---
title: "City Managers in First-Tier Markets: Beyond Orders and Execution, Add Some Brand Thinking!"
description: "A city manager reflects on nearly two decades in sales and laments the increasing difficulty, but his former boss reminds him that the essence of FMCG remains unchanged: brand is the foundation, distribution is key, and victory is decided at the terminal. The article argues that frontline sales teams must embrace brand thinking, leveraging both headquarters and local brand resources to drive sustainable growth."
author: "许翔 Ryan Xu"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-05-10"
language: "en"
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---

# City Managers in First-Tier Markets: Beyond Orders and Execution, Add Some Brand Thinking!

> A city manager reflects on nearly two decades in sales and laments the increasing difficulty, but his former boss reminds him that the essence of FMCG remains unchanged: brand is the foundation, distribution is key, and victory is decided at the terminal. The article argues that frontline sales teams must embrace brand thinking, leveraging both headquarters and local brand resources to drive sustainable growth.

Today, catching up with my former boss, Mr. Li, Lao Wang drank a bit too much. After half a jin of baijiu, slightly tipsy, Lao Wang couldn't help but start reminiscing...

"Mr. Li, thinking back to when I was selling under your leadership, before I knew it, I've been managing the business in this city for nearly twenty years. Unlike the past, sales are getting harder and harder now..."

My former boss patted Lao Wang on the shoulder and said earnestly, "Eating this bowl of FMCG rice is hard every year, but the essence of this business hasn't changed over the years. It's still those three sentences—brand is the foundation, distribution is key, and victory is decided at the terminal. There are many brand matters we don't understand or aren't professional in, but we must have more brand thinking!"

When it comes to brand building, many city managers in first-tier markets think, "We're already exhausted from taking orders, negotiating listings, chasing payments, managing teams, and overseeing execution every day... What does brand building have to do with me? That's the marketing department's job. I'll just focus on sales!"

Wrong! This is a misconception!

**In fact, every action a frontline sales team of an FMCG manufacturer takes in daily work either adds to or subtracts from the brand.** From price execution to promotional materials, from weekend activities to large-scale roadshows, from discount promotions to bundle gifts, these may seem like routine execution actions repeated by frontline teams, but they all affect the quality of brand communication!

On the other hand, due to the increasing fragmentation and localization of channel changes in the FMCG industry, the trend of regionalization, localization, and niche markets for new retail platforms is becoming more evident. The working methods and investment focus of headquarters brand and marketing departments are also gradually moving down, and each manufacturer's brand investment strategy is changing accordingly.

**—From the previous 'national, head-heavy' approach to a 'multi-channel, regional' shift.** Now, brand building is not farther from frontline sales teams but closer! **'Collaborative co-creation' between headquarters and regions will be the mainstream trend in future brand strategy evolution.**

**Brand is the foundation, distribution is key, and victory is decided at the terminal.** Brand is the foundation, but it often ends up on the 'important but not urgent' task list for frontline managers. It's time to correct this relaxed attitude. Understand that without brand, there is no lasting and healthy sales.

**While leading your team and distributors to focus on distribution and terminals every day, if you can add a bit of brand thinking, your performance will be more efficient, healthier, and even get twice the result with half the effort.**

**-01-**

**What brand resources can a city manager utilize?**

That's a good question!

In the understanding of frontline sales, brand always seems out of reach, yet it's everywhere!

**Some are 'visible and tangible,'** such as posters with brand or spokesperson images, secondary display props, shelf stickers, and other POSM; weekend brand promoters reinforcing key sales days; and brand-named roadshows co-organized with local retailers.

**Some are 'visible but intangible,'** such as TV ads, internet ads, and influencer live-streaming sales.

**And some are 'invisible and intangible,'** such as big-data-based precise targeting of consumers and social media influencer seeding.

As a city manager, you must not only perfectly execute the brand work you can control (the 'visible and tangible' part mentioned above), but also strive to promote what you can influence (the 'visible but intangible' part), while actively understanding and learning the more professional aspects (the 'invisible and intangible' part).

After understanding the importance of brand, let's see how to utilize brand resources. Although we may have only a partial understanding of brand matters, we must think about how to use brand to drive sales, rather than simply considering using promotions to drive sales.

