In February, I wrote 'Stop Updating Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin,' and one of my suggestions was to encourage more iconic communication, concentrate resources on major initiatives, and avoid getting lost in fragmented daily communication.
We have fully entered the era of fragmentation. Our time and desires are cut into pieces—quick acquisition, quick feedback, quick climax, quick forgetting.
Some argue that in the decade of mobile internet development, the greatest contributors are Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu, because they solved the problems of fragmented supply and fragmented distribution, truly reaping the benefits of the long-tail economy. In the future, fragmentation will become even more fragmented, and it will become increasingly difficult for brands to build and reach consensus.
This article attempts to explore how to conduct anti-fragmentation brand communication in today's fragmented era and how to reach broader consensus with consumers. Below, enjoy:
-01- Trend: Anti-Fragmentation Brand Communication
Two things happened this year that prompted brands to become wary of fragmented communication and start moving toward more centralized communication. The trend has begun, and it will only become more centralized in the future.
First, the bubble of fragmented scenarios. Countless platforms and KOLs hope to participate in brand collaborations and secure brand budgets, like wolves pouncing on food. In previous years, with a good economy and traffic dividends, brands did batch placements and purchased KOLs in bulk.
But since this year, the bubble has gradually become apparent. From what I've learned from brands, they now only cooperate with major platforms and top-tier KOLs. On the content side, there are also influencers with millions of followers but no commercial revenue.
Second, the falsification of performance advertising. The biggest blow to performance advertising this year was the Adidas 3 billion incident, which caused a stir in the industry and seemed to reveal the truth. In previous years, during the traffic dividend period, performance advertising had a certain conversion rate, but now the traffic dividend has ended, costs continue to rise, and conversion results are deteriorating.
More dangerously, performance advertising does not serve the brand. Brands have found that spending a lot of money on conversions actually weakens brand power. In the era of stock, brand is the strongest moat, and performance advertising cannot achieve this.
The trend we can see is to find those scarce centralized scenarios in a fragmented environment and build brand consensus in those centralized scenarios.
There are two ways of centralized communication: content-driven and media-driven.
Content-driven examples include Nike's 'Dream Crazy' from last year, which sparked great controversy and response in the U.S. and gained global attention. This is content-driven centralized communication.
Media-driven examples include Guazi Used Cars, Luckin Coffee, Boss Zhipin, and Miaokelanduo, which used highly visible centralized media—Focus Media—to ignite their brands in the simplest and most direct way, combined with social and PR communication to launch new brands.
I think both approaches are correct, but Nike won the Grand Prix at Cannes, while Bójué Travel Photography attracted controversy and negativity. Content-driven is too difficult, basically requiring a maverick approach and a lot of luck. Nike succeeded, so it won recognition.
I prefer to discuss the second, media-driven approach, because it is replicable, methodical, and has a higher success rate. In a fragmented environment, find centralized media that can ignite the brand, making every brand voice resounding.
-02- Focus Media: Centralized Urban Broadcasting
Yes, I want to focus on Focus Media.
In my articles over the past two years, I've mentioned Focus Media in about 10 articles. In many case reviews, Focus Media played an important media role, helping brands achieve marketing goals. This time, I have the opportunity to discuss this media separately, hoping to help brands use Focus Media more efficiently.
When evaluating the commercial value of a media or platform, I generally look at two dimensions: First, the media role. Focus Media's media role is centralized urban broadcasting, covering 300 million mainstream urban residents, equivalent to 300 million daily active users. Every time you go out, you see Focus Media ads twice, and in the closed environment of elevators, ad visibility is extremely high.
Second, the marketing role, i.e., what type of marketing it can do for brands. For Focus Media, it's its slogan—'Ignite the Mainstream.' So, what brands or types of marketing are suitable for centralized communication on Focus Media? Let's discuss:
-03- Igniting New Brands
I believe Focus Media's first marketing role is to ignite new brands, especially current new consumer brands.
This year, new consumption has been discussed a lot, and many new consumer brands have emerged in the past year or two. This is essentially an inevitable result of consumption upgrade and supply-side reform. In the process of these new brands growing from 0 to 1, they inevitably face the issue of how to enter public discourse at the right time.
In the past two years, Focus Media has played a core media role in the rise of new brands such as Shenzhou Car Rental, Ele.me, Didi Chuxing, Guazi Used Cars, Bójué Travel Photography, Luckin Coffee, and So-Young Medical Aesthetics. Facts have proven that Focus Media has fully leveraged its centralized media value, integrating new brands into public discourse and completing their takeoff and ascent.
Most new brands expand from the core to the periphery. Focus Media reaches 300 million mainstream urban residents, who are essentially China's core population. Most new brands are first contacted by this group, then transmitted and sunk from top to bottom.
In my previous article 'Building a Brand from 0 to 1,' I mentioned the growth path: first do well with the core population, then enter public discourse to ignite. Focus Media is precisely the most suitable centralized media for igniting new brands.
The ignition method must be highly refined, simple, and direct. If it's print, use only one visual symbol and one core positioning, with all information received and understood within 3 seconds. If it's video, keep it as short as possible—there are now 7.5-second versions—also with one core positioning and one visual symbol, but with both visual and auditory reception.
-04- Communicating Incremental Information
The second marketing role is to communicate incremental brand information. For any brand, when there is incremental information, Focus Media is the fastest way to convey it. Whether it's a new product, new activity, or brand upgrade, Focus Media, as centralized urban broadcasting, can update the public with incremental brand information in the fastest way.
