You must be wondering what will happen to companies and individuals in 2023. This is a unique forecast from a brand perspective. Based on past years' reviews, at least 80%-90% of the content has indeed come true. Therefore, the annual 'this article' is here again! Predicting changes in corporate and personal branding at the start of each year has become a habit, and this year is no exception. But this year's forecast is not easy, why? In the past, forecasts could basically grasp the linear trend of companies and brands, but with the rapid changes in the social backdrop, the three-year pandemic has had a huge impact on people's material and spiritual levels, making it difficult to predict many things rationally. Social media seems lively on the surface, but we have already seen many people showing a silent attitude. Therefore, what everyone is thinking and what behavioral motivations they have are becoming increasingly hard to guess. But it is certain that past brand growth methods have become history, and people's understanding of brands is gradually entering the right track. The saying 'do sales, not branding' and the era of blind growth have officially ended. In the consumer sector, business stories supported by traffic and sales are gradually evolving into versions of profit and brand. Under profit pressure, SaaS companies will usher in the first real brand test period. Internet model innovation is nearly at its peak, and the second curve of human business activities is shifting to tracks related to our own destiny, such as energy, food, and healthcare, where brand heroes will emerge one after another. For each individual, the direction of personal brands points to 'digitalization' and 'connection'. How to use digital tools and thinking to enhance individual influence, and how to complete connections with people in the process, will become the next important proposition for personal brands. This year's trends and suggestions continue the previous style. No fancy words, no grand narratives, no bluffing, no nonsense, no examples. Straightforward, just to truly inspire and help pragmatic entrepreneurs, managers, and marketers. Ten Trends and Suggestions for Corporate Brands 01. The Decline of Internet Celebrity Brands In the past few years, people have gradually seen through the truth of internet celebrity brands. Quickly burning money to create a 'phenomenon' that flocks in, but what is overdrawn is people's 'curiosity' about it. Once the mystery of curiosity is revealed, the sustainable development of this matter becomes extremely difficult. The core of consumer goods is repurchase and profit, and internet celebrity brands have nothing to do with either. The explosion of internet celebrity brands is the success of social media marketing companies, not the success of enterprises. Investors and entrepreneurs are gradually realizing this. A few days ago, Teacher Liu Chunxiong joked: 'Internet celebrities are like crabs; they die once they turn red,' which also reveals the essence of 'internet celebrity'—the parabola of influence is the unchanging law of internet celebrity brands. Don't think that live streaming and internet celebrities are the whole of marketing and sales in this world. Let me give you another data point: online sales, including live streaming, account for only 20% of China's total retail sales, while hypermarkets account for 15%, and the remaining 65% are traditional retail stores. There are two reasons for the decline of internet celebrities: first, the number of participants who use the three tricks to attract attention is increasing, and consumers are showing fatigue after reading. Second, marketing ultimately fails to land on the brand, making it unsustainable and not cost-effective. Making profit and repurchase will become the primary task in 2023. 02. The Rise of 'White Label' Brands In contrast to the fact that internet celebrity brands are lively but not profitable, the rise of white label brands that quietly make big money is emerging. Some people think that the rise of white labels means the disappearance of brands. On the contrary, behind white labels is the influence of channel brands. Product brands and channel brands are competing in a subtle way that is not easy to detect. People's purchases must have a reason for trust, either trusting the brand itself, or trusting the endorsement of channels, personal IP, and platforms. Behind all marketing behaviors that seem not to rely on brands, trust is used. Whether it is community group buying, online channels, offline chains, or Li Jiaqi's personal endorsement. There are no white labels that exchange money out of thin air; they are partnerships between good products at reasonable prices and brand channels. Channel brands are a subtraction of brand mindshare. With the geometric increase in the number of SKUs, it is increasingly difficult for brands to occupy users' minds. Channels/IPs/platforms assume the function of credit intermediaries. Traditional stores lack this awareness, more of a 'landlord' mentality, earning site rental fees and managing property. If channels/platforms really want to build brands, they must be able to assume the function of 'credit intermediaries', and internet platforms have set a good example. Next, online channels will segment, offline chain channels will rise, and channel brands and 'white labels' will take off together. 