Click to read the original article for details. Regarding brand communication, let's start with the birth of positioning theory: In the 1960s, the United States reached the peak of the industrial era. With massive overcapacity and severe product homogenization, companies needed to let consumers know their products were good enough amid fierce competition. Positioning theory holds that competition is about occupying consumers' minds, but since consumers can't remember so many products, brands must choose among the following methods and repeatedly reinforce them through communication. Either be first or second, such as "leader in XX field"; or be called "XX expert." Or differentiate, such as "Fear of getting heaty? Drink Wanglaoji." But to truly occupy consumers' minds, the most critical prerequisite is to deliver these brand claims clearly, quickly, and efficiently to consumers, and it requires large-scale communication to be effective. This was effective in the past. In the industrial era, despite overcapacity and fierce competition, communication was still in the era of mass media, and consumers did not suffer from information overload. Undoubtedly, under the HBG framework (big brands, big media, big channels) of the industrial distribution system, positioning theory was a very effective tool. However, any theory cannot escape the limitations of its specific historical context. The Era Limitations of Positioning Theory in Communication Today's China has large-scale industrial production, similar to the era when positioning theory was born, but communication has entered the mobile internet era. At least the "big media" aspect of HBG is no longer valid. The problem today is not just that consumers can't remember so many products, but that there is severe information overload. When users have no time to watch ads, no matter how good your product slogan is, few consumers can see or remember it. Dear readers, think about it: how long has it been since you watched TV? Can those cramming, preaching-style ads still capture your attention in today's barrage of information? How many can you remember? Some experts might say that in such a situation, you need saturation attacks, using Van Fleet ammunition to place high-density media placements. Of course, we see many brands doing this, especially during the World Cup, the Olympics, etc., where many brands engage in trend-based marketing. The problem is, after the event is over, how many of those ads do you remember? Even if you remember them, how willing are you to buy and use products like Hengyuanxiang's ads? In today's society, on the surface, the transmission media and speed have greatly improved, but it also brings the trouble of excessive information. When users cannot actively seek you out and interact with you, it is really difficult to make them remember you. Brand communication is getting harder and harder. Of course, the purpose of this article is not to deny positioning theory. The author just wants to illustrate that due to the massive fragmented information causing user overload, many past theories cannot adapt well to today's situation. We need to build a new basic theoretical framework under the current background to support marketing in our era. In the Era of Information Equality, No Topic, No Communication Back to the topic of communication, let's look at the essence through the phenomenon: what is the cause of information overload? On the surface, it's that the internet has greatly increased the speed of obtaining and transmitting information, but we must clearly see the core reason: the era of "information equality" has arrived. The emergence of the internet is the prerequisite for the era of equality. The past one-way transmission media has been completely changed in logic by the multi-node interactive communication form of the internet. In the era of equality, there is a very important public perception: everyone is a self-media, everyone has the right to produce content and voice opinions, and communication carriers are no longer scarce resources. The production and organization of content have fundamentally changed from the past. The internet era is interactive communication. All voices, as long as they have a certain topic nature (values, controversy, sudden events), will trigger a large number of people to watch and discuss. This has a pattern: Create an event → public opinion ferments → node communication → word-of-mouth explosion; Awareness → reputation → loyalty For example, regarding the recent Buffett's astronomical lunch, I think Sun Yuchen has already gotten what he wanted—awareness.
First, Sino-US relations are so tense recently; this is the big environment;
Second, Buffett himself is very averse to virtual currencies and has publicly criticized Bitcoin several times;
Third, Chinese people have also gained a preliminary understanding of the "cutting leeks" in the coin circle. In this situation, Sun Yuchen, as a representative of cutting leeks in the coin circle, still dared to spend a sky-high price to bid for Buffett's lunch. In the eyes of normal people, Sun Yuchen is either a madman or a scammer without moral bottom line. Setting aside Sun Yuchen's original intention and values, just looking at the influence of this event, his investment was very worthwhile. Whether you like it or not, his goal of gaining awareness has been achieved. But we should see that most topics are hard to become hot through such major events. Many things start cold, such as many early internet cases, whether it's Sister Furong, Fairy Sister, or Sister Milk Tea, or the pin-to-villa exchange, all are like this. In terms of hype techniques, they first plan a topic event, let it ferment for a while in communities like Tianya Forum or Baidu Tieba, and then it is forwarded by KOLs, big Vs, or big media, thus exploding across society. So, except for events known to everyone like Buffett, most events are hard to achieve deep communication without the help of nodes in the network society to assist your communication. Therefore, besides creating topics, controlling key nodes is the most important point for communication. More Powerful Than Topics Is the Power of Word-of-Mouth Let's discuss the Sun Yuchen topic again. If he didn't seek positive social evaluation, there would be nothing wrong with doing this. But all events, once they go through social communication, must face the public's questioning of morality and values. Let's look at positive cases. Why do Huawei and Peppa Pig, after enduring such huge traffic, still receive such good evaluations from people? The core is that what they advocate, what they spread, and what they have in their core are the universal values of humanity, such as patriotism, justice, bravery, strength, kindness, enthusiasm, self-respect, self-love, and so on. If what your product and brand advocate is not the universal values that humanity pursues, you will easily be attacked by people whose values differ from yours. Back to products, why did the early CCTV bid winners die faster the louder their communication was? The core issue is that many companies were eager to gain traffic but ignored quality. Without quality, there is no word-of-mouth that can be spread again. Especially in the internet era, the louder the voice, if it cannot withstand the recognition of universal values and public experience, negative word-of-mouth will quickly destroy a person or a brand. Why did this year's New Distribution conference set up two different parallel forums under the big topic of new marketing? One is called "Content, IP, and Communication," and the other is called "KOL, Community, and Fans." We hope that through in-depth interpretation of the two forums, we can break down the new era media and give the audience a deeper perspective. Everyone can analyze and discuss together how brands should do communication and marketing well in the era of information equality. Interested friends, don't miss it. Welcome to participate in the "2019 China FMCG Conference"!