The epidemic has hit sporting events hard, but it has also stimulated the enthusiasm of the whole people. This is true of mass movements, and it is also true of niche movements.
2021 can be said to be the year of the outbreak of the niche movement. From the data of the little red book, it can be seen that the community search volume of the frisbee in 2020 increased by 144% year-on-year, in the show "Talk Show Conference" on October 5, the actor Xiaobei mentioned the experience of playing frisbee, many people began to search for what sport the frisbee is, the next month after the broadcast of the program, the search volume of the little red book frisbee increased by 1255% compared with the same period last year; the paddle board out of the surf "pregnant" also has a sought after group, with the opening of more and more urban waters, Paddle board is becoming a new way of life for urban ronin, according to the data provided by Xiaohongshu, from the end of 2020, the number of paddle board related notes released showed a continuous upward trend, to August 2021 to the annual high, the number of paddle board notes released in that month increased by 452% compared with August 2020, and from January to November 2021, it increased by 505% year-on-year.
More niche movements are also in the bud. The swing dance combined with jazz began to attract the attention of young people in the urban space led by Beijing and Shanghai.
The community originated
Swing dance, popular in the 1920s and 1940s, is a collective term for a social dance that developed with the swing style of jazz, and is now widely popular as Lindy Hop, Balboa, Charleston and so on. As can be seen on the official website of Swing Beijing, this sport was brought into Beijing by American Adam Lee in 2003, and then expanded to nearly 20 cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Hangzhou and so on, gradually establishing a swing dance community in the city.
Swing Dance was featured in LIFE magazine.
Up to now, there are about 10 swing dance communities and studios (full-time) in Beijing. In the past two years, many new swing dance communities have emerged in Beijing, and it can be seen from the number of dance parties that there will be at least one dance party every weekday night, and on weekends, there will even be two or three times a day.
Founded in 2019, SwingBeasts Swinging Beasts (hereinafter referred to as SwingIng Beasts) is one of them, consisting of 8-10 swing dancers. The company was originally established to communicate, train and improve dance skills as a group to participate in swing dance competitions. Then he began to do swing dance community, spread swing dance culture, business teaching and training, and strive to let more people understand swing dance.
As international exchanges increased, they found that there was a "chasm" between domestic and foreign swing dance culture and technology. In 2019, DQ, the leader of the Swing Beast Dance Team, won the championship at battle Asia China in the China-Korea Swing Dance Competition held in Shanghai, and got a free ticket to Korea for exchange, and some members of the team also went to South Korea.
"In the Battle Asia Finals in South Korea, we communicated with the top dancers in South Korea and the world, and found that there was a big technical gap between them and them," recalled SiSi, a member of the dance company and the current director of the Swing Beast public account, South Korea is currently one of the countries with the largest number of swing dance dancers in the world with the best swing dance technology and cultural dissemination, and the overall level is the highest, and Seoul alone has nearly 10,000 swing dancers, hundreds of swing dance communities and organizers (teachers), "although I knew that the Korean swing dance atmosphere was good before. But I didn't expect the gap to be so large, and it was an order of magnitude difference. ”
The following year, the covid-19 outbreak led to a sharp increase in the difficulty of global travel, and swing dance events in various places were suspended or moved online, which gave Sisi and her partners time to think about whether to get more people involved and upgrade their skills first, in addition to self-improvement.
Si Si began to study how swing dance developed rapidly in South Korea, in her opinion there are three reasons, "first of all, jazz is popular, the music with swing dance is jazz, this kind of music is highly popular in South Korea, Seoul will hold the Seoul Jazz Festival every year before the epidemic; secondly, the hip-hop population is easy to transform, whether it is ballet, hip-hop or other dances, people who have a dance background and sports coordination are more likely to dance; finally, the Korean swing dance organization is scientific and stepped development, swing dance newcomers for 3 years, The 5-year development path is very clear. In this way, more people stay in the swing dance community, excellent dancers blossom everywhere, and then feed back to bring new experiences to the community, and the entire swing dance group develops effectively and rapidly. From the perspective of the social environment, perhaps because of factors such as the economic model of South Korea's social structure, swing dance is also a way for many young people in Seoul to gather after work. ”
It seems that the former two cannot be changed in the short term, but increasing experience and teaching may be a more practical way to start with new ones. Sisi believes that "more people joining this dance and community is what really expands the circle." ”
Experience first
Located on the first floor of the Zhao Long Hotel, the liquor laboratory is mostly deserted compared to the cosmetics collection brand HARMAY Meishou Store on the north side of the same building. However, every Thursday at 8:30 p.m., as the street lights come on, some retro-dressed people flock to this slightly empty tavern, which hosts swinging beast experience classes and dances.