03. Cross-Border Based on First Principles Becomes the Norm Musk's success has given entrepreneurs new inspiration: study experience, mobilize all resources, and break it. Those extraordinary things often have large spans, and such things seem extremely complex on the surface, like launching rockets, but are actually simpler than imagined. Starting with electric vehicles, innovation in large fields and industries (such as agriculture, machinery, energy, manufacturing, elderly care, etc.) will unfold one after another, and brands will need greater imagination to do things never done before. Generations of newcomers enter traditional fields with knowledge, thinking, and new ways of presenting brands, asking naive yet valuable questions. It was often said before: any industry is worth redoing. Or in other words: any field will see new brands from new perspectives. This kind of standout is the most distinctive value of a brand. 04. Pursuing Profit Requires Gathering Brand, Not Traffic The saying 'do sales, not branding' and the era of blind growth have officially ended. The sign that it has failed is that competing on sales volume alone no longer makes money. All companies either go for high-end premium products or bind with channels to sell white labels, both of which prove companies' dependence on brands. The premise of pursuing profit is to own a brand or 'borrow' a brand from others. 'To do sales, you must do profit; to do profit, you must first do branding.' In business operations, companies certainly need traffic and sales, but without correct understanding and implantation of the brand, only doing traffic and sales is the least cost-effective, which is called selling goods. The primary purpose of absorbing traffic is not to sell goods, but to gather the brand. Gathering the brand relies on culture, characteristics, and values. Understanding branding becomes a standard for managers. Ultimately, we will find: the smaller the scale, the more they like to study immediate opportunities; better and larger companies study brands and cycles. 05. Knowledge is King, the Era of Enterprise Self-Operated Content Fully Arrives The scenario where a brand establishes its own 'editorial department' has become a reality. The editor configuration has also evolved from the earliest 'official account editor' to content expert teams. The last golden age of enterprise content was when real estate was booming; it is said that the best real estate copy came from poets active in the 1980s. Now, enterprise content will regroup in new forms. The internal 'Chief Knowledge Officer' will structurally organize and precipitate knowledge within the organization, and corporate brand magazines will become increasingly popular among brands. All of this is to organize and present a company's 'content system'. The arrival of the digital age allows experience to gradually precipitate into knowledge, even tools. The brand itself has also become a tool that uses brand knowledge to reach users. The creation of these content positions within enterprises (which may also be outsourced) is something to watch. 06. Brand Becomes a Tool for Cost Reduction and Efficiency Enhancement Cost reduction and efficiency enhancement was the hottest management term in 2022. Interestingly, the implementation of cost reduction and efficiency enhancement often becomes layoffs and cutting expenses. Blindly compressing is not efficiency enhancement; it is likely to reduce efficiency. What is true cost reduction and efficiency enhancement? It is thinking thoroughly. But the process of strategy-making has been interpreted by many companies as planning, wanting everything without reducing demands, while support is continuously reduced. It is time to try using the brand as a method for 'cost reduction and efficiency enhancement'! Brand strategy is looking at a company from an external perspective to see what to do and what not to do. Once the brand strategy passes, cost reduction and efficiency enhancement can be achieved immediately. Marketing investment and market actions are one part; internal alignment of cognition and reducing management costs are another. Add the two together, and the numbers are surprising. Last year, one of our clients lamented that if this had been done a year earlier, they could have saved at least 20 million yuan in costs. Some things are better solved from an external perspective than an internal one. Be fair and optimistic, avoid falling into blind optimism and one-man rule. 07. 'Viral Marketing' Upgrades to 'Brand Operations' for Precise Audiences The term 'screen-brushing' is gradually becoming history. Nowadays, no matter how big a brand news is, it is hard to shock everyone at once. Don't try to use 'blockbusters' to raise corporate awareness. Focus on relationship brand operations as the direction. Who are the people you want? What do you want to do with them? How do they view you? Where is your tacit understanding? There are still few companies that can answer these questions. In 2023, under the premise of producing content, focus becomes the second element. Ambiguous content has no market, let alone conveying brand propositions. The brand lies in attitudes and propositions, not in eye-catching blockbusters. 