How did “Zibo BBQ” become popular?

In the past month, "Zibo BBQ" has become a hot topic on the Internet, and related topics have continued to rise on the hot search list. More and more tourists have also been attracted by Zibo BBQ and have gone to the local area to check in. So how did "Zibo BBQ" become popular on the Internet this time? Let's take a look at the author's analysis.

" The train station is full of college students, and the air is full of the smell of cumin. " This is a portrayal of Zibo today, and it is also the deep impression I had after my first visit to Zibo recently.

This spring, the small city of Zibo in Shandong Province became completely popular amidst the smoke and fire.

From short video platforms to social media to mainstream media, "Zibo" and "barbecue" are closely tied together and seen. Without any marketing planning, a city has attracted public attention because of its special catering, and the topic has continued to heat up. After tracing the cause and effect of the whole thing, the entertainment value officer discovered the group that pushed Zibo to become popular!

1. I woke up early in the morning and took the "barbecue train" to Zibo!

At 5 o'clock on Saturday morning, Liu Chao, a food blogger on a review platform, was woken up by the alarm clock. After washing up, Liu Chao put on his camera bag and rushed to the train station. Today, he was going to share his experience of "Zibo BBQ".

After entering the station, you can see the "Zibo Special Train" with the words "Zibo BBQ" printed on the body of the train from a distance. Young students are rubbing shoulders with you. When you step into the train, you will see colorful flags flying inside, and staff are enthusiastically handing out souvenirs to passengers. The students around Liu Chao excitedly exclaimed, "Wow! This apple is so big!" "Hey! Do you know which BBQ is the best?"

Amid heated discussions, Liu Chao's Zibo Special Train soon arrived in Zibo from Jinan. Liu Chao told the Entertainment Value Officer that from April 14 to 16 and April 21 to 23, the "barbecue train" from Jinan West to Zibo and back became a popular train for many young people to check in .

As soon as he got out of Zibo Station, Liu Chao was stunned by the scene in front of him. " It was the first time I saw so many college students appearing in a train station at the same time. And these college students from all over the world came for one thing - to eat barbecue . "

Liu Chao called a taxi and went directly to the barbecue stall he was going to visit. On the way, he chatted with the driver, who said that a lot of college students suddenly came in March, and these kids brought a lot of industries to the forefront. The Zibo government also paid great attention to this sudden "out-of-circle" phenomenon and quickly responded to it , requiring all service industries to raise standards and not overcharge customers. If they were found to be short-changing or cheating customers, the relevant departments would severely punish them. Liu Chao looked out the window at the barbecue direct bus, and the college students lined up in an orderly manner to get on the bus. Such targeted services are rare in other cities.

When Liu Chao arrived at the famous barbecue stall, he was frightened by the long queue in front of him. He asked the college students in the front, "We came to queue at 9 am." "I'm queuing for someone else." Looking back at the end of the line, Liu Chao knew he was late. As soon as the boss opened the door, customers rushed in. When Liu Chao was about to leave helplessly, several young boys stopped him and said, "If you want to go alone, why not join us?" Liu Chao was invited by several enthusiastic college students and finally had an authentic Zibo barbecue.

The real Zibo barbecue is a social event, with several people sitting around a small table, an independent charcoal grill, a plate of dipping sauce, a stack of old-style cakes, and a bunch of spring onions. Guests order their favorite skewers of meat and vegetables, and then chat and drink while grilling on the small stove, creating a lively atmosphere.

According to the method taught by the locals, first use the heated pancake, dip it in the dipping sauce, put onions, and finally put the meat skewers into the pancake and use the pancake to pinch and pull it. Hey! A Zibo version of TACO is done in this way. Liu Chao, who has seen countless dishes, took a bite. The tender and juicy grilled lamb skewers mixed with the rich dipping sauce, plus the spicy fragrance stimulated by the soul onions, after taking this bite, two words flashed in his mind: "happiness"!

Liu Chao chatted with several college students around him and learned that they were from Nanjing. The total budget for this trip was only 1,000 yuan. Judging from the current consumption level, they would still have some money left over to return to Nanjing .

After a day of strolling in Zibo, Liu Chao discovered that there is not only barbecue here, but the local government has also promoted extended tourism with barbecue as the core, such as Badaju Morning Market, Tangku Cultural and Creative Park, Wenchang Lake, Haidai Tower Zhongshuge, etc. Liu Chao told the Entertainment Value Officer that the originally planned store exploration trip was directly upgraded to a city exploration travelogue, and he was also moved by the ubiquitous enthusiasm and hospitality of Zibo.

2. Who is creating the “Zibo phenomenon”?

In the survey "Would you be willing to travel to a city specifically for its delicious food?" nearly half of the respondents chose "yes" .

According to data released by the Zibo Culture and Tourism Bureau at the beginning of this month, in the first week of March, the number of passengers arriving in Zibo exceeded 21,000 for two consecutive days, and the current data has refreshed the highest record in the past three years - 50,000 passengers .

So far, Zibo-related topics have been on the hot search list 13 times . The topic "College students go to Zibo to eat barbecue" ranked first in the city's hot search list, with a popularity of more than 5 million. According to the public data of Baidu Index, starting from April 7, Zibo-related searches showed a soaring trend, with the comprehensive search value increasing by 797.76% year-on-year and 96.59% month-on-month .

Data from Baidu Index

A series of topics related to Zibo make us wonder: why can this small city, which once relied on heavy industry as its core industry, return to the focus of public attention after losing its former glory?

First of all, let us bring the timeline of the Zibo barbecue topic back to the "Free Tour of Mount Tai for College Students" event.

