[V]A Guide on How to Make 200 Million Dollars Out of 5 Million - Part V: The Miracle Tipping Mechanism Summary

Lost in Thailand/Tai Jiong (Comedy)
The Most Profitable Film in Chinese Film History

So far, I have contributed a whole series of blogs that dichotomy and explicate the miraculous marketing of the film Lost in Thailand/Tai Jiong. Turning a $5 million road comedy into a $200 million-dollar-box-office blockbuster, the production and distribution company of this film - Enlight Media Group - used all the communication techniques Malcolm Gladwell (his personal website: http://www.gladwell.com/) explained in his book The Tipping Point - one of the greatest sociology and marketing books.

The Tipping Point
A sociology and marketing classics by Malcolm Gladwell

I have sticked to his major theory Law of the Few - among his three rules of tipping - to analyze the marketing process of Lost in Thailand. There are many other elements such as the stickiness factor in both the film and their advertisements, the customization for context when producing the film and marketing plan, the advertising method, content, and result, the movie showtime arrangement and luck that are very worth for analysis but I believe it's been a good amount of case study for this film already. Yet a review and summary on the marketing mechanism would be helpful.

Many more marketing theories that can help explain the Lost In Thailand phenomenon 

STEP 1: Manual Distribution By Creating Advertising Contents

Setting out the 80 distributors as primary connectors to connect the traditional mass media mavens across the nation through 1200 TV channels’ top programs, 2000 top box office cinemas, public transportations and stations/airports, college campuses, pharmacies, hospitals in 120 cities;

STEP 2: Expanding To Online Media

Promoting online by collaboration with the big new media mavens including largest online communities, largest online TV broadcast duopolies, largest video-sharing oligopolies, online payment monopoly, largest travel agent (relevant to their theme), and the social networks Renren (The Chinese Facebook except that users are exclusively only students) and Weibo (The Chinese Twitter).

First step starts the mechanism, and the second step – by the nature of interaction – triggers the mechanism and offers the platform. Both two steps are a man-made “Law of the Few” phenomenon, and the third step, uncontrollable by anyone, was that after the movie hit the screen.

STEP 3: Converting Public Into Advertisers

All these channels and platforms gradually fermented all discussions and word-of-mouth communications – turning the public – the target audience – into the secondary connectors, mavens, and salesmen.

With each positive impression the public picks up, they spread the words further

And with internet plus the attention hungers, the words can spread much further than it ever could

STEP 4: Continuous Marketing

Only with the successful third step could it become a real epidemic, and Enlight Media kept magnifying these feedback and reactions from the audience, enhancing the Law of the Few, by continuous marketing – which was the fourth step, forming a virtuous circle and keeping the hit hitting. Reaching certain points one becomes “too big to fail” where others – such as journalism – start to actively participate in, further snowballing and enhancing the virtuous circle.

With restless further advertisements, the studio kept the fire on;
with the help of internet,  speed and volume of communication grows exponentially with each more "advertiser"

The whole marketing campaign took about five million dollars – slightly more than the production cost. A 1:1 production cost versus marketing cost spending distribution is a common model for Hollywood films, but it is the first case in China. Sometimes the sincerest complement needs only one word, like: well-spent. Or maybe one picture.

 

[IV]A Guide on How to Make 200 Million Dollars Out of 5 Million - Part IV: The Changing Mechanism – Secondary Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen

The Success and the General Marketing Mechanism

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Obviously the Chinese filmmakers created a miracle on marketing a $5-million-dollar road film Lost In Thailand/Tai Jiong into a blockbuster that grossed $200 million dollars domestically. Applying the known tipping point theory that Malcolm Gladwell popularized with his same-name book The Tipping Point, I've went through three different instruments the Enlight Media Group used to achieve this phenomenal film marketing legend.

According to Gladwell's The Tipping Point, a previously infamous concept or product can "tip" - become "viral" in today's term - with 3 kinds of people/vehicles:
1. CONNECTORS - The centers of social gravity who/that are connected to many people and can therefore easily get a large proportion of people to know about what's going on.
2. MAVENS - The information sources whom/which others go to for information and details. They are enthusiastic to share what they know and the only thing a maven does not do is to persuade - which makes one a salesman. 
3.SALESMEN - Not necessarily persuading people all the time, but what he or she says and how he/she acts results to be persuasive and causes actions.