What brand resources can a city manager in a first-tier market utilize?

Mainly two parts:

> 1. Execution and pursuit of headquarters brand resources;
>
> 2. Low-cost co-creation of local brand resources.

As a frontline city manager, you need not only to understand brand but also to act. Only by truly implementing the 10 things mentioned above can the business in the entire regional market achieve sustained and healthy development. **How exactly should the 10 things under 'Execution and pursuit of headquarters brand resources' and 'Low-cost co-creation of local brand resources' be implemented?**

**-02-**

**Execution and pursuit of headquarters brand resources**

**1. Understand and thoroughly grasp headquarters brand resources**

In daily communication, the brand department and sales department are often disconnected, making it difficult to form direct and effective communication. Especially for city managers in first-tier markets, whose positions are not particularly high and who rarely return to headquarters, it's not easy to even talk to colleagues in the marketing and brand department. Over time, frontline city managers know very little about the marketing department's resources.

Although you can't have much communication and contact with headquarters, at the very least, you can learn about brand resources relevant to your city through your superiors. **Be a mindful person and list a brand resource inventory.**

Take TV advertising as an example: which TV ads are placed in your region? Are they covered by CCTV, satellite TV, or local TV? You should have a rough idea. The purpose is **to increase your bargaining power and boost customer confidence when negotiating listings and resource support with local retailers and channel partners, and even to explore resource exchange plans.**

Regarding the headquarters brand resource inventory, it can generally be understood from three levels:

> 1. National—TV media ads, digital media ads, spokespersons, variety show sponsorships, etc.;
>
> 2. Regional—local outdoor ads, local event sponsorships, local KOL live streams, local KA store theme activities, etc.;
>
> 3. On-hand—various POSM materials issued by headquarters.

For example, for a product endorsed by a celebrity, you can place brand elements with the spokesperson on the promotional pages of local new retail home-delivery platforms to boost sales. You can also do resource exchange, helping the platform attract traffic and helping you sell in more new products.

Another example: if you learn that headquarters has placed 30 elevator ad resources in your prefecture-level market, you can negotiate with the leading local retailer to add the supermarket's logo to the elevator ads, jointly promoting the retailer's theme activities, in exchange for free dozens of square meters of floor display.

**In the more fragmented and diverse new retail and all-domain industry context, there are actually many headquarters brand resources that can be exchanged, but you first need to know what headquarters has!**

Otherwise, you'll be exhausted selling goods all day, only focusing on how many promotional packs, gifts, and samples are available from headquarters and the region... If a city manager only has this vision, only staring at promotional resources all day without sorting out brand resources and not knowing how to leverage brand, then your market will never be done well, smoothly, or big.

**2. Extreme execution of headquarters brand resources**

Headquarters brand resources will more or less have some investment in each market, from large roadshows to weekend temporary promoters, and local bus stop outdoor ads. For city managers, the implementation of local brand resources must be 100% perfectly executed!

Especially for these large events, which are infrequent and few. But since these precious resources are invested in your market, make full use of them. **Good execution leads to more resources; poor execution leads to fewer.**

For daily execution, for example, executing a retailer's theme activity, the first half is 'Summer Goddess Day' and the second half is 'Clean Summer.' All the film wraps, floor stickers, shelf stickers, wobblers, and posters—these POSM containing brand elements and ads—are actually carefully designed by the headquarters brand department. They must be replaced promptly, displayed precisely, and executed perfectly!

Isn't this just our sales team's daily execution? No! These insignificant details are actually brand building! In an era of fragmented communication, every terminal, especially the head terminals in each city, must perfectly implement every 'visible and tangible' brand resource! That is the most important brand communication position. Media is too fragmented, and the value of head terminals in various city markets is greater than before.

In addition to executing a specific activity or material, whether online or offline, on-site or off-site, achieve full alignment. Only with alignment can brand resonance be achieved, thereby promoting healthy sell-through across channels.

Besides the daily issuance of various brand promotion activities that require our ground forces to execute perfectly, frontline sales should also have a 'sense of ownership.' For example, if headquarters has invested in 30 subway ads in your city, you can mobilize the local sales team to pay attention during commutes and assist the headquarters marketing department in supervising whether the third-party advertising company has executed properly.

