---
title: "2019: The Opening of New Marketing"
description: "The article reviews 2018 marketing trends, arguing that traditional traffic-based advertising is declining, and new marketing is driven by content, social, and personality. It highlights examples like controversial World Cup ads and successful campaigns such as Huadi's refund promotion, emphasizing the shift from media buying to user engagement."
author: "空手"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2019-02-17"
language: "en"
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# 2019: The Opening of New Marketing

> The article reviews 2018 marketing trends, arguing that traditional traffic-based advertising is declining, and new marketing is driven by content, social, and personality. It highlights examples like controversial World Cup ads and successful campaigns such as Huadi's refund promotion, emphasizing the shift from media buying to user engagement.

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Source: Kong Shou (ID: firesteal13)
Finally, I have time to write a summary of 2018 marketing.
When it comes to 2018, the first thing to mention is several controversial ads during the World Cup.
Zhihu's Liu Haoran ad—
Do you know? Do you really know? Are you sure you know?
Have a question? Go to Zhihu.
It has the flair of Yang Mi's "Are you okay?" ad for Liumei plum.
Mafengwo's Huang Xuan ad—
Go to Mafengwo before traveling.
Why go to Mafengwo first? Why go to Mafengwo first? Why go to Mafengwo first?
And BOSS Zhipin, with people shouting hoarsely—
Looking for a job? Talk directly to the boss.
Looking for a job? Go to BOSS Zhipin.
Promotion, salary increase. Promotion, salary increase. Promotion, salary increase.
Looking for a job? Talk directly to the boss.
Looking for a job? Go to BOSS Zhipin.
Critics say these ads are eye-searing, idiotic, vulgar, and damage brand image and value.
Supporters say, no matter how much you oppose, these ads are indeed effective; downloads increased, and at least you remember them.
I think the critics haven't hit the point.
These ads are definitely effective! During the World Cup, spending over 100 million yuan on CCTV in just one month, with high-frequency exposure and playback, if you say the ad placement is ineffective, then you have a grudge against RMB!
If you give me a budget of over 100 million yuan to spend in a month, even if the ad is filmed like a piece of shit, it will be effective. **But this "effect" is the effect of media spending, not the effect of creative.**
It's like Guazi Used Cars; I think everyone has seen its ads. From an advertising perspective, Guazi is very successful. But is it because the positioning is accurate? Is the slogan "transaction volume is far ahead" so awesome?
Bullshit! It's because Guazi Used Cars spends over 1 billion yuan annually on media, with ads everywhere; it's hard not to see and remember them.
Looking back at the three ads from Zhihu, Mafengwo, and BOSS Zhipin, they deeply embody the brainwashing essence of traditional advertising (the above are actual TVC scripts).
What's the essence?
**Split a 15-second ad into three 5-second ads—then—repeat the slogan three times.**
The three ads above all repeat themselves, with a triple sigh.
This kind of repetitive brainwashing ad, combined with a high-frequency media placement strategy, bombards your audiovisual nerves in the short term, indeed standing out from the advertising environment and being remembered.
**But is being remembered the whole point of marketing?**
Through its World Cup ad placement, Zhihu increased its awareness and user base, but its core users showed unprecedented disappointment and alienation.
What is Zhihu's self-definition? What are its values? No one knows. These should be communicated through marketing to engage users.
There is a question on Zhihu: "In 2019, who has more prospects, Zhihu or Weibo?" You can check the high-voted answers under this question.
If building a brand only requires awareness, and the essence of marketing is to be remembered, then advertising master Leo Burnett said years ago: **"If you want to be different, you can wear a sock in your mouth when you go to work in the morning."**
Wearing a sock can indeed make you stand out from the crowd and be remembered, maybe even get you on the social news headlines and hot search, appearing in many people's Moments. But would you do it?
I have always said that traditional advertising usually has two fates:
**First, being ignored.**
99% of ads are ignored by consumers due to mediocre creativity and insufficient budget (even if you've seen the ad, you can't recall it).
What about the remaining 1%?
**They fall into the second category—"damn stupid."**
Because they have too much ad budget, they desperately try to brainwash consumers, but the creativity is so eye-searing that consumers specifically hate them.
