New trends in music marketing models bring brands to people's hearts
& ldquo; my family laughs at me. Don't you sell soda? Why do you talk about entertainment all the time? & Dong Benhong, vice president of marketing of rdquo; Pepsi China Co., Ltd., told reporters.
since September last year, Dong Benhong, who is in charge of Pepsi China Cola and sports marketing, has devoted all his efforts to a music campaign called & ldquo; Pepsi Group Voice & rdquo;. In July this year, & ldquo; Pepsi Group Voice & rdquo; successfully launched in prime time on Saturday on Zhejiang Satellite TV. Up to now, half of Dong Benhong's emails are still related to this project. The Coke / Sports Marketing team he manages has invested hundreds of millions of yuan for this event, and used the resources of Pepsi headquarters in the United States & mdash;— they found the best entertainment marketing company in the United States and the top music producers in Hollywood, & ldquo; Pepsi Group & rdquo. The champion band will be sent directly to Hollywood to record.
in fact, it is time for brands to compete with each other to play music cards. Erie Qiao Luz named & ldquo; I love to remember the lyrics & rdquo;, BBK sponsored & ldquo; Happy Girl & rdquo;, Pepsi & ldquo; Pepsi Group Voice & rdquo; and other music programs all appeared on the stage, while OPPO music phone commercials were sung in the streets.
strong > grab young people / strong >
in the last century, the well-known sentence of Yan Dance stereo & ldquo; Yan Dance, Yan Dance, a song to a piece of love & rdquo;, opened the prelude to music marketing in China. As the language of the world, music can reach the hearts of the people without translation. As Zhang Zhiyuan, an expert in music marketing and CEO of Aiduo Culture, said, & ldquo; ordinary advertising is to bring the brand to people's eyes, while music marketing is to bring the brand to people's hearts. & rdquo; in Intel TV commercials for example the appearance of Intel LOGO is always accompanied by a short and powerful piece of music that comes to mind even if people are not watching TV and hear this iconic piece of music.
for young people, music has more magic. A survey on the musical lifestyle of young people jointly conducted by the new generation of market monitoring agencies and hot wave media shows that music is a very common hobby among young people aged 15 to 35, with 54.7% saying they listen to music every day and nearly 20% of young people listen to it five times a week. Therefore, music is a powerful marketing tool for brands that are targeted at young people, or brands that have aged but are in urgent need of giving young colors. It is the sponsorship of the music program & ldquo; Super Girl & rdquo;, Mengniu yoghurt is located in boys and girls & ldquo; Sour and Sweet is me & rdquo; 's brand image is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people; and with Jay Chou's song "my place listens to me", China Mobile's dynamic Zone brand quickly entered the territory of young people.
Pepsi is a representative enterprise of music marketing. In 1983, the TV advertisement featuring Michael Jackson, the king of pop, played a leading role in the slogan of rdquo;, the choice of Pepsi-ldquo;, which played an important role in the process of Pepsi catching up with Coca-Cola. After entering China, Pepsi still follows the music line in marketing. Zhang Guorong, Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok, Faye Wong, Louis Koo, Jolin Tsai and a large number of music stars sought after by young people have become the image spokesmen of Pepsi. & ldquo; Pepsi is a can of young people's spirit drinks, & rdquo; Dong Benhong said, & ldquo; continues to create and lead young people's new cultural spirit, this is our goal. & rdquo;
however, it is not easy to capture the ideas of unpredictable young people. Ten years is an era. In 1998, the slogan of Pepsi was replaced by the choice of the new generation of ldquo; & rdquo; and the infinite desire of ldquo;. Today, ten years later, rdquo;, has become & ldquo; Pepsi & rdquo;. They captured the latest spirit of young people nowadays & mdash;— creativity. Dong Benhong lamented that the phenomenon of Martian words flying on the Internet made Dong Benhong feel that ldquo; young people even created words, and their creativity was too strong. & rdquo;
Pepsi's music marketing mode has also changed, from the model of superstar endorsement to the support of creativity and creative spirit. Chinese band culture is gaining momentum, and a large number of underground bands with creative ability lack a platform to surface, so Pepsi teamed up with Zhejiang Satellite TV, Sina, A8, Air Network and other media to plan a band selection activity & mdash;—“ Pepsi Group Voice & rdquo;. In the design of the event, Pepsi also takes full account of the behavior and habits of young people. & ldquo; Today's young people may be playing with computers, watching TV and playing with their mobile phones at the same time. Their heads can handle a lot of things. & rdquo; Pepsi made the studio of & ldquo; Pepsi Group Voice & rdquo; into a three-dimensional studio. In addition to the stage, there are multiple cameras shooting at the same time in the backstage dressing room, singing preparation room and other different spaces. In this way, the whole process of a band from preparing to go on stage, to perform, and then to breathe a sigh of relief is captured. The part on the stage is broadcast live by Zhejiang Satellite TV and Air China Network, while the background part is broadcast live by Sina and PPLive. & ldquo; if you want to watch our program, how can it be the most fun? Turn on the TV to watch the program, put the notebook on your lap, and watch the tidbits of a band, so that you can grasp the essence of the program. & rdquo; Dong Benhong said.
strong > changing music marketing / strong >
& the change of nbsp; Pepsi also represents a change in the whole music marketing model.