**3. Fully leverage headquarters brand resources**

What does full leverage mean? Simply put, **be good at amplifying the influence of brand resources. Make waves even without wind; with wind, make towering waves.**

Even if brand resources are scarce, you can fully leverage and create momentum.

For example, when cooperating with a local O2O platform that is just starting out, for a startup that urgently needs empowerment and traffic from leading manufacturers, you can exchange headquarters brand resources with the platform. On one hand, you help it attract traffic and build consumer mindshare; on the other hand, you get more quality exposure points and establish a first-mover advantage—killing multiple birds with one stone!

Another example: the company's e-commerce department invites a top influencer to live-stream sales, achieving both brand sales and influence. At this time, a city manager without ambition would think this is an e-commerce matter, unrelated to our offline distributor channels.

But proactive people will turn this hot topic into videos and materials, not only sharing it with local retailers when selling in new products but also showing it to channel customers at distribution ordering meetings, thereby enhancing customer confidence and driving business growth. **Keep your eyes and ears open, be a mindful person. There are actually many brand resources; the key is the intention to graft them onto the local market.**

**4. Proactively pursue headquarters brand resources**

**For existing brand resources, fully leverage them. For absent brand resources, actively create them. As the saying goes, the crying child gets milk! City managers should try to proactively pursue.**

For example, if the local sports committee wants to co-host a national fitness competition with local retailers, you can proactively communicate with the marketing department: if we sponsor, how many consumers can we influence, how much exposure can we bring, and what local resources can we get in return, such as primary and secondary displays.

**The marketing department is also human. If you communicate more, you'll have more opportunities than others and get more resources.** But there's a premise: you need to learn to think with the brand thinking of marketing colleagues, empathize, and start from their KPIs to fight for resources.

In fact, major manufacturers basically invest in brands according to a normal distribution—wherever the business is bigger, they invest more. Besides key investments in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, or provincial capitals, other prefecture-level cities are basically evenly invested. Because the marketing department doesn't know which city performs well or which city has a higher ROI.

**This situation is mainly due to the low frequency of interaction between the marketing and sales departments**, coupled with many city managers having only a partial understanding of brand work, not daring to ask or speak, and being embarrassed to communicate. Over time, information communication breaks down. But now is the era of all-domain distribution, and many current platforms are localized, not national.

In the past, the brand department invested more in national customers and platforms, but now a platform might be very large in a certain region, such as PUPU Supermarket in Fuzhou or Xing Sheng You Xuan in Hunan. The brand department is not very familiar with these new scenarios and channels, so investment is naturally cautious.

Therefore, when proactively pursuing brand resources, city managers must combine with the local context, making the headquarters brand department feel that you, as a frontline city manager, **not only know how to sell goods in the local market but also understand how to discuss brand resource investment and implementation with the brand department.** This way, the brand department will also look at you with new respect. As long as you ask more, are more professional, and follow up more closely than others, you will get more resources than others. With more brand resources, your business will naturally be smoother!

Frankly speaking, in today's era of rising new retail platforms everywhere, **without the empowerment and support of brand resources, relying solely on traditional promotional packs, price cuts, and promotional materials, it's hard to build the business.**

**5. Trust account for headquarters brand resources**

As mentioned earlier, brand resources are used more and more. **But the basis for using more is—you must succeed every time you use them!**

Due to the impact of the pandemic, most categories are on a downward trend, directly reflected in the continuous tightening of marketing budgets across manufacturers. At this time, brand resource investment will also be more cautious, tending toward maximizing ROI.

**City managers need to think about how to stretch one dollar into two, using existing resources to co-create new resources, achieving a win-win for sales targets and brand building goals.** Trust account: succeed every time you use it, and build your reputation in the marketing department's mind. The more trust others have in you and your team, the more resources your market will receive.

How to build initial trust? Start with the most basic daily execution! Every poster, every floor sticker, every display, every theme activity, every brand roadshow must be executed extremely and perfectly. Perfect process plus perfect sales results is the best endorsement of your and your team's execution. With this endorsement, applying for additional brand resources from the headquarters marketing department will be smoother and more unobstructed.

