Source | Teacher Liu's Scenario Marketing ID | liuchunxiong1964 Author | Liu Chunxiong
Recently, Teacher Kong Shou visited Zhengzhou, and our Scenario Marketing Research Institute discussed a major topic: reviewing a century of marketing, which is nearing its end. Where is the future path of marketing?
We drew a diagram to outline the important milestones in the century-long history of marketing, as well as recent key nodes in marketing.
First, let's talk about the analytical perspective of this diagram: looking at marketing from above marketing, and looking at marketing from above the century-long business cycle.
Our goal is to envision the formation of future marketing through the process of modern marketing's formation.
The four time nodes we selected are very important.
The first time node: The birth of new communication tools (weapons)—new weapons have astonishing power, and weapon-only thinking prevails.
The second time node: The time when marketing perspectives shifted—changes in supply-demand relations are the main internal force driving changes in marketing thinking—laying the epistemological foundation for new theories.
The third time node: The formation of the analytical framework for marketing theory—the basic prerequisite for theory popularization and application, and the starting point of theoretical maturity.
The fourth time node: The comprehensive application of the theoretical system and the formation of management systems—the mature application stage.
This article analyzes the future of scenario marketing by examining these four time nodes.
The First Time Node: The Birth of Revolutionary Media
Media is the weapon of marketing; revolutionary media is the revolutionary weapon of marketing.
Let's start with the Maxim gun.
In 1884, Hiram Maxim manufactured the world's first machine gun capable of automatic continuous firing.
On October 25, 1893, in the "First Matabele War" in present-day Zimbabwe, British forces used four Maxim guns to repel more than 5,000 charging Matabele soldiers, causing over 3,000 casualties.
From 1887, Britain, Switzerland, Austria, Russia, and others placed orders; in 1888, the German Army officially adopted it, and other countries followed suit.
When World War I broke out in 1914, the German Army had about 12,500 Maxim guns. In the 1916 Battle of the Somme, German forces deployed Maxim MG08s at a density of one per hundred meters, causing 60,000 British casualties in a single day. Machine gun fire became the dominant force on the battlefield for the first time.
As soon as the Maxim gun appeared, its power quickly became evident, and it was applied in actual combat. So why did the British still use traditional dense formations in the 1916 Battle of the Somme, turning "human waves vs. machine guns" into a one-sided slaughter? It wasn't until later that infiltration tactics, squad fire nets, trench warfare, and armored mobile tactics were born to solve these problems.
The Maxim gun in World War I and the atomic bomb in World War II both belong to this kind of one-sided slaughter weapon.
The application of the Maxim gun offers several points worth reflecting on:
First, the birth of a revolutionary weapon is definitely a dimensionality reduction strike, a one-sided slaughter. Weapons spread quickly.
Second, the strategic and tactical systems surrounding new weapons only receive widespread attention after both sides pay a huge price; there is a long time lag effect.
Third, before new strategic and tactical systems are applied, weapon-only thinking prevails. Organizations or individuals who master new media become super individuals, super organizations, or super platforms in the short term.
In 1920, KDKA in the United States became the world's first commercial radio station to obtain a broadcasting license. Subsequently, Procter & Gamble's Ivory soap advertised on radio, instantly spreading its message nationwide, becoming a pioneer in using mass media advertising.
Radio's impact on marketing is like the Maxim gun's impact on World War I. Before radio's commercial application, no medium had the power to instantly spread commercial information nationwide. That is the power of new commercial weapons.
For a considerable period afterward, marketing did not undergo major systemic changes; having new weapons was enough.
Traditional business cognition was word-of-mouth, passed from person to person. Mass media communication gave birth to a new term—brand. Therefore, it is essential to understand that the context of brand is inseparable from mass media.
Marshall McLuhan said in Understanding Media that media are extensions of man. Communication weapons are even more powerful than weapons of war because they spread cognition and change behavior.
Marketing expert Li Jing once said that the single largest variable affecting marketing is media. Changes in communication forms are the new starting point for changing business.
When mobile internet was commercially applied on a large scale, the scene from 1920 with radio's commercial use reappeared.
Traditional business power waned, and internet giants gained the upper hand.
