Society is changing faster, market involution is intensifying, and brand building is becoming more difficult. The once-glorious advertising era of "advertising rings, gold pours in" and "creative brilliance, brand breakout" is gradually fading from mainstream marketing. So, in this era, how can we build brands well? All marketing methods must be based on business logic, evolving with market development, enterprise development, and brand perception development; nothing is static. In the "incremental" market era, enterprises built brands through policy dividends, demographic dividends, and bold advertising creativity. Now in the "stock" market era, with declining population growth, reduced consumption willingness, and oversupply, relying solely on "fragmented" creative ads makes it difficult to break through layers of competitive blockade. Only by evolving toward "holistic, systematic, dialectical" scientific marketing methods can we escape involution and build long-lasting brands. In terms of marketing development, brand building is "advancing from the advertising era to the scientific era." I call this scientific marketing method the "Scientific Brand Concept." What is the "Scientific Brand Concept"? It is the "historical materialist dialectics" of marketing. It takes market development cycles, industry competitive dynamics, core brand advantages, and customer consumption needs as deep research objects. It observes laws from a scientific perspective, and based on these laws, formulates effective brand marketing strategies for brands at different development stages, implementing one strategy per stage, per enterprise, per brand, and per matter. How to implement the "Scientific Brand Concept"? Different stages require different strategies. Building a brand is like raising a child, going through different growth stages. We take the "full development cycle" of a brand as the origin, dividing the entire process "from start-up to decline" into: formation stage, growth stage, maturity stage, and decline stage. At each different stage, dialectical measures and precise efforts are scientific. Formation Stage: Taking the Brand from 0 to 1 A "white brand" with no brand assets and no consumer awareness is in the embryonic formation stage. At this time, many bosses prioritize sales and have no awareness or interest in branding. But do small enterprises in the formation stage really not need branding for survival? No matter how small, enterprises need their own brand because the brand provides consumers with a "differentiated purchase reason" and "confidence guarantee." Facing a sea of products, why should consumers choose you? Therefore, micro-enterprises with "blank" brands need to create a brand from 0 to 1, giving products "brand selling points," giving customers differentiated perception, and allowing the enterprise to accumulate brand assets. Micro-enterprises in the formation stage must, with a pragmatic and down-to-earth spirit, use a seven-step scientific marketing approach to create a "high-survival-rate" dark horse brand from 0 to 1. Step 1: Be Sincere, Then Build the Brand First, bosses must completely eliminate the "brand uselessness" mindset; never build a brand while doubting it. Second, adopt a "long-term investment" mentality; don't expect the golden goose to lay golden eggs immediately. Finally, be psychologically prepared for "glorious failure" at any time; only by not fearing failure can you "defeat failure." Step 2: Select a Niche Track, Differentiate Competition For micro-enterprises in the formation stage, choosing a unique track with "few people and wide road" and forming differentiated competition with other players is a scientific brand business strategy. Based on the enterprise's own advantages, selecting the best track for the new brand from dimensions such as category, technology, function, culture, emotion, and scenario can quickly open the market and create massive growth. Step 3: Correct Positioning, Occupy the Mind To thrive, you need "different positioning." Micro-enterprises building brands are better suited to take the "narrow door," segmenting blank markets not occupied by strong brands, and establishing "distinctive" brand positioning in narrow blank areas. Then match a series of marketing measures to let consumers perceive, identify with, and "become familiar with" the positioning. Finally, establish brand awareness from 0 to 1 in consumers' minds! Step 4: Refine the Slogan, Brand Say-and-Spread The slogan is the super "paper salesman" of a start-up brand; one slogan is worth a thousand troops, condensing huge brand value energy. Once spoken, it can stimulate the audience to take purchase action and spread the slogan. It plays the role of "remember my slogan, spread my slogan, buy my product, promote for me"—the "say-and-spread" effect. Step 5: Develop Symbols, Enter the Heart and Mind The greatest function of symbols is to reduce brand recognition costs and increase familiarity. A familiar visual, auditory, or olfactory symbol can easily mobilize existing cognition in consumers' minds, quickly connecting a start-up brand with consumers and imprinting the brand impression in their hearts and minds. Step 6: Single-Product Breakout, Brand Goes Viral In the start-up period, micro-enterprises have weak momentum; they must see the situation clearly and position themselves correctly. Under the guidance of brand strategic positioning, focus on one single product, solve one problem, highlight one selling point, allocate advantageous resources, and concentrate