The Double Insurance of Two Rounds of Tipping

One of the greatest "inventions" of the production and distribution company of the film is  that they secured the film to tip by transforming the connectors, mavens, and salesmen involved. In other words, they used the first round of tipping to propagate the film's release - the information and expectation of the film - pre theatrical release, they teased and turned the entire public into connectors, mavens, and salesmen to further propagate and engage starting before the initial release and kept it going during showtime - achieving the second round of tipping which eventually tipped the film's box office - for an extremely long period compare to the life cycle of a film in cinema.

The Changing Mechanism

The Enlight Media is indeed a group of intelligent strategist that they know they cannot just sit there deadly and wait for the potential connector and maven characters out there in the crowd whom no one knows if and when will become connectors and mavens for the film, so they hired the first round of connectors, and paid to successfully attain the strongest mavens to carry information they designed. They can gather them, grab their eyeballs, motivate or even seduce them to participate; however, about the only thing they cannot do is to decide what the people think and talk about it afterwards. And indeed, this whole campaign is not what was tipping. It is part and actually the activation of the tipping mechanism. Tipping, after all, is a word of mouth epidemic. The mouths cannot be just those of the production side, but of the target audience. If the target says no, the marketing will just be a man-made tipping delusion that fails and all the marketing cost goes in vain. Luckily, they won the rest of the war basically because the product – the movie – itself has to be a good movie. Leaving the movie aside, let’s look at the rest and most important part of the chain reaction.

The Amazing Role of Social Media

Different from many – actually most – marketing cases, Lost in Thailand had an incredibly precious marketing content – originals from the internet users. There were cumulatively  9,999,946 tweets on weibo.com (The Chinese Twitter) on February 14th - 9 weeks and 1 day after its initial theatrical release on 2012-12-12, 6 days before its extended off-screen date on 2013-02-20. 

Similarly, there were 259,312 posts/comments/shares/statuses on renren.com (the Chinese Facebook but only used by students) that contain the keyword “Tai Jiong” (Pinyin for Lost in Thailand) on February 14th and the hottest post - a "share" of a behind-the-scene video - was shared 34,490 times just within that single social network Facebook.

Update: this number went up to 11,205,503 on 2013-04-24: 1,205,557 more tweets in two months after the film is off from the cinemas. Note that this is especially noteworthy because unlike in U.S. where DVD and other home entertainment constitues more than 50% of a film's revenue while box office accounts for 30%, in China almost 100% of a film's revenue comes from its box office gross (I will update the exact portion from reliable sources later). This increase in tweets shows the great potential for China to start exploring revenues from the after-theatre distributions.

There is a great article that breaks down the revenue components of the major 6 studios in Hollywood. Even though it is written in 2005, but the revenue structure remains similar except for some distribution vehicles went online.
Hollywood's Profits, Demystified - The real El Dorado is TV.

The Weibo Search with Keyword "泰囧" (meaning: Lost In Thailand)

During the time when Tai Jiong was in theaters, people were not just retweeting; they were participating in the film, in advertising the film. Tai Jiong became like Rage Comics and Epic Fail where snapshots of the scenes were taken as picture sets and facial expression that people use to refer to their emotions. Just like when people wanted to say “hell yeah!”, they won’t; they say “true story” with the picture of a man holding cup instead. There were picture generators, and those pictures were everywhere. In fact, they are used widely now – meaning the film has become part of the cyber culture.

An Example of Transforming Into Tai Jiong's Tipping Vehicle(s)

(Secondary Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen)

Take me as an example; At the early period I could see Tai Jiong about ten to twenty times a day on my news feed in different social networks that I go, from different people – mostly from people whom I have mutual friends with but not familiar. To me, they were the connectors.

Effects of acquaintance on Social Networks: CONNECTORS
"Don't really know them, but okay I learn what's going on around"

Then when I see someone close posting about it or even just mentioning to me in real day life – either meaning the information is reached to me from a more private way. I would ask about the film or learn more about it. These people in my closer relations are the mavens.

Effect of Closer Friends Posting On Social Network/Word of Mouth = MAVENS
"Wow it's good?!"

Finally, some of them whom I really admire, who go to cinemas often, who majors in film/TV, who have great insights on everything, who invite me to a movie, or simply besties who suggests seeing the film – all those people who can influence my decision making or even make the decision for me – talk about this film. When they give a positive feedback, they are the salesmen. Remember, these same people to others change roles, but the unchanged thing is they are at least a connector or a maven in the reaction chain.

