Just a while back, whether you saw it on social media or in-store at LiHO Tea outlets, the #LiHOTeaShake was trending all over Singapore (Image: SG Magazine). This was LiHO Tea’s way of riding the rising popularity of TikTok as a social media platform. The contest was a way to promote their new Strawberry Series as well as to produce a wealth of User-Generated Content (UGC) and get customers engaged.

TikTok in the past year has been gaining rapid popularity and is now the most downloaded app in the Apple App Store. Due to this sudden surge of popularity, especially among younger audiences, many brands are turning to the platform to market their products and services.

While TikTok has a large user base and is still gaining traction from audiences of all ages, this does not automatically mean that all brands can leverage on this. If another brand were to jump on this trend, it may not have been as effective for them as it was for LiHO Tea. This is because hype marketing is subjective and short-term.

Why Driving Just Hype in Marketing is Not Effective

Source: Verena Yunita Yapi, Unsplash

Hype is defined as a trend or fad that rises quickly in popularity but then declines just as quickly.

Building a campaign or marketing strategy around a certain trend or social media hype can therefore only bring in so much traffic. Trends are explosive and powerful, but they only last for short periods of time and therefore, a marketing strategy will be ineffective due to its short lifespan. While trends are popular and do boost reach and generate conversations about your brand, without a strong call-to-action or enough time for users to form a connection with your brand, this method of marketing will be ineffective and have low return-on-investment (ROI).

Another problem that may arise with using hype to market is that with a lot of brands leveraging on the same trend or challenge, this may cause your own content to be overlooked or forgettable in a highly saturated market.

This is why using a unique marketing strategy and techniques that are specifically targeted towards your audience will overall be more effective than leveraging on hype.

Why Consumer-Driven Marketing is Best

Marketing should always at the forefront, be about the audience. Catering to the interests and content types that appeal to your audience should always be top priority over following a trend that may not last for very long or be quickly overshadowed by something else.

Marketing that is driven by its users will have higher ROI, encourage positive brand recall and drive conversion.

This is because user-driven marketing values personalisation and highly relies on customer experience. To drive conversions, users need to be convinced that your brand is the best in the industry at what it does—this cannot be achieved by marketing through hype alone. Trends rarely have the emotional depth nor fully encompass the consumer journey to appeal to consumers.

Through the extensive research required by marketing, information derived from data allows for continuous improvement of your marketing campaigns with regard to a consumer’s ever-changing needs. a marketing strategy that encompasses this will be able to leave a long-lasting impact and impression on its consumers and may even lead to advocacy due the carefully-curated message the brand puts out.

Don’t get Distracted by the Hype

Ultimately, marketing should cater to its audience, and be able to impart a long-term impact. Using hype to market is like throwing a blanket over your audience, and not bothering to look at the nuances and cater specifically to their needs. Therefore, marketing that just relies on trends or follows the hype will not be able to do so, as its foundation is not strong enough to sustain itself in the mind of its audience.

 

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Hero image: SG Magazine