Click the image for details Many people are beginning to say that the marketing theories of Trout and Kotler are outdated. Since 2013, it seems the entire FMCG industry has fallen into a state of "chaos." Many veteran marketers are confused, unable to see clearly, understand, or see through the situation. There are also few "dark horse" brands emerging among FMCG brand manufacturers. What is going on? The author considers himself a restless person, having spent over a decade in the liquor industry, then moved to the internet industry to "learn by stealth," and half a year ago, returned to the liquor industry. Here I share some humble opinions, hoping to spark discussion. For the FMCG industry, it is essentially simple: Manufacturers (brand owners) create products or services and sell them to consumers (users) through channels (here broadly referring to any pathway that reaches consumers). No matter how the new era changes, this relationship will not change. So what has changed?
The products consumers need have changed;
The paths through which consumers learn about product selling points are different;
The paths (channels) through which consumers purchase products or through which products are sold are different; Thus, as manufacturers (brand owners), we are in the midst of a wave of change: either change or disappear. So, how should manufacturers (brand owners) change? Manufacturers (brand owners) first need to solve two problems:
What kind of products or services to create?
Why should consumers buy your products or services? I believe there are two types of products: one is functional products; the other is products that satisfy certain emotional needs. Of course, the second type also has functionality. When hungry, eat; when thirsty, drink. These are functional. However, in today's world of material abundance, no product is irreplaceable. When consumers are thirsty, there are at least thousands of beverages to choose from. So why do consumers choose you? The consumer's decision-making mechanism is the first problem we need to solve. Consumer decisions can be rational or emotional, but true rationality almost never exists. Therefore, consumer decisions are only of three types:
Emotional decisions
Seemingly rational but actually emotional decisions
Unthinking decisions (decisions made without thought) Suppose you are thirsty and need to buy a drink. When you walk into a convenience store, you see a cute pink-packaged drink and buy it. That is an emotional decision. Looking closely, you see it's a carbonated drink. Your brain quickly reacts that carbonated drinks are unhealthy, so you should get a tea drink. Among dozens of tea drinks, you see one with a cute cartoon character wearing glasses, and you like it, so you buy it. That is a seemingly rational but actually emotional decision. You quickly open the drink, take a sip, and it's not bad. You are satisfied, exceeding your expectations, so you decide to drink this from now on. Or you take a sip, it tastes bad, and you decide never to buy it again. Then next time, you might make an unthinking decision. How can you make "emotional" consumers choose your product first? This brings us to an iron rule. Iron Rule 1: Excellent product quality or consumer experience is the foundation of everything If the product is substandard or the consumer experience is poor, even the gods cannot help. So I won't dwell on this. But it is very important. Iron Rule 2: Excellent packaging design is the primary factor in catching consumers' eyes I remember reading Shi Yuzhu's "My Marketing Insights," which mentioned the early days of Nao Baijin. Shi Yuzhu and his team changed the packaging dozens of times until consumers could see their product at a glance when entering a store. This illustrates the point. We often say that good products speak for themselves, so let's start with packaging. Iron Rule 3: Good products come with their own viral attributes Word-of-mouth, the most primitive form of "advertising," is amplified in today's era of self-media. So, having viral attributes is very important. How to encourage consumers to spread the word? I will discuss this below under "communication." Iron Rule 4: Use your most prominent selling point to seize consumers' minds and enter their selection menu A product may be chosen by consumers for many reasons, but the prerequisite is that you must enter the consumer's mental menu. This selling point can be functional, such as wanting the safest car, so you choose Volvo; or when eating hot pot and fearing getting上火, you choose Wanglaoji (JDB). It can also be psychological, such as choosing Moutai for a banquet to show a certain level of sophistication. Is Moutai necessarily good? Not really. On one hand, many people don't like the taste of sauce-flavored liquor. On the other hand, in terms of sauce-flavor quality, Yongfu Sauce Wine is also very high (forgive me for a little advertisement). These are essentially about market segmentation and choosing market entry points. Trout's "Positioning" theory is not outdated. Ye Maozhong's "Conflict" and Jiang Nanchun's "Seizing the Mind" both address this issue well. Now that we've covered products, we should discuss how to communicate. We must clarify two questions: what to communicate (content) and how to communicate (media). Many senior marketers feel they don't know how to play the game due to recent changes. Why do they feel this way? First, from the perspective of competing for consumer mindshare, consumers' attention is scarce, but information is fragmented and overloaded. In the era of Qinchiquan, winning the CCTV bid for the "Standard King" meant capturing the consumer's mind entrance. So his sales instantly increased fivefold. Now, it's hard to find what exactly is the consumer's mind entrance. Second, in this era of material abundance, it's hard to find products that are irreplaceable. In the past, products needed to satisfy functional needs, but now, consumers must be satisfied with personalized needs, which are more emotional than functional. Iron Rule 5: Good content must make consumers "feel" (five senses: sense of existence, superiority, fulfillment, scarcity, and fear) Sense of existence: Having your product gives a certain identity. For example, when promoting the 8848 phone, the founder of Xiaoguan Tea, Mr. Du, tried to create the impression that owning an 8848 phone makes you a professional elite or boss. Sense of superiority: Having your product gives a feeling of being better than others. For example, airlines commonly use membership programs. Sense of fulfillment: After buying, buying, buying, you feel like you own everything. Sense of scarcity: When the total quantity of a product is limited, a sense of scarcity arises, such as Pu'er tea from Iceland or Banzhang. Sense of fear: Not having your product makes you feel left behind by the times. For example, one principle behind knowledge payment is the widespread anxiety and fear. If you don't learn, you'll fall behind. Note: The above is quoted from Frank's "Bestseller Writing Course." Iron Rule 6: Good content must be such that consumers automatically forward it. Content that does not generate secondary dissemination is not good content. Tencent's Xu Zhibin mentioned a "fat tail effect," where each dissemination leads to secondary and tertiary dissemination, up to 12 degrees of spread. Effectively utilize consumers' "self-dissemination" ability. Jiangxiaobai has given us a good case. How to make content generate secondary forwarding? Simply put, content that is fun or interesting, provides bragging rights, expresses love, is self-serving or altruistic, or is professional and useful is more likely to be forwarded. Professor Jonah Berger of Wharton Business School summarized this well in "Contagious." The six elements of "Contagious" are: social currency (conversation starter), triggers, emotion (arousing emotion), public visibility, practical value, and stories. Iron Rule 7: For content production, even the best team will eventually run out of ideas. You must launch a people's war (users generate content themselves). I believe the truly era-defining revolution in variety shows was "Super Girl," because it created a possibility of mass entertainment by the masses. The same applies to content production. No matter how good a content production team is, it has its limitations and will eventually run out of ideas. Gradually guide users to produce content, and user consumption can ensure that content is truly inexhaustible. Now we have good products and good content. How to disseminate? As mentioned above, it's hard to find a single consumer mind entrance now. Iron Rule 8: Media selection must establish a suitable media matrix based on target consumers. How to make consumers form impressions and develop awareness? It is through repetition. Since a single medium cannot accomplish this, it is necessary to establish a suitable media matrix in media selection. Years ago, when discussing the necessity of terminal vividness construction, I mentioned in a marketing department meeting how Wanglaoji (JDB) formed strong consumer awareness. Besides the repeated TV ads of "Fear of getting上火? Drink Wanglaoji," they also had promotions in hundreds of hot pot restaurants in a region, thousands of store signs, tens of thousands of terminal displays, and hundreds of thousands or more posters. So, how to establish a suitable media matrix? You need to study consumer behavior habits and intercept them along the way. There is no other way. Iron Rule 9: Effectively guide and manage fans for circle-based fan marketing is a shortcut to success for startup brands. Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired magazine, said in "The Technium": "If an artist has 1,000 true fans, they can make a living." This is the famous 1,000 true fans principle. Ding Ding, in "Deep Fan Marketing," analyzed Lu Han's fans. Among his tens of millions of fans, only a few hundred are truly core. How to conduct circle-based fan marketing? Ding Ding's "Deep Fan Marketing" gives us a good answer. Iron Rule 10: Every sales node is a dissemination; offline activities are amplified to online dissemination; online fan acquisition is refined offline; communities are repeaters; dissemination is transaction. This is a systematic project. Liu Chunxiong's "New Marketing" gives us a good summary. In the three-dimensional space of online, community, and offline, cognition, transaction, and relationship are trinity. Personified brands (IP) are more conducive to consumer identification and dissemination. Ultimate Iron Rule: Marketers must deeply study consumers' action trajectories and psychological trajectories. No matter how the era changes, or how complex channels become, in the push-pull dynamics of marketing, the consumer's pull is indispensable at all times. If consumers forget you, you will perish. Channel construction is another proposition. Rely on channels, but also rely on consumers. Many people say new retail is a good thing. Many manufacturers bet on new retail. If you don't have pull from the consumer level, the push from channels will also disappear. Haven't you seen how home appliance manufacturers once relied on Gome and Suning, and how FMCG once relied on Carrefour and Walmart? This is an era of cooperation and also an era of wrestling. In the midst of worldly affairs, whenever I feel restless, I habitually copy the "Tao Te Ching." The four characters "道法自然" (Tao follows nature) always leap off the page. Following the laws of development is the Tao. The path of transformation for manufacturers (brand owners) is far from exhausted. Every technological change brings a new revolution, big or small. What we can do is see through the chaotic surface to the underlying laws. I am a fan of Charlie Munger and believe in his multidisciplinary approach. Source: Jingwei Column (ID: gh_f7231935ebc8) New Distribution will hold the 2019 (5th) FMCG + Internet Conference during the Chengdu Spring Sugar and Wine Fair from March 16 to March 18. This conference will focus on the topic of "Breaking the Game" and engage in in-depth discussions with numerous brand owners, supply chain service providers, distributors, retailers, and others. Compared to previous conferences, this summit will be fully upgraded. In addition to original topics such as channel innovation, city distribution logistics, and distributor transformation, it will add multiple parallel forums on new marketing cases, IP + FMCG empowerment, community group buying, and innovative retail. Through three days of ten high-density, high-quality expert sharing and exchanges, we believe every brand owner and distributor can learn the latest business models, expert opinions, and practical methods, finding new tools and methods to break the game in 2019 and return to the track of rapid growth. Review of Previous Conferences -END-