What are the differences between mass media and mobile internet as media?
First, the communication subjects differ. In mass media, manufacturers are the communication subjects; in internet media, users are the communication subjects.
Second, the communication content differs. Advertising copy versus user-generated content—different content.
Third, the communication mechanisms differ. Advertising relies on intensive placement and repeated playback—the logic of broadcasting; content communication relies on content placement and user fission—the logic of spreading.
The communication effect of mass media is brand awareness—brand is a term highly tied to mass media. The communication effect of mobile internet is IP awareness—IP is a term highly tied to mobile internet.
So, can we still use the term "brand" under the mobile internet model, or give brand new connotations? Putting new wine in old bottles is not as good as putting new wine in new bottles.
Currently, in marketing communication, the internet has already replaced mass communication. The current problem is that communication marketing has become ineffective, and weapon-only thinking prevails. In recent years, traffic thinking and platform thinking have indeed allowed some to reap dividends. Some also passively benefited from UGC fission.
Up to now, with mobile internet, weapon-only thinking no longer works.
The Second Time Node: Shift in Marketing Orientation
In 1957, John McKitterick of General Electric proposed the marketing concept, and General Electric quickly implemented it with good results.
Shifting from product orientation to market orientation is a very important change. A shift in the epistemological dimension is more important than a shift in methods or methodology. Since then, market orientation has meant consumer orientation, now called user orientation.
Why did this shift occur in 1957? Let's start with the American baby boom.
From 1946 to 1964 is known as the American baby boom period. 1946 was the first year after World War II ended, and after 1964, the United States entered a period of stagflation.
After World War II, American wartime production capacity shifted to civilian production, quickly moving from an era of shortage to an era of surplus. In an era of shortage, production orientation and product orientation were natural. This was inevitable for the times; only a few visionaries could transcend their era.
Since then, user orientation in marketing has become unquestionable "political correctness," continuing to this day.
Marx spoke of the dual nature of commodities: one is natural attributes; the other is social attributes.
What the marketing world often calls product function is the natural attribute; brand value and emotional value are the social attributes.
The stagflation of the 1970s in the United States was related to the stagnation of consumer goods growth. Because the quantity of consumption is limited, and human endurance is limited. American retail innovation, especially the general discount model, was largely born in the stagflation era after the baby boom.
The general discount industry was fatal to brand owners; retailers seized the voice over users from them. In the 1980s, the United States extended its supply chain globally, using world market growth to solve domestic growth stagnation, keeping high-value sectors in the U.S., which alleviated pressure on brand owners.
Brand expert Miao Qingxian said that China's high-tech fields have gained world recognition, but in FMCG, where there are basically no major technological breakthroughs, China lacks world-class brands. Even though most multinational FMCG brands are manufactured in China.
It's not that users don't care about product function (natural attributes), but the utility of quantity satisfaction diminishes. Brand value is a social attribute, and the social attributes of consumption become the focus.
I believe we are now at a critical point for another shift in marketing orientation. There are two reasons.
First, China has entered the ranks of moderately developed countries, and the number of high-level consumers has multiplied.
Although China is still classified as a middle-income country by income statistics, China has a dual consumer market; urban consumption can be considered to have entered a high-income consumption level.
At high-income consumption levels, the marginal utility of satisfying natural attributes approaches zero. Therefore, in FMCG growth, both mass and differentiated approaches face significant obstacles.
Second, the expression of social attributes of commodities has changed.
The social attribute of brand value has long been the soul of multinational brands. In the mass communication era, brand value tended to communicate universal human values.
When the social attributes of commodities become the main body of the commodity, natural attributes are just a carrier. Then, the social attributes and their expression become key.
The social attributes of commodities are related to the form of media communication. Mass media is effective in expressing humanity's lofty sociality, but this premise is still determined by the oligopoly of mass media and the oligopoly of industry structure.
The emotional expression currently on China's mobile internet is the internet expression of social attributes. I believe that the social attributes of commodities currently have two aspects: one is personal small happiness; the other is emotional value.
Personal small happiness is scenario-based small happiness.
Emotional value is not personal emotion, but individuals embracing public emotion and expressing it on the internet through UGC. We summarize the expression method into three elements: scenario, BGM, and memes.
