Thinking of Marketing Innovation besides the Youth ——Robbie Zhang, Director of marketing & strategic department, IFENG. COM.

1. Thinking of Marketing Innovation besides the Youth
——Robbie Zhang, Director of marketing & strategic department, IFENG.
COM.
Sometimes the youth we have observed is not actually who they are. There
is a popular TV drama called ‘in the Name of the People’. The post 90s
and the post 00s are watching it not only by themselves but also with their
parents and grandparents. Actually, the popular drama is not the point of
the youth no matter from the name or the theme. However, maybe the
critical point doesn’t lie in the name but what you are doing.
There is some data which could prove such a problem that what the youth is
concerning most from another aspect. We got some data from Peking

2. University, which shows that the youth is admiring the business elites most
and then the great leaders. We thought that the youth admire some
grassroots and online celebrities. Actually, it is not the deed.
Based on such interest of the youth, we have made a census of the explosion
news that the youth paid close attention to in 2016. Data based on such
census could bring people true understanding of the youth since the data
consists of two meaningful parts. One part is concerning events which have
brought global attention such as the US election and Britain’s being out of
Europe. The other part is concerning news which we think that they are
paying attention to such as ACG (Anime, Comic and Games), webcast, stars
like Kris Wu (Wu Yifan) and so on.

3. However, the next data is what I actually wish to share most. If we analyze
and consider the data from the scope and the depth, we will find that the
second quadrant is the field the youth truly pays attention to. Those we
thought that the youth will pay attention to actually only deserve the titles
rather than the whole observation from the youth. Instead, the youth have
paid more attention to events such as Rio Olympics, the US election and so
on. The only entertainment news we have seen in the second quadrant is
the divorce of Baoqiang Wang. However, the deeper analysis of the content
of the news shows that the youth pays more attention to marriage ethics
and right of marriage by choice through the news rather than the
entertainment aspect.

4. When mentioning the youth group, there is always a general context in
which people think that it is not suitable to label the youth since the youth
actually does not wish to be labeled. But most of the time people are willing
to say that they are different, understanding the youth and having methods.
In short, on one hand we argue that the youth should not be labeled since
they are different, on the other hand we are doing so. Certainly, I refer the
Phoenix to be capable to label the youth since we possess a big data system
called ‘Phoenix’s eyes’ which is based on the big data of reading of the
Phoenix as well as our constant research on all the users.
Such description like ‘male, 26, single, white collar, living somewhere,
working somewhere’ is common in big data. However, such description is
not enough. What we are longing for is description of one’s current

5. condition and situation even one’s instant emotion. Phoenix’s eyes could
realize it through providing us with data of one’s struggling for work,
planning to go travelling and so on. Such data changes frequently, thus our
research is always constant. It is such insight of consumers that makes it
possible for us to figure out the 30 primary hot words which have won great
attention from the youth from 2016 to 2017. I will take two of them as
examples to explain IFENG’s ideas of marketing innovation.
The first one is ‘to be true’. For a media, ‘to be true’ should be a final
line. But actually, we are living in such a society in which medium are
overflowing. As a result, the final line exists still, very low though. Thus, for a
media, it is not that easy to stick to the due bottom line. The time spent in
medium has made up half of people’s waking time. The Internet has
already totally changed people’s traditional way of getting touch of
medium and has brought the problem of fragmentation of time. There is
such data that tells that 64% of TV viewers use their smart phones while
watching TV. The fact is out of our imagination. Meanwhile, the time one
person spends in a definite media is shortened which makes it the major
battlefront for all medium to grab users’ time. Under such circumstance,
news or events which are not that true or valuable emerge. For instance,
there was an anchor broadcasting pseudo charity through a video platform.

6. Such news does contribute to catch people’s eyes while I believe that no
brand will be willing to show up in front of the public in such manner.
In addition, a lot of medium have formed a sequencing method to seize and
feed news. Platforms even like Facebook have cancelled the function of
editing which has brought a lot of negative consequences later. But now
Facebook has established a particular department serving for examining
and distinguishing false news. To be honest, technology itself is nothing
wrong but the existence of it does bring quite a lot of problems. I will take
the picture in my right hand as an example. In the red square lies a picture
which has won the Pulitzer from a news writer. What is shocking lies in that
this picture was referred to be a pornography one because the little girl
inside doesn't were clothes. Such an event has influenced deeply and widely,
making the public oppugn where the medium put their value although
Facebook has apologized for the mistake and recovered this picture.。

7. I have an example from my friend. My friend installed an App for his mother
called X-Headline. After a few days, his mother asked him why he installed a
fortune-telling App. He was confused and told his mother that the App he
installed for her is an information platform. However, his mother fed back
that all information she received was concerning fortune telling. I think all of
you could understand what situation his mother is facing. All the
information you have received is so numerous and jumbled but usually you
can just focus on some definite small points and areas due to your own
interests and the freedom given by the platform. I have once heard a word
saying that medium have fatherly logic or motherly logic. I refer media such
as IFENG.COM to be with fatherly logic because it gives you what you need
and tells you what is right. However, I don’t agree that we should refer
such a logic to be motherly logic because there will never be such a mother

8. who throws her own child into this will. The problem my friend is facing is
not only about the facticity of information. In Chinese, there is an idiom
saying that ‘a frog sits in a well and looks at the heaven--limited outlook’.
The sky the frog watches is real. But the world in its heart is not the real
world.
We call what we are doing with an amazing name -‘human-computer
intelligence’. Nowadays, a lot of platforms seize and feed news and
information through big data. What they are doing is to seize outside news
and select users’ interests in order to feed information to users through
simply through arithmetic, attracting them to enter speech follicles. What
we are planning to do include two aspects----one is to edit and produce
professional contents with making full use of big data’s capability of
seizing hot spot, the other is to seize outside news. In the second aspect, we

