Li Zongsheng, who has been hailed as the "godfather of music" in Chinese music, is also an old micro-filmmaker.

Following the launch of micro-movies in partnership with sports brand New Balance, Mercedes-Benz recently invited Li Zongsheng as creative director and produced a micro-film ad, "Despite sitting on treasures, nings to be in the valley."

As a marketing strategy implemented by Mercedes-Benz to promote V-Class MVP vehicles, the film explores the theme of "success" with middle-class people floating as the starting point, and the film is also the first step of Mercedes-Benz's micro-movie advertising in China.

However, marketing is risky, and Li Zongsheng's joining does not guarantee that everyone will be willing to buy.

Judging by the audience's current mixed reaction, the film doesn't seem to have achieved the desired results.

In fact, Two micro-film commercials, "Ingenuity" (2015) and "Every Step Counting" (2017), which Li Zongsheng has worked with sports brand New Balance, have received critical acclaim.

These two short films not only help New Balance to convey to customers the value of quality, historical heritage of the brand concept, but also to prove to the audience Li Zongsheng superb writing ability, showing Li Zongsheng's profound sense of life, to achieve a win-win situation for brand owners and partners.

Mercedes-Benz chose to cooperate with Li Zongsheng, mostly based on the success of these two cases. It wants to borrow Li Zongsheng's previous experience in micro-film advertising success as a quality endorsement, so in the form of short films, the main creation class are as close as possible with the previous composition: Director Zhou Getai, Li Zongsheng as creative director, write copywritten, participate in scripts, soundtracks;

But this time it seems to be a bit of a roll-over. Word-of-mouth, many people think the plot is "unusual". Hot, after the propaganda news sent out, in addition to WeChat tweets below the comments section lively discussion, in the micro-blog, friends circle did not produce a "phenomenaty level" of communication.

"Despite sitting on treasures, Ninghuai Rugu" this short film advertising and Li Zongsheng two previous works are not significantly different, but encountered the polarization of comments. So how on earth should we look at it, as an advertisement that releases valid information to the target customer base?

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It is the original sin that it is difficult to impress people

The short film doesn't bring in as much commercial elements as the usual commercials, showing the selling points of the model's functionality. In Li Zongsheng's words, "the most exaggerated thing is that the man was not even in a Mercedes, but in a taxi".

It dilutes the product information, trying to reduce the audience resistance, showing humanistic care. The film is like a narrative prose, abstracting the understanding of life from several floats in a person's struggle - "but there are a few people who, not because of setbacks so concrete, lose the ability to look at life abstractly".

We need to respect Mercedes-Benz's efforts to maintain artistic means to convey its brand image, and instead of choosing the usual means of traffic star endorsements, it uses the nine-minute film to tell the story patiently to the audience.

It adheres to "slow" in the era of "fast" and maintains the attitude of a hundred-year-old brand. Highlighting the brand concept, weakening the selling point of products, "advertising" the pie led to the film is more like a public relations film, that is, the publicity effect of the film is greater than the effect of shipping.

So is this what Mercedes wants?

Putting aside the artistic means of the short film, the audience's controversy about the short film is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

Plot: Too Drama, no grounding gas

The film attempts to portray the male master as a man who represents a generation of successful people - hard-working, tough, aggressive and humble. The plot also uses hard work from the start, a few setbacks to zero, the cause has become a light model of the clouds. But most of the people who watch the film online are young people who are not familiar with the era and think that the plot is far from reality and has barriers to understanding.

Moreever, there are differences in the aesthetics of short films between Taiwan and the mainland. As a Taiwanese, Li Zongsheng is more or less influenced by the aesthetic of local short films. Taiwan's advertising is influenced by Japanese advertising, the plot will be more drama, the acceptance of hyperbole is high. Here are a few ads for Taiwan:

The MV of Taiwan songs is also more accepting of symbolic narratives. For example, the story of the old man building a rocket in the May Day MV symbolizes people's insistence on dreams.

Mainland audiences may not be used to this kind of plot design, many viewers commented that "despite sitting on treasures, rather than the valley" plot male owners choose to buy lottery tickets or buy roses of the plot is too drama.

Others think that the scene of children eating snacks to soil the luxury car shows that the hero is not right.

First of all, kindergarten children will be snacks everywhere, kindergarten teachers did not stop education, but smile to encourage. This does not show childishness, but rather makes people feel that education is inadequate. Secondly, the school bus carrying only a few children, but the reality of the school bus content is far more than single digits, which is to make the plot of the reality of the basis of indefensible.

Positioning: No precision sniping of target users

The V-Class MPV belongs to the mid- to high-end line of the Mercedes-Benz MPV model, which accommodates more passengers and is not an ordinary family car, and its target user is a successful middle-class customer. This part of the customer is rational enough, and will not be alone because of the vehicle advertising reflected in the humane care and decided to buy.

At the same time, the publicity draft of the short film reads "Young do not listen to Li Zongsheng, understand is not bewildered years", lock middle-age groups. However, the delivery channel of short films is a young people-oriented network video platform, may not be able to reach the target source.