SALESMAN: FRIENDS

SALESMAN: Legit Critiques/Ratings

Two Strong Salesmen

A very specific group of salesmen need to be addressed here: Douban and Mtime. Young Chinese people also go to Douban Movies and Mtime for ranking and critics. Those two websites are like the IMDB in China, but Douban is a social network at the same time. A necessary piece of background information is that Douban started out as a base for Xiaoqingxin – meaning “petty burgeois who love literature, music, art, philosophy etc.” – and part of the advantage for this website is they have accumulated and still keep attracting a ton of talented writers who very frequently update in book reviews, arts and film critics. Their users normally do have great taste and offer very insightful, and extensive critics. Because of this and may be because of the often harshness and the bias towards arts rather than commercial films, the average ratings by Douban users and their critics have become an academic and professional flag and quality testing result; therefore they are mostly in the role of the salesman, or a maven to some.

 On Douban Movie's (The Chinese IMDb) Lost In Thailand page:

Surprisingly the "petty art lovers" leniently gave a 7.8 overall score to the film - which is extremely high comparing to other big or small budget films.
There are 129,524 short reviews and 1,907 pieces of criques
549 pieces of critiques rated the film 5 stars (extremely recommend);673 critiques rated 4 stars (recommend);
only 450 rated 3 stars (not bad) ;
230 pieces of critiques rated below 3 stars (poorly);

On Mtime's Lost in Thailand page,
There are 22,870 ratings, 14,714 "Want to watch!", 1,865 "Add to favorites"
and 1,802 pieces of critiques that referred to this film

The reason to classify them as a salesman is that people go to these sites to be convinced. Most people are still not active in their platform, but at some point when they are in the process discussed in the last paragraph, they are interested now but they won’t make their decision. Almost whenever they want to make a decision about which movie they should see or if they should see a film, they would simply go to Douban, type the name, look at the score, and skim through the most popular positive and/or negative critics, and then the most trembling moment of the filmmakers: they just make their decisions, like that. Mtime is similar but different, overall not as influential in decision-making.

VIRAL PICTURES - PHENOMENON ESTABLISHED

However, in the meanwhile, a group of “viral” funny pictures appeared. Everyone started to speak not about but with those pictures. For easier comparison, still take me as the example, I started to see not just the word Tai Jiong but part of the film itself fifty times a day – not as a part of their updates about personal life, but just as a part of any conversation. The previous roles also change. These pictures are connectors to many people, mavens to some, and salesmen to others; most importantly, these existences do not even aim to market for the film. That is when people are least vigilant and most curious and acceptive; and this effect is equal to that of a salesman. The marketing campaign then became a national movement where almost everyone was involved.

A google search on "Tai Jiong Style": the "Rage Comic" kind of viral screenshots from the film
that internet users use to express emotions

One of the many "Tai Jiong Style" generators online: http://kuang.2weima.com/taijiong/This picture went viral with several mimics such as this picture:
(used for irony, in the original film the character Lang threw away his phone with GPS tracker set by his rival but this guy went all the way to "return" the phone Lang wants to get rid of)
"Went to work for five days?
Thought it's Friday right?
It's Wednesday today hahahahahaha!"

[III]A Guide on How to Make 200 Million Dollars Out of 5 Million - Part III: The Primary Mavens

A tipping point is a critical point in communication that once a brand reaches, the brand becomes a social epidemic.
How to achieve tipping? What are the three Rules of Epidemic?
Who are the critical roles in the process?
How did the Enlight Media Group tip a low budget Chinese road movie to sink Titanic

and beat the 007?

 

These are some questions that I was and will be answering by applying the theory MalColm Gladwell popularized with his book The Tipping Point. I strongly recommend the quick summary of the book and the first part of the analysis in my previous blogs, so you can have a better idea about this piece, but the "quiz answers" at the end of this blog post should offer sufficient minimum of the background.

A Guide on How to Make 200 Million Dollars Out of 5 Million - Part I: Miracle Overview & Brand Marketing 101: The Tipping Point.

A Guide on How to Make 200 Million Dollars Out of 5 Million - Part II: The Primary Connectors

From the Finding Your First Telecommunication Job Blog

***

After identifying the primary connectors and examining the early stage of the tipping process in the last blog, I can now move on to talk about the primary mavens and their influences in the film Lost In Thailand.