08. Membership Systems and Brand Communities Must Join Forces to Have a Chance So far, how many brands' members are you? What did you do after becoming their member? After the land-grabbing of scanning QR codes to become members ends, member operations become the next headache. Besides getting users' phone numbers, what else did the company get? Behind all membership systems, the logic is to establish a private territory for the brand. True members have thresholds, whether financial or value-based. In short, 'screening' and 'operation' are the core of membership. The current 'pseudo-member logic' aimed at obtaining phone numbers will enter a deep cultivation stage in 2023, and the first step is to join forces with brand communities. Re-screening members is necessary to build operational actions. Can you make the person who bought your car willingly come to the scene to help you sell cars, becoming your off-the-books salesperson? This has already happened in a certain automobile brand. Getting someone's phone number is just another way to harass. Getting someone's heart is the key. 09. Brand Profit Test: SaaS Brand Test Period Arrives Make money, make money, make money! In 2023, all SaaS companies are put under a spell. The charging model is implemented, all brands turn to profit orientation. How to develop and balance the brand while striving for profit is a life-and-death test for SaaS companies. Whether the service provided by the tool is good or not, the real judge is money. Free tools are praised by everyone, but once charging starts, they flee. Such an embarrassing scene may occur in 2023, especially when peer giants can use it for free. How can the value of SaaS be conveyed through the brand, and how to prevent the 'relationship deterioration' caused by charging? Profit is a challenge for enterprises, and a test for brands. Once this hurdle is passed, the SaaS industry can breathe a sigh of relief. Currently, SaaS companies as a whole have not yet realized the importance of branding, mixing marketing and branding. Among them, the earlier they sort it out, the earlier they stand out. 10. Branding Phenomenon Occurs in Multiple Industries As mentioned earlier, other important industries outside the internet are undergoing continuous changes, such as energy, manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, etc. These traditionally obscure industries are beginning to embrace innovation opportunities. Cross-border enterprises not only bring new business models and cross-border connection thinking but also new branding approaches. Therefore, the phenomenon of no well-known brands in these industries will be broken. We will soon be able to talk with relish about brands in energy storage, digital healthcare, modern agriculture, etc. 'Branding' not only occurs in the consumer goods sector but also rapidly in some offline chain sectors, such as 'catering chains'. China's catering chain development is accelerating, and brand competition will officially begin in 2023. Home furnishing malls, offline space operations, and other directions will also undergo brand transformation and innovation. Ten Trends and Suggestions for Personal Brands 01. State is the Most Important Engine for Personal Brands; State Determines Success or Failure After the pandemic, personal brands seem to lack clear direction? Everyone seems a bit lazy and uninterested? That's because your state hasn't returned yet. At this time, those who recover their state first will gain the advantage. State is the engine; the state you use to infect others determines your influence effect. Therefore, it's better to set a deadline for yourself, using the Spring Festival as an opportunity to officially draw a full stop to the 'pandemic' in your heart. Sometimes, we use the environment and encounters as excuses for procrastination. Get rid of this idea as soon as possible. 'As Heaven maintains vigor through movements, a gentleman should constantly strive for self-improvement'! 02. Improve Shielding Ability and Information Taste Behind the ability to shield information are clear values and good information taste. 'Information taste' will become an important personal ability, even more important than absorbing information. With a large amount of information coming in, can you distinguish which is high-quality and which is low-level? Now the threshold for publishing is getting lower and lower. Please believe: not everything printed as a book is worth your time to read. If books are like this, internet information is even more so. Entering 2023, information is even noisier. What should we shield? My personal experience is: actively search rather than passively receive. First, exclude all entertainment information recommended to you by algorithms, and second, exclude those 'plots' designed to keep you watching and reading. What we strive to obtain is valuable information, not the shell that packages information. 03. System Reboot, Authority Disappears 'Experts' have encountered the biggest trust crisis in this era. In 2023, this crisis will deepen further. People's resistance to authority accompanies changes in various aspects after the pandemic. As a personal brand, you must do a system reboot. Therefore, in this era, almost no one is correct. Everyone faces the same vast darkness together. What to use to reboot your system? Classics. Classic books and ways of thinking are always the foundation of thinking. Becoming a classic means transcending cycles and being repeatedly verified by countless people. This is the most cost-effective way to learn. In various industries, the authorities of the previous era are gradually declining. Their experience is not wrong but outdated. They can no longer understand why the standards they knew by heart yesterday have failed today. They are also confused. Just like us. 04. Structured Learning and Information Processing Ability This year, I watched an interview with Teacher Xu Zhuoyun. He talked about future learning. He believes that the era when 'famous schools' produced top talents is over. The knowledge on the internet is enough for a person to become talented, but the premise is that a person's willingness and ability to learn actively must be sufficient. The era of 'self-study' officially begins in 2023. Scattered knowledge is everywhere. How to structure your own understanding