9. will label critical news and feed it to the users based on their interests
through arithmetic. In the App of IFENG.COM, the top 30 news are totally
controlled by editors, which could restore truth. There is an example about a
football game. In this example, the news said that Syria won our national
football team which contributed to its proclaiming stopping civil war for 48
hours. It seems that it was positive news. If every victory could stop a war, I
refer every failure of our national football game to be valuable. But actually
we found that it was false news and reacted rapidly, feeding an article titled
'Syria's winning our national football team which led its declaring stopping
civil wars for 48 hours was false news'. As media, we cannot make audience's
time or recognition be occupied too much just because of the quality of
seizing eyeballs of that news.
Another point is of more feelings. Our behavior like what mentioned above
could add more sense of worth to our feeding and producing of contents.
There was the Orlando shooting last year. After the shooting, our
proprietary company called 'Yidianzixun' found that public topic and
opinion were partial to discrimination and scare towards homosexuality
rather than blame for the shooting itself. Facing such situation, we fed a lot
of news in order to appeal the public to put focus on people's nature and life
rather than over interpretation of homosexuality groups.

10. We have established a youth channel based on our human-computer
intelligence and our huge focus on the youth. It is also the first time for
Phoenix to set up a channel particular for a definite group. The content
producing of this channel is totally based on our seizing hot words among
the youth. Our editors of this channel are almost all the post 90s. I dare not
say that this platform is of great value, but I believe that such a platform
could bring all brands positive suggestions towards their marketing.
Recently, this channel has put forward a plan called ‘one hundred person
project’ which is quite interesting. I was once heard from a predecessor
that to learn more about one person is not the main aim to read his / her
biography. The main aim to read such biographies is to learn more about
the background of definite age behind him / her. Every year this channel will
visit 100 young people who influenced China most during the past year.
Through communication with them, we could figure out what China has
done during the past year and what is going on in this country.
The next hot word is ‘responsibility’. When it comes to responsibility,
branded public welfare is an unavoidable topic for any brand. But there have
been emerging a lot of problems in the area of brand public welfare these
years. Let’s have a look at the current situation of China’s public welfare.

11. 92% of people are paying attention to public welfare and wish to make
definite contribution to it. But actually only 46% people have taken part in it
and only 46% people often take part in it which is to say only half of people
who are paying attention to public welfare have actually taken part in it. We
have also carried out a research about what their doorsill to enter is. If we
put all groups together we could find that the highest doorsill is lacking of
money. People are not willing to take part in such activities because they
think that to take part in public welfare is to donate money. But in fact, most
people want to participate in public interest in the form of care for children,
followed by environmental protection, energy saving, and then followed by
donations, donations, and finally the protection of animals.
The picture above shows the lacking of public welfare organism's habits. On
the right side is people’s will and on the left side is people’s actual

12. participation degree. From the disparity we can find that the environmental
protection and energy saving part and the donating part are the two parts
whose disparity is the smallest. The reason may lie in that the two parts are
the easiest to participate. It proves that people wish to do something more
than donating but donating has been a passive selection due to lacking of
organism's habits and channels of public welfare. Donating has been the
only choice for whatever individual or enterprises. But actually a country
doing well in donating does not equal to a powerful and great country
doing well in public welfare. We are facing a lot of dilemma. For instance,
every time there is an influenced event happens, there will be a donation list
of various enterprisers. Meanwhile, a lot of forced donation emerges.
What we advocate is to solve the problem. The name we endue is ‘society
design’. It is not a fresh name but we have reinterpreted it. We wish brand
public welfare to put more focus on fair, city problems, environment
problems and care.
IFENG.COM has set up an ‘Actors Alliance’ which is defined as an
incubator of trans-boundary public welfare. It can help brands to find
assistants and partners who are more professional. Many brands are facing
such problems that it cannot add the value of brand through devoting to

13. public welfare. Instead, doing so could bring brand negative value. For
example, there was a brand doing education charity to a mountain area
through inviting a star to teach students there. However, the time the star
arrived there was not the real time when the students there went to school.
To listen to this star’s one hour teaching, students had to climb a few
kilometers of mountain road to the school even it was not the time to go to
school and then went home again. I believe that no brand wishes to present
its brand in such way. Thus, the Actors Alliance provides an opportunity for
more brands and public welfare organizations to gather together in order to
realize trans-boundary hatching.
We also have a lot of innovation projects for public welfare. Let’s look at
the project above. It is called Growth Channel. We consider that many
children now are using smart phones also. They could receive similar news

14. as adults do. But actually information which is suitable for children differs
from that for adults. Taking such situation into consideration, we wish to set
up a Growth Channel which could offer children suitable readings.
Meanwhile, we encourage children to record what they are reading because
we have established a children’s news radio station which can be useful
both online and offline. What children have recorded will be put in the
station, which can bring their parents and grandparents with the little
one’s growth memory. Meanwhile, people can also gain some interesting
news and knowledge from the angle of children.
We have also observed another group----the independent elderly who have
lost accompany of their son or daughter and families. Under such
circumstance, we make some dolls, throwing in some places the elderly
usually visit such as newsstands, parks and some pension institutions. The
elderly can hear the news in kids’ voice which could bring them comfort
and information. They can also feed what they like back to our channel to
make the channel roll. I made a simple model based on Growth Channel and
children’s news radio station. Children can gain knowledge from such
platforms and provide materials back for these two platforms. The two
platforms bring children honor and glory. Meanwhile, the elderly could gain
comfort and information through it and could feed back to the two

15. platforms. As the sponsor of the project, the brand could gain exposure and
credibility. What is more important lies in that these groups with
intermediate purchasing power will have genuine eye to eye on brands.