The film and simply the nickname of it - Taijiong/Lost in Thailand (Yep, it's not the full title, it's a short form of it) - was placed, discussed, advertised, featured in entertainment programs like live shows, in semi-formal programs like local news, in serious programs like finance talks. If there is anything in common between them it is the programs are all popular. The film was, then, literally, everywhere. Why? Li says this film is “really targeting at everyone in the household, and the whole family should go together for a fun time and celebration” airplanes (Li, "Tai Jiong: Sell Movie as a FMCG"). Even though, what happened is that they still attracted only mainly people aged from 20 to 39, it is hard to say it is not the reward for the omnipresence. Enlight Media did not just go for the mavens. They went for all the mavens there were to reach.

Not just all the mavens there were, they went specifically for the strongest ones, and to secure the best result, they tried to make the best content for the mavens to carry. Enlight Media collaborated with the Wanda Group – the owner of China’s largest theatre chain, which acquired AMC for 2.6 billion dollars last year –to produce a series of customized trailers including five movie-watching guides and two customized videos (Cieply, "Theater Deal Links China To Hollywood"). They started display these special trailers in the top 2,000 theaters that had the highest overall box office revenues before the film hit the screen (Li, "Tai Jiong: Sell Movie as a FMCG"). Just a small note, of course the strongest mavens – especially the live shows and talk shows with strong emphasis on celebrities – are salesmen to certain targets because these mavens themselves are influential, trustworthy, or simply followed around.

A tweet in Weibo (Chinese version of Twitter) by Jing Wang - director of Happy Camp - one of the three most popular variety shows in China. The pictures are snapshots of the episode featuring Lost In Thailand's main cast and crew.

(Original Tweet: http://www.weibo.com/1732660051/zaaBh5DSP?type=repost)

Primary Maven Role of the New Media

In a time like now, how can one forget about the new media – THE new media. This giant sophisticated campaign was deliberately planned – step by step. “First we seek out to the traditional media to magnify brand awareness,” Li explains why they chose to feature in the most popular three entertainment programs and live shows is because of they are the best and fastest way to create awareness, “but how to make the consumers like you? That likeness comes from interactions, always, so the second step was to go to new media. New media is highly interactive and it builds relationships with the audience. It offers equal conversations between consumers and us.” Thus people saw an enormous tide of new media public relations/marketing movement.

Besides what was mentioned in the last four paragraphs about traditional media advertising, Enlight Media collaborated with 360, one of the biggest online community, and CTrip, the biggest travel agent, for a promotional event selecting 40 audiences for free Thailand trip awards. They worked with the Chinese online payment monopoly Alipay (which is used much more commonly than Paypal in U.S.) for online ads complementing with express online ticket purchasing (Li, "Tai Jiong: Sell Movie as a FMCG"). Of course they were on the Chinese YouTubes. Enlight Media executed bundled advertisements on the biggest video-sharing websites and the biggest online broadcasting websites – extremely commonly used in China – and only on their best positions. Including the trailers they collaborated with Wanda, the director Xu Zheng, who is also the screenwriter and the main actor of this film, directed and produced nine independent trailers/videos apart from the movie just for marketing ("Tai Jiong Creative in Marketing: Starting a Carnival with the Biggest Theater Chain"). According to Evening News, the 40 videos they released online before and while the film was on screen received a total viewership of 200 million in 20 days ("Tai Jiong's Marketing Strategy: More Than Enough Marketing Materials Plus Wordof Mouth”).
Primary Maven Role of the New Media

Not to mention they worked heavily with the Chinese Facebook and Twitter: Renren and Weibo. All the online and most of the off-line promotions were twitted on their official weibo, and in a PRNewswire Asia article, according to Carat China, the digital marketing specialist’s Chinese company, early before Lost in Thailand hit the screen, there were three days where the daily related tweets exceeded 22,000 (Cui, "The Social Marketing Road of Tai Jiong").

From that time they exposed themselves on the social network on, the roles of connectors and mavens change substantially. All the social gravity center people who helped achieve the 22,000 daily tweets are the film’s secondary connectors, mavens, and some of them the salesmen.

