This year's "May 1st" train tickets from Beijing South Railway Station to Zibo sold out in less than a minute on May 1 this year. It is estimated that more than 120,000 people will go to Zibo this holiday, and travel orders will increase by more than 2,000%. "Internet celebrity Zibo" broke through with a barbecue, and received 4.8 million tourists, while the entire resident population of Zibo is only 4.2 million.
The reality is that no city can take the lead in terms of competitiveness for a long time, and the competition for advantages between cities is also a dynamic and game-changing process. The central force driving change tests every "city operator".
There is no essential difference between city competition and brand competition. In history, every city had a unique "single competitive advantage", which was the first signboard that helped it become famous. However, very few cities can seize the dividends at that time and continue to build a "second brand" of urban competitive advantages, and there is even a lack of strategic thinking to systematically build "city-specific core competitiveness" starting from a single brand. Thus missed the best opportunity to upgrade the city's advantages.
Behind the Internet celebrity phenomenon, although it represents the public opinion, it also means short-lived, eager to imitate and unsustainable. How does Zibo start from the occasional advantage, seize the hard-won opportunity, continue to create a second sign besides "barbecue", and systematically build a unique core competitiveness of a super city?
1. What is more important than "Internet celebrities" is to build a city's systematic core advantages
Only Kumamoto Prefecture has seized the bonus of "Internet Red" and become a "Changhong City Brand".
Before the birth of Kumamon, Kumamoto Prefecture had no competitive advantage. In the original Kumamoto Prefecture, only the Honda automobile factory and the solar cell industry were the output value sources of the secondary industry. However, out of the protection of local forest resources, Kumamoto Prefecture still regards agriculture as the main industry. The tourism industry has also been blown up by surrounding Fukuoka, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, Nagasaki, and Saga prefectures.
In 2010, Kumamon Kumahara was launched to welcome the opening of the Shinkansen and increase local popularity. In a country with more than a thousand mascots, the cute but somewhat rustic Kumamon bear neither stands out nor stands out. No one expected that in just a few years, this "Japanese rural civil servant" would dramatically change the fate of a poor county by taking advantage of the right time, place and people.
Before 2011, Kumamoto Prefecture in Japan was just a little-known small county on the central and western coast of Kyushu Island. The economy was relatively backward, and the main source of income was agriculture.
After 2011, as long as Kumamoto Prefecture is mentioned, people will think of a cute pet with two round blush on the cheeks of a bear: Kumamon. It is the birth of this cute and cute cartoon bear, which created 6 billion US dollars in economic benefits for Kumamoto County in just three years from 2011 to 2014, not including follow-up income.
Developed to 2015 and 2016, it far surpassed hello kitty and Doraemon, and became a smash hit cartoon image. In just five years, Kumamon transformed Kumamoto City from an economically backward city dominated by agriculture and fisheries into a tourist city with its own strength, and the total tourist population increased by 20%.
"In a fast-paced modern city, a cute mascot is like a good anti-stress medicine." Some commentators explained Kumamon's popularity in this way. Although cute is a standard feature of many Internet celebrities, but in an era of overflowing cuteness and surging pressure, it is no longer possible to survive in the arena by relying on the word cute alone. It's cute, but not too strong. Netizens say so.
Its trading team added a footnote to Kumamon before the cute word: the expression is cute, the image is stupid, and the behavior is cute. With a dull expression on his face, he seemed to be forever saying "Oh, why is it me again". With a clumsy posture, the skipping rope is always wrapped around his ears, and he will fall straight when he gets off the car. Inevitably, he has to play a bit cheap, cooking almost burned the kitchen, making rice cakes even got his gloves in, and riding a small motorcycle is as mighty as a "windy man". Of course, he will be fascinated by beautiful girls.
This is the true nature of the mascot that everyone loves nowadays: he is not tall, rich and handsome floating in the clouds, nor blindly cute and obedient, but a down-to-earth living treasure, as ordinary as you and me in life. Just looking at the GIF of the Minister can make me laugh for a whole year!" The fans burst into laughter.
