Jonathan Lee Endorsed The New Balance Cross Border Film "Ingenuity" 5 Days Clicked 5 Million

In order to do middle class business, brands and advertising companies create a "Jonathan Lee".

New Balance once again found Jonathan Lee.

The big brother of the Chinese music circle has taken an advertising movie "every step counts" for the anniversary of New Balance 110. It has been online for only 5 days, and has been broadcast in Tencent videos more than 5 million times.

Taking into account the fact that video advertising itself is not easy to propagate, coupled with the astonishing duration of this video for 12 minutes, the length of video is usually significantly negatively correlated with the number of viewers. This effect should exceed the expectations of New Balance.

This should not be the first time your friends circle has been painted by Jonathan Lee and New Balance.

In August 2014, the two collaborated with an advertising movie "ingenuity", which was 3 minutes and 30 seconds long. According to the background data of WeChat, the number of full viewing in one month has reached 1 million 300 thousand times, and there are also many discussions.

Compared with other big artists, Jonathan Lee's media image is hard to say what star attributes. In recent years, he has endorsed and participated in the mainland market. There are not many advertising works. In addition to the two video ads of New Balance, this is the January New Year TV advertisement for "Apple New Year song" with Li Jianqing and Bai an.

Of course, after the advertisement was broadcast, it soon aroused discussion.

This kind of market feedback makes Jonathan Lee seem to have some advertising box office guarantee.

But for New Balance, it is still a thought-provoking choice to let Jonathan Lee, who is older and has different cultural attributes, as spokesperson.

When you first filmed "ingenuity", you can also understand it as cross-border cooperation. In New Balance, it is because the identity of Jonathan Lee's founder of the "handcrafted guitar brand" coincides with the development concept that the brand wishes to emphasize. At that time, the starting point was only on the line of a British American product line of New Balance.

Compared with this 110th Anniversary marketing campaign, the market was not so popular at that time.

In the piece of ingenuity, Jonathan Lee and the craftsmen from New Balance factory alternate to concentrate on their work: guitar and a pair of New Balance shoes.

New Balance, of course, hopes that 110th anniversary of the publicity will be able to achieve or even exceed the communication effect of "ingenuity". But this time, they must consider more things. If they choose Jonathan Lee, it means that Jonathan Lee will become the internal asset of the brand and become the spokesman of the solidified brand personality.

"This is not only a problem of the nature of a project, but a strategic issue about the trend of the brand."

Li Sanshui told reporters that the W advertising company he created was the agency responsible for the 110th Anniversary brand publicity.

New Balance put forward two requirements to W: on the one hand, to cooperate with the brand's global activities; it also found designers in the United States and Japan, Terry Heckler (designer of New Banlance and Starbucks logo) cooperated with music master Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Emphasis is placed on numbers, and this is also a new slogan for the company this year.

Numbers are evolving and growing.

Numbers are louder than words. "

On the other hand, New Balance hopes to use this series of marketing campaigns to lay its unique brand image in the market structure, with a view to differentiate itself from competitors such as Nike and Adidas.

After nearly half a year's discussion, the plan was finalized.

"We always feel that Jonathan Lee is the most suitable candidate."

Li Sanshui said that the creation of more than 300 songs in the past 30 years is a great breakthrough point. But more importantly, New Balance has pinpointed the brand positioning of "middle-class boots", while Jonathan Lee's "experience, taste and understated practicality" can exactly match the middle class personality that the card wants to create.

"The middle class likes to see Jonathan Lee as a symbol."

Meng Fang said.

He is the founder of a small creative studio.

His view can partly explain why Apple also thought of Jonathan Lee when considering how advertising was localized.

"Most brand owners want to help their brands build emotional connections with target audiences with the help of artists' image and reputation."

OMD Ken, director of strategy Zhang, commented.

However, compared to the "originality" of the shoemaker to make shoes compared with the violin craftsman to complete the product, a distinct feature of the new promo is that it is very restrained in its brand.

This, of course, is related to the fact that the former itself is only a targeted product advertisement, but this time it is so small that it is mainly due to the production preferences of the producer W, "the brand should be more advanced, or at least more sincere."

Li Sanshui told the first financial weekly that he thought that if a video was broadcast to the audience for the first second, the advertisement would be lost.

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"Before the media channels were single, they could not form the potential of communication. Now, after the commercials are finished, the creation really begins.