*** References ***

Li, Hui. "Tai Jiong: Sell Movie as a FMCG." Trans. Jie Luo. The Bund 05 Feb. 2013: n. pag. The Bund. Feb. 2013. Web. 14 Feb. 2013. <http://www.bundpic.com/2013/02/20891.shtml>.

Yu, Yin. "Tai Jiong's Marketing Strategy: More Than Enough Marketing Materials Plus Word of Mouth." Trans. Jie Luo. Evening Times [Shanghai] 04 Jan. 2013, A2 sec.: A2-02. Evening Times. Web. 13 Feb. 2013. <http://newspaper.jfdaily.com/xwwb/html/2013-01/04/content_950598.htm>.

***
QUIZ ON Tipping Point Theory

Q1: Name the Three Rules of Epidemic.
1. the Law of the Few; 2. the Stickiness Factor; 3. the Power of Context. 

Q2: Explain who are the three roles in the Law of the Few and how do they function.

1. Connectors; 2. Mavens; 3. Salesmen. Connectors are those people who are the centers of social gravity, who are connected to many people. They can easily get a large proportion of people to know about what's going on. Mavens are the information sources. They are people whom others go to for information and details. They are enthusiastic to share what they know and the only thing a maven does not do is to persuade - which makes one a salesman. A salesman not necessarily persuades people all the time, but what he or she say and how he/she act results to be persuasive and causes actions.

Bonus #1: The total box office revenue for the Chinese comedy Lost in Thailand already reached 20 times its production cost. True or False?

FALSE. Total box office flipped 40 times its investment (production cost).

Bonus #2: It is the first time Xu Zheng (the director, screenwriter, and main actor for Lost in Thailand (a.k.a Tai Jiong, 泰囧)) ever direct a film. True or false.

TRUE.

[II]A Guide on How to Make 200 Million Dollars Out of 5 Million - Part II: The Primary Connectors

Reviewed your Brand Marketing 101?

If you were absent, click the link below:

A Guide on How to Make 200 Million Dollars Out of 5 Million - Part I: Miracle Overview & Brand Marketing 101: The Tipping Point.

You Can also scroll down to the end of this blog to read the quiz that helps you get the general idea of the Tipping Theory I apply for analysis.

From the Finding Your First Telecommunication Job Blog

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Before continue, I would again recommend you to read the previous blog to learn what was going on around the film Lost in Thailand in the past 2 months.

***   ***   ***

Sell Film like A FMCG?!

With our rich background knowledge, we can finally start analyzing this milestone Chinese film. It is no doubt a winner from integration marketing and the way it markets exactly conforms to Gladwell’s “Law of the Few” – covering all three key characters throughout the marketing process. In an article on The Bund – one of the most influential periodicals, Haipeng Li, the representative of Enlight’s marketing team, tells the journalists: through research they realized that “film moves even faster than the FMCG (fast moving consumer goods e.g. milk)” (Li, "Tai Jiong: Sell Movie as a FMCG").

According to Li, films on the market (on screen, in theaters) normally have a consumption period of one week, some of them can lengthen the period to three weeks, but Lost in Thailand made it to five weeks. How did they make the audiences – the target market – to accept them in such a short period? Li said that they adopted the marketing strategy of selling FMCG: “if there is something we started out right, it is to sell film like FMCG” (Li, "Tai Jiong: Sell Movie as a FMCG"). The so-called FMCG marketing system, what they did, was exactly utilizing the connectors and mavens. While other film marketing team normally has ten distributors, the Lost in Thailand marketing team used eighty. These eighty people were the very first and key connectors of this epidemic.

The Primary Connectors: Creating the Best Ad Content and Manipulate the Media

Enlight’s distributors are set up in the major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and they are in duty of both the city and the radiant provinces/areas close by. These 80 distributors covered the top 100 cities with the highest box office. More importantly, they are set up in their cities and are extremely well-connected with local marketing channels on different platforms. Therefore the plans these distributors come up with were splendid because they are normally anti-intuitive. One example is that a distributor in Zhengzhou, He Nan Province, proposed that a local “Minsheng” (meaning people’s lives) program – a form of informal local news which does not exist in the U.S. broadcast program genre – has ridiculously high ratings “even though it just talks about Zhang’s cat died, or the Lis divorced”, why don’t they do a product placement in that program? The whole team was shocked by the unprecedented placement, and after research they ended up placing Lost in Thailand in similar Minsheng programs in more than 120 broadcast networks throughout China (Yin, "Tai Jiong's Marketing Strategy: More Than Enough Marketing Materials Plus Word of Mouth").