Theme: too much emphasis on Li Zongsheng's personal feelings, lack of Mercedes-Benz brand elements

Li Zongsheng said the film reflects his understanding of the Mercedes-Benz brand. Don't care about the surface brilliant, with humility to seek the inner eternal.

But from the audience's point of view, the film is more like Li Zongsheng's personal sense of life, "success is never finally owned by who, we at most with it for a moment side by side." Mercedes-Benz as a witness to the hero's life, is a dark line, the audience is difficult to get directly from a view of the Mercedes-Benz brand information.

And Li Zongsheng's self-awareness is not enough to satisfy the audience.

Some viewers commented that Li Zongsheng, an ingenious figure, spoke well of "pragmatic", "arithmetural" and "excellence", but returned to the theme of "success", which was a bit vulgar. It was also said that although the text has the sentence of beads, but the overall style is "post-wave body", too careful words and phrases, and has a preaching meaning.

Formal: fictional stories with narration mode, rather than narrative self-story

The short film is fictional, Li Zongsheng's voice only appears in the narration, even the familiar songs have not sounded, it is inevitable that some expectations fell through. Many viewers said it was difficult to accept the slow, bland narrator, indicating that it was difficult to get into the plot.

Prior to Li Zongsheng's short film tells his own story, in that situation, narration appears like an inner monologue, very natural. But this time the use of fictional plot mode, so that the narrator from an objective point of view abstract analysis appears to be some preaching, some indifferent.

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Old bottles of new wine, the audience pay for it?

Look back at some of the micro-movie ads that Li Zongsheng made before.

"Ingenuity", which was promoted in 2014 for the New Balance Anglo-American collection, expresses the idea that Li Zongsheng and the brand are working together on the concept of sub-semen. According to WeChat background statistics, the number of full views in a month reached 1.3 million.

"A lifetime, always have to let some kind obsession push forward, so we can be willing to listen to the inner arrangement, focus on doing something, at least for the light and shade of time, the other left time to say it."

In 2016, Li Zongsheng and New Balance teamed up again to produce the film Every Step Counting. This time restore a person's real experience, a brand story, to talk about the two sides of the pace of life, talk about the meaning of time for a person / brand. Tencent's videos have been streamed more than 5 million times in the past five days.

Why did the first two films resonate better?

Start with your personal experience and be more sincere and moving

Li Zongsheng is a singer-songwriter, music producer and piano maker. Both films start with Li Zongsheng's personal experience and slowly sublimation in the narrative to the fit of personal and brand values. And his personal-related text more narrative adds a light wind, aftertaste long feeling, play the role of painting dragon's eye.

In other words, the paper is only a color increase. In the first two films, Li Zongsheng's dazzling copywritten skills were magnified, so that some people ignore the plot is the cornerstone of micro-movie advertising. Therefore, with Mercedes-Benz cooperation, "although sitting on treasures, rather than empty as a valley" advertising abandoned a solid and powerful reality of the plot, only to retain a consistent standard of paper, it will appear less persuasive, inflamed.

Brand tuning factors also need to be taken into account

According to the data, "New Balance was founded in the United States in 1906, entered China in the 1990s, and then withdrew because of channel chaos; "

New Balance's Chinese market team is young enough to capture young audiences by digging deep into creativity and content through digital marketing and focusing on self-media channels. Micro-movies, as a product of network channels, can reach young customers with precision.

Rob Mar-tini, Global CEO of New Balance, has said he wants to develop in China in three phases: educating and nurturing consumers, continuing to win over consumers, and mastering the tastes of Chinese consumers in combination with local design. These two films in the means of soft communication, the brand personality, and according to local conditions to educate consumers New Balance brand concept, to win the favor of consumers.

It has nothing to do with the great background of the times

Micro-film advertising has developed since 2009 and is improving day by day. Consumers have seen countless brands talk in micro-movies. Li Zongsheng-style short videos that impress people with plot and copy may still be novel in 2014 and 2016, but today, copying a new video in a model is like "new wine in an old gourd." Perhaps the addition of interactive elements, interpersonal elements, entertainment elements, etc. to maintain the existing emotional care elements can make short films more attractive.

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Conclusion.

After combing through the above three short films, we can initially explore some key points of micro-film marketing.

According to Mr. Ding Chuanning's article "Analysis of Micro-Film Advertising Communication Strategy in the New Media Age", based on the "5W" model, he summarized the key points that micro-film marketing needs to grasp as the standardization of the main body of communication, the dehomogenization of the dissemination content, the objectization of the dissemination audience, the diversification of communication channels, and the efficiency of the dissemination effect. These five points can not be separated from a big premise - to identify the target customers.

Micro-movie advertising relies on the network platform, there are steps for consumers to actively filter information, unlike traditional paper media, outdoor advertising, television and radio as directly to the consumer.

This requires precise channeling when delivering content and keeping content attractive enough for consumers to prefer to point out video viewing. Therefore, in the communication channels, micro-movie advertising should grasp the two channels of micro-blogging, WeChat, micro-blogging hot search circle to attract new customers, WeChat acquaintances forwarding and sharing efficient communication;

And for the brand, it is necessary to pay attention to, no matter who to cooperate with, through all means to make the brand concept deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, is its real ultimate goal.

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