on selling one product well, bringing the brand out of obscurity through sales. Step 7: Expand Channels, Brand Establishes a Foothold How can a start-up brand survive and establish itself in the market? Channels are key! In the initial stage, without channel expertise, products won't sell, and the brand will struggle to survive. It goes without saying that for a brand in the formation stage entering the market, expanding B-end intermediaries and building C-end channels are the primary marketing tasks. Only by opening up channels, allowing the brand and products to reach consumers unimpeded, and driving sales can a start-up brand establish a foothold and truly achieve a successful start from 0 to 1. Growth Stage: Taking the Brand from 1 to No. 1 Charles Robert Darwin emphasized in "On the Origin of Species" that organisms evolve gradually from low to high, from simple to complex. From an evolutionary perspective, the development of enterprises and brands is like species evolution, advancing from low to high dimensions, from small to strong, level by level. Brands in the growth stage, after completing the incubation from 0 to 1, already have correct strategic positioning, a complete brand system, stable sales performance, a solid market foundation, and a certain customer base and mind-share. Even if the brand has achieved the first-stage victory in the "Long March," it must not fall into complacency and stagnation, because brand management is like sailing against the current in the market torrent; if you don't advance, you retreat. In other words, brands entering the growth stage must, on the basis of existing success, adopt the "9-Style Scientific" advancement method to move from quantitative growth to qualitative breakthrough and reach the top. Style 1: Establish Ultimate Strategy, Formulate Brand Policy Where do I want to go? This is a simple philosophical question and also the ultimate strategic issue that brands must seriously address. For brands in the growth stage, this is key to determining the final outcome. What is the ultimate strategy of a brand? Mission and vision! Mission is the social responsibility the brand undertakes, giving the brand lasting value and meaning. Vision is the ultimate development form of the brand and the highest achievement of the brand's cause. For example, Alibaba's mission is "to make it easy to do business anywhere," and its vision is "to create a century-old enterprise serving 10 billion people." What is the brand's route and policy? Action program and guide! The action program is the basic direction of the brand's "overall actions," ensuring the pertinence and effectiveness of brand actions, avoiding wasted actions, and saving operating costs. The action guide is the path and steps for brand actions, ensuring that every action and every move is systematic and coherent, eliminating chaotic, fragmented marketing behaviors like "shooting here and there." Style 2: Establish Brand Philosophy, Shape Cultural Soul Brand success is the success of business philosophy and, more importantly, the success of brand culture. Philosophy is the "treasure within treasures" of brand management; it is the "anchor" for brand leaders in decision-making, knowing how to choose and what to do and not do in a chaotic market. For example, Steve Jobs used Buddhist Zen thought as his brand philosophy, pursuing "simplicity" in management, "extreme ease of use" in products, and "one-strike kill" in marketing, eliminating all wasted actions, thereby creating a super brand that changed human lifestyles. Culture is the spiritual soul of a brand, an invisible yet extremely powerful soft power that transcends physical attributes, directly connects with consumers' inner world, and resonates emotionally. Brands in the growth stage, under the call of mission and vision, must not only establish a "practicable" business philosophy but also shape a brand culture with "emotional satisfaction, trend influence, and story inheritance" around the value orientation of target consumers, forming a new consumption value and cultural wave. For example, Coca-Cola's "happiness" culture, Nike's "winning" sports culture, Florasis's "national trend" culture, and lululemon's yoga leisure culture. Style 3: Design Management Mechanisms, Support Brand Evolution What is the connection between management mechanisms and brands? The "I Ching·Xici Zhuan" says: "One yin and one yang are called the Dao." From a business perspective, management mechanisms and brands are two sides of the same coin in enterprise management. Management is "yin," and brand is "yang." Without sound management mechanisms as operational guarantees, brands in the growth stage will find it difficult to break through the development ceiling. Only by designing a set of scientific, meticulous, and efficient management mechanisms, including: administrative operation mechanisms, promotion and assessment mechanisms, team incentive mechanisms, market information feedback mechanisms, customer management mechanisms, after-sales service mechanisms, public relations control, and risk prevention mechanisms, can the brand's rear be stabilized, allowing the brand to leap and transform without worry. For example, Kazuo Inamori, when founding Kyocera, created the Amoeba management mechanism to maintain corporate vitality and overcome bottlenecks. Through "subdivided groups, independent accounting, and full participation" in operations, he ultimately achieved dual growth in operational efficiency and corporate brand. Style 4: Expand User