Source | Kong Shou BJ Fogg, founder of Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab, is the pioneer of "behavior design." After over 20 years of deep research into human behavior, he proposed a famous behavior design model called: B=MAP (B=M×A×P). Every human behavior (Behavior) involves three elements: Motivation-Ability-Prompt. Motivation is the internal driving force to act—the inner desire to do something. Ability is the ease of performing the behavior, including physical, mental, and energy factors, as well as resources like time and money; if time or funds are insufficient, or skills are lacking, action cannot occur. Prompt is the key signal that triggers action, the necessary final step for behavior to happen. For a person to accomplish something, they not only need inner desire and personal capability, but also environmental prompts to push them. Motivation, ability, and prompt work together to make behavior occur [1]. For a long time, we believed that to change behavior, the focus should be on influencing the inner world—changing attitudes and motivations. However, as the saying goes, "A leopard cannot change its spots," changing a person's nature and cognition is difficult, while changing environmental factors is relatively easier. Appealing to the external environment offers a better chance of changing behavior than appealing to internal motivation. Moreover, we must realize that having motivation to do something does not necessarily lead to actual behavior. Many people have good intentions, such as reading more, not staying up late, watching their diet, drinking more water, exercising regularly, learning English daily, or calling parents more often. We don't lack motivation or ability, but why do we often fail to do these things? The key is the lack of good environmental signals to remind us. Without effective prompts, behavior won't occur even with sufficient motivation and ability. Furthermore, American psychologist William James said: 99% of our activities are purely spontaneous and do not involve conscious attitudes or motivations. For example, many people habitually buy popcorn before a movie, even though they don't usually eat popcorn—this is purely environment-driven behavior. Therefore, in the MAP model, P is more important than M and A; it is the decisive factor for behavior. The Fogg Behavior Model was originally written as B=MAT (B=M+A+T). Fogg made two adjustments: first, he changed addition to multiplication, emphasizing that all three elements are indispensable; if any is zero, behavior cannot occur. Second, he changed "T" to "P," because "Trigger" sounds mechanical and might be misinterpreted as related to motivation, while "Prompt" is actually an external signal independent of motivation, avoiding confusion. I think "T" is more vivid, but "P" more comprehensively describes the signal mechanism. "Prompt" can be an internal state, like hunger—when your stomach growls, it prompts eating behavior. But "Prompt" mainly refers to external factors, emphasizing the use of explicit environmental signals and scenario fit to actively guide behavior. For instance, if you want to read more, you can't just tell yourself how important reading is or chant slogans like "I must read more." Strengthening motivation isn't enough; you need concrete actions like "read one page a day" (lowering ability requirements) or placing books in visible spots (using visible environmental signals to reinforce prompts). But more importantly, set a specific scenario for reading, such as "I will read for 45 minutes on the subway during my commute" or "I will read for an hour in bed before sleep." With a scenario, reading integrates into your daily routine naturally and becomes a fixed habit. In these scenarios, on one hand, we match reading with specific times and places like commuting, subway, bedtime, and bed, using timing to trigger action; then we place books on the nightstand or in the commute bag to create visible signals. On the other hand, we bind the new behavior (reading) to existing behaviors (commuting, sleeping), using existing habits to anchor new ones. This embeds the new behavior into the established life flow, turning "shower-bed-sleep" into "shower-bed-read-sleep," forming a habit anchor. Here, timing, place, and flow are the scenario variables we emphasize. In essence, prompt is scenario design: using visible environmental signals, timing and place matching, and anchoring to existing habits (redesigning flow, creating behavioral rituals) to guide and drive behavior. The Fogg Behavior Model simplifies complex behavioral science into an actionable formula. Prompt, as the "last mile" of behavior triggering, is often overlooked but crucial. Using scenario prompts well can help brands bridge the gap from "knowing" to "doing." Scenario marketing is about creating favorable environmental factors and using environmental signals to prompt consumers to buy and use the brand. Scenario as Directive Let's look at a set of brand slogans and promotional themes:

