When we have crazy rumors that McDonald’s has become the “Golden Arches” and Alibaba has launched the “Dharma Academy”, you should at least know this

This week is about to end, the biggest hot spot on the Internet is none other than the "Golden Arches Incident". I believe your circle of friends has already been overwhelmed by this meme, which seems to have surpassed last year's YSL star and achieved new success. Marketing fever peaks.

The cause of the matter is very simple. McDonald's official Weibo posted a company name change announcement:

Then it "invited" several commercial Internet media to report it. ? Business news like this - corporate strategic changes, personnel changes, product changes, name changes, etc., happens every day, which is normal. But because the new name is so interesting, and the combination with the logo has a faint "run earth flavor", netizens have a lot of room to play, and it attracted attention immediately and quickly made the headlines. ?

In recent years, there have been many weird company names that have been registered or renamed, and they have become the jokes of netizens and flooded their Moments, such as Shenzhen Earn 500 Million Technology Co., Ltd., Chongqing People are hard to dismantle E-commerce Co., Ltd., Shenyang Honghuangzhili Hotel Management Co., Ltd., etc.

First of all, we need to popularize basic common sense. Restaurant name, trademark name, and company name are not the same thing. Although we use these unreliable and unreliable names, it does not mean that future companies will have to use this name when registering trademarks, producing products, courses, or building factories. ? So the Golden Arches are just the company name of McDonald’s China. The restaurant where we go to eat French fries is still listed as "McDonald's", and Golden Arches Company cannot be stupid enough to change the name of the restaurant and scrap such a valuable trademark. Many people are surprised because they do not understand the difference between a trademark name and a company name. ?

Let’s take a look at the strategic changes of several previous companies. In fact, none of them have reached the popularity this time. For example, not long ago Alibaba announced the establishment of the Damo Academy and devoted all its efforts to technology. In addition to chatting in places like Zhihu where programmers gather, and posting a few articles on the public account, almost no one cares about the Weibo public account. People are not that care. Previously, the official Chinese translation of Airbnb was determined to be "Airbnb", but few people paid attention to it. Even if they did, they scolded the official for choosing such a nonsense translation, which not only did not enhance the corporate brand, but was a disservice. ?

The news that McDonald’s China changed its name to “Golden Arches” completely became a viral event. Countless big names spontaneously helped spread the word, and jokes emerged in an endless stream, which instantly made McDonald’s famous and dominated the headlines. For several days, there was no discussion about crushing KFC on the heat. From a marketing perspective, it can be said that McDonald's was unexpected and caught off guard, but it fought a beautiful and completely victorious brand war!

Why do you say that? This starts with the work of the marketing department of a large enterprise group.

In some to B industries, some companies do not have marketing departments because they do not have many customers and rely entirely on sales. There is no sense or necessity to set up a marketing department. For example, in the early days of Alibaba, Jack Ma did not have Taobao and Alipay at that time, only the Chinese Yellow Pages. Later it was renamed Alibaba. This was a trade information forum, mainly for business owners to publish supply and demand information. At that time, the young Jack Ma mainly had two jobs: one was the hardest and most tiring job of sales and building sweeping, visiting office buildings in the business district, begging them to use his website, purchase or even use his services for free;? I got the namelist of company registration through the relevant channels of the industrial and commercial department, which has the contact information of all registered company owners, and then called each one. ? This business model does not require a marketing department at all.

But in the to C industry, the business model is completely different. At this time, it is impossible not to set up a marketing department. For example, Coca-Cola may sell hundreds of millions of bottles a year. It is impossible to sell so many bottles just by relying on a team of sales staff! ? They adopt an agent and retail model, which is completely different from the sales method in the earliest trading industry.

If consumers are not "brainwashed" in advance and let them know that Coca-Cola has the brand and that Coca-Cola has new products, then even if their channels are strong enough to cover all supermarkets in the country, consumers may still not buy it. Because in the soda drink area of ??the supermarket, there are definitely not only this brand of soda, but also Pepsi, Jianlibao, etc. Faced with so many choices, consumers will choose products with high brand recognition at this time. ? The establishment of this brand recognition is the job of the marketing department.

When it comes to the work done by the marketing department, it sounds easy to feel empty, making people wonder what this department does? What does it do? There are even several definitions of 'marketing', such as the Kotler version, the AMA version, etc. Often a graduate majoring in marketing may not know what the Marketing department does specifically, and cannot Be competent in Marketing work. The main reason for this phenomenon is that the school curriculum is completely out of touch with actual work and provides almost no guidance for practice. ? Another equally important reason is that the book provides theories under ideal circumstances, and is aimed at business owners and bosses. It does not break down what an ordinary wage earner can do for the Marketing department. . Pay attention to this!