However, the road to Internet celebrity is rugged and long, and it is not enough to be "dumb, cheap and cute". Because there are thousands of information, if you don't pay attention, you will be drowned in the vast sea. If you carefully observe the history of Kumamon's fame, you will find that this is a classic case that every step of the way is accurate to the key points of the times.
Just debuted, the congenital conditions are not good, so I have to work hard to make up for it. Kumamon first took street photos on major social media to make his face familiar, endlessly brushing up his sense of presence. He is keen to join forces with non-famous Internet celebrities to gain attention, and he doesn't mind hugging the thighs of famous Internet celebrities to rub the heat. The behind-the-scenes planning team is a master, not only successfully hyping up events such as getting lost and losing blush, but also always grasping social hot spots for marketing. For example, he participated in the ice bucket challenge and was named by many stars; he appeared on the cover of weight loss magazines, but in the end he failed to lose weight and was demoted to acting minister.
Kumamon slowly became popular like this.
At the right time, the team came up with a big trick: open image patents. As long as it passes the review and proves to be helpful for the promotion of Kumamon, institutions or businesses can use the image of Kumamon. In one fell swoop, Kumamon became an internet celebrity: his image began to appear frequently in public welfare activities, cultural performances and various commodities.
According to data from the Bank of Japan that year, Kumamon brought economic benefits of more than 120 billion yen (about 6.8 billion yuan) to the local area in just over two years after its birth. The Asahi Shimbun reported in 2015 that the sales of Kumamon derivatives reached 64.3 billion yen (about 3.5 billion yuan) in 2014, 1.4 times that of the previous year.
"The success of Kumamon is the perfect result of the close cooperation between the mascot creators, the local government, and the staff behind the scenes." This is a popular answer on "Zhihu" about how Kumamon succeeds. Ingenious design and perfect planning are the keys to success, but behind the Internet celebrity Kumamon there is a background of the second-dimensional era that cannot be ignored.
How does Kumamoto seize the "Internet celebrity effect" and systematically create the "long-term red effect"?
1. In 2010, the Kumamoto County Government hired Kumamon as a temporary civil servant. On September 30, 2011, "Kumamon" was officially appointed as the sales director of Kumamoto Prefecture. This position is second only to the governor and deputy governor within the county government, and he directly obeys the governor of Kamashima, which reflects the county government's commitment to Kumamon. Pay attention to.
2. In 2012, Hisatsu Orange Railway built the "Kumamoto Bear Train" running between Kumamoto Prefecture and Chuanchi County; in 2013, the county government spent about 46 million yen to build Kumamon Bear Plaza, which has a communication area, The product information area and others regularly release information about Kumamon; in March 2014, Kumamoto Electric Railway built an "exclusive tram" that runs back and forth between Fujisaki Miyamae Prefecture and Miyoshi Prefecture.
3. Global media communication. "Kumamon" not only has its own Twitter, Facebook, and official website, but also insists on updating its news every day. At the end of every new news, the modal particle "mon" of "Kumamon" will be added. For the convenience of traveling from afar, I will take a photo with him Fans posted their itinerary and event photos for the day.
4. Build higher potential energy. In addition to catwalking in fashion week, participating in kabuki performances, meeting the emperor and empress of Japan, and participating in overseas visits. It is determined that 80% of the activities involved in making trouble, and 20% of diligently participating in the rules of activities that are closer to human life in the real world, such as bungee jumping, racing, "ice bucket challenge" and so on.
5. Media content operation. Get on a TV show, and make it content. Most of the gif animations in the love package are from the morning program of Fuji TV, which "Kumamon" participated in - Effort Awards (がんばった大奖). In this program, the bear child nature of "Kumamon" is fully exposed. Lift up skirts, throw props into the sea, "beat up" the beautiful young lady who went to the location together, and stir in the gloves when visiting the mochi mixer. No matter how bad it is, Kumamon will suddenly "pounce"...