Groups, Extend Related Categories What is the underlying logic of brand growth? First, expand the user base; second, based on new users' new needs, extend related categories and launch new products to meet those needs. Note the key point: it is "extending related categories," not "cross-category" or "cross-industry" extension. That is, within the major category of the industry, vertically segment small categories, develop new products, and create new growth. For example, Juewei Duck Neck, known as the "boss of the duck neck world," after becoming the leading brand in the braised duck category, began to extend to "light dining and seasonings and other pan-food" categories, building a brand growth ecosystem for Juewei Food. Style 5: Stack Brand Value, Expand Market Share Brands in the growth stage, in their pursuit of growth, should not divide forces and attack everywhere. Instead, they should concentrate their forces. First, continuously "stack value" for the brand, that is, focus on one channel and media around the core positioning and content, carry out marketing activities, and saturate consumers' minds with attacks. Day after day, year after year, repeatedly stack brand content value to enhance brand awareness momentum. Second, expand market space, from local to national, from domestic to international, advancing step by step to increase brand market share. For example, Guangxin Eyewear, around its core positioning and content of "national vision guardian," conducts a "doctor consultation" marketing activity every week at its national terminal stores, repeating one key action for several consecutive years, cumulatively stacking the brand awareness of "national vision guardian." Style 6: Plan Product Matrix, Strengthen Competitive Barriers Product power is brand power and growth power. Brands in the growth stage, after years of development, have a rich product line and have established a place in the market. However, behind this lie problems such as messy product lines, too many chicken-rib products, and overlapping selling points. Facing product issues, brands in the growth stage must have the courage of "a gecko cutting off its tail," boldly cutting away chicken-rib products, rebuilding the product echelon, and scientifically planning the chaotic product portfolio. According to category characteristics and consumer needs in market segments, products are divided into: "star products" representing the image, "profit products" creating thick profits, "sniper products" countering low prices, and "traffic products" attracting traffic. This forms a well-organized product matrix, builds a growth engine, and strengthens brand competitive barriers. Style 7: Adjust Product Prices, Reallocate Multi-Party Interests Brands in the growth stage have been selling in the market for a long time, and their prices have formed a system familiar to customers and intermediaries. Why adjust product prices? Because the brand has advanced from start-up to growth stage, bringing new experiences to customers, so it needs to re-adjust product prices, reallocate multi-party interests, and use new prices to reflect the brand's new value to consumers and the industry. How to scientifically adjust product prices without causing "bone-breaking" impact on the original price system? First, "adjust prices with new products": launch upgraded new products and set new prices; Second, "adjust prices with added value": set up value-added services to match new prices, making customers feel "worth the price"; Third, "adjust prices with brand": use brand upgrade as the reason, convene intermediaries, key customers, industry associations, government leaders, authoritative media, and brand ambassadors to hold a grand "brand upgrade launch conference," releasing new brand strategy, new image, and new products, and adjust prices accordingly. Style 8: Formulate Channel Policies, Optimize Channel Control Channel control is a topic and a challenge. Because, apart from the brand's direct channels, any form of intermediary channel involves profit distribution. Intermediaries "won't get up early without profit, won't act without profit." Therefore, brands in the growth stage must revise a set of control policies for intermediary channels that are driving, binding, and cohesive, including: purchase policies, distribution policies, sales policies, rebate policies, logistics policies, and after-sales service policies. Style 9: Continuously Produce Content, Repeatedly Spread and Promote In the era of information explosion where even good wine fears deep alleys, precise and continuous advertising attacks are the "nuclear-level" marketing tactic for brands in the growth stage to drive market growth, occupy user minds, and build awareness. So, what marketing promotion tactics can achieve "brand and effect unity" and help the brand advance upward? First, "cook according to the ingredients," focus locally, concentrate funds and advantageous resources, and intensively promote in local areas and specialized channels to minimize marketing costs and improve communication efficiency. Second, internal promotion, long-term implementation: through internal publications, cultural walls, training lectures, etc., let the brand system take root and sprout within the enterprise. Third, repeat publicity to create high-volume brand awareness. Imagine: if consumers don't even know the brand exists or understand its selling points, how can a purchase relationship occur? The core strategy for building brand awareness is repeated promotion, repeating