Thus, the logic of traditional marketing is still based on traffic, essentially buying users from media. Spend money on CCTV, Focus Media, Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent... and then wait for users to come.
But when the traffic dividend peaks and media prices and customer acquisition costs rise, traditional marketing seems at a loss.
Take World Cup marketing again; Mengniu had a larger budget. It is said that Mengniu spent a total of 2 billion yuan during the World Cup—3.3 billion for the World Cup sponsorship, 40 million for Messi's endorsement, and 500 million for CCTV's top World Cup media package.
But Mengniu's marketing effect was completely outshined by Huadi, which spent only tens of millions.
"If France wins, Huadi refunds all payments" became a hot topic nationwide. Although there was an element of luck, even if France hadn't won, the marketing would have been a huge success.
From the comparison between Mengniu and Huadi, we can see that Mengniu still focused on traditional hard advertising, based on traffic; while Huadi packaged the entire World Cup marketing as an event, based on content.
**Huadi used content as the foundation, created topics, captured user attention and discussion, and thus generated more content (including articles, media reports, and jokes) and traffic.**
So when the traffic dividend runs out, what should we do?
** _1_**
**Content**
First, content drives traffic.
Let's think about the marketing cases that went viral in 2018: Li Ning's fashion show at New York Fashion Week. Laoganma also went.
Want Want entered the fashion world and even launched a rice cracker cushion foundation, making "guochao" (national trend) recognized as a keyword and small trend for 2019.
Douyin launched the "First Cultural Relics Acting Contest," with cumulative views exceeding 100 million.
Durex published a poetry collection, Shenzhou Special Car issued a notice "Michael Wang was late for his flight this morning," and Tencent's Tiantian Pitu asked if you want to see your past life photo.
NetEase went viral again and again: "Jung's Psychological Test," "Sleeping Position Contest," "She Struggled for 48 Hours and Died," "My Philosophical Temperament," NetEase Cloud Music's annual playlist...
GQ Lab wrote over 280 articles with 100,000+ reads in 2018, with a single public account generating 200 million yuan in revenue, becoming the most profitable public account in China.
Even at the end of 2018, due to Dolce & Gabbana's insulting incident, the 2014 CCTV Spring Festival Gala public service ad "Chopsticks" was dug up and rehashed.
Content is becoming increasingly important; only good content can maximize the value of traffic.
**But traditional marketing relies more on traffic to promote brands, making content a vassal of traffic.** In my many years in the industry, I have been puzzled by a question: Why are many clients willing to spend hundreds of millions on TV ads but unwilling to spend a few hundred thousand to properly shoot a TV commercial?
**This is the extreme manifestation of traffic thinking. Content is irrelevant; as long as the brand is frequently exposed at consumer touchpoints, it can generate purchases and achieve results.**
But today, flooding ads and channels is somewhat outdated. On one hand, traffic costs are rising; on the other, new-generation consumers are immune to hard selling, and they know to say NO to brainwashing ads and overloaded information.
**Today's marketing needs to be subtle, embedding into consumers' hearts and social circles through content and word-of-mouth, stimulating their interest and purchase desire.**
Those familiar with the marketing industry know P&G's status in marketing history; it pioneered brand management and many other marketing innovations. For years, P&G has been a typical representative of the traditional business model of "mass production + big brand + big media + big channels."
First, clearly define the brand through market segmentation + USP; then, use mainstream media + celebrity endorsements for high-exposure, big-budget promotion; next, enter major supermarkets for display and promotion; finally, consumers will buy, buy, buy.
Every year, P&G is a top 10 advertiser on CCTV (the rest are mostly pharmaceuticals), but suddenly, this model failed. P&G's sales in China declined for three consecutive years until the 2018 fiscal year when performance improved. Rejoice/Head & Shoulders/Pantene once held over 60% of the Chinese shampoo market, but by 2016, it had fallen to 35.8%.
So, what has P&G been doing in recent years?
SK-II started the "Marriage Market" marketing in April 2016 (part of SK-II's "Change Destiny" campaign). Although controversial, it greatly stimulated sales, with SK-II's sales in China soaring by 50%.
The Marriage Market marketing strengthened topic creation, emotional connection, and user interaction; it is content.
