Unveil the Truth of Crossover Marketing Led by Taxi-hailing Apps, like DiDi (1)

Summary: Nowadays, product is channel; product is marketing. Some taxi-hailing apps like DiDi, they are trying to obtain more market shares, not only linking to WeChat moment and WeChat Red Packet, but also develop more “secrets” behind it.

Valentine’s Day has always been regarded as a hot spot for marketing and for business owners. For some young people who don’t care about money at all, brand communication is far more than chocolates and roses, which can make them satisfied in the past. This year, there’s something new. Besides the young people, the elder is also becoming the target of the business owner. DiDi cooperated with Darry Ring and launched a video for elder lovers, which spread rapidly in WeChat Moments these days. The topic is like “The most affectionate lovers are your parents”. In the old days, there were always some marketing campaigns that involved diamond ring brands and taxi-hailing apps during Valentine’s Day. But today, Xiangling would talk more about crossover marketing that DiDi has played over the years.

Fond of crossover – one side finished the performance; one side came on stage

Crossover marketing among taxi-hailing apps is very common. This time, Darry Ring cooperated with DiDi and launched Valentine’s Day campaign. First of all, they helped the old couples propose to their partners again and they recorded the process. It’s more than a wedding for old couples, but also a chance of a lifetime to make a video that records an everlasting love. On Valentine’s Day, DiDi and Darry Ring together launched Valentina Packet and advertised like that “Love her, take DiDi to tell her”. The old couple+ the story (Valentine’s Day) + communication channels + two brands = Communication. Actually, there are a lot of crossover cases that DiDi cooperates with other brands.

In 2014, DiDi cooperated with Gome and WeChat, and launched a 11.11 promotion campaign. The users only need to scan the QR Code and then they can get a 100 Gome coupon and 8 RMB DiDi packet.

On Dec 2014, DiDi cooperated with Mengniu and launched packet for people who used DiDi.

Besides, DiDi also cooperated with “Bestore”, “Alibaba” & ”JingDong”and launched various campaigns for different products.

Another taxi-hailing app is UBER. It has made great efforts on crossover marketing and will never stop. In October 2015, UBER cooperated with McDonalds, and McDonalds launched new product “U Burger” later, which was designed for UBER.

There are various enterprises that have made cooperation with DiDi and UBER, among which some are related to automobiles, some are not. As a result,  those cooperation made taxi-hailing apps a national marketing tool.

The real purpose of crossover marketing

Nowadays, product is channel; product is marketing. Some taxi-hailing apps like DiDi, they are trying to obtain more market shares, not only linking to WeChat moment and WeChat Red Packet, but also develop more “secrets” behind it.

Traffic distribution

When a product already has a solid fan foundation, it could be an influential Wemedia platform that connects with the users. The truth of crossover is the traffic led by users.

The taxi-hailing apps gained a lot of customers in the market and became a powerful platform for Wemedia and traffic distribution.

With the rise of the Internet, the expensive promotion made customer cost increase rapidly. The professionals are trying to find some free and low-cost traffic opportunities. While, DiDi just provided this: integrate products with media; utilize more communication channels to create traffic opportunity.

The Rise of DiDi provides more convenience for travel; “DiDi + XX” creates new value for crossover marketing

So the role of crossover cooperation are often attached to user consumption and payment habits so as to enhance user engagement. Meanwhile, since DiDi’s target audience are somehow overlapping brands’ customers, it presents a good opportunity for brands to approach customers through DiDi. While, DiDi acts for traffic distribution since it has both traffic and driver resources.

Mutual benefits through crossover marketing cooperation

On the other hand, the cooperation partners could gain benefits through cooperation. By doing so, resource sharing and industry chain complementary can be realized. For instance, the cooperation between DiDi and Xiaomi can help Xiaomi get more potential customers. That’s also an attempt on “M-commerce with logistics distribution”.

DiDi, as an Internet entrance, it not only provides life services but also motivate more engagement between users and taxi-hailing apps. Crossover marketing could bring added value for cooperation partners like Mengniu and Darry Ring. On the one hand, it creates an O2O experience both online and offline and some new connections are built between customers and enterprises.

With the boom of mobile traffic, the scenario became the core to realize a virtual reality pattern. Although DiDi has gained a lot of users from the market, it still need to cooperate with more car-service and life service providers to consolidate DiDi’s position in the market. For instance, DiDi Driver invited Gao Xiaosong, who has drunk driving records, to act as their spokesman; and cooperated with Soho and AB InBev to promote the scenario of DiDi Driver.

The truth is that the mobile traffic is becoming increasingly difficult to develop, which need more sharing to strengthen the connections. Nowadays, each product or brand is like a black hole, absorbing certain types of consumers. Scenario acts as a link connecting different brands. Like the scenario implanted in taxi-hailing apps, the user may be a car-service consumer and a shopping mall consumer. In such a scenario, users become the core and other brands just provide service based on the demand of the users.

Scenario is like the most powerful, changeable and the most out of control application. It focuses on the connecting parts among travel, business and trips. What’s more, it relies on WeChat Red Packet and various coupons to help brands realize exposure and added value through “sharing” on social media. Although this kind of “sharing” is almost anther way of requesting, it has become an efficient method to gain more bonus for scenario marketing.