By Frank Jiang | Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The online world is an amazing yet bizarre place where the unexpected happens at any time and with no reason or sign. Ask anyone in China about the latest craze buzzing the wonderful world wide web, and you will hear in unison the hottest catch phrase, “Jia Junpeng, your mom is calling you to eat at home.” Today, that phrase is a cultural phenomenon and is used in everyday conversation from online to television. As odd and funny as it sounds, this is a testament to the vast online reach in China and the power of viral marketing.
Background
In July this year, in a popular World of Warcraft forum, an anonymous user made a post titled, “Jia Junpeng, your mom is calling you to eat at home.” Within 24 hours, the number of postings increased to over 7,000 pages, 4.5 million views, and over 200,000 replies to that one single catch phrase. To date, there are over 10,500 pages, over 8 million views, and 315,000 replies. Additional posts are blocked, but the forum posting still generates plenty of traffic to the site.
Soon, the “Jia Junpeng, your mom is calling you to eat at home” momentum drew spoofs from all angles of the Internet. Online IDs came out with names such as “Jia Junpeng’s mom”. Comics and images have been created with stories revolving around “Jia Junpeng” and his fictional mother. Songs have even been produced according to this post and were released online, which have been played for several hundred thousand times.
Power of Viral Marketing
Of the many websites, newspapers, and TV stories that have reported on this online phenomenon, most of them point to understanding the origin and just how this incident came to be.
It wasn’t until Ao Chunhua, CEO of a small website marketing company based out in Chonqing, said in a blog article that the whole event was an elaborate marketing campaign planned by him and his team. As a business case for one of his online gaming companies (although not specifically identifying one company, all fingers point to World of Warcraft which the posting was originally posted), Mr. Chunhua hired over 800 people to register over 20,000 online IDs to flood the forums and create 100,000 replies / postings.
There is still debate whether the validity of Mr. Chunhua’s claim – some say this was a desperate attempt at fame and a cheap tactic to monetize the popularity of the “Jia Junpeng” phenomenon. Today, the debate still continues on.
Several Guesses
Nobody knows for certain whether the whole idea was a marketing scheme hatched by Mr. Chunhua’s team or if the “Jia Junpeng” phenomenon was a spontaneous act that virally caught on. Nevertheless, you cannot deny that the millions of netizens involved have jumped on the bandwagon, only adding fuel to the fire.
Now, the question is – how did this all happen and, more importantly, why did this all happen? Even experts in the field of communication studies cannot explain how this phenomenon grew, but there are certainly theories why.
First, China’s youth demographic is a generation of “followers”. Most of the growth of online popularity drew from the youth market of teenagers in China. From the angle of sub-culture of teenagers we can say that one of the reflections of sub-culture conflicting mainstream culture is anti intellectual. The young people don’t care about the nature, value, or intrinsic quality of matters. Instead, they are lost and confused; they would rather follow like sheep than think independently.
Second, “mom calling you home to eat” creates an emotional response that everybody can relate to. Many people in China recall childhood memories playing outside with their friends. When dinner was ready, mom always called them to go back home and eat. This is a vivid and warm memory for everyone, not to mention probably sometimes embarrassing. The viral post reminds people of the old times full of childhood memories of mom and home.
The third explanation to this phenomenon is collective unconsciousness. With the fast-pace of society, people need to release themselves of high pressures, bouts of loneliness, monotony, and dissatisfaction. The internet is an ideal place to escape from the rigors of the world. With increasing pressures for creative control on other media platforms, the Internet is a haven for netizens to openly vent their creativity and ideals.
Online Frenzy
The “Jia Junpeng” phenomenon is not a novel idea in China. In fact, viral marketing or word-of-mouth marketing has been an effective way to communicate with Chinese consumers and create favorable brand image amongst the market. Phil Dorman, co-founder of Shanghai-based agency ConfuciusSays, states, “Chinese consumers are now more than ready to embrace WOM – it’s their medium. This is a global trend to some extent, but much more so here in China where trust levels for traditional media are incredibly low, and guanxi (Chinese for personal relationship) can affect everything from your career to finding that unique pair of retro sneakers.”
The key behind viral marketing revolves around the story and it creates. Whether favorable or notorious, the momentum that carries viral marketing is if it’s worth talking about. And like Dorman had stated, the effectiveness of viral marketing roots from how Chinese consumers conduct business altogether – through trust and relationships. A recent survey found that nearly 40% of Chinese men aged 18-34 ranked word-of-mouth marketing as their top influence for electronic purchases. More so, unlike in America, viral marketing is an important tool for nearly the whole host of product categories from electronic products to pharmaceuticals.
Lastly, the rise of viral marketing in China can be attributed to costs. Developing viral marketing campaigns can be relatively inexpensive when compared to traditional ad buys of television, radio, and print. Because the idea and concept of viral marketing remains more grass-root and depends on the virility of word-of-mouth momentum, campaigns can be created and executed with a much better CPM value.
Conclusion
As the China market matures and consumers become more savvy to brand advertisers, they will evolve similarly to their Western counterparts and scrutinize traditional marketing campaigns. In turn, advertisers will adopt new marketing strategies in order to capture and communicate with their captive audience. On television, we already see this with brand and product integration into the content of the show (i.e. Ugly Wudi). And online, we already see how quickly the Chinese have adapted to pre-roll and in-streaming advertising in lieu of traditional banner ads. Viral marketing is merely the next stage of marketing evolution and has proven to be a successful and effective tool in the China market.
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