  • Go home for Spring Festival with Jinliufu
  • Go home for New Year, bring Qiaqia
  • Not busy on weekends, go to Hengyang
  • So close, so beautiful, weekend to Hebei
  • Start today with Nestlé Coffee
  • Hotpot at home, just find Guoquan
  • Travel with Conba Changyanning
  • Before traveling, visit Miniso
  • Tired and sleepy, drink Red Bull
  • Eat Meimei plum when idle
  • Drink Mingren before and after alcohol
  • Eat spicy food, drink Bingmeijian
  • Chew Extra after meals
  • Chew two after meals (Extra)
  • Have a baby at home, eat Xibei
  • Love her, treat her to Haagen-Dazs
  • VIP guests to Henan, drink Xiaofengtan ... These copy pieces share several common points: First, they build consumption scenarios. They naturally embed the brand into consumers' lives, finding a place in specific life scenarios and making the brand part of daily tasks. Second, they issue behavioral directives. They use scenario variables like timing, place, and relationships to prompt consumer action. Third, they achieve brand binding. Most of these copy pieces include the brand name, binding the brand to a specific scenario and associating it with a clear behavior. Through these copy pieces, consumers not only perceive product value and accept the brand in the scenario, but the scenario directly reminds them to purchase and use. Scenarios not only educate users but also guide consumption. Thus, scenario is consumption prompt; scenario is behavioral directive. The six major variables in a scenario—timing, place, emotion, relationship, flow, and ritual—are all prompters that drive consumer action. Among these, timing and place are behavioral presets and the most visible environmental signals; emotion and relationship are both behavioral norms and efficient catalysts; flow and ritual are behavioral anchors and habit formation. Timing + Place + Emotion + Relationship + Flow + Ritual = Scenario Prompt. First, timing and place help consumers preset decisions, reminding them what to do and buy at certain times and places. This saves consumers from deliberation and hesitation, allowing them to act on environmental signals. For example, when people don't know where to go on weekends, slogans like "Not busy on weekends, go to Hengyang" or "So close, so beautiful, weekend to Hebei" issue direct calls to action, capturing the trend of short weekend trips. Many local tourism slogans are good, like "Hometown Henan," "Hospitable Shandong," "Shanxi, Good and Beautiful," reflecting local history and culture. I've seen beautiful scenery and food online and saved them in my mind, planning to visit when free, but "when free" might take years, with no actual action. Online attractions and guides are overwhelming; it's better to step on the gas or buy a ticket right after work on Friday and go immediately. Similar themes like "Before traveling, go to Mafengwo," "Before traveling, visit Miniso," "Travel with Conba Changyanning" combine timing and place to drive consumer action. Timing and place are natural, unforced environmental presets that make behavior happen naturally and form habits. Second, humans are social animals; behavior is always regulated by social relationships. "Sing different songs on different mountains, speak different words to different people" refers to geographical place but also social occasion. Different social relationships in different social contexts have different behavioral norms. Slogans like "Love her, treat her to Haagen-Dazs," "Have a baby at home, eat Xibei," "VIP guests to Henan, drink Xiaofengtan" contain different social relationships. To show love, respect, and responsibility to lovers, guests, and family, we must express it through actions. These social relationships also carry different emotions and feelings, which strongly drive behavior. Years ago, the advertising creative for Huangjinjiu used a group of old men boasting about the wine their sons gave them to spread "Give elders Huangjinjiu." In