one thing, and deeply hitting the brand awareness into customers' minds. For example, the brainwashing ads of BOSS Zhipin and Bojue Wedding Photography are simple, crude, and repetitive. Although they are annoying, the brand awareness of BOSS Zhipin and Bojue Wedding Photography has rapidly increased, making everyone who saw the ads know and remember these two brands. Maturity Stage: Keeping the Brand No. 1 When a brand's development form advances from the "growth stage" to the "maturity stage," topping the industry and becoming a leading brand, it is the brand's highlight moment and also a high-risk period. The reason is that under the glory of success, enterprises easily become arrogant and negligent, ignoring brand management. A slight mistake can bring "unexpected disaster" to the brand, ranging from declining sales to damaging the brand or even pushing it into the abyss of extinction. How should brands in the maturity stage manage their brands to maintain the leading advantage? For this, I have summarized the six-step scientific brand management. Step 1: Strategic Language Management—Unwavering for a Hundred Years What is "strategic language" management? It is managing the brand's strategic-level "language system." This includes positioning language, slogan language, and core value language, keeping them on a strategic main track for a long time, not deviating, not derailing, not changing randomly, and integrating strategic language into every marketing activity, insisting on using it for a hundred years. For example, McDonald's, from its founding in 1955, defined its brand strategic language as "Food, Folks and Fun," and has adhered to it for over 70 years without change, accumulating huge brand language assets over time. We often say "don't forget the original intention." Brands in the maturity stage must always manage their "strategic language original intention" and not let it deviate. But in fact, many brand leaders like to "stir things up" for the brand. For example, optimizing brand image, redefining strategic positioning, and replacing brand slogans, causing the brand to deviate from its original strategic track and gradually lose the language assets painstakingly built. Step 2: Brand Crisis Management—Turning Danger into Safety "When you're in the world, how can you avoid getting cut?" Brands in the maturity stage, being prominent, are most likely to "get cut" in public relations crises. If a crisis is mishandled, it can trigger "negative emotions" in society and have a devastating impact on the brand. How should brands in the maturity stage respond to sudden crises? First, in attitude, they must "be sincere and remove arrogance," not use an "arrogant" attitude to shirk responsibility, or use "ostrich" psychology to escape and avoid responsibility. They should uphold a sincere, positive, and responsible attitude, face the crisis head-on, respond to issues, and stabilize public opinion. Second, immediately form a crisis task force, investigate the truth, write an investigation report, attach solutions, and make it public. Finally, mobilize the media to widely publicize positive reports and gradually restore the brand's reputation. For example, Haidilao's Beijing Jinsong and Taiyanggong stores were once exposed by the media for hygiene issues such as mice and employees using hotpot ladles to clean drains. Haidilao first quickly issued a letter of apology to society, admitting the problems and facts, and sincerely apologizing to customers. Then, it closed the involved stores for thorough investigation and rectification, comforted the cadres and employees of the involved stores, and clarified that the responsibility for the incident lay with management, borne by the company's board. At the same time, Haidilao opened its kitchens for customers to visit at any time. For a time, Haidilao "turned crisis into opportunity," turning bad things into good things. Consumers and the public saw Haidilao's attitude of actively taking responsibility and its actions of active rectification. Finally, Haidilao not only gained people's forgiveness but also won their praise and reputation. Step 3: Brand Fame Management—Maintaining High Awareness Awareness is a symbol of a leading brand's continued existence and strength, the foundation of market sales, and a key factor influencing consumer purchase decisions. For example, when a consumer wants to buy a computer, they wander around the computer mall several times, look at many brands, and after in-depth comparison and analysis, they are still hesitant. At that point, brand awareness becomes the decisive factor influencing the final purchase. If a mature brand stays out of sight for a long time and does no marketing promotion, consumers and the public will quickly forget it, and competitors will overtake it. From a market reality perspective, the higher the awareness of a brand in customers' minds, the higher its status compared to other brands. When customers buy similar products, they first think of high-awareness brands. So, for mature brands, the only way to maintain high awareness is "advertising," with no other shortcuts, and advertising must be continuous and cannot stop. But many brands carefully calculate the ROI of advertising, only willing to invest if they see results; if not, they don't invest. Facing such brands, I want to convey a scientific advertising concept: investing in advertising is not burning money but saving for the brand—saving awareness, saving recognition, and saving purchase opportunities. In the