OLAY has over 70,000 notes about the "Little White Bottle" on Xiaohongshu. OLAY's Little White Bottle is called the "affordable small light bulb" due to its high niacinamide concentration. Words like "Little White Bottle," "Little Dumbbell," and "Little Face Essence" are frequently mentioned by consumers on social media. This is the new era's "grass-planting" (recommendation) science; it is content.
Whisper wanted to launch a liquid sanitary pad. P&G's first round of promotion was to find hundreds of daigou (overseas purchasing agents) to show it off, calling it "the most popular internet-famous sanitary pad in North America." **KOL + new internet celebrities, creating internet-famous products; it is content.**
**From a brand asset perspective, traffic can only bring brand awareness, while content can give the brand personality, emotion, and values. Good content is the best carrier for brand presentation and user word-of-mouth.**
After the traffic dividend disappears, marketing can only return to building a good brand. To build a good brand, emphasizing awareness is far from enough; enterprise marketing must create content to empower the brand with more value and connotation.
From a sales perspective, traffic can only bring visitors and low conversion rates, while content can bring repurchase rates and high conversion rates.
When customer acquisition costs rise, enterprises must pay attention to the retention and repurchase of every new customer, and the value of content becomes increasingly important.
**Content is the first keyword of new marketing.** **Content drives traffic, but what drives content?** **The answer is: social.**
**2**
**Social**
Those engaged in and following self-media will notice the frequent redesigns of WeChat public accounts in 2018, which is the huge pressure brought to Tencent by the rise of short videos like Toutiao and Douyin.
In the 20 years of China's internet, content platforms have risen and fallen: from BBS to blogs, from Weibo to public accounts, from Youku and Tudou to Douyin and Kuaishou, as well as Douban, Zhihu, Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, etc. For consumers, the key to whether they go to a content platform is whether the platform can provide quality content.
But content is overloaded, and user attention is limited. How to help users quickly find the content they want? How to push the right content to the right users? How to make quality content stand out on the platform? How to improve the efficiency of content distribution? **These have become the key to a platform's rise and fall.**
Initially, BBS and blogs used **centralized editorial recommendation**, where a group of professional editors decided which content was prioritized for consumers.
Later, WeChat public accounts began using **decentralized social recommendation**, where people forwarded their favorite public account content to Moments and WeChat groups, bringing more users and followers to the public accounts.
The rise of the Toutiao system is inseparable from its **personalized algorithmic recommendation**, which uses big data to analyze what content you are interested in, enabling precise push.
The decline of public accounts is obviously due to problems with their social recommendation mechanism.
On one hand, the number of public accounts is increasing, but content is becoming monotonous. When a hot topic emerges, all public accounts chase it, leading to aesthetic fatigue; public accounts that don't chase hot topics have their content ignored, with no followers, further leading to a race to the bottom.
Plus, the public account list changes frequently, making it increasingly difficult to find the accounts and content you want to read. So users are less willing to read public accounts.
On the other hand, normal WeChat users are becoming more aloof in Moments, setting "visible for three days," and unwilling to forward articles to Moments;
Meanwhile, advertisers, WeChat business sellers, and daigou are unscrupulous, occupying public resources in Moments, and the quality of content in everyone's Moments is declining. So users are less willing to browse Moments.
Thus, WeChat public accounts had to keep redesigning, from list format to quasi-feed format, until the launch of WeChat 7.0.0 on the night of December 21, 2018, which declared WeChat's answer: use "Time Capsule" videos to counter short videos, and use the new "Top Stories" to recreate a Moments.
When you like a public account article, clicking "Wow" at the bottom right will make it appear in the "Top Stories" channel, visible to all your friends, who can comment and discuss. This is undoubtedly a more efficient social distribution mechanism.
**This is WeChat's answer: use a more precise and efficient social mechanism to drive content.**
Zhang Xiaolong talks about kindness. In my view, in this era of information explosion, not creating and adding information garbage for others is the greatest kindness of this era.
This is the second keyword we are discussing today: social.
**Social drives content.**
In 2018,
**There was a marketing keyword: fission**
**There were two star marketing cases: Pinduoduo and Luckin Coffee**
**There were two very popular business bestsellers: "Growth Hacker" and "Traffic Pool"**
**There was a model that marketers talked about: AARRR**
All of the above are actually talking about the same thing—social.
