New variables in culture.
Author |Bobby (Beijing).
Cultural attributes may be the most important dimension to understand the development of domestic brands in recent years.
With the iteration of domestic consumers, the development of brands is increasingly combined with the cultural industry and the creative industry. New brands that have been able to stand out in recent years often need to establish a connection with certain cultural symbols. In the past, these changes were more likely to occur in new consumer segments, but as the market evolves, brands in more sectors are also looking to establish their own cultural values.
China Radio and Television's efforts in 2023 are a new and important sample to observe this trend.
How can operators build their own cultural values? Does the communications industry need more cultural attributes to attract consumers? As an interloper who broke the three-pole pattern of operators in the past, how will China Radio and Television, the fourth musketeer from the cultural industry, shape a new cultural brand?
One year of TOC operation is not enough to answer these questions. However, a series of attempts by China Radio and Television have indeed brought surprises to the communications industry.
1.Do operators need cultural attributes?
When discussing an operator's brand image, it is often easy to focus on technology and services. Of course, this is the core factor for users to establish brand awareness, especially after the advent of 5G, technical advantages have become the mainstream of publicity. In fact, cultural attributes have always been an important factor in building the brand image of operators.
A typical case in the past is that in 2003, China Mobile invited Jay Chou, who was still a cutting-edge singer at the time, as the spokesperson of "Dynamic Zone". This also shows that as early as 20 years ago, content building capabilities have become a key factor in the competition of several operators. The reason is that it is difficult for the public to have a concrete understanding of abstract communication technology, and the service advantage will inevitably be slowly pulled together in the competition. The cultural label can shape the unique tonality of the brand and form a moat.
The so-called tonality is actually the user's conditioned association with it when making the best choice. For young people, whether the brand is culturally relevant or not is more important when making choices, which is why Dynamic Zone was so successful at the time.
In today's media environment, it has become more necessary to create an operator brand with cultural attributes.
The first is the change in the competitive environment. Operators are increasingly entering a stock market. In a situation where it is difficult for each service to open a huge gap, it is becoming more and more important to build brand awareness and brand stickiness.
The second is the dramatic change in the media environment, which makes the public more and more based on certain emotions and values when making brand choices. For example, the explosion of White Elephant and Hongxing Erke in the past is related to the surging emotions of Internet users. And these emotional bursts are often related to the cultural and social symbols associated with the brand.
China Radio and Television 5G launched an interactive activity on Weibo around Section 192
For technology brands, users are also paying more and more attention to their symbolic value, and some have even formed a fan culture. When striving for young consumers, many brands have gone down in person, such as in the emerging youth community of station B, many brands are strengthening marketing, or playing memes and editing ghost animals in official accounts, or carrying out house dance involution, trying to strengthen the sense of closeness with young people.
For China Radio and Television 5G, a new player in the field of communications, it is naturally more necessary and urgent to build a cultural brand.
China Radio and Television obtained a 5G commercial license in 2019 and officially launched 5G network services in 2022. In this market where the competitive landscape has been solidified for a long time, cultural attributes are undoubtedly an important entry point to establish differentiated advantages with the three major operators.
In the 2023 school orientation, China Radio and Television 5G brand is trying to face college students with a more differentiated play, so as to form brand awareness, including many attempts to combine with youth culture. For example, ** cooperate with many KOLs and young apps, and ** use more youthful and beautiful promotional materials.
In addition to forming a differentiated competitive advantage, the combination with popular culture can also make the existence of China Radio and Television widely advertised. At present, the most disseminated effect is naturally the popular culture created by various Internet communities, such as information that can be memeized, which often has a strong circle penetration. With the cooperation with Sister Wang is coming, @中国广电5g也在抖音开启了魔性rap挑战.
On the other hand, China Radio and Television has a longer history of cultural production, which makes China Radio and Television more handy in cultural branding. In the past, the Department of Radio and Television has always been the most important provider of popular culture in China. In 2023, China Radio and Television Network Co., Ltd. was once again selected as one of the top 30 cultural enterprises in the 15th China.
The cultural trend of the past few decades has been participated in and even led by radio and television, which provides a transitional premise for China Radio and Television's 5G business to quickly enter the cultural context of young people. In the new era, China Radio and Television still maintains a strong cultural productivity, which also lays a solid foundation for China Radio and Television 5G to shape its own cultural brand.
2.Dual-cultural communication mechanisms
Throughout 2023, in the process of brand image building, China Radio and Television 5G brand is gradually exploring a set of composite communication mechanisms suitable for itself.
The first priority of this system is still the production and dissemination of popular culture in new media. In this communication process, the advantage of China Radio and Television's 5G brand is its content capabilities, as well as the awareness of dialogue with young users. This makes China Radio and Television's 5G brand seek to have a dialogue with pop culture when carrying out brand promotion, rather than talking to itself.