From January 21, 2023 to March 31, 2023, Mount Tai Scenic Area will implement a free ticket activity for college students, and the activity is not limited to holidays, but also implemented from Monday to Friday. According to official statistics from Mount Tai Scenic Area on March 28, the number of tourists received during the three months of free tickets was about 2.07 million, a year-on-year increase of 472.59%. The number of ticket orders from tourists born after 2000 in the past two months increased by 565% month-on-month. The proportion of tourists is: 34% for those born after 2000, 24% for those born after 1990, and 22% for those born after 1980. Most of the tourists are college students. Since Mount Tai became free of tickets, college students have formed groups to climb Mount Tai, and shouted the slogan "Youth has no price, and Mount Tai is at your feet."

Since Mount Tai is not far from Zibo, cities surrounding Mount Tai are likely to become destinations for college students. However, who can capture the enthusiasm of these children depends on whether the local area has any tourism characteristics .

In 2020, after the Zibo Music Festival, Xue Zhiqian ate local barbecue and praised the delicious Shepherd Village barbecue on social media. This spread directly boosted the barbecue restaurant business during the music festival and made Zibo barbecue famous among a small range of young audiences. Since then, due to epidemic prevention and control reasons, Zibo barbecue has gradually faded out of the public eye.

In March this year, college students who were given a free tour to Mount Tai were able to visit a famous barbecue restaurant in Zibo . With the promotion of word-of-mouth effect and the relatively low consumption level in Zibo, students have been going to Zibo to experience the delicious Shandong TACO. A Weibo celebrity analyzed, "College students first went to Linyi to be extras, eat and drink well, and then took the money to raid Mount Tai, which was free, and then rushed to Zibo to eat barbecue."

Regardless of whether this analysis is accurate, we should at least face the fact that college students have the energy to ignite everything.

3. Internet celebrities are only in the blink of an eye, and only those who can catch up can reap the traffic dividend

In the era of traffic, it is not difficult to become an Internet celebrity, but how to truly retain the traffic dividend and make traffic make more and greater contributions is what we should discuss and think about now .

It has been a month since "Zibo BBQ" went viral, but we can feel that Zibo is protecting this traffic from top to bottom. First of all, there is official support, with the launch of a Zibo BBQ train and gifts for passengers. The head of the tourism department personally went to grassroots barbecue restaurants to listen to tourists' feedback, and the heads of transportation and public security explained safety measures on site to make tourists feel at ease. The head of the price department demanded that tourists should not be overcharged, and violators would be severely punished... A series of positive response measures show that the government cherishes and protects this "going viral".

On April 13, a piece of information about "free travel for Peking University and Tsinghua University students" once again attracted the attention of the entire network. On April 12, a self-media outlet released information saying that local leaders in Zibo said that this year's May Day holiday for students from Tsinghua University and Peking University to visit Zibo, scenic spots and designated hotels will be free of charge. Immediately afterwards, a reporter interviewed the relevant government, and the staff confirmed to the media that four special tour lines were arranged for this event. All Peking University and Tsinghua University students who participated in the event can eat, stay and play for free with round-trip tickets, and all expenses will be borne by the government. However, the official also emphasized that this plan has not yet been finalized.

What is rare is that the local people of Zibo also actively cooperated in promoting this phenomenon of Zibo going viral. First of all, the people responded tacitly and gave the barbecue restaurant to tourists from other places on weekends. On social media, you can see the enthusiastic "call" of the people of Zibo, the long-lost simple enthusiasm, which makes people want to rush to Zibo immediately.

The famous anti-counterfeiting expert @B太 wrote an article about "anti-counterfeiting" in Zibo. Not only did it not reveal the short-weighting in the Zibo market, but it also truly reflected the hospitality of the people of Zibo. Even @B太 himself did not expect that this article would not only receive more than 100,000 likes, but also receive attention from CCTV and People's Daily.

@B太 laughed in the video, "The Zibo Municipal Government was also thinking, I didn't do anything, I just did the standardized things, and I accidentally went viral." Behind this seemingly effortless appearance is the Zibo government's strict demands on standardized details. "Whoever smashes our pot, I will smash his bowl." Only when all the people of Zibo unite can we build a warm city and make traffic a key to holding tourists' hands tightly.

(Picture from Xiaohongshu @B太)

According to data from various sources, Zibo's popularity continues to attract new tourists. The entertainment value officer checked the hotel prices during the May Day holiday from the official website and found that there was indeed no "surge" like in most cities. Some hotels even offered discounts during the May Day holiday.

(Picture from Dianping hotel information)

We interviewed a Mr. Zhang from Zibo, whose relative also runs a barbecue restaurant. In order to cooperate with the government to build "Barbecue Zibo", despite the obvious increase in food and labor costs, the menu prices were not raised, and some drinks such as Coke were given away for free to customers in line. The relative believed that "it is better to make less money than to ruin the reputation of our hometown. The last time Zibo was so famous was in Qi State, and we don't want to ruin our hard-earned reputation ."

(Picture from Xiaohongshu @B太)

After reviewing the cases of Zibo going viral, the entertainment value officer found that such a model is simply not replicable.

It is easy to give you a hot topic, but it is too difficult to make a city, from leaders to vendors and people, work together to create a friendly environment. Therefore, rather than saying that college students come to Zibo to eat barbecue and make Zibo "eat" famous, it is better to say that the whole Zibo has gathered into a very attractive magnetic field with its own struggle and efforts, making those tourists who have come once willing to become the disseminators of "Zibo is good", and then the dissemination effect is multiplied, which creates today's "barbecue marketing legend".

Author: Liu Nana, Editor: Meiqi

Original title: Zibo, who is warming you by the fire?

Source: Public Account: Cultural and Entertainment Value Officer (ID: wenyujiazhiguan), value deconstructor of cultural entertainment, new consumption, and commercial technology.