The poster of the dance party reads: "50 yuan a ball ticket (including a glass of wine), 65 yuan a dance party ticket + experience class (including a glass of wine)". The price is extremely friendly for a 55-minute experiential lesson that includes a short swing dance background popularization and 2-3 basic dance steps to learn, and even sometimes a fun choreography. The number of people who come to participate in the experience class every week is not fixed, and the original intention of everyone to participate in the activity is different.
Swing dance as a social dance, there will be two characters in the process, Leader and Faller, the former is usually male and the latter is usually female.
The first time to participate in the experience class, chose to be Follwer's Meng Meng said, is a retro culture lover, initially in the frequented ancient shopping shop to learn about swing dance, "but I did not participate in the activities over there, they look like old cannons, I am a little worried about cowardice, this activity (swing beast) theme is more interesting and also send a glass of wine, thinking that even if you can't learn, drinking a glass of wine is also cost-effective," Meng Meng said. Although he did not have the goal of learning, he learned very quickly with the foundation of dance, and at the same time established a friendship with his leader that night. Potential swing dancers like Meng Meng are perhaps the most attractive targets of the swing dance community, that is, people who are interested in swing dance and lack trust in their own limb coordination. But it seems that the swing dance circle has given a solution, and many swing dancers will use the "walk and dance" to attract users who experience it for the first time.
If the experience class allows consumers to establish their awareness of swing dance, the subsequent dance party may become the key to promoting newcomers to systematically learn swing dance, and it is also the most wonderful link of social dance.
The dance party opened and brought the evening's ritual to a climax, with dancers dressed in vintage costumes pouring into the dance floor. The eyes, dance steps, and movements all reveal the mental and physical relaxation of the dancers, coupled with jazz and cheerful music, "After intense work, swing dance made me feel surrounded by happiness for the first time, and I also hope that I can dance as freely as they do," a community member who participated in the experience class and immediately signed up for Level 1 that week told Lazy Bear Sports.
The swing dance class is an upgrade to the experience class. It can be seen from the swing beast course system that 10 regular courses and 2 advanced elective courses have been launched, and the entire system course includes Lindy dance, Charleston dance and related vocabulary learning, each course is generally charged at 850 yuan per person, the double registration price is 1600 yuan, the regular course is 8 hours, and the basic class price is about 100 yuan / hour. Upon completion of each stage of the course, community members are also given some motivation, a video of the final dance and a certificate.
Mumu Museum x Swing Dance Pop-up Event.
In addition to classes and dances, cross-border cooperation activities have also led to new growth. In November 2021, the Thanksgiving day activity jointly created by the Swinging Beast and the Mumu Art Museum promoted the growth of the community, and a series of activities such as visiting the art museum at night, holding experience classes in the art museum, and holding swing dance parties won attention. "In fact, the audience of the art museum and the swing dance are highly overlapping, and the common artistic pursuit has brought better transformation to the community." Sisi said.
Same-sex attraction
At the heart of any community is a group of like-minded people. In 1974, the American historian Daniel Boursting first mentioned the concept of consumption community in the "American" trilogy, arguing that the consumer community is "an invisible relationship group spontaneously formed by consumers in the process of deciding how to consume."
Consumption in niche sports communities is not just about buying, but more about the spiritual level, that is, finding a sense of belonging and common value in the community. For swing dance, although "you can walk and dance swing dance", in fact, the common aesthetic of jazz music and retro wear is the basic threshold for community members; for Frisbee, the love of outdoor sports and the pursuit of gender equality (unisex competition) are also the common pursuits of community members.
In the past two years, outdoor elements have been on fire, "dare to try new things", "young and cool" may be the labels of most outdoor sports community members, but also attracted high matching brand attention.
Founded in 2017, Pedigrade is a light outdoor sports community in Shanghai, which is extended from the "Indoor Oasis" on Yuyuan Road. "Because I like to play outdoors myself, I first started playing with people who also like sports within 3 kilometers of the juice shop, mainly cycling and frisbee, and later joined a number of outdoor sports such as rowing, camping and skiing," Joan, a community promoter for physical education classes, told Lazy Bear Sports.
Fun is Joan's most frequently mentioned word, in her opinion whether the activity is "fun" enough is the most critical point to connect the members of the community, "the activities planned by the physical education class are pioneering, fun, non-repetitive urban outdoor community activities." Perhaps because of similar values, pedigrade community members also have highly overlapping backgrounds, 25-35 urban new middle class, engaged in design (architecture, interior), outdoor and independent musicians, etc. At the same time, the members are mainly targeted invitations, and the entire community is controlled by about 500 people.
