From Cao County to Zibo, the "Brand Methodology" of Small Cities

Introduction: This year's "top pick" for May Day travel is none other than Zibo. This article conducts a series of analyses on Zibo's popularity, ranging from the underlying logic to the thinking on urban development, giving Zibo's development a milestone significance.

Another city has opened its traffic entrance.

Zibo, Shandong, has become a top tourist city with the popularity of "Zibo BBQ". At present, the total number of views of the three topics "Zibo", "Zibo BBQ" and "Zibo Food" on Douyin has exceeded 10 billion times, and the "Zibo" entry on Xiaohongshu has been viewed 130 million times, with more than 710,000 related notes.

This also reminds people of the previously popular "center of the universe" Cao County, which also achieved a qualitative change in its city brand by "making a small profit with a big investment".

Although they cannot match the resource endowment and mental strength of big cities, Zibo also has its own unique "secrets". From Cao County to Zibo, what kind of traffic leverage does the growth of small cities rely on?

01 What is the underlying logic behind the phenomenal popularity of the humanistic narrative of the communication path?

Is the popularity of Zibo a coincidence?

Perhaps, this traffic explosion has been brewing for a long time.

The fermentation and transformation of the public opinion ecology is inseparable from three links: production, dissemination and interaction. It can be said that the rapid popularity of Zibo barbecue is due to the fact that each key point in the dissemination chain is just right.

The tourism "time" between spring and summer has caused the topic of "college students' special forces tourism" to soar on short video platforms in March 2023. The demand for spending less money and getting more abundant experiences in a limited time is an in-depth consideration of a city's tourism resources, and it has also become an excellent opportunity tailored for Zibo.

As the stickiness factor law in The Tipping Point emphasizes, once the "suggestion" becomes practical and meets personal needs, it will generate attractive stickiness. Zibo has low prices, abundant food, and rich attractions, so it naturally becomes a place that college students yearn for to travel.

In the content production stage, college students took advantage of the popularity of the topic and led tourists to help increase the popularity of Zibo barbecue; in the communication stage, KOL opinion leaders promoted check-ins from a re-centralized secondary communication perspective.

The communication networks are intertwined with each other to form a synergy, completing the aggregation of traffic on Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, and Moments, and finally triggering more extensive interactions across circles.

To take over the traffic, the authorities also "went all out": Zibo Culture and Tourism added a "barbecue train" as soon as possible, and the Zibo government added 21 customized barbecue bus lines; volunteers were arranged at the train station to provide transportation, accommodation, barbecue, tourist route consultation and promotion services to passengers... Follow up services to fully guarantee the travel experience.

Strike while the iron is hot, not only making tourist resources convenient and accessible, but also continuing the interweaving of multiple communication hot spots and media reporting on it. This has also made the popularity of Zibo barbecue remain high, and screen-sweeping hot searches have emerged.

Of course, the popularity of a city is not just the logic of the hot selling idea. Looking deeper, there is a touching story behind Zibo barbecue.

How did it go from being ordinary to being a top streamer? Tracing back the path of transmission, an unusual explanation emerged: in 2022, tens of thousands of college students were quarantined in Zibo, Shandong, and the local government provided considerable care. The students promised to come back to eat Zibo barbecue in the future, and in 2023, when the spring was warm and the flowers were blooming, the promise was indeed fulfilled.

People are more willing to believe that it is this reality and warmth that become the "butterfly wings" that trigger the hurricane.

With this precious "two-way rush", college students have become the "tap water" of Zibo tourism, actively promoting Zibo on social networks through their own sharing, continuously accumulating "social dividends" for the city, and continuously disseminating this support through the changing communication channels.

When the city's humanities formed a mental resonance, college students' sincere recommendations for Zibo were able to gradually break through barriers and create waves with fine lines in the vast ocean of communication.

It can be said that the city’s uniqueness and emotional and humanistic foundation constitute the “underlying logic” for the popularity of Zibo, a small northern city.

02 From the popularity of popular products to the construction of value symbols of IP deepening characteristics, differences and segmentation

If we look at it in detail, the construction of a city brand requires an obvious "value symbol". Just as the core value symbol that brought Zibo to the public's attention is Zibo barbecue.

Of course, cultural accumulation and symbol construction are not achieved overnight. When the 2021 B station food documentary "A String of Life" became popular on the Internet, Zibo barbecue appeared in it.

What is the uniqueness of Zibo barbecue? Barbecue is not uncommon, and green onions and rolls are not rare ingredients. They may seem ordinary, but when combined, they have a combined effect of 1+1>2.

The soulful way of eating "small skewers + small pancakes + spring onions", combined with the unique combination of "one table, one oven, one pancake", is highly recognizable and brings a greater sense of participation, ritual, and accomplishment. The repeated folding behavior, even integrated with the meme culture, has evolved into a "gesture dance" like a college student carnival.

The empathy effect and the spread of a sense of participation have become the direct driving force behind the symbolic popularity of Zibo barbecue.

On the left is Zibo BBQ, on the right is TACO

In his book Contagious, American scholar Jonah Berger calls this phenomenon "social currency." In his view, valuable information and controversial topics have become a kind of intermediary symbol, and people are happy to share and participate in discussions to gain a sense of honor in interpersonal relationships.

The same is true for cities. As a symbol of a city's value, Zibo barbecue has enough characteristics, differences, and subdivisions to carry on the cultural impression of a city.

