From “greasy” out of the circle to “abstract” advertising, Tian Yiyi has become the brand’s new favorite with his exaggerated performance and magical style. In just two months, he intensively cooperated with multiple brands, and his advertising style was absurd and eye-catching, triggering a lot of forwarding and discussion. At a time when “abstract marketing” is prevalent, why can Tian Yiyi frequently go out of the circle? Why do brands embrace “abstraction”? This article will take you to find out.
@Tian Yiyi, who has returned to the “greasy” comfort zone, loves to sing and has entered the abstract advertising world.
After co-producing “Love You at 105°” with Brother Hyperthyroidism at the end of March this year, Tian Yiyi once again entered the public eye as an “ancient true god” – in the “high-quality male” imitation frenzy set off by Xu Qingen in 2021, Tian Yiyi is the most out of the circle, and to this day, his comment area is still occupied by “useless, I dried my silence”.
However, unlike the previous character of “not making money, not bringing goods, and torturing the audience purely by greasy”, Tian Yiyi after returning chose to “torture the audience” between “connecting with the audience” and torturing the audience, and began to receive brand customized advertisements.
Source: @田一名 Douyin account
According to incomplete statistics from Cass, in May ~ June, Tian Yiyi cooperated with nearly 20 brands such as Kraft shampoo, melon seed second-hand car, Spicy Prince, Peace Elite, Kuaiji Mountain sparkling rice wine, and Zhen Concentrated Milk, and the business order was very intensive. Not only Tian Yiyi, but also a large part of today’s brand advertisements have the labels of “abstract” and “whole life”.
Why has brand marketing kissed “abstraction”?
Tian Yiyi entered the abstract advertising industry
Let’s first review the popularity of Shimoda Yichi. In 2021, Watsons’ theme song “Love You at 105°” swept the whole network, and among the many imitations and second creations, Tian Yiyi stood out with the shape of “dried persimmon ghost shark”, and his greasy singing style and artificial expression made him named “more oily than Daqing Oilfield” by users. At that time, Douyin also launched a special challenge topic “Daqing Oilfield Comparison Oil” to encourage users to co-shoot.
What does a product manager need to do?
In the process of a product from scratch, it is not easy to do a good job in the role of product manager, in addition to the well-known writing requirements, writing requirements, writing requirements, there are many things to do. The product manager is not what you think, but will only ask you for trouble, make a request:
View details >
After getting out of the circle, Tian Yiyi quickly established a new label of “greasy” for himself, and when Xu Qingen’s “high-quality male” was imitated by the whole network, he followed the hot spot and covered Jay Chou’s “Give Me a Song Time”. In the video, he is wearing oily hair and a blue suit, imitating the classic standing posture of “high-quality men”, twisting his hips while singing. This video, which is only more than ten seconds long, pushed him to the throne of the new “earthy king” in one fell swoop.
Source: @田一名爱唱歌 Douyin account
It is difficult for experts who eat “earthy” traffic to jump out of this stereotype. After the traffic skyrocketed, Tian Yiyi also ushered in a period of silence: fans never forgot the hot memes of the past, leaving messages under his new video “It’s useless, because I have dried my silence”, or privately messaged whether he could return to the “high-quality male”.
Until March this year, Brother Thyroid “China Tour” came to Chengdu Station, and Tian Yiyi appeared on camera and co-produced his popular song “Love You 105°”, which made users sigh “what year is it tonight” and unexpectedly got back the treatment of “super idol”.
Source: @田一名 Douyin account
Tian Yiyi, who couldn’t get out of the “earthy” dilemma, finally plunged headlong into the “abstract” comfort zone and picked up advertisements, the most out of the circle may be the spicy prince.
In the related video, Tian Yiyi wears smoky eyeshadow, ugly ice silk arm covers and triangular scarves produced by Spicy Prince, and sings the brand advertising slogan “Spicy Prince only makes authentic spicy, not sweet strips” to the camera, and then opens his arms, and a large number of products pour down. The exaggerated expressions of squeezing eyebrows, the pretentious movements, and the brainwashing “Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma”, the short 20 seconds of video repeatedly hit the user’s brain.