as a traditional form of music marketing, there have been many successful cases in the mode of advertising songs and star endorsements. But with the diversity of the media, simple and extensive advertising bombardment is no longer effective. Many enterprises realize that they can no longer do music marketing according to the thinking of the past. PepsiCo is now doing less and less pure image advertising. In the latest Pepsi ad, Jolin Tsai, as a spokesman, only showed his face for a short second, and the rest of the time was occupied by the post-80s boy who shouted & ldquo; I can't hear & rdquo;.
many brands are looking for new models. In view of the fact that all kinds of massive music programs and music activities are springing up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, and have a great influence in the post-80s generation, especially in the post-85 generation, some brands begin to sponsor music programs and activities instead. However, with the change of music marketing mode, the rules of the game have also changed. In Zhang Zhiyuan's view, there are two key points in the success of music marketing at present, one is whether it is related to the brand, the other is whether it can cause viral spread, and & ldquo; there is a lot of waste in music marketing & rdquo;.
Brand association is an association system including brand characteristics, music characteristics, visual characteristics, and the characteristics of participating artists. Zhang Zhiyuan found that many enterprises just regard music marketing as event marketing and sponsor music activities when they see the popularity of music activities. But music marketing is not eyeball economy, music activity itself has a very strong brand, if the corporate brand does not establish the only relationship with the activity, the audience will not be aware of any difference after the change of sponsor LOGO, which is undoubtedly a failure of music marketing. Music marketing is an interactive economy and a process for users to experience the connotation of a brand, so it is not as simple as passive naming and sponsorship, the brand must be more deeply involved in the music activity itself.
most of the successful music marketing enterprises plan and participate in the whole process. When Mengniu sponsored 2005 & ldquo; Super Girl & rdquo;, at the beginning of the year, it worked out a full-year cooperation framework according to the sales of Mengniu yoghurt in 2004, and planned in detail the respective functions of Mengniu Company, Hunan Satellite TV, website and public relations company, how to cooperate online and offline, the plan of several major singing areas and the timetable of the whole event, and so on. During the event, more than 2 billion packages of Mengniu yoghurt products were all printed with the words & ldquo; Super Girl & rdquo;, resulting in a sharp increase in sales. In the activities of Pepsi Group Voice, Pepsi is also involved in every link from planning to operation. Dong Benhong believes that if ldquo; is just a name, you can only do vulgar things, because any media has commercial pressure. & the purpose of rdquo; Pepsi Group Sound is not to create stars, but to create. & ldquo; as soon as our program is over, many people turn the songs in the program into their own ringrings. this is the cultural phenomenon we want. & rdquo; Dong Benhong said. In terms of publicity strategy, Pepsi Group Voice is very different from talent shows, not to hype personal tidbits, but to let people know how these band members make their own music. Only by intervening in the whole process of the activity can Pepsi have a clear grasp of what is the focus and what is the by-product of ldquo; in the whole event, and ensure that it will not deviate from the creative spirit that Pepsi wants to promote.
but in Zhang Zhiyuan's view, in terms of brand association, & ldquo; Pepsi Group Voice & rdquo; still has a failure. Users generally need strong hints to evoke brand associations, but Pepsi Group Voice does not reflect its own characteristics in the details of the overall visual design. Considering that Pepsi's CI system takes blue as the main color, if you can paste Pepsi's blue logo on band costumes, stage structures or musical instruments, you can achieve the effect of visual association.
in the Internet era, if music marketing can not cause viral spread, then it is no different from traditional TV advertising bombardment. Zhang Zhiyuan believes that the key to viral transmission is to create a tipping point, which depends on the ability of music producers and artists. Ten thousand new songs are released on the market every year, and only ten or twenty of them are popular. If we analyze the popular songs from 1984 to 2008, we can find some interesting rules, for example, all popular songs have the words & ldquo; & rdquo; and & ldquo; you & rdquo; in the lyrics of the first sentence of the best part; many songs are weak to make it easier for listeners to find the accent, and so on. & ldquo; must understand music when doing music marketing. & rdquo; Zhang Zhiyuan said. Artists also have the function of viral transmission. An obvious example is this year's & ldquo; Happy Girl & rdquo;, Zeng Yike, the emergence of such a controversial figure, so that both her supporters and scolds have contributed to the viral spread of & ldquo; Happy Girl & rdquo;.
in addition, enhancing interaction with fans is also an important aspect of achieving viral transmission. Dong Benhong said that Pepsi and Sina cooperation, the most important is the latter blog platform. He also specially asked the Sina blog team to give special training to the bands participating in & ldquo; Pepsi Group Voice & rdquo; to teach them how to write and operate blogs. & ldquo; if you want to appreciate an artist or creator, you must understand his creative ideas. The launch of the blog will make people all over the country know more about the team and promote popularity. & rdquo; Dong Benhong said.
in July this year, Pepsi partnered with East Asia Records and Hongchuang Culture to establish Group Voice Culture Company to provide music production and artist agency services for ldquo; tomorrow & rdquo;, which emerged from Pepsi Group Voice programs. According to Dong Benhong, this is the product of rdquo; that Pepsi and ldquo; are trying to express. & ldquo; traditional record companies don't have a good profit model, and Pepsi has a lot of resources that record companies don't have in terms of artist packaging, TV advertising, and music professionals; these bands have the best chance of getting directly into our ads. & rdquo; Pepsi's move seems to go beyond simple music marketing, cross-border directly into the music industry, its deeper intention is probably to store music resources, so as to achieve their own music marketing & ldquo; sustainable development & rdquo;.