Earlier, we defined Focus Media's media role as centralized urban broadcasting, first because of its sufficient scale, covering 300 million mainstream urban residents and seen more than once a day. Second, because ad visibility is high enough—visibility means the ad is actually seen, and the information conveyed in the brand ad is seen and known by consumers.
With large scale and high visibility, a commercial message can be quickly spread on Focus Media. It seems difficult for other digital media to compare. Most digital ads now have very low visibility—swiped past, skipped, or members skip ads. We are surrounded by ads, but we ignore most of them. In this environment, ads that cannot be ignored and have high visibility stand out in value.
In the communication of incremental information, this winter, Bosideng entered a strategic cooperation with Focus Media, bringing a 40-year-old brand back into the view of mainstream audiences. Bosideng went abroad for fashion shows, sold globally, and had top international designers design for it. This old brand's new news is being broadcast to everyone through Focus Media.
Similarly, Feihe Milk Powder, with a history of over 50 years, has used Focus Media's 2 million elevator TV screens to quickly ignite the mainstream population with incremental information such as 'more suitable for Chinese babies' and 'made from fresh raw milk, developed exclusively for Chinese people for 55 years.'
Recently, Bitauto chose to 'book out' Focus Media's national channels for a day, which is a super-saturated placement, repeatedly reaching a threshold within a unit of time. The result was unsurprising—it made them famous overnight. In the post-campaign effectiveness survey, Bitauto found that the influence generated by booking Focus Media for one day exceeded the combined influence of advertising on the four major TV stations and three major video websites. Penetrating one centralized platform is stronger than multiple platforms combined.
Let's briefly summarize: Focus Media's media role is an anti-fragmentation centralized resource, urban broadcasting for 300 million mainstream people. Its marketing role is to ignite the mainstream. Personally, I think there are two critical moments for a brand where Focus Media can be maximized.
First, igniting new brands: when a new brand enters the mainstream public space, Focus Media serves as the core media. Second, communicating incremental information: when a brand has new news and needs to reach a new consensus with consumers, Focus Media can be used for communication, breaking through circles to reach the public fastest.
In today's fragmented society, it's like being in a noisy square where everyone is chatting in small groups, each in their own information cocoon. To attract everyone's attention, you have to stand in the center of the square and strike a thunderous gong. Focus Media is the centralized resource that can break through circles, the resounding gong in the square.
-05- Centralized Resources, Iconic Communication
The current communication environment is more complex and changeable than ever. With fragmented platforms and media, and consumers in solidified circles, it's increasingly difficult for brands to reach consumption consensus. Anti-fragmentation communication is both a trend and a way of thinking.
In this environment, my strategic advice is: Use centralized resources and do iconic communication. Pay attention to data changes, but don't use data as KPIs. Aim for brand and effect integration, but don't only seek conversions.
Centralized resources come in many forms. Super variety show sponsorships from six or seven years ago, betting on the hottest TV series, or World Cup broadcasts can all become instantaneous centralized resources. Utilizing these resources requires the right timing and a bit of luck, and they are relatively scarce. Focus Media is a very stable and continuously existing centralized resource that can centrally ignite brands facing 300 million mainstream urban residents.
Once you find centralized resources, you must do iconic communication to maximize their use. Li Jiaqi, as a super influencer, has a huge fan base and certain public opinion value. But to this day, we only see Li Jiaqi moving international big brands in large quantities at the lowest prices online, yet we still haven't seen a phenomenal case where Li Jiaqi cooperated with a brand to completely ignite it. Which brand has Li Jiaqi made successful? It seems none yet.
Finding centralized resources requires iconic communication to maximize their use. Li Jiaqi, as a super influencer, is a centralized resource with a huge fan base and certain public opinion value. But to this day, I still haven't seen a phenomenal case of Li Jiaqi cooperating with a brand, which is a waste of resources. For example, Focus Media has deep cooperation with Bójué Travel Photography and Luckin Coffee. But which brand has Li Jiaqi made successful? It seems none yet.
In a fragmented environment, iconic communication means concentrating power at one point, making that point bright enough to become a brand's lighthouse.
When communicating on Focus Media, it's best to use one sentence, one visual, and a video under 10 seconds, conveying the message simply and directly to the audience. This is why some new brands, or old brands with new incremental information, can quickly ignite on Focus Media.
But for communication that is highly creative and deeply communicates brand values, social media might be more suitable. Iconic communication on social media might be a topic, an event, a brand long-form film, etc. The key is 'one'—using one touchpoint to convey complete brand information.
The overall environment this year is not good. Clients complain about shrinking budgets, agencies complain about hard-earned money. Indeed, this winter is not warm.
In recent dialogues with brands, the most common advice is: first ensure the ad is deep and visible, then consider the scope. An insignificant 100,000+ read article has no meaning for the brand. So the strategy is: Anti-fragmentation communication, centralized resources, iconic communication.
If you only have a budget of 100,000 yuan, choose one KOL to produce in-depth content.
If you have 1 million yuan, you can choose to co-create brand content with core influencers.
If you have over 10 million yuan, look at marketing objectives, brand stage, and content attributes. Think through the strategy, choose one centralized resource, and go all in to penetrate it.
Source: Yang Bu Huai (ID: yangbuhuai01)
Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted.