliu stand out and become one of the four major shared electric motorcycle brands.

3. Design the communication form according to the characteristics of creative topics

For example, the series of publicity around "Dong Yuhui's Short Composition" by Oriental Selection was very successful.

It turns out that Vancl’s “I am Vancl” and Chen Ou’s “I endorse myself” were also very good topic creations, but unfortunately the management and quality control were not done well, and the brand gradually declined;

The famous Uniqlo incident a few years ago was a series of waves. First, the fitting room video was leaked, then there was clarification, and then there was an investigation. Each small topic attracted continuous attention. It also let many Chinese people know what Uniqlo does. At least billions of dollars in advertising costs were saved.

The second step: cleverly implant the core appeal of the brand

1. After having the topic target and creativity, you also need to design how to cleverly implant your own brand, or bundle your own products in the discussion, etc., to highlight its advantages and core demands in the process of promotion. The most taboo in topic marketing is that the topic is very hot, but it has nothing to do with the company's brand and products.

2. The combination of skills and the timing of exposure are very important. Some topics may just go viral, but the spread process may end after half a day, and it will be difficult to focus on consumers' fickle attention; or simply and crudely launching the topic and the brand together, the audience will feel that it is too rigid and disgusted. Therefore, you must carefully choose the way to expose your brand. In fact, the most important thing is whether the topic is attractive enough.

The third step: Have a complete and detailed topic implementation plan

1. In order to ensure the smooth progress of the topic, the brand must have a detailed implementation plan when launching topic marketing. The plan must ensure that it does not deviate from the topic and needs to be as detailed as possible. Many communication points are often in small or even superficial details. How to grasp it and present it in some way is a very challenging link.

2. The plan includes the incubation period, the initial stage of communication, the middle stage, the late stage, and the closing stage. You should have a clear idea of ​​what resources you need to invest in the early stage, which people or media you need to influence, which people will be involved in the later stage, and what results you want to achieve.

3. With the benefit of a detailed plan, when there are new changes during the implementation process, you can quickly adjust the plan and form a new plan to avoid the negative impact on the brand caused by inadvertent topic marketing.

The fourth step: spreading and promoting the topic

1. Only a very small number of topics will unexpectedly become popular. The reality is that only one topic will become popular among thousands of topics.

However, there is "voice" in the media, including opinion leaders (KOL), namely celebrities, Internet celebrities, big Vs, etc., as well as traditional media, online media, and various media that fuel the flames.

Therefore, we need to make full use of these resources to allow the topic to spread and deepen. Of course, this may also require more budget investment.

2. In addition, it is necessary to add "auxiliary materials" in a timely manner during the communication process, otherwise a single topic will easily "die".

For example, during JD.com’s previous price war, Liu Qiangdong first announced that its home appliances would definitely be cheaper than Suning’s, and then he announced that he would recruit Suning price intelligence agents, etc., gradually heating up the topic.

In 2021, the Snow King of Michelle Ice City became popular, and you love me, I love you, and Michelle Ice City's sweetness also became popular. Michelle Ice City's subsequent follow-up was very good. When it was hot in summer, the white Snow King was changed to the black Snow King, which gained a wave of continuous traffic and attention.

The event of ERKE donating 50 million yuan became popular and boosted its sales in the following week, but the subsequent topics were not managed well and ERKE did not achieve the desired results.

White Elephant instant noodles became popular because of the 315 incident, and later they used topics like "disabled people" to spread the word in waves, which was very unwise.

The topic that Baiyang should talk about is not the topic related to "disabled people", but how Baiyang instant noodles can make Baiyang big bone noodles healthier and more nutritious. Through important product qualities such as taste and nutrition, Baiyang can stand out in the market of Master Kong and Uni-President and win consumers.

Step 5: Flexible Adjustment and Effectiveness Evaluation

1. Because topic marketing is involved, the process is unpredictable and there may be many variables in the middle. Some people may be established participants, some may be temporary "soy sauce", and some may suddenly intervene. Therefore, public opinion monitoring should be carried out during the communication process, and flexible adjustments should be made according to the development of the topic, "removing the fuel from the bottom of the pot" or "adding new fuel".

2. After the topic marketing is over, you need to evaluate the effect and review the results. What effects have been achieved, what went well and what went wrong in the process, and make a conclusion. This will prevent the brand from making the same mistakes again when conducting the next topic marketing.

Author: Liu Yichun

Source: WeChat public account "Liu Yichun's Commercial Brand Innovation"