end, these savings will convert into high-value brand assets, bringing the brand a hundredfold or even thousandfold returns. Step 4: Brand Reputation Management—Maintaining Repeat Purchase Advantage What is "brand reputation management"? Around customer experience, the brand maintains long-term stable high-quality delivery in products or services, allowing customers to perceive the brand's "stable high quality" in their minds, be willing to repurchase long-term, and be happy to share and recommend to friends. Let me give a negative example of brand reputation management. Lao Gan Ma, a national brand in the hearts of Chinese people, not only sells chili sauce worldwide but also becomes a "food luxury" for foreigners. However, Lao Gan Ma, the "king" in the chili sauce world, cannot maintain its kingly status. In 2015, Lao Gan Ma was exposed for using cheaper Henan chili peppers instead of Guizhou chili peppers, causing the chili sauce to lose its original taste, decline in quality, and consumers refused to buy. Since then, Lao Gan Ma's sales have declined significantly. Founder Tao Huabi, in an attempt to turn the tide, once opened the factory to the public and made production visible, but it still couldn't save the declining sales trend. Because consumers and the public have lost trust in Lao Gan Ma's brand reputation, nothing can be recovered. Step 5: Brand Loyalty Management—Cultivating Lifetime Customers Do customers have loyalty to brands? This is a controversial topic. Some believe users are fickle, always seeking novelty, and cannot maintain long-term loyalty to a brand. Others believe users have formed purchase habits and trust dependence on a long-used brand, so brand loyalty exists. Fred Posner, president of Ayer & Son Advertising, said you must make the brand a friend. He touched on the essence of brand loyalty: the relationship between brand and user, based on value provision, starts as a "transactional" relationship, becomes a "friendship" relationship, and then upgrades to a long-term "fan" relationship. From an economic perspective, the cost of acquiring a new customer is more than six times the cost of maintaining an existing one. Therefore, mature brands should not neglect brand loyalty management just because business is big, the market is stable, and the brand is famous. In the fast-changing era, "retention" is more important than "traffic." Continuously creating value for users, managing and retaining users' "loyal hearts" is the "value source" for sustainable brand development. Step 6: Product Evolution Management—Keeping Products Evergreen In 2014, when mobile phone giant Nokia was acquired by Microsoft, its CEO said at the press conference with deep emotion: "We didn't do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost." Nokia's decline from a mobile phone giant to extinction was not without cause. When smartphones rose rapidly, Nokia's products did not evolve and innovate in time to adapt to user needs, and were overtaken by Apple's iPhone and Google's Android operating system until eliminated. Times are progressing, markets are changing, and consumer groups and concepts are also iterating and updating. If mature brands remain immersed in past achievements and lack product evolution management, they will quickly fail to keep up with market changes, be knocked over by the "back waves" on the beach, and be abandoned by the times. Why do Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi, KFC, and McDonald's, these very mature giants, launch new products every so often and phase out and discontinue a batch of products? Undoubtedly, mature brands must keep up with trends, closely follow market demand, and self-innovate and self-evolve their products to maintain evergreen vitality in the rhythm of market changes. Decline Stage: Bringing the Brand Back to No. 1 Marx's "materialist dialectics" points out that nothing is eternal; where there is life, there is death; without death, there is no life; the demise of old things means the emergence of new things. From this perspective, the development of things and the prosperity and decline of business cycles are cyclical processes of "wave-like motion" and "spiral rise." Schumpeter, known as the "father of innovative economics," said in "The Theory of Economic Development": "Every boom is followed by a bust, and every bust is followed by a boom." In this sense, after entering the strong maturity stage, it is an inevitable development cycle trend for brands to move from prosperity to decline, which is difficult to avoid. However, within crisis lies opportunity. Brands in the decline stage can, through scientific "transformation and upgrading" strategies and market operations, find new growth curves, create new purchasing power, cross the decline cycle, and bring the brand back to No. 1. Brand transformation and upgrading is not partial renewal, not tactical creativity, nor a vigorous phased marketing promotion, but a top-down, inside-out overall systematic project. How can brands in the decline stage apply scientific transformation and upgrading marketing methods to escape the decline dilemma, achieve "brand rebirth," and return to the leading position? Master the "Five Moves of Brand Remaking"! Move 1: Study the Causes of Decline, Identify the Type of Decline Prosperity has cycles, and decline has reasons. We cannot simply use the surface phenomena of "brand aging" and "market shrinkage" to view brand decline. We should dialectically attribute causes from three aspects and identify types. First, the industry