Brand Resonance Mode

From Kevin Lane Keller's Brand Resonance Model
from Strategic Brand Management (1998 & 2002, Prentice Hall)

Manipulate the Best Media

The Enlight Media Group – the investor, production studio, and distribution studio of Lost in Thailand – has established probably the most mature and complicated movie distribution network throughout 120 cities in China for the past 15 years, and it possesses an incomparable integration marketing advantage because of their cultivated multi-platforms in TV networks and programs, off-line event cooperation, theatrical release channels, and internet marketing. This time for Lost in Thailand, they explored and exploited every single corner on these platforms. These eighty distributors are the explorer, the exploiters, and the connectors. These connectors connected both tradition media and new media on hundreds of TV networks, over 1,200 TV channels, on subway trains, buses, airports, pharmacies, hospitals, college campuses, trains, and airplanes (Li, "Tai Jiong: Sell Movie as a FMCG"). What are these media ports that the connectors connected? They are exactly the mavens where people go for information. In my next blog, I will look into how these primary mavens contribute to the box office miracle, and more importantly how traditional media and new (social) media differentiate from and cooperate with each other to produce the optimal effect.

                                       Production and Distribution Process of Indie Game

http://www.indiegamethemovie.com/news/2012/11/1/indie-game-case-study-tech-audience.html

*** References ***

Li, Hui. "Tai Jiong: Sell Movie as a FMCG." Trans. Jie Luo. The Bund 05 Feb. 2013: n. pag. The Bund. Feb. 2013. Web. 14 Feb. 2013. <http://www.bundpic.com/2013/02/20891.shtml>.

Yu, Yin. "Tai Jiong's Marketing Strategy: More Than Enough Marketing Materials Plus Word of Mouth." Trans. Jie Luo. Evening Times [Shanghai] 04 Jan. 2013, A2 sec.: A2-02. Evening Times. Web. 13 Feb. 2013. <http://newspaper.jfdaily.com/xwwb/html/2013-01/04/content_950598.htm>.

***

Great! Now all of you are ready for the quiz.

Q1: Name the Three Rules of Epidemic.

Q2: Explain who are the three roles in the Law of the Few and how do they function.

Bonus #1: The total box office revenue for the Chinese comedy Lost in Thailand already reached 20 times its production cost. True or False?

Bonus #2: It is the first time Xu Zheng (the director, screenwriter, and main actor for Lost in Thailand (a.k.a Tai Jiong, 泰囧)) ever direct a film. True or false?

***   ***   ***

I hope you all enjoyed your quiz. And feel free to check answers right away:

Q1: Name the Three Rules of Epidemic.

1. the Law of the Few; 2. the Stickiness Factor; 3. the Power of Context. 

Q2: Explain who are the three roles in the Law of the Few and how do they function.

1. Connectors; 2. Mavens; 3. Salesmen. Connectors are those people who are the centers of social gravity, who are connected to many people. They can easily get a large proportion of people to know about what's going on. Mavens are the information sources. They are people whom others go to for information and details. They are enthusiastic to share what they know and the only thing a maven does not do is to persuade - which makes one a salesman. A salesman not necessarily persuades people all the time, but what he or she say and how he/she act results to be persuasive and causes actions.

Bonus #1: The total box office revenue for the Chinese comedy Lost in Thailand already reached 20 times its production cost. True or False?

FALSE. Total box office flipped 40 times its investment (production cost).

Bonus #2: It is the first time Xu Zheng (the director, screenwriter, and main actor for Lost in Thailand (a.k.a Tai Jiong, 泰囧)) ever direct a film. True or false.

TRUE.

[I]A Guide on How to Make 200 Million Dollars Out of 5 Million - Part I: Miracle Overview & Brand Marketing 101: The Tipping Point.