Suzhou Noodle Eating Event, CR: Member of the PHYSICAL EDUCATION Class Community.
Unlike other niche sports communities that are strongly localized, community activities in physical education classes also take place in other cities. In November, the physical education class launched a campaign to eat noodles in Suzhou, more than 30 community members took a bus to Suzhou together, and then rode to the noodle shop to eat noodles, play frisbee on the city wall, the whole seemingly random activity, the team members have stepped on the point in advance, completed the cycling route design, Joan said, "The most interesting thing is that when we were riding in Suzhou, many people on the side of the road were photographing us, and later they also sent it to the little red book, if through us let the local residents know more about cycling culture, That's what we want to see, too."
It is worth mentioning that unlike the traditional sports community that focuses on community content, the physical education class also extends its business to do event planning for the brand (full case), visual graphic design and video shooting services, so as to provide one-stop customized services for the brand. Joan told Lazy Bear Sports, "Probably since the end of last year, many brands have begun to find cooperation, but we also choose brands with similar values to play together, and for customized activities, we will also invite community members to participate together." ”
Kolon Camping, CR: PeS Community Member.
The brand customization service of physical education class is more from the brand positioning. In March 2021, the physical education class planned a camping event for Kolon's high-end light outdoor community, Joan introduced to Lazy Bear Sports, "Considering that they are mainly light luxury outdoors, so we will not be too wild when designing content, more consideration for family audiences, and finally chose a one-day non-overnight camping activity format, including camping knowledge, canoe afternoon tea, field recording, frisbee and hiking firewood and other light outdoor activities." We also did an anniversary event for Freitag, considering that the brand positioning would be more wild, when we designed a cycling event for them, consisting of three different styles of cycling routes (Shanghai Old Town, French petty bourgeoisie and fast extinction), the three routes will intersect at the same point, we will find a photographer to shoot this picture in the staggered point, he will be very real, very beautiful. ”
Freitag activities.
In addition, although there are differences in the age structure of audiences between different niche sports, most of them have a need for visual content sharing, and the film production rate has become an important part of promoting the population growth of niche sports to some extent, and niche sports communities have invariably provided this service. High-quality sports participation photos may become the best natural advertisement in the circle of friends.
Joan believes that the photos taken in physical education class are very real, not like the traditional hard and wide pose, but more in the recording of naturally occurring moments. Interestingly, in the nearly 5 years of operation of the physical education class, many community members have developed their own "new professions" in sports photography, and even received photography invitations from brands.
Many niche sports communities will resist being labeled as visual economy, but Joan does not think so, in her view, vision is just a medium of communication, "we are happy to capture the visual picture generated when everyone plays together, if this can trigger everyone to yearn for outdoor life and participate in sports, this is what we are happy to see." "Judging from the previous brands and number of cooperative brands, the content and vision of the physical education class have undoubtedly been recognized by the brands. At present, PE has cooperated with dozens of brands such as Patagonia, Kolon Kolon, Sandun, Niko and..., Tesla, Nike and so on.
"Working with brands with a high degree of fit not only increases community exposure, thereby enhancing the identity and sense of belonging of community members, but also spontaneously does secondary communication for the brand." A community operator revealed to Lazy Bear Sports that through the sharing of community members on social media, the same type of friends will also be attracted to join, which also caters to the core of niche sports community communication - word-of-mouth communication.
At the heart of word-of-mouth communication are people, i.e. members of the community. "Members with high community recognition usually introduce friends to participate, which is also the initial way our community gets customers," Sisi told Sloth Bear Sports, "Most of the first participants in the Swing Beast community came from good friends around the initiating dancers and other swing organizers." In addition, we will also publish information about swing dances through various social platforms, and even publish activities in the Internet company forums where we work to attract colleagues to participate. ”
In Sisi's view, if you want to create a high-sticky community, you need to increase the participation of community members through continuous new high-quality content, so that users can continue to experience more interesting content, so as to recognize this community. "There are many aspects of the joy of swing dance, and our content design is different in each experience class, and the dance steps taught are different, which allows beginners to feel the fun of swing dance from different angles." That's when they make the decision to join the swing dance. Even if the old dancers who have studied come to participate, they will find it very interesting." In this way, creating a highly sticky community requires continuous new quality content to increase the participation of community members, thereby increasing the loyalty of community members. It is worth mentioning that in terms of social content creation, the recent Swing Beast Metropolis has selected classic movie themes, such as "pulp fiction" and "Philharmonic City", and resonant themes may bring more audiences.