6. Commercialization of popular IP. Since its birth on March 5, 2010, the cute image of Kumamon has gradually appeared in products produced in Kumamoto Prefecture.
2020 marks the 10th anniversary of debut. Kumamon, who is active in promoting Kumamoto Prefecture, sells products overseas, and his popularity continues to this day. The 2020 survey results show that Kumamon bears are still generating huge economic benefits. Timely upgrade "net celebrity" to "cute" as the core competitiveness of the city, and create a unique index system of city brand value index. The cute ecosphere created by Kumamoto Prefecture not only contains the values and concepts connected with the main culture, but also has its own unique values and concepts.
On the one hand, based on the most core competitive advantages, continue to lay out the second and third signboard industries that can stimulate the economy, highlighting the core of its own cute industry, on the one hand, superimpose the "four major functions" of culture, industry, tourism and community, The innovation of the model, so as to continuously incubate new industries and new ecology, strive to explore a new path that can be replicated and promoted, and create a healthy and virtuous cycle of the ecological environment.
To sum up, the logic behind Kumamoto Prefecture’s core competitiveness in building a city that can be “long-term popular” based on the “Internet celebrity effect” is the most typical representative of the city’s core construction from the “Internet celebrity to long-term red” system. For Zibo, how to seize the opportunity of economic effects brought by such occasional events and form a super city advantage in the short to long term?
First of all, it is necessary to distinguish the "labels" that can really win the love of the people from accidental events. The labels that are truly valuable are not from the official. It is a process of digging out from public cognition and serving the public. This is because there have been nearly a hundred cases of failure in the country to promote the city's core competitiveness.
2. Tap the advantages: come from the masses and go to the larger masses
There are hundreds of city "Internet celebrity labels" living in everyone's heart. The "label" recognized by the public can produce a huge economic effect. The truly effective urban competitive advantage has never been a generalized official slogan or multi-billion advertising. The real advantage is that there is no need for advertising costs, so that customers can drive themselves and flock to them.
Since the popularization of television, more or less activities to spread urban competitive advantages have been carried out all over the country. For example:
In 2006, Dalian put forward the slogan "Romantic City, Dalian, China", and launched a media campaign for several years, aiming to enhance Dalian's image and expand Dalian's influence. Dalian is a young and dynamic city with unique urban landscape construction, natural and cultural conditions, and many unique tourist attractions;
In 2008, Shandong launched the "Hospitable Shandong" logo, which highly summarizes Shandong culture and condenses the brand image of modern tourism. The logo combines traditional elements with the new trend of modern design, integrates ancient and modern elements through the graphic design of text symbols, and starts the dissemination for several years. It includes the regional brand building of 17 cities and dozens of counties and districts: Spring City Jinan, Xiaoyao Weifang, Family Love Yimeng, Canal Ancient City, Cultural Jining, Jiangbei Water City, Good Luck Rongcheng, etc.
In 2012, Henan entrusted CCTV Jinqiao Advertisement to produce a landscape promotional film to launch the promotional film "Memory Central Plains, Hometown Henan", which was successively played on mainstream platforms such as CCTV 1, News Channel, Financial Channel, International Channel, and Science and Education Channel. This stimulates the local tourism economy.
In 2018, Nanning launched the "Green City Nanning" communication plan. The purpose is to continuously polish the "China Greentown" brand, focus on improving the quality of Greentown, and write a story of Nanning with green development and ecological livability in the new era.
Guangzhou once launched the communication campaign of "Understanding 2,000 Years in One Day", with the purpose of enhancing the attractiveness of Guangzhou. It expresses that one day you can see the ancient relics and scenic spots left by the past dynasties in Guangzhou, so that more people can understand the trajectory of Guangzhou's two thousand years of historical changes and the development process and achievements of urban construction.