Scenario is both the emotional source for creating UGC and the origin for internet users to click and read UGC content. Satisfying and spreading social attributes based on scenarios is both the presentation form of commodity social attributes and the expression method of internet media.
Due to the influence of the above two factors, the origin of marketing is shifting from user orientation to scenario orientation.
What is the difference between user orientation and scenario orientation? There are two points.
First, users are an abstraction of a group of similar individuals, while scenarios are a concrete representation of a group of different individuals. Teacher Kong Shou said that scenarios are the concrete representation of social relationships. Because scenarios involve a group of different individuals, social relationships themselves include the demand for the social attributes of products.
Second, scenarios are slices of lifestyle. A person's lifestyle, subdivided by time/place, constitutes a series of slices, which is also the concretization of lifestyle.
What is the use of shifting from user orientation to scenario orientation for marketing? First, scenarios create demand. User-oriented demand, except for demand generated by new technologies, is almost exhausted; it's hard to discover new needs, but scenario-created demand still has much space. Second, scenarios imply social attributes, and the demand for social satisfaction is endless.
The user-oriented marketing system is mature, even so mature that there is little room for development. Whether scenario orientation can replace user orientation—any proponent of a new theoretical system hopes to expand a new space, but it may be wishful thinking.
The Third Time Node: Marketing Analytical Framework
Marketing has many influencing factors, about 20 or more. What is the relationship among these factors? McKinsey proposed the 4P analytical framework. It's not that there are only four factors, but that other factors can be categorized into the 4Ps.
Many people say "4P theory," but 4P is not a theory; it's just an analytical framework, which I call the universal analytical framework. This framework is like a Rubik's cube: turn any block, and the others change accordingly.
Around the scenario-oriented marketing system, the Scenario Research Institute has also proposed an analytical framework, putting forward three pairs of six elements: time/place, role/process, and ritual/emotion.
Time/place corresponds to "lifestyle slices."
Role/process corresponds to "concrete representation of social relationships."
Ritual/emotion corresponds to "social attributes of consumption."
Some people treat scenario as a subdivision of user orientation, scenario segmentation. The Scenario Marketing Research Institute believes it is a completely new analytical framework.
The user-oriented analytical framework is: user → need → product → marketing...
The scenario-oriented analytical framework is: scenario → job to be done → solution → marketing...
The Fourth Time Node: Practical Management of the Theoretical System
Most marketing textbooks are titled Marketing, but Kotler's Marketing Management is named with management, with the subtitle: Analysis, Planning, Implementation, and Control. This is the standard management discourse system.
The framework structure of Marketing Management is: R (research) → STP (segmentation, targeting, positioning) → 4Ps → I (implementation) → C (control).
When Marketing Management was published, it meant that user orientation had entered its mature period. Existing scenario marketing cases are actually just scenario segmentation or scenario positioning cases under user-oriented marketing, not a marketing system based on the "scenario-job to be done" logic.
Currently, scenario-oriented marketing lacks mature cases. In practice, when we face many mature industries or products and think with scenario-oriented logic, it often opens our minds.
When Will a Century of Marketing Turn the Page?
I take the commercial application of radio in 1920 as the starting point of modern marketing, mainly because I see the enormous value of media in marketing.
I take the reversal of supply and demand as the starting point of modern marketing theory, because I see the result of the demand environment forcing changes in marketing thinking.
As for the construction of marketing analytical frameworks and marketing management systems, they are just natural results of the above phenomena.
No matter how many internet factors Kotler adds to Marketing Management, the analytical framework has not changed much, and a century of modern marketing is nearing its end.
After radio, although the rise of media such as television and PC internet also changed marketing, they generally did not deviate from the characteristics of mass media. Mobile internet, as well as communication and business platforms based on mobile internet commerce, are completely different from traditional business. Moreover, the internet has changed people's lifestyles, from the internet natives of the 90s to the internet generation of the 00s. Changes in productive forces have formed new social relationships.
With the emergence of Douyin, internet commercial communication is completely different from mass media. Internet communication has a huge difference in the expression of product social attributes (currently called emotional value).
A century of marketing is at the point of turning the page! But it awaits the emergence of a new replacement.