Therefore, in the process of brand communication, China Radio and Television 5G pays special attention to the exploration of new communities. In important new communities such as Weibo and Douyin, China Radio and Television 5G brands have carried out extensive cooperation and content co-creation. These two platforms are important places for the production and dissemination of Internet culture, and in this process, China Radio and Television's 5G brand building has gradually entered youth culture and Internet culture.
China Radio and Television also pays attention to the combination of long and short content. In the past year, the partners of China Radio and Television's 5G brand include not only long-term IPs such as "If You Are Honest Do Not Disturb 3" and "The Sound of Life", but also apps with many young users such as palm reading and quick comics, as well as Douyin bloggers such as Sister Wang.
Diversified cooperation objects, pointing to the complex user market. Traditional long-term content has been cultivated in the market for many years, and its users are often the backbone of consumption. Apps such as Palm Reading are aimed at younger users and target the next generation of consumers. And Sister Wang is here for the sinking market, and the Douyin platform where she is located has the ability to radiate all ages.
In these cooperations, China Radio and Television not only relies on its original content tonality to highlight its own concepts, but also pays attention to content co-creation and output, thus forming a multi-level and complex brand culture output path.
When cooperating with "If You Are Honest Do Not Disturb 3", China Radio and Television 5G values the science fiction attribute of its content and the fit of 5G, and "The Sound of Life" has a strong national ** attribute. These two IPs have undergone years of development, and have formed a distinct IP effect in the minds of users, which can allow users to establish a cultural connection between the tonality of these IPs and China Radio and Television 5G.
When cooperating with apps such as Sister Wang, China Radio and Television 5G emphasizes the output of content, especially the "Provincial Song" jointly released with Sister Wang, which has gained a lot of popularity on Douyin, allowing a direct connection between popular content and brands.
The second is to rely on the original China Radio and Television system to carry out a more systematic offline communication of brand culture.
For example, after the launch of Douyin's popular "Provincial Song", this material will continue to be promoted in radio and television business halls across the country. Relying on the communication channels of China Radio and Television, this ** influence has deeply entered the minds of radio and television users everywhere. Not only on Douyin, but also on the streets and alleys, you can also hear this demonic song.
This mode of communication is more systematic, and it also makes up for the shortcomings of information dissemination in the Internet era. With the development of new **, it is difficult for national content to appear, so a lot of online publicity is easy to cause a sensation in the circle, but it may not have any waves for users in other information cocoons.
Offline is the neglected place of brand building in the new era, and most of the publicity of new brands in the past is based on online, but the logic of the algorithm is often difficult to make the brand have real penetration, and it also makes many new brands weak in succession, or their influence is limited to a certain circle culture.
And China Radio and Television has business halls all over the country, covering the majority of those who are silent on the Internet. To a certain extent, the provision of mobile communication services at traditional cable TV service processing points will also make these users more familiar and convenient. If platforms such as Douyin and Weibo are the communication arteries for brands to reach users, then the business hall is the capillaries all over the country that reach the minds of users.
Communication services are inherently infrastructural and provide services to the entire population. The top-down communication channel of China Radio and Television can eliminate the blind spots of brand marketing, and at the same time maximize the success of the previous publicity in the new **.
The branches of China Radio and Television are not only channels for the dissemination of brand culture, but also participate in the co-creation of content and become the creators of brand culture. In the propaganda of 5G radio and television is not so provincial, branches in various provinces have launched posters with regional characteristics.
The poster of Sichuan Radio and Television was designed with a clever pun on the word "province". Province not only expresses the word province of saving money, but also expresses the meaning of the province of Sichuan Province. In the poster, Province has made a combination of prominence and region, and the first thing users see is the three largest words, Sichuan Province. The poster also incorporates regional elements of Sichuan Province, such as pandas and other famous attractions in the province.
The publicity of each branch has added this marketing event to the cultural symbols of various provinces, and it has also allowed China Radio and Television to have both overall brand tonality and localized cultural attributes when talking to users across the country.
The process of launching the poster is not a lonely battle, but is formed in the continuous running-in and communication between the headquarters and various branches. This communication mechanism ensures that the overall brand marketing intent is combined with the local characteristics and creativity.
Using the creations of provincial companies, the propaganda of China Radio and Television has formed a joint force and a good chemical reaction.
After all, China is a vast region, and the consumer market with huge differences, the demands of consumers in different regions are great, so that the branches of various provinces and business halls around the country can participate in the content construction of the brand, which can serve the needs of consumers more subdivided and accurately, and can also make the cultural brand of China Radio and Television 5G more three-dimensional and diverse.
Through these efforts, China Radio and Television's 5G brand is trying to build itself into a complex cultural brand, which includes youth culture, online culture and regional culture. How much China Radio and Television can bring changes to the competitive landscape of operators may also depend on how much it ultimately expands in the cultural dimension.