Two Microfilms Released In the Auto Industry for Father’s Day

On Father’s Day week, two microfilms were released in the auto industry – “To the Mountain” by Ford Explorer and “Taste” by GAC New Energy Aion V, let’s give them a thumbs up.

Compared to simple product promotion, when promoting a new car launch, telling users how good-looking the car is, what makes it stand out among the competition, and showing how cost-effective it is, microfilms are a more advanced form of advertising. They come with emotions and temperaments, and are easier to move people’s hearts than the cold display of products and technologies.

The higher the brand and product level, the more need there is for microfilms.

In “To the Mountain,” a middle-aged man goes through the ups and downs of starting a business and struggles between family and career. He eventually understands and overcomes the mountain of life, which aligns with the qualities of the Explorer product, and also reminds us that Ford is celebrating its 117th anniversary of its establishment. The giant is starting again, and the more we taste, the more interesting it is.

In “Taste,” a chef father and son atribute to fatherly love by going from arguing to understanding each other. The film reflects the user concept that GACNew Energy Aion V has been trying to showcase through inheritance and innovation, love and trust.

Maybe it’s because I’ve become a dad, I’m particularly sensitive to father-son relationships. The scenes of the middle-aged man in “To the Mountain” and his son sitting on the roof of the car watching the stars, and of Li Guangfu in “Taste” with tears in his eyes after arguing with his son and researching innovative recipes for him at home, all successfully earned my tears and left memorable moments.

From the perspective of auto industry marketing, the number of microfilms has been gradually increasing over the past two years, and there are many issues worth discussing.

The first is how much advertising should be implanted?

This is a contradictory issue.

The creative team of the production company often does subtraction. In the 5-10 minutes duration of the microfilm, integrating and consolidating a product point is optimal.

The enterprise’s needs, on the other hand, are often additive. Even if they try to control themselves, they instinctively hope to present more brand and product points, 1, 2, 3, 4…

Therefore, there is a game of compromise. Generally speaking, stronger production teams tend to preserve the integrity of their work more. In this case, for Aion V’s “Taste,” director Wang Weiming plus veteran actor Li Guangfu have stronger persuasive power on the enterprise side, so we can see that the direct implantation of Aion V’s product points is not much. The rhythm and emotions of the film are also relatively rich.# Doing subtraction and doing transparency. From the perspective of the effect logic, this is the trend.

Last year, the Mercedes-Benz micro-movie “When You See Me” told the love story of a young couple. The biggest feature of this movie is that it does not have a grand narrative, but only focuses on one product point, the voice interaction function of the MBUX intelligent man-machine interaction system. Although it is few, the effect is very good. After turning the function into a scenario, users can easily remember it after watching.

How to implant?

However, few product implantations do not mean that the effect is good.

If it is not closely integrated with the theme and plot of the micro-movie, it is easy to fail, which can cause users to see less and not remember. It’s better to put more, or even force it a little bit.

How to implant? There are only two points: precision and continuity.

“Precision” is easy to understand. The highest level of product and brand highlights seamlessly integrated into the micro-movie is to have the climax of the movie and product implantation appear at the same time.

Two impressive examples are:

One is the “Watching the Ball” by director Jiang Wen for Canon. The story is about a father taking his child to watch football. The climax of the film falls on Canon’s continuous shooting function. At that time, the fusion of the product characteristics of continuous shooting was too good, and the overall tone of the film was impressed by the Canon advertisement “Being Moved is Always Present”.

The other is “Ba Yi Er’s Spring Festival” by director Ning Hao for BMW, which was released during the 2020 Spring Festival. At that time, I was surprised by the last ingenious idea. The warm family relationship is the main line of the film, and the director sublimates it with the new interpretation of “BMW” as “Parents”. With this alone, BMW’s brand warmth deeply touched people.

Real touch points are always in the details.In Ford’s “To the hill” advertisement, the insertion that left a deep impression on me was when the male protagonist was unable to concentrate on driving due to his concerns about work and family. At this moment, an automatic braking function kicked in, which was very appropriate and warm, reflecting the concept of warm technology of the brand and product.

Another example of the effectiveness of continuous brand building in the auto industry is Lexus. Last year, Lexus launched a film called “The Unspoken” which targeted the topic of “Lost Sense of Freshness in Marriage”. Chen Shu and Wang Jingchun perfectly portrayed the daily triviality and unspoken cherishment in their married life. The product placement of Lexus in the film was minimal, with only a few shots and no functional points expressed in the images. However, despite that, when my wife watched the film, she cried and became a loyal fan of the brand.

This film, together with “Chef’s Table”, were made with equal production quality. The reason why “The Unspoken” had a stronger ability to attract fans was due to Lexus’s continuous brand building over the years. Customers already had a certain level of recognition and understanding towards the brand, and the release of this film pushed them to a climax of emotion.

Recently, the marketing strategies in the automotive industry have become very interesting. I wanted to write an article about the prominent name of the Haval Big Dog, which perfectly illustrates the phrase “taste is the enemy of traffic”, compared with names such as ICON and Changan Uni-T. Some people might think that such a name is detrimental to a brand, but it is hard to say. We can carefully analyze it when the opportunity arises.

In conclusion, genuine and sincere marketing will increasingly resonate with customers in the future.

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.