Lost in Thailand - The Most Money-Making Film in Chinese Film History

"Surprise" for the Audience:
The Most Famous Female Celebrity in China Fan Bingbing Starring as herself at the End

The Box Office Miracle - Lost in Thailand (a.k.a Tai Jiong 泰囧)

A perfect tipping (a marketing concept which I will later elaborate on) case of a small thing exploding like a supernova just happened in China in the past 3 months. The comedy film Lost in Thailand (also referred as Tai Jiong in short form) directed by its main actor Xu Zheng – for his first time – had its box office grossing over 190 million dollars in the 27^th day of its release, and surpassed 200 million dollars on January the 12^th, 2013, one month from its opening date ("Grossing Over 200 Million Dollars, Tai Jiong Becomes A Chinese Film Milestone"). This film sank Titanic and became the movie of the year in 2012. It broke more than ten records in the Chinese film history, including the highest Chinese film box office gross record of 120 million dollars, approaching the highest box office gross record in China held by Avatar which is 228 million dollars (Yao, "Tai Jiong Refreshes At Least Ten Records in the Chinese Film History”).

What appalled and shocked all of the Chinese film industry and the investment industry is that it is produced at a total cost of less than five million dollars (at early stages it was reported as two million, but later they claimed the cost to be “between four and five millions”) (Ma, “Wang Changtian Responds: It’s Just A Normal Film”). Yes, it flipped its investors at least 40 times of their money solely by its box office revenue and according to Google Stock Quote, it levered a 633 million dollars increase in the market value of the Enlight Media Group - its major investor - in thirty days. Is this miracle reproducible? Malcolm Gladwell’s tipping theory does not give all the answer, but it perfectly explains Lost in Thailand’s success.

The Tipping Point - A Special Way to Look at Marketing

So before we get into our analysis, let's talk about our methodology a little bit. Few days ago, I was reading Malcolm Gladwell's renowned The Tipping Point (http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/) which is one of the readings required by my professor John Verret who is an incredibly intelligent and amazing marketing expert. He was the Vice Chair, President & CEO and Executive Vice President & COO for Arnold Communications - one of the biggest Ad agencies, as well as a partner and co-owner. He was named the Best Executive of the Year as early as in 1990 - six years before he founded his own company. I found this book he recommended enchanting and very practical. For marketing minds and brand strategists who have not read this book, I definitely would forward his recommendation.

Tipping, as referred by Gladwell (2002), is the action and the mechanism of how a specific small chain of action and reactions triggers a social phenomenon, a word of mouth epidemic. Gladwell theorized the tipping mechanism into three rules: 1. the Law of the Few; 2. the Stickiness Factor; 3. the Power of Context. These are the Three Rules of Epidemic and they apply to any product in any category, which of course includes film.


The Law of the Few suggests three kinds of people are key in order to reach a Tipping Point. "The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts," and Gladwell categorizes people who possess such social gifts into three groups: 1. Connectors; 2. Mavens; 3. Salesmen. Connectors are those people who are the centers of social gravity, who are connected to many people. They can easily get a large proportion of people to know about what's going on. Mavens are the information sources. They are people whom others go to for information and details. They are enthusiastic to share what they know and the only thing a maven does not do is to persuade - which makes one a salesman. A salesman not necessarily persuades people all the time, but what he or she say and how he/she act results to be persuasive and causes actions(purchase).

Only the first rule - the Law of the Few - alone explains well enough how China's newest and biggest box office miracle Lost in Thailand. Here is a simple map for the three major roles in the Law of the Few and how they work and I will start with analyzing the primary connector in my next blog. Stay tuned. ;p

Picture by Dave Pollard (http://howtosavetheworld.ca/2003/05/16/)

*** References ***

Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Boston: Back Bay Books, 2002. Print.

"Grossing Over 200 Million Dollars, Tai Jiong Becomes A Chinese Film Milestone." Trans. Jie Luo. Shenzhen Evening News [Shenzhen] 13 Jan. 2013: n. pag. MTime.com. MTime, 13 Jan. 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2013. <http://news.mtime.com/2013/01/12/1504881.html>.

Ma, Yu. "Wang Changtian Responds: It's Just A Normal Film." Trans. Jie Luo. Yangtse Evening News 08 Jan. 2013: n. pag. Xinhua. Xinhua, 08 Jan. 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2013. <http://news.xinhuanet.com/ent/2013-01/08/c_124200706.htm>.

Yao, Xia. "Tai Jiong Refreshes At Least Ten Records in the Chinese Film History." Trans. Jie Luo. Changchun Evening News [Changchun] 04 Jan. 2013: n. pag. Chinanews.com. China News Service, 04 Jan. 2013. Web. 13 Feb. 2013. <http://www.chinanews.com/yl/2013/01-04/4454714.shtml>.