Source: Teacher Liu's Digital New Marketing (ID:liuchunxiong1964)
What is takeoff? During an airplane's takeoff, it first undergoes ground-level startup and accelerated taxiing to gain lift. When lift reaches a critical point, it instantly lifts off and climbs rapidly. The takeoff curve has two phases: early accumulation of speed without taking off; after reaching the critical point, rapid ascent. The takeoff curve reflects the basic law of development. Startup acceleration is long, but the leap into the air is instantaneous—a breakthrough from quantitative to qualitative change.
BC Integration has taken off. This is my overall feeling recently. The FMCG Conference held by New Distribution on September 23-25 reinforced this feeling.
1. The system service providers attending were all BC-integrated system architectures, with basically no single-module service systems. 2. The brand manufacturers attending were mainly leading enterprises, mostly attending in organized groups. Many companies had dozens or hundreds of people attending simultaneously. Tickets sold out 3 days before the conference, and some companies asked others to buy tickets for them.
Since first proposing "BC Integration" in May 2019 during a sharing session in the "Fan Research Institute" community of fan marketing expert Teacher Ding Ding, it went through small-scale dissemination in 2019, acceptance by brand manufacturers in 2020, and finally became the system architecture of system service providers. The speed has been remarkable.
One system service provider said, "If brand manufacturers identify with this concept, we need to design it into our service architecture."
How important is BC Integration? I have an analogy: platform e-commerce is the "entrepreneur's paradise, fragmented market's fertile ground." This is the first main battlefield of digitalization, dominated by platform providers.
However, the mainstream of many mass brands and industry leaders is still offline. Their digitalization is not about opening a second e-commerce battlefield, but about digitalization, or channel digitalization. F2B2b2C, full-chain digitalization.
Digitalization will have no distinction between online and offline; it will be online-offline integration. For example, when you go to a McDonald's store and scan the code to order, is that online or offline? No distinction is made.
Leading FMCG companies have over 90% of their share offline. This part is difficult to e-commerce-ize, but it can be fully digitalized through BC Integration.
Channel digitalization, characterized by BC Integration, is the second main battlefield of digitalization.
Some may misunderstand that digitalization means pulling offline traffic online, but in our operations, directing online traffic to offline works better.
BC Integration is the main path for comprehensive enterprise digitalization.
Brand marketing has always been extending to the terminal.
Approaching the C-end infinitely, yet unable to reach it.
Deep distribution only reaches the retail end (small b), and has stagnated for over a decade.
BC Integration enables brand manufacturers to reach the C-end. This is a major advancement in brand marketing history.
From now on, direct-to-C is no longer the patent of platform providers, and it opens a second battlefield for DTC.
This battlefield is much larger than the platform providers' DTC.
How large? Through the full-chain connection of "million terminals, billion users," it will be a battlefield of billions in scale. A brand manufacturer can connect billions of C-ends through millions of B-ends. This was previously only possible for platform providers.
BC Integration also changes the channel logic of brand manufacturers. The logic of deep distribution is: as long as distribution is done well, there is a possibility of sell-through. Of course, it may sell through, or it may be "channel stuffing" without sell-through.
In BC Integration, B is distribution, C is sell-through. The logic of BC Integration is: as long as there is sell-through, distribution is not a problem.
Deep distribution is a "push" logic; BC Integration is a "pull" logic.
BC Integration will change the channel personnel structure of brand manufacturers. Deep distribution is a human-sea tactic, with many people at the B-end and b-end. In BC Integration, many people are doing DTC work, and B-end personnel will be significantly reduced. Some companies now have a 2B to 2C personnel ratio of 5:5.
BC Integration will also change distributors. In the past, some said digitalization meant de-intermediation, but full-chain connected digitalization actually strengthens the role of distributors. If BC Integration is the largest battlefield of digitalization, then distributors are at the forefront of the largest battlefield. However, distributors must shift from B-end work to DTC work as the main focus. A lot of auxiliary work may be handed over to third-party platforms.
Some may not imagine that the recently controversial community e-commerce is actually a pioneer of BC Integration. At this year's New Distribution conference, I discussed this with community e-commerce expert Chen Weilong. He clearly remembers that at last year's conference, Teacher Fang Gang and I proposed that regardless of the success or failure of community e-commerce as a business model, its greatest contribution was connecting the B and C ends.
As long as the B and C ends are connected, countless business models can be formed. In fact, community e-commerce has recently evolved into countless new models precisely because it connected the B and C ends.
In an uncertain environment, we need a certain grip. Rather than being anxious about uncertainty, it's better to seize certainty.
Digitalization and BC Integration are currently the greatest certainties. From the attitude of enterprises, after the "ten thousand horses galloping" of digitalization in 2020, they are now betting on BC Integration in digitalization.
I have a prediction: after digitalization is complete, the new pattern will be: the big get bigger, the long tail gets longer. BC Integration gives brand manufacturers exclusive digital channels. This is the main battlefield for giants. In this process, the share of giants will increase.
Platform e-commerce is characterized by "unlimited merchants, unlimited SKUs, unlimited segmentation," the main battlefield for the long tail.
Are you "watching" me?