The campaign of Skyworth coocaa TV: TikTok Rap Challenge represents in microcosm what is our core philosophy of overseas marketing.
Beyond Next won many prizes in the overseas category of the ROI Festival On 20 October 2021.
Skyworth coocaa TV: TikTok Rap Challenge is a new attempt to enrich its brand image and expand audience in the Vietnamese market. The campaign has already won a few awards and gained some buzz in China. Since we have the opportunity, however, to win the ROI Festival again, we would like to take this opportunity to discuss the features of the overseas social media marketing environment, combining with the campaign and market, and contrast domestic and international social media environments.
Domestic or Overseas? Similarities and differences
After the second internet revolution, the philosophy of domestic social media marketing has become very different from overseas one. The former one is advanced and complicated, whatever in terms of content or ways to play. However, as a creative team with some experience in the domestic market, we have also found a lot to take a page from our previous experience. On that basis, we must abandon inappropriate philosophy and explore new.
If we were to lay out everything we want to say in a chatty way, the piece would become uninteresting, so we might as well present our arguments in simplicity by using a bullet-point column.
Similarities:
The mindset of integrated marketing has not changed significantly (all clients should also see that if any link in the integrated marketing chain is randomly ignored, which may lead to a direct impact on marketing).
A greater eagerness to widespread events than at home (although the hotspot events are basically in terms of culture and society, they vary greatly from market to market).
Local media strategy and execution takes up the majority of the media team’s time.
Difference：
Whatever at home or overseas, creation goes first in marketing companies. However, domestic companies are greatly more sophisticated and extraordinary than foreign ones in terms of channeling traffic, transmitting audiences between social media and other ways that are needed to build a traffic pool.
Overseas social media matrix lacks of domestic mainstream platforms that can build vertical communication with audiences. (e.g. Xiaohongshu)
Overseas e-commerce is simpler and more direct than domestic e-commerce. As a marketer responsible for peripheral communication, there is no organic, direct and effective way to connect with e-commerce.
Beyond Next Methodology
There are many differences at home and overseas, but there is a saying from foreigners, “we need to Embrace the Difference”. So how Beyond Next embraces the differences in practice?
How to Embrace the Difference
1. Try to cost your budget and marketing strategies on one platform, FB? YTB？INS？…
(1) Except for some e-commerce campaigns in specific cases, normally, directly channel traffic from platforms to the e-commerce platform rather than pooling traffic across social media platforms.
2. Do not have illusions about live-streaming sales
(1) Foreigners have a limited tolerance to marketing (especially for those who can be reached vertically) If they browse interesting staff but advertisement is involved, it will end up in poor conversion rate, even leaving a bad impression of the brand.
3. It is better for e-commerce to marketing in a simple and direct way
(1) Due to the booming domestic e-commerce environment, the play of the domestic promotion festival often have strongly interactive game mechanics, therefore, peripheral communication should match promotion mechanism. Naturally, the peripheral communication of domestic e-commerce has a strong sense of interactive experience.
(2) The foreign e-commerce climate is simple, therefore, the domestic marketing mindset is unadapted.
① The public does not have a connection between interactive game mechanics and shopping
② Overseas mainstream e-commerce is contained by the management of merchants, fair competition and other reasons, the marketing strategy is simple (discount is the main promotion)
③ Marketing in various scenes is very common at home, but it is very effective in foreign countries at present. Our mindset is to find the scene that can directly hit the hearts of the local people, which is the toughest call.
Conclusion:
Compared to the domestic marketing environment, overseas marketing requires much more creativities in some cases. However, it is easier for overseas marketer to understand local social media marketing strategies, and even the details of communication strategies. But simplification do not mean nothing to do. It needs solid creative fundamentals in every detail, which can completely convey information to users.
Although there are similarities, we can’t completely throw out the domestic experience for its advance.
Although there are differences, we can’t simply think that complex and interesting content is good, and overseas social media climate is inappropriate to marketing.
In closing, let me introduce our company again.
We are Beyond Next, specialized in global branding strategy with creativity for Chinese companies. After a difficult initial time and internal adjusting, the company slowly began to find its unique feature as a “small-sized but fine” company. We boast a profound understanding of social media and practical local marketing experience in Europe and the US, different from other purely overseas marketing agencies. Our ultimate goal is to create foreign market for Chinese brands that are about to enter into the unknown land. Our company, as an engine, makes all efforts for survival and strength of the brands.