Source: @田一名爱唱歌 Douyin account
The more abstract the video, the more the audience loves to watch. On Douyin, the video received 1.15 million likes, but the number of retweets was as high as 4.85 million. In the comment area, users have played memes, and the brand Spicy Prince left a message saying that he had voted for 100 shakes, and some people posted screenshots of conversations with the customer service of the official store, asking about the whereabouts of the package of products that were pinched under the armpits by Tian Yiyi.
Source: @田一名爱唱歌 Douyin comment area
Since then, Tian Yiyi’s Douyin account has quickly ushered in intensive investment from the brand side, and has become the darling of brand marketing. In April, the cooperation of the hair removal device brand ULIKE was still covert and did not even reveal the brand name in the copywriting, but by May, Midea had left a message in the comment area openly, “This is a big gamble.” ”
In this kind of cooperation video, Tian Yiyi exerted the spirit of “abstraction” without discrimination, immersed in his own art and did not know what heaven and earth were: in the Kuaiji Mountain rice wine sparkling water video, he magically circulated “inspiration mushrooms” while sparkling water on his feet; when cooperating with Xianyu, he dressed up as a Greek prince and sang “Xianyu is amazing”; When he performed a one-word horse in the Midea refrigerator video and sang the theme song of Gu Ming, he also reproduced his famous water-splashing scene.
According to Star Map data, in the past June, Tian Yiyi’s business cooperation videos reached 13, of which many videos had more than 2,000W playback, which is very impressive. Cooperative brands include Ocean Supreme Facial Cleanser, Melon Seed Used Car, Baiyunshan Toothpaste, etc., covering daily washing and care, home appliances, trading platforms and other fields, in terms of category, it is more consistent with the fan portrait of its male fans accounting for more than 75%.
Source: @田一名爱唱歌 Douyin comment area
Brands have put one place in the field, and it is not difficult to understand the reason.
First, Tian Yiyi’s advertising quotation is relatively low. According to the star map, on Douyin, Tian Yi’s 1-20 second video quotation is 80,000 yuan, and according to the discount market in the market, the estimated cooperation price is about 60,000 yuan, which is already cost-effective compared to the head.
Second, the curiosity of abstract videos is naturally conducive to communication, jokes, and recreation, increasing the discussion for brands. Judging from the data, although shouting in the comment area “My friend is not guilty of death, how innocent I am”, the audience is obviously happy to do this kind of video. In June, Tian Yiyi tried to trail the car in a video cooperating with BOP toothpaste, and so far, the link has brought more than 100W~250W GMV.
And when we take Tian Yiyi as an incision, it is not difficult to find that in recent years, brands seem to love “abstract marketing” more and more.
The brand is “crazy”, and the audience loves to watch
In the current cultural context, the word “abstract” has faded away from the early aggression and marginality, and has not only become the traffic password of celebrity content, but also become a powerful tool for brand marketing.
Looking back on the past year, brands are indeed more and more fond of “abstraction”. Previously, McDonald’s gave different personalities to burgers and snacks according to the MBTI – the fries type personality is super independent, “I bring salt for myself”, the cylinder is an internal friction personality, “he just stays by himself and melts”; Later, RIO played with an abstract daily, and the colorful propaganda pictures listed various earthy slogans “No matter how delicious the wine is, it can’t be sweet in your heart” and “The trap of love, who can escape”; In the middle, there is also the official announcement of his IP as the spokesperson of the new product, “money from the left pocket to the right pocket”, and the death of Duolingo’s self-directed and self-acting mascot.
According to data from Digital Radar, in the past year, with abstract marketing, the number of main posts discussed on the whole network of the keyword “McDonald’s + Abstract Play Stalks” reached 1.9W, and the number of interactions was as high as 474W, of which PGC posts accounted for 58%. With the help of abstract memes, brands are building unique emotional bonds with young people and winning the minds of young people.
Brands are abstract, and spokespersons are very important. Not long ago, Yili and Ke Jie, the “first person in abstract Go”, completed a Dragon Boat Festival marketing, in which the abstract bridge was dense: Ke Jie opened his face with his experience of being punished in the LG Cup, “I met the same enemy as the Dragon Boat Festival”, and then the camera turned, and the “Jiebao Home” was hung on the white wall indoors. With the addition of Ke Jie’s own sense of abstraction, this advertisement has received a good response.