The creation of content is not limited to brand strategy and creativity, but also the perception and interaction efficiency of public opinion.

And whether the content can stimulate communication and sharing depends on whether it is a naked advertisement.

Li Sanshui explained.

This kind of advertisement also has a benefit that can be called "bottom up", that is, the audience may have different opposite opinions from the impressions of the short film. For example, some people may feel that the film is too long, for example, some people even feel that literature and art are slightly artificial, but I am afraid that few people will have too many negative impressions on the brand after reading it.

New Balance himself may be more aware of this.

You can see its adjustment in recent years in marketing strategy. In the past, it mainly worked with KOL, but since 2013, it has released a series of micro films in the Chinese market: "youth never fade", "girl Sherlock", "sad cuisine", "New Street doctrine" and so on.

"Brands need to be made according to consumers' preferences, or have information value and entertainment value, or content that resonates with ideas or feelings."

New Balance, former director of marketing in China, once mentioned this brand strategy when he accepted the first financial weekly. He believed that brand information could best be integrated into the story without incident.

"Is this not Jonathan Lee's best skill?" Ken Zhang believes that Jonathan Lee's strong personal style is an important reason for the establishment of the short film because he has such charisma. The 12 minute soliloquy will not be too false.

For example, slogan, W of the advertisement, originally referred to "the path of life not to go in vain". Now, adding "every step counts" is what Jonathan Lee did not want to say in a conference call. "After all, it is his own description and the feeling of expression will be more natural."

Li Sanshui said.

Brands need to know how to make better use of entertainers.

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"Brand can be like a person, and advertising is the person who tells his story."

Ken Zhang added.

In this sense, every step counts. It shows the unique characteristics of Jonathan Lee. At the same time, it connects Jonathan Lee's characteristics with the brand mark of New Balance.

Jonathan Lee's apple gave you a new year's song, which is slightly weaker.

Although it is highly praised for its excellent production and few brands, Ken Zhang thinks it is a typical example of the failure of the brand owner to make use of the artist's endorsement.

"Let's think about it. Would it make a big difference if you change this advertisement artist to another famous creative artist, or replace iPad Pro with Microsoft's tablet Surface?" - of course, as a seasonal advertisement, Apple may feel that it is enough to make the product with its users.

The ballad "Congratulations" can be heard in Jonathan Lee's shopping malls during the lunar new year, which is very refreshing and pleasant to the Apple style.

But from another point of view, the "ads unlike ads" in Lee San Shui Kou will also lead to a problem. After watching the 12 minute commercials as an audience, do you remember the story or the brand? "This advertisement is technically very difficult to do."

Meng Fang is judging by his experience.

How to find a degree between Jonathan Lee's personal autobiography and the brand advertising film is exactly the most difficult place Li Sanshui feels in the operation of this advertising film.

Jonathan Lee, of course, had to write his own book first, but Li Sanshui said that w, as an executive executive, would often remind him not to deviate too much from the brand strategy, and to consider the relevance of copywriting information to consumers. "We are the last firewall of the brand side".

Even so, New Balance is still nervous about it as a brand name.

"Customers need at least one piece of film to show the brand information more clearly, which is also a supplement to the brand communication effect."

Li Sanshui said, so Jonathan Lee also co worked with a 2 minute long trailer, which was released by the official micro-blog and WeChat public address of New Balance at the end of April.

In addition, they have done a lot of dissemination materials, such as the characteristic wooden gift boxes, postcards and so on, in order to expand the communication surface.

"The advertisement itself is no problem," but Meng Fang also doubted whether New Balance would fit the audience into a middle class.

"Middle class special pursuit symbols, such as" I wear the most professional sports equipment, I love health and fashion ", such symbols may be more clear to them.

The embarrassment of New Balance is that it emphasizes the intensity of professionalism rather than Nike, and consumers may think of it as a daily leisure option, implying that the middle class will narrow themselves. "

At present, it is aimed at the high-end consumer groups.

You may be faced with the difficult problem of marketing, because you need to move a group of consumers who are more assertive and do not want to be emotionally manipulated (at least not obviously manipulated). This is not always achieved by reducing the exposure of the brand.

New Balance this super literary and artistic attempt may be regarded as an exploration of advertising companies and branding parties. After all, there is no such theorem as to communicate with consumers.