In terms of the essential division of labor of the marketing department, there are three most important functions -

1. Promote sales;

2. Improve brand recognition;

3. How to spend the least amount of money to get the maximum effect from the above two. ?

Yes, as most of us can see, the existence of the marketing department is to burn money desperately. In order to achieve the first and second goals, the marketing department will apply for a budget, and then Spending money to do a series of activities is called a campaign in jargon (a magical word that Party B’s dog is all too familiar with...). It mainly includes online and offline parts. The offline part mainly includes traditional channels of advertising, TV stations, buses, subways, elevators, etc. ? Online refers to the content, creativity, promotion and advertising of Internet channels. Of course, marketing work goes far beyond the campaign, and also includes the planning, arrangement, implementation of the campaign, as well as research, return visits, etc. Every campaign is a systematic approach, budgeting, planning, channel selection, time planning and arrangement, delivery. The Internet-thinking approach also includes post-launch data feedback recovery, summary, adjustment and iteration, etc., which is a complete process. Work.

Therefore, the daily work of that market leader (large and medium-sized enterprise) who seems busy all day long is: 1. Make reports, because budget and subsequent KPI data statistics are required; 2. Write planning documents, Because to persuade the leaders and the company to pass the proposal and adopt the budget; 3. Write PPT, because the meeting needs to be presented to the leaders, and the annual work report must be given to the company to explain to the company, and it will be done if it passes the test; 4. Have meetings, meetings, meetings, and then talk about it... ..5 Media channels need to be developed, contacted, and communicated; 6 Market research companies and advertising companies need to contact, have meetings, and have tea, because when the task comes, they need to find work immediately; 7 All over the country Meetings, exhibition tours, activities, business trips, business trips, business trips again...?

After understanding the functions, work and role of the marketing department, we can also understand why McDonald's is said to be This name change event can be called a successful brand war. There are three reasons: 1. For such an online campaign, although McDonald's may not have thought of turning it into a campaign, it did become popular and became viral; 2. The brand spread is extremely widespread, strengthening the brand impression in the minds of netizens time and time again. ; 3 There will definitely be an obvious peak in the offline conversion rate. Many people in the circle of friends have begun to say that they want to eat at the Golden Arches Hotel. ?

Many people here have always had a misunderstanding that companies as big as McDonald's no longer need marketing.

This is very wrong. There is a dynamic causal relationship between marketing promotion and company size: it is precisely because of continuous investment in marketing promotion that the company can maintain such a large scale. Once the promotion cannot keep up, the company's brand will soon dim and will no longer be recognized. Well-known, and thus killed by competitors. ? We can follow this logic to understand many brands that were once very popular and then disappeared. ?

Looking back, is the wave of craze caused by McDonald's name change just a spontaneous act by netizens? Is there any official official guidance? ? Let’s try to review the rhythm of the entire campaign - On the day McDonald’s first announced its name change, the overall public opinion trend was not ridicule or joy, but direct scolding:

But on the morning of the 26th, the overall trend changed rapidly. With the change, countless big names are starting to make up jokes and circulate them to their circle of friends. ? For example, "You only eat Golden Arches for fast food, and you only love one person in your life." There are also similar pictures and clips:

Public opinion has turned 180 degrees, everyone is making jokes, and basically no one is making nonsense anymore scold. We don’t know whether there is any official McDonald’s effort behind this. Anyway, the later fact is that McDonald’s no longer needs to spend a penny to have countless Weibo and public accounts rushing to report automatically and spontaneously compile various jokes, such as the hot creative god Durex’s “Jing Arch” and so on. However, it should be noted that such marketing accounts seem to be using hot spots to market themselves, but in fact they are helping McDonald's advertise for free, helping McDonald's to strengthen its brand awareness in the minds of consumers over and over again, and to have a clear understanding of its own brand and The product didn't help. Visual inspection shows that the number of reads on various Weibo and public accounts about McDonald's and its marketing ideas has generated at least hundreds of millions of exposures. It can be said that the KPIs of the McDonald's Marketing Department for the second half of the year have been completed!

Marketing that takes advantage of hot topics may become an excellent marketing campaign, but a campaign that creates hot spots by itself can be called perfect!