In 2025, the wind of “abstraction” will also blow to the platform. In June this year, JD.com, Meituan, and Ele.me started a takeaway war, and Meituan took the lead in officially announcing Huang Ling as the spokesperson and filmed a MV of “Takeaway Huang’s Gengling”, followed by Ele.me’s official announcement of Lan Yingying, responding to the business war with “blue must win”, and then JD.com took out Hui Yinghong to join the battle. The business war relying on the spokesperson’s “homophonic stalk” has a somewhat abstract meaning, coupled with the active co-creation of netizens, the three platforms have earned both favor and dissemination.
Source: Weibo
Why are brands making efforts in abstract marketing?
On the one hand, the wind direction of the content platform represents the flow of the market, and abstract advertising can more effectively attract the attention of young people.
In 2024, Xiaohongshu will select “abstract” as the annual keyword of the platform, as the largest graphic community, and the “abstract” topic on the platform has been viewed 23.02 billion times and discussed more than 100 million; Under the topic of Douyin, it has more than 212.5 billion views. As a result, “engaging in abstraction” has become an important path for brands to approach the expression of young people.
Young users favor to establish their identity through deconstructing serious expressions, and abstract advertising provides an emotional outlet that “breaks the rules”. In the era of information fragmentation, it is difficult for traditional advertising to break through, but abstract marketing can create a sense of contrast with absurd, nonsensical and even “spicy-eyed” content to achieve communication – under the cooperation video between Tian Yiyi and the spicy prince, more than 4 million users shared this “greasy” video with friends, and the brand side established the image of “victim Party A” for itself through the form of “throwing and shaking down”, and once again helped the spread of hot memes.
On the other hand, abstract advertising also has the characteristics of high cost performance, easy to stimulate secondary creation, and long-tail communication. For example, Luckin Coffee, which is also a “big player” in abstract marketing, linked up with the talk show “New King” Fu Hang to shoot an advertisement for “Coconut Travels”, and even “reproduced” the famous scene of “The Birth of the Monkey King” in “Journey to the West” at low cost. With the emotional bonus of “Cloud Palace Xunyin”, the magical BGM of Luckin Raw Coconut Island has triggered a large number of users to cover it.
Not long ago, music expert @Hao Gege adapted the Indian classic divine comedy “TunakTunakTun” into “The plane I just bought was hit” in a video cooperating with Deep Blue Automobile, which quickly became popular. Although Changan Automobile’s overseas official account was boycotted by Indian netizens, the upgrade from “local advertising” to “global news” still made Changan Automobile’s reputation soar. With the magical adaptation, Brother Hao also quickly reached cooperation with brands such as Shuijingfang, Dongfeng Fengshen, and Anmuxi Yogurt.
Source: @豪哥哥 Douyin account
However, if you can’t grasp the “abstract” scale, brands will also face various risks. Earlier, Runbaiyan cooperated with Sun Xiaochuan to “bring the big brother”, and the advertising slogan of “from a native dog to a water dog” caused controversy, and Runbaiyan had to come forward to apologize; Gu Ming was also accused of disrespecting migrant workers for “employee apology advertisements”.
“Gain” in abstraction may also be “lost” due to abstraction. At the end of May this year, Yili’s Yogurt invited the Times Youth League to cover the song “Lemon” by Genshi Yonezu as the theme song of the brand’s new product “Chewing Lemon”. However, due to the unclear meaning and illogic of the lyrics in the cover version, the famous sentence “The melancholy of that day, melancholy; The loneliness of that day, the loneliness of the day, “quickly promoted to a ghost terrier, causing ridicule.”
To a certain extent, the brand’s play of “abstraction” is very similar to the previously popular “cat meme” and “listening to persuasion”, which are all functional propaganda with emotional resonance, and with a sense of participation instead of one-way indoctrination. The vitality of abstract marketing will depend on whether the brand can find a balance between “eye-catching” and “building trust”, and in the future, when the popularity of abstraction passes, the brand will run to the next outlet.