this scenario, giving wine became a father's pride and a son's filial piety. Social relationships stimulate and reward consumer behavior through emotional expression. I'll expand on the impact of emotion on behavior later. Finally, to drive consumer action, brands can bind product usage to a habitual action in consumers' lives, making the brand part of a fixed routine. For example, "Chew Extra after meals" is a direct prompt and helps cultivate habits. Brands can also add reminders of consumption frequency and quantity to help consumers form a fixed purchase rhythm and repeat purchase habit, like Extra's "Chew two after meals." Binding brand use to existing behaviors is process reengineering, and this association can create ritual. For example, Safeguard's Spring Festival theme "Wash hands, eat" turns these ordinary pre-meal actions into a consumption ritual expressing family emotions, embedding the brand and emotion into the dining scenario. Similarly, "Drink Mingren before and after alcohol" and "Eat spicy food, drink Bingmeijian" aim to create rituals at the dining table. Scenario prompts consumption and issues directives. Besides in slogans and themes, there's a trend of scenario-based naming for brands and products. For example, the new-style alcohol brand "Ten Fifteen" (Shidian Yike) features sugar-free sparkling wine, with packaging prominently displaying "22:15" to remind consumers of drinking time. Taiwan also has a tea-bag milk tea brand called "Three Fifteen" (Sandian Yike), clearly targeting afternoon tea scenarios. Of course, we shouldn't forget similar cases like Kirin Beverages' classic bottled black tea "Afternoon Tea" launched in 1986, and the specialty coffee brand "Three and a Half Dun." There are even more products named after usage scenarios. For instance, the emerging personal care brand "Rever Leruo" has two shower gels named "7:30 AM" and "10:30 PM," making usage time obvious. Leruo also collaborated with New Zealand supplement brand Athletic Greens (AG1) to create a product line "Morning Shake, Evening Soak": in the morning, add a scoop of AG1 green powder to water and shake; in the evening, soak feet with Leruo herbal foot bath balls. This is the new-generation wellness lifestyle Leruo advocates, and the habit it hopes young people will develop. The body care brand "Ann's Rose Manor" once launched a "TIME SERIES" home fragrance line with products named "07:35 Morning News," "15:35 Reload," "21:09 Talk and Love," and "23:55 Goodnight," with time as the core design element. Classy旗下的酸奶产品“餐后一小时”的购买理由是“餐后一小时,是补充益生菌的黄金时间”,因为此时肠胃PH值最高,是双歧杆菌C-I的良好环境,因此卡士诉求早、中、晚餐后一小时都喝“餐后一小时”。 类似的命名逻辑还有河南一井二家食品公司的山楂棒“饭后山楂”;幸福一佳有两款袋泡茶“熬夜茶”和“烟后茶”,推广语分别为“熬夜保康,呵护健康”和“烟后清咽,烟民必备”。 名字本身就是场景,名字本身就是在下达行为指令。下达指令、绑定品牌、养成习惯,这就是场景的又一重要价值。 Imitation is Communication In communication, beyond scenario-based slogans and naming, there's scenario-based seeding and content topics. "Seeding" (zhongcao) started as internet slang for strong desire to own or buy a product; now it's a standard part of brand marketing. Seeding differs from cognitive education. Cognitive education promotes product features and quality, mainly affecting consumers with existing purchase intent. Seeding targets consumers without clear purchase goals, who browse online and pause at interesting content. Therefore, seeding must first set scenarios, connecting to target consumers' daily lives to attract attention. Scenario is a slice of lifestyle; brand content should first talk about consumers' lives, not the product, to make them interested and stop scrolling. After capturing interest, use appropriate scenarios to show what the product can do in their lives, demonstrate value, and amplify problems and pain points in that scenario, thus stimulating desire to own the product. Recently (early 2025), Zhang Xiaohui popularized a product "Stay-Up Oil"—the night repair serum oil from UK skincare brand Sarah Chapman. Many say it saves tired skin; no matter how late you stay up, apply a few drops before bed and wake up glowing, avoiding dullness, dryness, sagging, and dark circles. "Stay-Up Oil" is a seeding name that precisely locks a usage scenario, planting the product in consumers' daily lives. For those who often stay up or work overtime, these three words are compelling and instantly seed successfully. Currently, the product's promotional theme is "8 hours of sleep in a bottle." Setting seeding scenarios isn't just for promoting features or showing pain points at the physical level. More