is declining, consumer demand drops sharply, market volume shrinks, the development cycle moves toward decline, triggering "super-heated competition" among brands, leading to sharp sales declines, thin profits, or even long-term losses. This is "industry decline type." The brand should either find new market opportunities within the original industry or abandon the original industry and transform to other industries. For example, the decline of real estate, home building materials, large supermarkets, and KTV industries. Second, the industry is healthy, the brand's external momentum is strong, but internal innovation is slack, senior management infighting, and management chaos, leading to the gradual hollowing out of core competitiveness and the gradual erosion of market share. This is typical "internal friction decline type." Due to internal management chaos, a good hand is played badly. For example, Zhen Gongfu lost its leading position as "the first brand of Chinese fast food" due to shareholder infighting, and the brand has since declined significantly. Facing this type of decline, it is necessary to carry out top-down "surgical reform" of the enterprise to revive the brand. Finally, the brand stops evolving, is complacent, cannot keep up with the trends of the times and market, loses its original competitive advantages, ages its image, sales decline severely, and the brand is even on the brink of bankruptcy. This is "aging decline type." Only brand upgrading can promote brand rebirth. For example, the beauty brand "Pechoin," once on the brink of "aging" decline, was seen by younger consumers as an "old lady," and market sales were sluggish. In 2010, the aging and declining Pechoin underwent brand upgrading, repositioning the brand as "Pechoin herbal skincare, natural and non-irritating," and launched the "Sanshenghua" series products with national trend culture for young people, which exploded, and the Pechoin brand has since been revitalized. By 2020, facing the wave of technological development and new changes in the beauty market, Pechoin underwent a second upgrade, advancing from "herbal skincare" to "tech-new herbal" in strategic positioning, comprehensively reshaping the brand from top to bottom, transforming Pechoin from "aging" to "youthful." Move 2: Deeply Study Market Trends, Select a New Track In the current economic downturn, China and the world are seeking "new quality productive forces" growth tracks to escape the decline dilemma and create a new round of prosperity. For brands in decline, to find new track opportunities, they must deeply research the market, understand the market, and thoroughly grasp the market to find a breakthrough exit for brand upgrading. However, in recent years, the absurd voice of "research uselessness" has been rampant. Some people think market research is just piling up data, going through the motions, and not very useful. They also cite two examples to prove "research uselessness." One is that Steve Jobs developed the revolutionary smartphone iPhone without needing to go to the streets to conduct surveys. The other is that before Ford invented the car, people's common transportation was horse-drawn carriages, and they had no concept of cars. If market research were conducted, the answer would only be "people need faster horses, not cars." Therefore, market research is meaningless! These two examples seem reasonable but are actually fallacies that mislead people. Jobs and Ford are genius-type super product managers and entrepreneurs, rare as phoenix feathers; how many are there in reality? If you are not "chosen by heaven" or a business genius, when selecting a new track for brand transformation and upgrading, you must follow a research law centered on the market, guided by science, and based on a systematic framework, conducting comprehensive research on the market from five aspects. First, "know the trend": study the industry and sector in a three-dimensional way to find market development trends and future opportunities. Second, "know the enemy": analyze direct competitors, potential competitors, and benchmark brands' tactics and strengths and weaknesses, and find the optimal competitive gap in the blank areas of peer brands. Third, "know yourself": inventory your own value assets and dig out core advantages. Fourth, "know the customer": depict user profiles, deeply analyze user consumption characteristics and behaviors, and gain insight into the first consumption need in users' minds. Fifth, "know the opportunity": through multi-dimensional scientific research on industry trends, competitive gaps, core advantages, and mind needs, and with a thorough understanding of the market, you can select the correct new track for brand transformation and upgrading. Move 3: Restructure Operating Assets, Rebuild Business Model In the decline stage, selecting a new track is to "change the path" for the brand, restructuring resources and assets is to "change the blood" for the brand, and rebuilding the business model is to "change the tactics" for the brand. So, what is resource and asset restructuring? In short, it is to reintegrate the brand's original value assets, market assets, corporate assets, and advantageous resources to form new brand operating elements and radiate new value vitality. After asset restructuring, how can new assets be activated to make the brand reborn from the ashes? Of course, it is to innovate and rebuild the business model, because the original operating "moves" have become outdated and ineffective, unable