The sea garden is warm and warm Xiamen, the world's Chongqing is forever the Three Gorges, the end of the world is fragrant grass and the pearl of the sea (Sanya), the book collection is ancient and modern, and Hong Kong is connected to the world (Ningbo), climbing Mount Tai to ensure safety... There are many cases of urban communication, and some city advertisements Movies and slogans even change every few years. Their common purpose is to enhance urban competitiveness.
Let’s not evaluate the city’s advantage dissemination content carefully produced by various places, how much advantage there is in fact and other cities’ advantages, let alone explore what kind of cognitive changes the content can bring to the city. But will people across the country take action because Shandong is very hospitable, Dalian is very romantic, how beautiful a certain city’s representative scenic spots are, and which city’s history is so profound?
Obviously, the real advantages of each city in the minds of the people have never been divorced from the actual needs:
It must not be the real motivation for Shenzhen to attract people from all over the country. The people are from the experimental city of reform and opening up → the first special economic zone of the motherland → the gathering place of world factories → the city of entrepreneurship → the Shenzhen Stock Exchange to the number one technological city in the country. spread by word of mouth;
Do not want to leave after coming, and it is not the real motivation for Chengdu to attract people from all over the country. People learn from Sichuan cuisine with a variety of dishes, seasonings on supermarket shelves across the country, teahouses and ear-picking houses all over the country, the world-renowned panda breeding research base, the annual spring sugar and autumn sugar, and from the The J-20 of Chengfei Group, the Tianmei game studio with hundreds of millions of players, and the Chunxi Road where fashionable men and women gather from all over the country, etc., build up the yearning for the city of Chengdu bit by bit;
Reading two thousand years in one day is obviously not the core cognitive label of "Guangzhou", the earliest port city in China. What attracts the general public is the business environment with the highest service in the country, the border transportation that can reach the whole country and even the world, the handshake buildings that are still affordable for the people at the bottom to rent in the bustling and expensive urban centers, and the rich and diverse types of business and trade. Wholesale markets and job opportunities can accommodate employed people everywhere. . . . . .
It can be said that the core competitiveness of communication in many cities has always been divorced from the cognition, needs and preferences of the public, let alone the actual behavior of going to a certain city to settle, invest and do business because of slogans and commercials.
Most city marketing ignores a common problem: From the perspectives of history, culture, nature, livability, emotion, etc., who will be moved? Who will be attracted? Which groups have a deep resonance with the cognition? We must learn to tap the real advantages and zoom in The right advantages, starting from the advantages to compete, can naturally create a city's unique and longer-lasting "Internet celebrity effect".
Because everyone has a hundred "Internet celebrity labels" hidden in their hearts. Only by digging out the foundation of each city's core competitive advantages hidden in the hearts of the people can we create the city's second, third or even the Nth signboard around the core. The attraction of voting with your feet is the possibility of long-term operation.
100 people will generate 10,000 different attractive "labels" for 100 cities. Behind these attractive attractions, each city has gradually worked hard from the first label (the city's first brand) based on its own core competitive advantages.
In 1979, pop art master Andy Warhol said: "In the future, everyone may become famous in 15 minutes." The reality is more magical than he imagined. Not only can people become "net celebrities" in 15 minutes, Even the city can rush to the top with 15 minutes. Because of the song "Mohe Ballroom", Mohe, the "northernmost town" in China, attracted countless attentions on the Internet, aroused large-scale discussions, and a campaign of "Looking for Mohe Ballroom" was launched on the entire Internet. Obviously, Mohe has not mastered the method of seizing the dividends of events to create the city's attractiveness.
The way some cities create urban attractiveness also has the problems of fragmentation, discontinuity, and lack of core advantages: Chongqing’s 8D Magic Interchange, Xi’an’s Tang Dynasty Night City and Tumbler Show, Xiamen’s Seaview Subway, and Qinghai’s Chaka Salt Lake , The color of tea in Changsha is pleasant.