Characteristics, differences, and segmentation have become the killer weapons for small cities to attract more traffic.

Zibo is not the only city that has become popular because of this. Cao County in Shandong is also a typical case study.

Cao County's popularity is even more special. It broke through with the buzzwords of short videos and became the first "county-level city" to become popular through grassroots communication, attracting much attention in terms of volume. But after breaking through the circle, it showed further "extraordinary" talent, that is, relying on the "Hanfu" industry that young people love to establish themselves.

Of course, the changes in Internet buzzwords ebb and flow, but the accumulation of industry skills is not something that happens overnight.

It still depends on strength. Cao County's public opinion explosion point is not only the national trend of Hanfu. As the largest performance clothing processing base and the largest Paulownia wood trading center in the country, the topic is also unique. It not only contracts "Hanfu", but also contracts 90% of the coffins of Japanese people.

Relying on its highly topical regional economy, Cao County has further accumulated a unique mentality and has become popular among young people many times.

The cities that have been popular in recent years all have their own characteristics and heart: the delicious snail rice noodle that captivates the senses has opened up the enthusiasm of Liuzhou, Guangxi with its taste buds; Ding Zhen's unexpected smile has brought the purity of Litang, Ganzi to the fore; after the popularity of "The Storm", the fragrance of pig's trotter noodles in Jiangmen, Guangdong, where the filming took place, spread along the streets...

It is not difficult to find that every city has its beauty that is worth exploring. Once this beauty is shaped more uniquely, it can become a popular "trigger point".

For city brands, how to capture the "freshness" and tell their own city stories well is not only the key to trigger resonance, but also a powerful tool for game evolution.

As Tsinghua University professor Shen Yang once said in his paper “How Internet-famous Cities Can Stay Popular”: “If a city can activate the self-content production of residents and tourists, it can embark on the path of Internet celebrity and become the focus of everyone’s attention.”

Many times, the popularity of a city is like that of a brand, in which content is still the core soul and requires a complete set of triggering mechanisms.

Admittedly, the story does not end with the city’s popularity. From a brand perspective, “being seen” is only the first step. How to evolve from a “hot item” to an “IP” is a soul-searching question for every city.

Zibo is in such a changing moment. After the traffic exploded, Zibo also had to face the sweet burden of overcrowding. The performance during the climbing period is more critical. The charcoal griller was smoked black, the little boy in the barbecue restaurant called out "irritably", and the inability to finish grilling and serving became a hot topic, which further tested Zibo's service adaptability.

Like brands, cities also face the test of their reputation.

The commonality lies in how to transform freshness into trust and enhance the city’s reputation, which is the key to the transformation from a hit product to an IP.

03 The emotional anchor of brand humanistic soul resonance and the subversion of urban fashion trends

It is of course very difficult for a small city to go viral. After all, according to the logic of past urban trends, the scale and energy of a city take precedence over everything else.

For example, Changsha has created the gene of "entertainment for all" by relying on the film and television industry, and has attracted tourists with a number of new consumer brands - Cha Yan Yue Se, Wenheyou, Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau, Ning Ji, Panzi Nürenfang and other brands, each of which is capable and has formed a development matrix. Such a victory is a victory of resource enrichment.

At present, in small cities such as Zibo and Cao County, we see another possibility for cities to "win big with small": play to their own advantages and seize the brand's cultural anchor.

This requires returning to the foundation of the city's mind, the empathy effect. The rise of a city, no matter whether the trigger is food or landscape, people or meme culture, is ultimately inseparable from the resonance of people's hearts.

Traveling is a way for people to express their emotions in strange cities and achieve a certain transformation of their mood. The city is the other being gazed upon, participating in the tourists’ re-creation while being consumed.

Once we understand this, we will find that the experience is very subjective, and whether it is comfortable or not depends on more emotional variables. Sincerity is the ultimate skill, and this view also applies to the relationship between tourists and cities.

Let’s take Zibo as an example. When “barbecue” becomes Zibo’s city card, the peak of long-tail communication heat remains unchanged. The key lies in the sincerity and authenticity of Zibo people.

Behind this is the personal protection of the city’s humanities by every Zibo citizen, and even shouting the slogan: Fight for the honor of Zibo!

Under the halo effect, this small town did not get carried away, but wanted to seize the opportunity to turn "traffic" into "retention". Such ambition comes from every ordinary person: taxi drivers took the initiative to waive the bill for foreign tourists; passers-by who were asked about the barbecue restaurant said "I'll treat you tonight"; the old lady gave steamed buns to the tourists in line, and did not forget to say "welcome"; the owner of the barbecue restaurant rationally persuaded the customers in line...

Zibo’s traffic breakthrough is just the beginning.

When tourism began to recover, the logic of cities going out of the circle also underwent a "decentralized" subversion. People are more eager to return to the essence of the soul resonance and the return of simple and unpretentious values. The cultural expression of small cities that wins with sincerity is perfectly in line with such changes in demand.

With the Internet's support that breaks through barriers, we can personally feel the more unexpected "brand undercurrent".

For cities, the channel for attention promotion has become more "flatter", and becoming the next Zibo seems to be just one step away. How to improve internal skills and tell good stories has become a compulsory course for every city that wants to stand out.

Apart from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, there are too many cities waiting to be seen. They have been waiting for this day for a long time.

Author:yummy

Source: WeChat public account "Shock Copywriting"