to drive new value assets. Only by creating a new operating "route" and building a new business chain can new assets be activated, new tracks be leveraged, and a new brand be remade. For example: Three Squirrels, the "first snack stock," started in e-commerce in 2012 and grew from 0 to 10 billion in seven years, becoming China's first internet nut brand. From 2020 to 2022, affected by the dual "blow" of the pandemic and declining e-commerce traffic, Three Squirrels' "dual-line" revenue fell continuously, and the brand fell into the "darkest moment" of cyclical decline. So, in April 2022, Three Squirrels fully promoted strategic transformation and upgrading, with "high-end cost-effectiveness" as the strategic policy, reforming and rebuilding the business development model from four levels: supply chain, full-category matrix, omni-channel, and store optimization. Under the business model reform of "high-end cost-effectiveness," Three Squirrels' brand transformation and upgrading has achieved remarkable results. In the first quarter of 2024, revenue and profit both increased, with revenue of 3.646 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 91.83%; net profit attributable to the parent company was 308 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 60.80%, setting a historical high growth rate. Three Squirrels' brand has emerged from the "darkest moment" of decline and crossed the development cycle. Move 4: Redefine Brand Strategy, Reconstruct Brand System Rebuilding the business model is the "cornerstone" of the brand transformation and upgrading project. However, before brand rebirth, it is necessary to redefine the correct strategy and reconstruct the brand value system to reshape brand awareness in consumers' minds and rebuild brand competitive barriers in the market. There are many reasons for brand decline and aging, but the "paralysis" of the original brand strategy is the most critical factor. Therefore, based on the new business model, redefining the correct brand strategy becomes the winning "magic weapon" for the brand to escape decline and turn defeat into victory. How to redefine brand strategy? In one sentence: create a new positioning with unique value in the minds of new target consumers, finding a "new mind track" for the brand. Then, on this new mind track, build a "clear brand proposition, value selling points that support trust, easily recognizable brand symbols, and brand culture that connects emotions," reconstructing a complete brand value system, replacing old impressions and implanting new awareness. Move 5: Renew Product Value, Refresh Consumption Reasons What is the "last mile" of brand transformation and upgrading? It is to recreate product value, give attractive new consumption reasons, and revitalize market sales. Because products are the "tactical carrier" of brand strategy, carrying the new brand positioning and spiritual concept, and also carrying the strategic hope of returning to No. 1. Therefore, if products are not upgraded, brand upgrading is zero. Only with strategic positioning as the "helm" and product value as the "oars" can the brand's "new ship" be successfully driven to the new continent. The essence of products is "value exchange," and the essence of product upgrading is "value renewal," bringing value experiences different from the past and from peers. Brands in the decline stage, trapped in a losing market, how can they complete the "last link" of brand transformation and upgrading through "renewing product value"? There are three methods. First, research and create new products, attaching the "new soul" of brand positioning to the new product body; Second, create new functions, find pain points in society, industry, and users, and create targeted functional solutions; Third, tell new stories, giving new products stories with strong selling points, cultural value, and emotional appeal. For example: "Skyworth TV," one of China's leading TV brands, in the face of severe industry involution and economic downturn, found a demand track for consumer aesthetic upgrading. With "home appliance and home integration" as the strategic direction and "new generation wallpaper TV" as the brand positioning, it developed and launched the "new generation MiniLED wallpaper TV A7E, A7E Pro series," turning the TV into an "art frame," full of strong cultural value. In terms of rational value, Skyworth's new generation wallpaper TV focuses on the functional selling points of "zero glare reflection, zero boot ads, zero-distance wall mounting," solving the pain points of traditional TVs such as "glaring light, too many ads, and protruding wall mounting," forming a high-value new consumption proposition. Final summary: In the current Chinese business landscape, whether large enterprises with strong brands or micro-enterprises with white brands, all are struggling under super-heated competitive pressure. Using single-point advertising methods to build brands is difficult to escape the bitter sea of competition and difficult to achieve brand success. Only by using scientific "historical materialist dialectics" to "ask, listen, look, and feel" the market, "set strategies according to stages" for enterprises, "correctly position" strategies, and "precisely strike" in marketing can we prove the great way of branding. Note: The methodology model is developed with original content; the graphics reference "Brand Director Model, Marketing Director Model, Planning Director Model" and online materials; cases are summarized from online resources.