of a whole? Whether you can structure and process information yourself is the key to learning and growth. If you are given a new field and industry, do you think you can thoroughly understand it in a few days? If you have a self-study master around you, it's time to cling to them. 05. Digitalization is of Great Significance for Building Personal Brands Building a personal brand certainly includes greater reputation and word-of-mouth, but how to make a good voice and content spread further and let others understand you more comprehensively? The significance brought by digitalization will quickly emerge. Digitizing every aspect of a person, we can see their joys and sorrows, values, and systems more clearly. Now, artists with bad conduct are exposed faster. This is not necessarily all due to the victory of the masses' discernment; it is likely the help of digitalization. Everyone can infer a person's actual performance from various information, which is much more real than the previous 'pretending' era. If everyone's 24 hours were fully digitally recorded and presented, guess who would be your favorite idol? If your 24 hours were presented, guess what kind of people would like you more because of it? I love digitalization because it is closer to fairness. 06. Improve Meeting Organization Ability and Influence in Meetings Holding meetings may be a good means to enhance personal brand influence. The pandemic trained everyone's ability to collaborate online, but how to organize a meeting and maximize personal influence within it still puzzles many. In 2023, I think meetings will become a good means to help everyone who wants to shape a personal brand find a practice field and direction. 07. Personal Brands of Physical and Mental Health Become Popular There was a popular answer on Zhihu. Someone asked: What kind of friends should one make in life? Someone answered: strong people in the world, wise people out of the world, and ordinary people who are healthy and kind. In this answer, many people think it seems difficult to achieve the first two, but the last one seems achievable by everyone. I don't think so. Meeting an ordinary person who is healthy and kind is enough to make them a small idol in our lives. Physical and mental health means a disciplined, sunny lifestyle, and the ability to improve oneself and build a strong psychological operation system. These two points are easier said than done. For ordinary people, the premise of building a personal brand is to achieve these two points first. Physical and mental health is enough to build attractive charm and influence. 08. 2023 is an Opportunity for Deep Connections We haven't gone out properly or connected with people for three years. In 2023, as everyone actively goes out on long trips, many people begin to restore offline deep connections. From this Spring Festival, you can see that many people will choose to go back to their hometowns or travel far, acting early and booking time with friends and family early. There is a very interesting opportunity here: in 2023, you will find that people who were hard to schedule before will become easier to schedule. Friends who were more proud and flashy before are also more willing to sit down and have a good talk with you. After a pandemic, no one has experienced it in vain; many people have used it to figure out the relationships between people. 2023 is an opportunity for you to deeply connect with people you can reach, especially those who were hard to schedule or meet before. 09. Finding Your Personal Ecological Niche is More Effective than Competition Does a personal brand need positioning? Yes, but this positioning is not based on competition. We all know that the biggest feature of traditional positioning theory is that it is a theory based on competition. It makes us enter a competitive mindset of 'either you or me'. But interestingly, in 2023, perhaps a personal ecological niche is more effective than winning in competition. An ecological niche is your role and value in an ecological environment. Some people have no edge, even are not good at words, but in the organization, everyone trusts and likes them. They have high emotional value and connection value, which is their unique ecological niche. Just like in a forest, you don't have to grow as tall as the oak tree next to you, nor be as flexible as the vine, but if you are moss, you are irreplaceable. The biggest difference between this ecological niche and competition is that it is based on ecological needs, not competitive considerations. 'Because he does not contend, no one in the world can contend with him.' 10. Refine and Systematize Your Abilities When it comes to personal brands, no matter how much is said, your own abilities are still key. The premise of grasping both value and feeling is having value. The core of a personal brand certainly revolves around your abilities. Many people talk about their abilities in vague terms, such as enthusiasm, creativity, positivity, etc. Strictly speaking, these are not abilities; at best, they are basic qualities. True abilities are refined and systematically processed, applicable to specific things. For example, Japan's 'Sushi God' found a very small track: catering - production - traditional Japanese food - sushi. In this small track, he refined and systematized his abilities, perhaps patience, self-promotion ability, or rigor. This ability found soil to take root and bloom. The above is what I want to offer you. As a gift for the new year, I hope all who read it can have the best 2023. The future attracts us because everything is possible. If we want something, let's go for it together!