How should brands conduct topic marketing?

The public's demand for "topics" is constant. Therefore, topic marketing has become a necessary marketing skill for many brands. So how should brands do topic marketing? This article provides five steps, I hope it can help you.

During the 2023 Spring Festival, several films including "Red River", "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Unknown" were released at the same time, and they earned over 4 billion yuan at the box office. Take "Red River" for example. The marketing team for Zhang Yimou is a company that is very good at creating topics, constantly creating various concepts, such as "reverse decline". Only topics mean there are audiences. Stimulated by various topics, "Red River" has earned more than 2 billion yuan at the box office.

In this era, everyone is living in fragmented topics, checking their phones and hot topics every day, and topics have become as indispensable as air and water. For this reason, topic marketing has become a necessary marketing skill for many brands: creating a topic for the product, allowing everyone to discover, discuss and spread it, and finally achieving a multiplier effect.

So, how should topic marketing be done? There are five main steps for brands to do topic marketing well: the first step is to develop creative topics; the second step is to carry out brand implantation; the third step is to formulate an implementation plan; the fourth step is to control the spread of topics; and the fifth step is to evaluate the effect.

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 doing topic marketing, brands should not just create topics for the sake of creating topics, but should make sure that the topics always serve the ultimate goal. Next, they should 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, China has made significant achievements in controlling the epidemic and national confidence is high, and many overseas students and elderly people working and living abroad have returned.

At that time, it was easy to create topics about national trends, national style, and national self-confidence and Li Ning also made good use of such topic opportunities to successfully break out of the circle. Countless new consumer brands also played with topics about national trends, allowing themselves to gain the loyalty of some consumers. However, under the current public opinion environment, if brands are still working on topics in this area, it may bring risks to the brand.

2. "Topics" cannot be spoken on their own, but must be spread by word of mouth. It is not enough for a brand to find the focal point of the topic, but it must also grasp the insight into the detonating point. If it can resonate with people or even vent their emotions, then private topics will spread into public topics, and then trigger even larger-scale 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 Mi Meng is a master at creating topics, and his skills in identifying detonating points are first-class. When we were doing public relations marketing for Xiaoliu Sharing, we found the topic of "rest assured" and successfully detonated 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 the creative topic. For example, the series of communication around "Dong Yuhui's Short Composition" by Oriental Selection was very successful. It turned out that Vancl's "I am Vancl" and Chen Ou's "I Am My Own Spokesperson" were also very good topic creations. 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 "discourse power" in the media, including opinion leaders (KOL), that is, celebrities, Internet celebrities, big V, etc., as well as traditional media, online media, and various media. Therefore, it is necessary 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, in the previous price war between JD.com and Suning, Liu Qiangdong first announced that home appliances must be cheaper than Suning, and then announced that he would recruit Suning price intelligence agents, etc., step by step to stir up the topic. In 2021, the Snow King of Michelle Ice City became popular, You Love Me, I Love You, and Michelle Ice City Sweet Honey also became popular.

Mixue Ice City's 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 50 million donation by Hongxing Erke became popular, which boosted its sales in the following week, but the subsequent topics were not managed well, and Hongxing Erke did not achieve the desired effect.

Baixiang instant noodles became popular because of the 315 incident, and then they used the topic of "disabled people" to spread the word again and again, which was unwise. The topic that Baixiang should have done was not about "disabled people", but how Baixiang instant noodles can make Baixiang big bone noodles healthier and more nutritious. Through important product qualities such as taste and nutrition, Baixiang stood out from Master Kong and Uni-President in the market and won 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 Brand Business Innovation (ID: shangyeyiguohui)"