However, no gust of wind can blow forever. After the peak, it will fall back. The hottest internet celebrity cities have changed one after another. Looking back now, we can see that the once-popular Bowl of Wine and Liziba Check-In have gradually lost their freshness. At the same time, Internet celebrity cities are in the ascendant, and the wave of "super IP cities" is approaching.
Famous cities in the world have the core assets that continuously create the "Internet celebrity effect", and complete the layout of the city's "second, third or even Nth signboard" around the core assets, forming a siphon effect on competing cities.
Today, how to build a long-term "Internet celebrity city" is a strategic issue that Zibo needs to think about deeply.
3. How to become a long-term "Internet celebrity city" is a strategy that Zibo needs to think about
Studying the history of cities in the world, we can see the evolution of each urbanization, and in each urban belt, one or more relatively developed regional central cities will eventually be formed. But if you take a step further, you will find a wonderful law: Generally speaking, early urbanization is the offspring of industrialization, and the two develop at the same frequency and in sync.
The economic advantage in this period was derived from a certain No. 1 brand industry. With the rapid development of the No. 1 brand industry, the second, third and fourth brand industries gradually emerged. The development of urbanization can show a good trend of structural growth.
Most cities in mainland China are currently in the stage of transition from the first signature industry to the second signature industry. After turning over this inflection point, no matter how the output value of the second signboard industry grows, its relative value begins to decline slowly, and the role of the third signboard industry in promoting the city's core competitive advantage becomes increasingly prominent.
That is to say, first of all, we must find out the city’s core competitive advantage that can span cycles among competitors, and continuously deploy more signature industries around this core, so as to break away from the most basic advantages (livability, tourism, resources, geographical location) Only when competition evolves to a higher level (talent, multi-level pillar industries, technology and finance) can it radiate to a wider area.
Let the role of cities in the urban agglomeration system begin to actively differentiate, from small cities, characteristic cities, and gradually spanning industrial cities, technological cities, financial cities, and international cities. These are the six most ideal stages of urban evolution. It is also the six stages of the evolution of core competitiveness. At each stage, there should be strategic thinking and the layout rhythm of the first, second, and Nth signature industries.
Detroit's first signature industry is automobiles, but after the accumulated advantages of the first signature industry dissipate, due to the lack of layout of the second signature industry, today's Detroit has become a city of dilapidated and homeless people.
The evolution of Frankfurt’s urban advantages is also worth learning from China: from the mid-18th century to the mid-19th century, Frankfurt was the financial center of Germany. Based on the formation of financial core competitive advantages, it began to deploy chemical manufacturing, high-end technology research and development, cutting-edge technology and manufacturing, and international exhibitions , culture, tourism, service, transportation and other second, third or even Nth signboard industries. The same is true for the rise of cities such as Munich and Hannover.
Similar to the barbecue in Zibo, Yuanjia Village in Shaanxi is more attractive than the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, Huashan, and Huimin Street, and has a large flow of people. Yuanjia Village has driven a regional economy through food and culture, but it is hard to say how long it will last. Today’s Yuanjiacun also needs to create a second brand. At present, it is not enough to rely on the management model of Yuanjiacun. Based on Yuanjiacun’s core competitive advantages, can it build a food industry?
Today, Zibo will dig out the core competitive advantages of sustainable development from this "Internet celebrity" incident, continue to build the second signboard, and upgrade the first signboard, such as creating the best barbecue music festival in China, and secondly, creating a convention and exhibition economy. Is it possible to learn from Hannover to create an exhibition economy for Shandong industry? System construction starting from trends, advantages, and adjacent businesses.
Although the fiery reappearance of Zibo's "catch the roast", the urban competitiveness of Zibo City will not change substantially because of the "catch the roast". Now, it's time to think about how to seize the occasional opportunity of Zibo's "catch-up roasting" and make "net celebrities" become "long-term reds".