Name: Chenxi Dai Student ID: 1932076 Episode 1-How viral marketing engage consumers in the digital world? Podcast Series: Stories behind the food “All about pschology and marketing strategies for food.” Host-H Ian Wright-W H: Welcome everybody to Foodest FM! It’s Chenxi, a girl live in a foodie wonderland. Nice to see you each Friday at 10 pm. How's it going these days during the quarantine? Recently I noticed that "How To Cook That" is now a Top 10 search phrase on YouTube. Wow-oh~Do all of you guys cook? OK, today's guest, Mr. Ian Wright, Chief Executive of Food&Drink Federation(FDF) to join us. (Applause) We'll have a talk about food marketing this week. Hello, Mr. Wright. W: Hello. H: Well, we all know that FDF usually focuses on the manufacturing sector, but why you change some of your focus on marketing? W: About 80% millennials want to "see the story behind the scenes" about their food. (Nielsen, 2016) Traditional ads can't satisfy them. Also the NewsCred Top 50 Content Marketing Brands includes just a few standout examples from the food space. Many food brands lack a content hub. (Papandrea, 2019) It's an emerging market, right? H: Wonderful! So do you think that "the content" plays a vital role in food marketing? W: Certainly. Posts with images produce a 180% more engagement. (Venngage, 2016) Great content is the base of viral marketing. Good viral marketing is a combination of good content and sharing-ability. Viral marketing (Issue 1) is a future trend. H: What kind of content do you think effective to trigger more shares? W: Do you remember a campaign hold by Chupa Chups 3 years ago? The brand mobilized with some influencers to share vlogs. They launched the #ChupaChupsChallenge, which consisted of sharing a picture of themselves as children and recreating the pose in a new picture with a Chupa Chups product. (Vinh, 2017) H: Ah, yes! I remember that. At that time my Instagram has almost been spam like “nomination and #ChupaChupsChallenge”. W: You guys were do in the trick. It was a viral marketing strategy. Did you ever hear about the social object theory? H: No... W: Social networks will be more effective if there is a way to activate relationships among people and objects. (Sprout Social, 2019) That's why most of us will respond to friends' invitation. For viral marketing, psychological reasons are the motivation, social media platforms provide a channel. Vlogs are always in a storytelling way. The light and fun pictures attracted your attention and recalled your sweet memories. It's another issue, storytelling marketing and emotional marketing. (Issue 2) H: I'm always wondering how ads trigger people's emotions. Do the stories have some special elements? W: A persuasive story consists of three elements, aspirational, memorable and a great sharingability, which provides good content. Customer engagement can manifest itself either cognitively, emotionally, behaviorally or socially. Cognition and affection include experiences and feelings. The behavior and society embrace the participation of current and potential customers. (Maslowska, 2015) H: Can we say that storytelling has an impact on cognition and affection? W: Exactly. The ultimate form for storytelling marketing is emotional marketing. Chupa Chups desired to reconnect with a teenage audience by evoking their memories, which is called empathy. Empathy in the story makes consumers imagine being a character in the story and creates an emotional connection between consumers and the brand. (Stern, 1998) H: Just like a sense of immersion? W: Fantastic. Consumers thought that their idols had similar experiences with them, they were a part of #ChupaChupsChallenge as their idols and friends. In this way consumers will build an emotional connection with the brand. Vlogs or posts are the carrier. H: Wow-oh~ I'm feeling like to go back to my university days, attending a marketing lecture. Dear professor, would you mind having a case study please? W: Wow-oh~ Here you are. (Hand in the case paper and watch the video) H: (Readout) Burger King interviewed several random-picked people and asked them "Can you be the Burger Queen?" Most of them answered no. On International Women's Day, women in Burger King restaurants were in for a surprise when they opened Whopper boxes then find a mirror topped with a crown with a message, "Each one of you is unique and is our Burger Queen." The video has been watched by more than 25 million viewers. And the hashtag #Find the Burger Queen has scored over 100 million viewerships on Weibo. H: The content delivers a sense of warmness. All the interviewees are ordinary people, which form a sense of immersion and evokes resonance. It's emotional marketing. The attractive content and the Weibo hashtags bring lots of views and shares. It's viral marketing. May I ask my score, professor? W: Great! And also noteworthy is that you need to deliver to your consumers a feeling like "it's my dream life which I will probably realize". It's not only a sense of immersion but also delivers aspiration. Your target audience is Chinese Women, so firstly you choose a local social media platform. Twitter or Instagram are useless. Weibo is not a man-targeted social media platform, so Weibo is OK. Users can create “super topic” on Weibo besides hashtags, which distinguish Weibo from other social media. Always try your best to take advantage of the social media platform itself. H: OK Mr. Wright. I noticed that according to your two cases, there are two ways of viral marketing. In the Chupachups case, it’s nomination. In the Burger King case, it’s the moving content which triggers sharing. So do you think that besides the content itself, is it essential to have some strategies? Like the nomination in the Chupachups case. W: Actually some elements can be a plus for viral marketing. First of all, you need to make it shareable. Viral marketing is all about your campaigns taking the internet by storm then spreading like a virus would. (Thelifeofmissafton, 2018) Viral marketing is always about the mass. Try to make your sharing as seamless as possible. Then always bring a resonance. Social sharing becomes impulsive when the content triggers empathy. (Savci, 2016) Viral marketing is all about emotional marketing. It’ s human nature that people would like to share what brings them a strong feeling. (Seiter, 2016) H: I’ve watched some viral marketing videos on TikTok. I also noticed that many of the videos are end up with a question and call for comments. W: Yeah, you make sense. In this way there will be more engagement. As I mentioned above, viral marketing is always about the mass. Engagement will form a stronger customer community. H: Social media platforms do provide a proper channel for users to share and comment. W: Yeah, that’s why digital marketing is the future. The social media involves more attractive content and an easier access to engage. H: Thank you so much for coming Mr. Wright. OK, guys thank you so much for listening. Viral marketing is based on good content, while good content brings emotional resonance. Always draw your consumers a bright future. And always take good use of the social media platform itself, which can have a greater impact on your marketing results. We'll be back next Friday. It's Chenxi at Foodest FM. See ya. Reference: Archive.shine.cn. (2017). Burger King marks women’s day with Burger Queen. [online] Available at: https://archive.shine.cn/business/consumer/Burger-King-marks-womens-day-with-BurgerQueen/shdaily.shtml [Accessed 19 Apr. 2020]. https://www.facebook.com/thelifeofmissafton (2018). Viral Marketing: Marketing Tactics For Viral Success. [online] Disruptive Advertising. Available at: https://www.disruptiveadvertising.com/marketing/viral-marketing/ [Accessed 3 Apr. 2019]. Killian, G. and McManus, K. (2015). A marketing communications approach for the digital era: Managerial guidelines for social media integration. Business Horizons, 58(5), pp.539–549. Maslowska, E., Malthouse, E. and Collinger, T. (2015). The Customer Engagement Ecosystem. SSRN Electronic Journal. Nielsen (n.d.). The Keys to Unlocking the Millennial Mindset. [online] Available at: https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2016/keys-to-unlocking-the-millennialmindset/ [Accessed 16 Apr. 2020]. Papandrea, D. (2019). Food Content Marketing: Top Brands Cooking Up Effective Strategies. [online] Insights. Available at: https://insights.newscred.com/food-content-marketing-topbrands-cooking-up-effective-strategies/ [Accessed 13 Apr. 2020]. Savci, M. (2016). Relationship between Impulsivity, Social Media Usage and Loneliness. Educational Process: International Journal, 5(2), pp.106–115. Seiter, C. (2016). The Psychology of Social Media: Why We Like, Comment, and Share Online. [online] Resources. Available at: https://buffer.com/resources/psychology-of-social-media. Sprout Social. (2019). How to build your social media marketing strategy for 2019. [online] Available at: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-marketing-strategy/. Stern, B.B. (1998). Representing consumers : voices, views, and visions. London ; New York: Routledge. Venngage. (2016). What Marketers Should Know About the Psychology of Visual Content. [online] Available at: https://venngage.com/blog/marketing-psychology/. Vinh, C. (2017). The 10 Best Food Influencer Marketing Campaigns of 2017. [online] Malou Food Influencer Marketing. Available at: https://malou.io/food-influencer-marketing/?lang=en [Accessed 13 Apr. 2020]. Background music: [Chillstep] Said The Sky Listen. (2014). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbUK0XAbaow [Accessed 24 Apr. 2020]. Available at: [Violin]Axel Wernberg, Linne & Ennex - Return (Aroze Violin Remix). (2016). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAY_ejcOPc8 [Accessed 24 Apr. 2020].