Brand strategy upgrades in the all-domain distribution era are not just about headquarters brands; more importantly, they are about local brand upgrades.

**-03-**

**Low-cost co-creation of local brand resources**

**1. Co-create local brand resources with retailers**

As a leader in the local market, it is very important to co-create local brand resources with local retailers, especially for head terminals.

What is the biggest pain point for these local chain retailers? Obviously, they lack practice and exploration in new retail.

As a frontline city manager, you can clearly know the company's excellent experience in national supermarkets or national new retail platforms, graft national experience onto the local market, help local retailers build home-delivery brands, and establish local consumers' shopping mindshare for that retailer's brand.

For example, a national home-delivery platform's member day has actually become a brand. A frontline city manager can learn from the cooperation experience with this national platform to help local retailers create their own 'Weekend Big Brand Day,' gradually establishing a home-delivery brand in the minds of local consumers.

To help the retailer establish the 'Weekend Big Brand Day' mindshare among the million consumers it covers, there are not only promotions but also flash sales, coupon waivers, traffic attraction, and other activities. In this process, you and your team assist the customer in sorting out processes and connecting links, which helps build a first-mover advantage and seize the track early.

In the all-domain distribution era, the emergence of new scenarios and channels means opportunity. In the past, under old scenarios and channels, you might have been a follower, but by seizing new channels, you are likely to become a leader, gradually influencing the competitive landscape.

As a city manager, if you only use old scenario thinking, still the old 4P (product, distribution, price, promotion), without brand thinking, you won't be able to lead local retailers to progress, upgrade, and iterate. Naturally, you won't get more retailers embracing you.

**2. Distributors' brand building thinking**

Frankly speaking, the current survival environment for distributors is increasingly difficult. Whether the role of distributors will be replaced in the future depends on one key point: whether distributors can continuously create value in the entire business chain! If distributors are just movers, they will definitely be eliminated. For distributors to be valuable and develop long-term, they must move toward value thinking and embrace brand thinking.

**The older generation of distributors has 'gross profit thinking'—how to get more orders and make more money?**

**The new generation of distributors has 'value thinking'—how to get more traffic and become more valuable!**

Here, the distributor's brand building thinking can be viewed from two dimensions:

> First, distributors must learn to establish their own brand thinking, whether it's a distribution platform facing small B-end or a sell-through platform facing consumers C-end;
>
> Second, distributors must have brand building thinking—how to jointly maintain, build, and develop the brand with upstream leading manufacturers.

Frontline city managers should try to help distributors grow, help them establish indispensable channel value in the future, and establish brand thinking. By sharing the transformation and upgrading experience of excellent distributors in other cities, replicate it to local distributors, lead them to build their own brands, and further drive the sustainable growth of the manufacturer's brand in the local market.

**3. Localization and low cost are key**

City managers are in sales; frankly, they don't have much money on hand, usually only promotional resources. When it comes to brand resources, it's more about leveraging and co-creating locally!

**Whose strength to leverage? Leverage headquarters and national strength! How to co-create? Jointly build the brand with local distributors and retailers!**

First, localization. For example, the Xiamen Bo Bing Festival is unique to other markets; some cities have fixed market days on the 1st and 15th of the lunar month; some cities have multiple factories with over 100,000 people and large university towns. Every place is different. As a local city manager, you have the most say.

You can pass on the characteristics and insights of the local market to headquarters, distributors, and retailers. Integrate resources in a trinity, adapt to local conditions, and implement brand resources in the local market. **Be a mindful and proactive person, promote the brand in stages with focus, rather than blindly following a national approach. National resources are useful, but not localized enough, and the effect will inevitably be discounted.**

Regarding low cost, a city manager must think about how to help distributors save money, help leaders save money, and stretch headquarters resources one into two to build the business.

**4. Don't be a passing salesperson in a permanent camp**

Building a brand in a city market cannot have short-term thinking; it must have long-termism. Often, frontline sales teams, to meet monthly performance targets, do many things that are counterproductive, completing sales in the short term but harming the brand. **Brand indicators are different from sales indicators. Sales indicators must be reported every month, but brand building is often invisible and intangible, and incomplete data makes it difficult to measure brand development in a city market.** What we need to do is to look at the big picture and start with small things.