How to connect brands with more users? How to leverage users' social chains through marketing to acquire more users?
When we thought the e-commerce landscape was settled, Pinduoduo suddenly emerged. Obviously, it exploited the traffic dividend in third-, fourth-, and fifth-tier cities.
**Because first- and second-tier cities are the existing users of the internet, while third-, fourth-, and fifth-tier cities are the incremental users of the internet (mobile internet). Among Pinduoduo's users, women account for 70%, and 65% come from third- and fourth-tier cities.**
Pinduoduo's method is to use the WeChat platform, with low product prices, allowing users to initiate group purchases with friends, family, and neighbors, achieving fission-style communication and acquiring massive users at very low cost.
For Pinduoduo, I can give you lower product prices, but you must open your social circle and bring your relatives and friends along.
**So this is different from the traditional logic of "buying users from media"; Pinduoduo plays "buying users from users."** And consumers in third- and fourth-tier cities, unlike the aloof young people in first- and second-tier cities, are willing to sacrifice their social chains for discounts.
Like Pinduoduo, Luckin's marketing also invests heavily in buying traffic and advertising, but when they tell stories, they don't talk about brainwashing ads, but about user fission.
Free drinks are one of Luckin's main marketing methods, but Luckin's free drinks emphasize leveraging users' social chains. For example, "Free gift to friends, each gets a cup," and "Buy 2 get 1, buy 5 get 5" (buy 5 get 5 is a typical office white-collar afternoon tea or meeting scenario).
For Luckin, I can let you buy coffee at a low price, or even drink it for free, but you must bring your friends and colleagues along. This is essentially using benefits to achieve user fission.
(At this point, think about the New World marketing course in March 2018, where the price increased by 5 yuan for every 10,000 buyers, and recommending others to buy earned commissions.)
So we see that in 2018, community group-buying e-commerce became a new trend. **It is centered around communities, with group leaders (usually community opinion leaders like mothers or convenience store owners) as distribution nodes and trust agents. Consumers use WeChat groups, mini-programs, and other tools to group-buy fresh produce, daily necessities, etc.**
This new form of shopping is essentially a social fission mechanism, built on the basis of light acquaintances + communities, driven by relationships, geography, and benefits. Suning, Pinduoduo, Miss Fresh, and Meicai are all betting on it.
As mentioned earlier, the traffic dividend has disappeared, and customer acquisition costs are rising. When traffic was cheap, you could ignore user retention and churn, as there were endless new users.
But **when acquiring every new user costs a lot of money, you must pay attention to how to retain each new user, how to encourage repurchase and loyalty, and how to get this new user to bring in more users.**
**This is the AARRR model.**
**Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral.**
**Traditional marketing focuses more on the Acquisition stage: informing users about the brand and bringing them to the store, and the marketing is done, as long as there is enough traffic.**
But new marketing must focus on refined customer management, with attention to customer relationships, retention rates, repurchase rates, word-of-mouth, and willingness to recommend. This is economically rational because as acquisition costs rise, enterprises must maximize the value of each new customer.
**The logic of traditional marketing is traffic, achieving customer acquisition through media exposure, buying users from media.** **The logic of new marketing is connection (social), connecting users through content, and connecting more users through users.**
Creating good content is to connect users; content needs to be driven by social. Social drives content, but what drives social? The answer is personality.
**3**
**Personality**
In addition to Toutiao's aggressive growth and Tencent's proactive changes, 2018 also saw Alibaba's ambitious layout.
> In May, Xiaohongshu received $300 million in funding led by Alibaba;
>
> In June, Alibaba reached a capital strategic cooperation with Babytree, a maternal and child vertical community;
>
> In July, the two short-video giants Douyin and Kuaishou attempted e-commerce guidance business, opening paths with Alibaba;
>
> In October, Alibaba completed a strategic investment in Bilibili;
>
> Of course, there is also Weibo, which has cooperated with Alibaba for many years, going all the way in traffic stars and internet celebrity e-commerce.
The intensive investment in new content communities reflects Alibaba's business intention centered on new retail, achieving strategic synergy between content, KOLs, and e-commerce.
In 2018, Tmall's Double 11 transaction volume exceeded 200 billion yuan for the first time, an increase of about 27% from the previous year. Behind this achievement, the traffic from these external content communities clearly played an important role. Weibo internet celebrities, Bilibili UP hosts, Xiaohongshu influencers, and Kuaishou celebrities sell goods astonishingly well.