In addition to high-quality content, how to disseminate it is also particularly important.
In October 2020, Swing Beast registered for the WeChat public account and published its first article, mainly sharing swing dance culture, swing dance performances and competitions, and sharing retro lifestyles. Sisi is less likely to publicize too many courses and weekday dance parties in the public account, paying more attention to sharing swing dance knowledge, skills, works, and doing some original columns, so that dancers can get high-quality reading from the public account, "They pay attention to me to understand the swing dance culture, too much sales may cause annoyance to subscribers, and it is not what we want to see." ”
In the planning of new content, Sisi excitedly said, "Frankly speaking, I have new ideas every day, what kind of videos, what kind of pictures, in my mind has long formed a picture flashed over and over again, the whole person will be extremely excited because of these ideas in the brain, in order to write these articles every day until 3 a.m., the next day to work as usual." Only hate that there is not enough time, and the idea is only 40% to achieve landing. ”
Double micro shake may be the marketing stereotype of mass brands, but for niche sports communities, more vertical social media may be the core battlefield. In addition to the WeChat public platform, it can be seen that the swinging beast has opened accounts on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Station B.
But different positioning communities have different understandings of social media, and physical education class does not seem to be too cold about it, Joan told Lazy Bear Sports, "We do not do public accounts and small red books, we pay more attention to interesting sports and lifestyles themselves, which is also a feature of ours." ”
But whether it is social media or offline activities, it is essentially a tool to maintain the niche sports community, and perhaps the core of the sustainable development of the niche sports community is the common values of the members.
Cultural phenomenon
Whether there is a common value may be the key point for the niche sports community to move towards branding, and it will also affect the life cycle of the niche sports community to a certain extent.
For how to create common value, Lululemon's early community building method is worth learning.
Initially, Lululemon entered the sportswear market through yoga, a fast-growing global niche sport, and then conveyed the brand concept to the target consumer (Super Girl) by recruiting Super Girl, and in the autobiography "Little Black Stretchy Pants" by Lululemon founder Chip Wilson, super Girl was described in detail: at the age of 22, they had a great job after graduation , has its own apartment and a cat, likes to travel, fashion, willing to pay for high quality; in addition, lululemon also cooperates with yoga teachers (KOC) to invite him to open hot sweat courses for his target consumers, and KOC will also visualize the brand spirit, further influencing the decision-making and favorability of target consumers. At the same time, with more and more Super Girl's pursuit, lululemon's brand symbol has been given a social value.
Of course, this is only the lululemon 1.0 phase. In May 2017, Lululemon said it would transition from "yoga inspired athletic apparel" to "healthy lifestyle inspired athletic apparel," which may be the beginning of Lululemon's transition from "niche" to "mass."
For the niche sports community, the future is to "vertically" to the end, open up the upstream and downstream, and strengthen labeling; or to expand to the same type of sports and develop to lifestyle brands, which may be a problem that practitioners need to think deeply about, that is, what is their ultimate purpose of building a niche sports community.
In Sisi's view, her initial community is largely to cultivate new people, screening the future suitable for the future to speak for China in the world"; Shenzhen Leo Frisbee, also from March last year to do frisbee community, in July, Leao also supported a "spring cocoon plan", intended to enhance the overall competitive strength of the entire urban frisbee sports team, although less than 5% of the people rose from the frisbee community, but the community may be a new way to increase the professional frisbee population; Joan in Shanghai has different ideas. The purpose of the original "physical education class" community was to love outdoor sports, hoping to drive more people to understand nature through sports, for her, outdoor sports is just a way to explore the world, and the same is true for the community.
There is no doubt that the rise of niche sports communities has driven the rapid development of niche movements, both in recognition and participation.
Niche sports such as swing dance, frisbee, skateboarding, and paddle board are developing rapidly, but they are still niche compared to football and basketball. In Beijing, a city with more than 20 million permanent residents, the swing dancer population is less than 1,000, but the community operators are actively spreading through various media; in Shenzhen, which has a permanent population of more than 17 million, Zhao Chen of Leo Frisbee speculates that in the past two months, more than 200 new people will be welcomed in the weekly Frisbee activities, "which is a conservative figure." ”
End with the words of the founder of Af essential oil, Diaoye: "Every consumer product is worth doing again." "Perhaps, so is the niche movement, and the community is the threshold that cannot be avoided." (Extended reading: the "seven steps" of creating a popular niche movement | Annual Summary)