Take a trivial example: bundling a gift seems very simple, but it also affects the brand image. Some people use any tape to bundle; others take the trouble to buy exquisite buckles on Taobao. The same buy-one-get-one-free mechanism, but the effect is vastly different. In the eyes of consumers, one looks like clearance of expired products, the other is a trial of new products with a promotion.

Every detail executed by the frontline sales team, from small terminal execution actions to large theme roadshows, every action either adds to or subtracts from the brand. Because consumers' perception of a brand is accumulated over time and subtly influenced, everything that happens in this market affects it. Therefore, brand must have a long-term operation and maintenance concept. Doing every detail well in daily execution is the duty of every frontline salesperson.

**If city managers don't pay attention to this, prioritizing sales volume and overdrawing future resources, they often prematurely consume brand equity.** Although city managers have no hard requirements for brand building, city managers with a high sense of responsibility and frontline commanders with brand thinking will do business more efficiently, achieve more lasting performance, and grow more healthily.

**Don't be a passing salesperson in a permanent camp. As a city manager, you need long-term planning. Even if you only stay in a city for one or two years, you can leave, but the brand cannot leave. Please take good care of your brand.**

**5. City manager is the local chief brand officer**

Although there is no such title, you should have this concept. In the past, we didn't have this thinking. When we realize the importance of brand, we can clearly understand that a city manager is not only the local chief operating officer and sales officer but also the brand officer.

The presentation, display, and reputation of the brand you serve in the local market largely come from the joint efforts of you and your team. This is the result of daily execution! Either add points or subtract points; there is no middle ground.

As a chief brand officer for the city market, you must deeply understand the company's brand proposition and resource inventory, combine the characteristics and laws of the local market, guide and promote the decoding and implementation of every brand resource, and build a healthy business growth and brand building system around distributors, retailers, and platform operators. **Learn to use brand thinking to build your business layout to truly establish business sustainability.**

**-04-**

**Brand is the foundation, distribution is key, victory is decided at the terminal**

In the current new retail and all-domain era, changes are frequent and iterations are fast! Many things that were absolutely correct in the traditional distribution era are overturned in the all-domain distribution era! Especially for new channels, marketing cognition is not just patching and optimizing on the original basis but becoming completely opposite. Remember that the transformation of new retail and all-domain is not only a subversion of frontline product, distribution, price, and promotion, but also the localization upgrade and reengineering of brand strategy is crucial!

**Back to the origin: brand is the foundation, distribution is key, victory is decided at the terminal.**

Many city managers spend 99% of their time and energy on the latter two sentences, easily ignoring 'brand is the foundation.' Even if you don't realize it, or you can't touch it, feeling it's ethereal, far away, at headquarters, out of reach, brand is truly the foundation. To put it mildly, you can not improve the brand, but never harm it.

I believe that in the new all-domain distribution era, with the continuous development and progress of local new retail, mind building based on local shoppers and consumers, and the derived brand building, will become increasingly important.

Similarly, the task of local brand building will become more urgent. The work requirements for each city manager are becoming more detailed; only by doing details can you be stronger. Based on local market building, the role of city manager will only become more important. Not only do you need to do 4P (product, distribution, price, promotion), but you also need to start thinking about brand.

A thousand cups are too few when drinking with a bosom friend. Tonight, my former boss and I have already downed two jin of baijiu, and Lao Wang's chatter box is completely open...

"Mr. Li, you are absolutely right! Brand is the foundation of our FMCG sales. I used to think brand was all the marketing department's business, far from our daily execution and order taking. Today you reminded me. My team and I must not only be responsible for sales performance but also take responsibility for local market brand building!"

"Lao Wang, keep it up! Let's continue drinking! Life is short, a few autumns, don't stop until drunk..."

"A few autumns in life? Life is short, hurry up! Down-to-earth, long-termism, I am the chief brand officer!"

Bio: Xu Xiang, currently Sales Director of Unilever South China, with 20 years in FMCG daily chemicals, dairy, and condiments, deeply engaged in regional market management and customer marketing. Willing to exchange and learn with peers for mutual progress. The above article represents only personal views.

Tips: Once adopted, a reward of 400-2000 yuan will be paid.


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