**The strong sales capability of new internet celebrities is partly due to their trust agency; fans trust the KOLs and thus trust the products they recommend.**
**On the other hand, it is personality mapping.** New-generation consumers are increasingly willing to pay for personality, exploring their own style through consumption, creating their own exclusive persona, investing in their interests, and paying for unique experiences.
In the process of consumers exploring their own style, new internet celebrities as opinion leaders clearly play an important role. It can be said that the more distinct and prominent the personality of a new internet celebrity, the stronger their connection and sales capability with fans.
Just as companies choose celebrity endorsements today, they are essentially looking at a celebrity's internet celebrity power. The focus of internet celebrity power is on distinct personality and fan connection.
This is the third keyword we are discussing today: personality.
**Personality drives social.**
The phenomenal variety show IP "Produce 101" in 2018 generated 13.64 billion topic views on Weibo. "Produce 101" finally selected 11 Rocket Girls. But among all these girls, the most talked-about were Wang Ju, who was eliminated, and Yang Chaoyue, who was poor in both singing and dancing.
This is precisely because the two have distinct personalities.
Wang Ju is regarded as a representative of independent women, not following or even resisting mainstream male aesthetics. Her confidence, independence, and bravery are followed by many fans. Fans created a flood of aphorisms, jokes, P pictures, and emojis for Wang Ju, such as the popular "Ju Hua Bao Dian" (Wang Ju's quotes), to canvass votes for her. It was precisely because of these fans' UGC that "Produce 101" achieved its phenomenal annual spread.
Yang Chaoyue's personality, in a word: koi (lucky fish). It's the idea that even if you don't work hard and do nothing, a pie will fall from the sky; it's a comfort to the vast majority of people who are left behind in society.
Just two years ago, everyone was pursuing small happiness. By 2018, koi had become a social symbol; it could be a fish, or Yang Chaoyue, Wang Sicong, Wei Yingluo, or Xin Xiaodai.
From small happiness to koi, this indeed reflects that in this increasingly utilitarian and materialistic society, people's appetites are growing. Inner small happiness is no longer enough; people crave material big koi. For example, suddenly winning an Alipay grand prize, so you don't have to work for the rest of your life and live worry-free. Or suddenly becoming famous and reaching the peak of life, like Chengdu's Xiao Tiantian or Hangzhou's Xiao Wu who rents.
Data shows that 80% of users who repost koi on Weibo are under 30. And 48% of post-95s aspire to be internet celebrities.
In their view, internet celebrities just need to dress up beautifully every day, take photos, and do nothing to easily earn millions a month. But they don't know that the vast majority of self-media people with internet celebrity dreams spend enormous energy and effort every day, working day and night to create content, take and edit photos, and post them online, but no fans are willing to watch.
**Only when content has a distinct personality and style can it have strong fan connection and the possibility of becoming popular.** As I said in "The Evolution of Queens," from blog queen Xu Jinglei to Weibo queen Yao Chen, from public account queen Mi Meng to Xiaohongshu queen Lin Yun, they have different styles, but all have their own distinct style and persona.
No matter how the times change, only those with prominent personality can gather popularity and attract fans on any platform.
This applies to both internet celebrity stars and internet celebrity brands. In recent years, Durex copywriting and Jiangxiaobai copywriting have been frequently mentioned, including the popular attitude copywriting and heartfelt copywriting, which move consumers with their warmth and human touch, being noticed and discussed.
**This is actually a kind of personality-driven traffic.**
This is the marketing panorama I saw in 2018. At a time when the traffic dividend is disappearing, it provides a perfect footnote for the arrival of new marketing in 2019.
**What is new marketing? It is—**
**Personality drives social**
**Social drives content**
**Content drives traffic**
New Distribution will hold the **2019 (5th) FMCG + Internet Conference** during the Chengdu Spring Sugar Fair from March 16 to March 18. This conference will focus on the topic **"Breakthrough"** , with in-depth discussions with many 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 like **channel innovation, city 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 for their own breakthrough in 2019, and returning to the track of high-speed growth.
Review of previous conferences
**-END-**


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