Shanren Xing—a media outlet focused on SME growth 1 Recently, while browsing headlines, I came across a very "spicy" piece of news: These news items reminded me of the "boundless" aspect of the internet's characteristics—"no distance, no boundaries, no self"—that I mentioned in my online marketing course. It was about Laoganma landing at New York Fashion Week to sell hoodies cross-industry, with a 1,288 yuan bundle of 99 bottles of chili sauce selling out, and even making an appearance in Men's Health magazine. The sudden transformation of the traditional "national goddess" really startled loyal fans. However, it's not just Laoganma that has changed; I made a list, and there are more brands on it. For example, not long ago, Want Want collaborated with the trendy Chinese brand TAKASHA to launch cross-industry co-branded products like hoodies and shoulder bags, which were surprisingly well-received. The grain and oil brand Fulinmen teamed up with Afu Essential Oils to release a makeup remover oil. The century-old distillery Luzhou Laojiao launched a perfume. Most surprisingly, the national Florida water brand Liushen partnered with the cocktail brand RIO to launch a cocktail that looked just like the real thing, and even the empty bottles were being resold for 300 yuan on the market! Have you noticed how cross-industry marketing is becoming more and more common nowadays? ▲Laoganma and Liushen doing cross-industry marketing 2 In reality, the "cross-industry" moves by old brands are more out of necessity. If they didn't do this, most old brands would face two crises. The first is the brand aging crisis. You see, even though the target consumer group has grown up, old brands don't dare to age, because not moving forward means they might be eliminated, and they might not even have the right to be anxious. Brands are using various ways to embrace these young people, and cross-industry collaborations to launch fun and interesting products are undoubtedly one of the fastest ways to resonate. The second is the sales crisis caused by insufficient attention and weakened influence. Have you noticed? Cross-industry marketing is a form of "invisible advertising." Even if the cross-industry products don't sell well, they still grab attention, attract traffic, save a lot on advertising costs, and bring in potential customers. 3 However, for most of our small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), are these big brands' marketing tactics really suitable for us? I've seen many SMEs that rush to follow new marketing models, like co-branding activities or koi fish marketing, only to lose money and waste manpower and resources once the hype dies down. In fact, it doesn't matter what big companies do in marketing; what we need to learn is: When our companies fall into predicaments like rigid marketing methods or insufficient brand influence, what resource integration methods can we use to pull the company out of the mire? ▲Alipay koi fish marketing On this point, I have three small suggestions to share with you. First, most companies don't lack good products; they lack a trigger point that can spark conversation. Here, I want to introduce the concept of "social currency," which means that social currency, like spending money to buy things, can earn you praise and a good impression from family, friends, and colleagues. In simple terms, it's talking points and common topics. Many companies make good products, but unfortunately, they don't connect with the social platforms their target customers frequently use, easily creating a "generation gap" with them. A "generation gap" means you haven't influenced your target audience, haven't built enough attention, and how can you continue with subsequent marketing actions? Take Want Want, which we mentioned earlier. Why did it do preheating on Douyin and Weibo? To a large extent, it's because its target customers are mostly concentrated on these social platforms. Building a bridgehead there might be much more effective than focusing on other platforms. Some might say, "Hey, I'm in traditional manufacturing. Can one such activity raise my brand value?" 4 This brings us to the second point: brand value can't be improved by just one or two activities; continuous effort is the key. You see, the reason why cross-industry products from Laoganma, Want Want, and others sell well is not only because they have no "generation gap" with young people, but also because of the strong contrast. You know, childhood brands that originally sold chili sauce, milk, and Florida water suddenly transform into sellers of clothes and cocktails, and they're sold for a limited time and quantity, with decent designs and acceptable prices. Under these conditions, the product's expected value exceeds young people's imagination, so they naturally sell like hotcakes. So, how can we increase the expected value of our products? Let me give you an example of a traditional company's comeback. In Kyoto, Japan, there is a century-old rice shop called Shoya. Through continuous empowerment and raising product expectations, this rice shop went from near bankruptcy to a large enterprise with sales of 1.5 billion yen in just a few years. How did it do it? It used its own rice as dishes and opened a high-end rice restaurant. It also organized a national rice competition. It even collaborated with a kimono shop to package rice in high-quality kimono fabric, treating rice as a gift. That's not all. It also sells different packaged rice gift boxes online according to different consumer needs, from 80-year-olds to newborns, all are users of its rice. Ordinary rice was thus sold with style and became a star product. Of course, whether it's cross-industry or other types of marketing, they can only bring a burst of heat to a company. To gain sustained consumer attention, you need to learn to keep "warming up." ▲A century-old rice shop turned ordinary rice into a star product 5 This brings us to the third point: regularly maintain brand value and do product extension well. We often talk about riding the wave of trends, chasing this or that hot topic, but have we ever thought, once the heat is over and the trend is gone, how many people will still remember you? In fact, whether it's cross-industry products or new categories, their role is more as a new traffic entrance for the company to drive the extension of other products. It's like the needle that passes through the sole when nailing a shoe sole. Through this needle, you pull the "thread" through the eye of the needle, and then use this "thread" to bring out a whole "surface." At that point, your product extension system begins to gradually improve. In this system, you need to continuously polish that "needle" so it can pass through more "soles" faster and more smoothly. To achieve this, your products need to meet two conditions: one is sustained topic heat, and the other is regular product updates. In other words, you can't just be popular for a while; you need to stay popular. 6 In summary, today we talked about cross-industry and resource integration, not to say we must follow the paths of those big brands, but to learn to change our thinking. After all, what you can do, others can do too, such as products, quality, and service, but deeper thinking is not something everyone has. Learn to "jump out," learn to see what others can't see, like using social platforms to connect with your potential customers; Learn to do what others can't do, like collaborating with more upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry chain. By connecting more companies, everyone can work together on something beneficial to the company, the industry, and society, rather than fighting to the death and ending up with both sides losing. In the future, it's not just about competing on products and prices; boundaryless thinking is the true future for all companies. -END-