Tianxia Online Merchants Liu Yukun
Editor Wu Lingwei
For some brand marketing, nothing can be completed by an online concert. If there is one, let’s have another one.
2022, online concerts frequently flooded the circle of friends. Starting from the online concert of Xicheng Boy (Westlife) video account in March, there are hits every month this summer: Leslie Cheung , Cui Jian , Luo Dayou , Stefanie Sun , Jay Chou , Andy Lau , Eason Chan , Li Jian ... Staying at home has become the norm, and online concerts have almost become a battleground for short video platforms. WeChat, Douyin , and Kuaishou are all pushing celebrities to go online, making a wave of "certainty" online with their nostalgia.
Starting from Cui Jian, online concerts have obviously expanded toward commercialization. "Tianxia Online Business" found that in this year's online concert, most of the naming was taken away by car companies - the concerts of Cui Jian and Luo Dayou were both contracted by Jihu Auto, a subsidiary of BAIC; Li Jian and Backstreet Boy were sponsored by FAW-Volkswagen and Lincoln Auto respectively.
Car companies and short video platforms have mutual interest. Car companies are rich and have always been good at marketing expenses. A video account concert investment document obtained by "Tianxia Online Merchants" shows that Tencent Video Account's most preferred sponsor is car brands; car brands also have a preference for short video platforms with increasing activity - offline exhibitions are often cancelled during the epidemic, and online concerts with tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of exposures far exceed that of an offline large-scale event.
Stars and video accounts make money, car companies make publicity, and audiences listen to singing for free. Is this a four-win game?
Car companies favor online concerts
a cold knowledge. The first Chinese star to hold a concert online was 2004 Rene Liu .
After that, the online concert has undergone a change in commercialization path. From Wang Feng , Faye Wong around 2015, to TFBOYS, Rocket Girls 101, JJ Lin , many celebrities have conducted online concerts to sell tickets to fans, and the organizers have received a maximum income of over tens of millions of yuan. Starting from 2020, online concerts have begun to operate normally, and the number has increased significantly. Data shows that in 2020, Douyin held a total of 124 online concerts, and TME live (Tencent Music Super Live) under Tencent has also held more than 100 online concerts so far, including the Mayday phenomenon-level "Suddenly Miss You" online concert, with more than 35 million viewers at that time. After starting the volume of
, commercial naming has gradually started, and car companies have also shown great interest in online concerts. In August 2021, FAW Mazda's "Trendy Sound by Me" named TME live, and singers such as Hu Xia , Yu Kewei participated in the event. Mazda also became the first car company to name online concerts. In the same year, Mercedes-Benz launched two online concerts on TME live, inviting singers including Tan Weiwei , Liu Lian , Chen Li , Jony J, etc.
2022, online hits have been released frequently, and Jihu Auto has become the most prosperous one, almost bringing musicians that meet the portrait of the target owner. First, in April and May, the two godfather figures in the video account were exclusively named Cui Jian and Luo Dayou. Among them, Cui Jian’s concert set a precedent for the commercialization of video account. On August 5, Jihu Auto once again opened the "You Want to Be Good" online concert on the video account. Please go to the "half of the country" of Chinese rock : Black Panther Band , Tang Dynasty Band, Zhang Chu , New Pants, etc.
In addition to the extreme fox, on June 24, Lincoln Automobile named the backstreet boys in the world's first video number concert; on September 2, FAW-Volkswagen exclusive title singer Li Jian's online concert "Year" was held.
Wang Zheng, who has worked in new automotive forces and traditional car companies, told "Tianxia Online Business" that in essence, the naming video account is no different from the previous naming variety shows, documentaries or implantation in movies. Although video accounts and online concerts have been around for less than a year, they are still traditional marketing methods and hope to reach the target audience to the greatest extent through the platform. The traffic of
video number can indeed bear the attention of brands. QuestMobile's "2022 China Mobile Internet Semi-annual Report" shows that the current active users of Video Account and Douyin have reached 813 million and 680 million respectively. At the same time, data shows that the number of users of online concerts in China is 142 million, which means that there is still a lot of room for growth for online concert audiences. But even so, more than 100 million users are already a huge exposure channel for car companies. The investment documents of the
Video No. 2 concert show that the Xicheng Boys' online concert has received a total of 3.9 billion views across the Internet, of which 90% come from users' spontaneous driving; the number of live viewings is 28 million, and 80% comes from user sharing; the peak online is equivalent to filling 100 Bird's Nest Stadiums at the same time. It can be seen that the private domain traffic on WeChat is indeed very helpful in promotion concerts.
These data are very attractive to car companies with sufficient budgets. Although the epidemic has had an impact on the macro economy, benefiting from the overall improvement of the auto market, the marketing expenses of auto companies have continued to rise in recent years.
Director of the marketing department of Jihu Automobile Tian Chuan revealed during this year's Chengdu Auto Show , the company paid 10 million performance fees for Cui Jian and Luo Dayou respectively. According to the financial report of its parent company BAIC Blue Valley , from 2020 to 2022, the company's sales expenses in the first half of the year were RMB 302 million, RMB 532 million and RMB 891 million respectively. The sales expenses of car companies such as BYD , , NIO , and other leading industries also increased by nearly twice the year. Wang Zheng said that global giants like Volkswagen have no shortage of money in their domestic marketing departments, and have a budget of more than 100 million yuan per year in event marketing alone.
What have car companies gained?
In the huge traffic pool, no matter who becomes the naming agent, he can get a round of attention.
Jihu official said that Cui Jian's cumulative number of viewers in online concert reached 46.03 million, and 120 million likes. Including Luo Dayou's concert, Jihu has gained more than 4 billion views on the entire network in just one month. Baidu search index shows that the average daily search volume of Jihu Automobile is 300, but it instantly climbed to nearly 2,000 after Cui Jian's concert, and Luo Dayou's concert also brought Jihu's search volume to its peak.
In the three immersive hours of the online concert, besides the singers, the brand is left to communicate with fans "everywhere", including light cards on the concert, customized cheer icons, customized gifts, and TVC advertisements before and after the concert, etc. During the Backstreet Boys concert, Lincoln Automobile also made five members sit in Lincoln Z for half an hour.
In addition, online concerts can also be directly linked to the native page of the car company. Consumers who are interested in cars can leave their personal information on it for convenient test drives later. Tianchuan said at the Chengdu Auto Show that Jihu has obtained more than a thousand sales leads through several online concerts.
At this point, car companies’ naming online concerts look like a good business.
But careful calculations may be another matter. Jin Zhu, who works in the marketing department of a new domestic auto company, said that the cost of obtaining a sales lead in the industry is about 300 yuan, and more than a thousand clues of retained capital cannot afford the investment of tens of millions of yuan.
In response, Tianchuan once publicly responded that the extreme fox has low awareness and the cost of obtaining sales leads is as high as 700 to 800 yuan, but as the recognition increases, the cost will be greatly reduced."The budget of tens of millions has been exposed by 120 million people, and has changed from marketing events to social topics. Not counting the exposure of private domain traffic, ROI ( return on investment ) has reached 400%. Of course, we think this cooperation is worth it!" Tianchuan said.
Takawa did not explain how the ROI of Jihu was calculated, but it must not include car sales. Jihu gained popularity through Cui Jian and Luo Dayou, but sales did not rise but fell. In July and August, only about 1,000 cars were sold - equivalent to the sales of the leading new car companies in three days.
facilitated the backstreet boy and West City boy to perform on the same stage, Lincoln Z, who sang on the same stage, also encountered the same embarrassment. The Boys Online Concert of Back Street was held on June 24, but Sohu Auto data showed that Lincoln Z's sales in July fell from 2,900 units in June to 1,200 units.
On September 9, the president of Jihu Wang Qiufeng said that the cross-border marketing of new energy vehicles is a protracted war of "letting on the long term". It expands traffic entrance and makes friends with future users sincerely, which is all laying the foundation for the ultimate achievement of sales growth. "The extreme fox should polish the brand with a long-termist mentality," said Wang Qiufeng.
But Jin Zhu did not agree with Jihu's attempt, "Jihu is no longer a new brand. The sales are depressed so far, which means that what we need to solve is not the problem of low popularity. Cross-border crossing is like this, what are you doing?"
Jihu Auto was established in 2018. Since its establishment, it has been under the banner of a joint venture with the global luxury car manufacturer Magna and introduced Huawei 's intelligent driving software solution, but sales have been difficult to increase so far, and it has not contributed profits to the parent company BAIC Blue Valley. In the past two years, the group has accumulated losses of more than 10 billion yuan, while the recently released second quarter report shows that BAIC Blue Valley lost 2.181 billion yuan in the first half of the year.
BAIC also has a good life. From 2013 to 2019, BAIC New Energy was the national electric vehicle sales champion for seven consecutive years, but at that time, it mainly relied on online car-hailing and other operating vehicles. Now, when the volume was quickly started on the C-end, BAIC instantly lost its fulcrum and quickly collapsed in three years. Even the extremely fox who spent a lot of money could not be saved.
For the marketing methods of car companies, whether it is elevator advertising, social media, circle of friends, or title sponsorship, it is essentially a means to quickly reach consumers. In this regard, online concerts undoubtedly have great energy. However, after reaching out to consumers, whether there is potential to continue to support these billions of exposures requires the confidence of the product itself. Neither Cui Jian nor Luo Dayou can make the final decision on buying a car on behalf of consumers.
In this regard, Tesla may also say something. According to CNN, on February 13 this year, the highly anticipated Super Bowl in the United States started. Many car brands almost captured all the advertisements on the field for ten minutes, with advertisements worth $7 million every 30 seconds. The next day, Tesla received direct doubled the number of orders compared with the previous day, the peak since 2022. Tesla, as always, did not place any TV commercials.