importantly, scenarios are subtle, real, and vivid in consumers' lives; through them, we can better imagine consumers' feelings and emotional states at that moment. Many specific scenarios carry strong emotional color, which is an effective catalyst for consumer behavior. During the 2023 Spring Festival, Lancôme created a hot topic "Guotai Min'an makeup" (meaning the dignified, elegant makeup of female celebrities and hosts on CCTV Spring Festival Gala, symbolizing prosperity and peace). As we know, the annual Spring Festival Gala and celebrity performances are a huge public opinion arena. With the hot topic, celebrity same-style, and national sentiment, many wanted to try "Guotai Min'an makeup," which required buying Lancôme 196. Product seeding became natural and efficient. The five characters "Guotai Min'an" imply a scenario: this makeup suits the festive, grand Spring Festival occasion. It also carries national confidence and pride, symbolizing expectations for a better life, which sparked consumer interest. Lancôme leveraged "Guotai Min'an" and other Weibo topics like "Color that withstands CCTV's camera" to seize social hotspots and create social trends. Another example is the "dopamine dressing" trend in summer 2023 and "Maillard style" in autumn/winter. Like "Guotai Min'an," these topics don't explicitly mention scenarios but express emotions. However, they implicitly associate with scenarios, creating an atmosphere that strongly appeals to users. The book "Fogg Behavior Model" mentions that behavior design is essentially emotion design. Anything that brings positive emotions and creates immediate pleasure can reinforce behavior. In "Scenario Variables," I also analyzed the relationship between scenario and emotion: scenario evokes emotion, emotion ignites behavior. Moreover, the continuous positive feedback from emotion can solidify behavior into habit. For each of us, to develop good habits, we need to create an emotional reward system for ourselves. During Christmas 2021, "mulled wine" became an internet sensation; in autumn/winter 2022, "stove-boiled tea" took over as the top trend. These two topics went viral because they provided emotional value of warmth and comfort in winter, or became "holiday happy water" for Christmas atmosphere, or met people's need for urban spiritual escape and leisurely social time, offering refined social atmosphere. Now, boiling tea or mulled wine has become a symbol of enjoying life and slow time with friends. Every autumn/winter, online platforms are flooded with related content, with netizens saying "It's the season to boil mulled wine with friends again." Offline, many homestays, teahouses, and restaurants offer mulled wine to attract customers; many supermarkets and convenience stores place mulled wine spice packs in the wine section for cross-selling. (Photo taken in Sichuan Jianchang, December 15, 2023) For brand marketing, we must think: to promote a wine brand, is it better to advertise romance, elegance, and high taste, or to promote boiling mulled wine with friends? Which drives wine sales and consumption behavior more? The answer is obvious. So, regarding seeding topics, the essence is to use concrete scenarios to issue behavioral directives, prompt consumers to act immediately, and trigger imitation and spread. French psychologist, statistician, criminologist, and one of the three founders of 19th-century French sociology, Gabriel Tarde, said a classic quote: "Imitation is communication." He believed imitation is the soul of social life; human society is formed by individuals imitating each other. The spread and exchange of ideas, customs, language, and other cultural phenomena are also caused by imitation. Relationships between people are mainly imitative, as social commentator Eric Hoffer said: "If people are free to choose what they like to do, they usually imitate each other." Imitation is the most basic social phenomenon and the ultimate element of social behavior [2]. Tarde's view explains the ultimate mission of brand communication, or how brands and advertising work on consumers. The purpose of corporate communication is not just to convey product information, features, quality, sales, or status, but to make consumers imitate the lifestyle, consumption concepts, and behaviors in ads, creating a social diffusion of purchasing and using the brand. To drive consumer imitation, brand communication must embed behavioral directives—in professional terms, "memes." The concept of "meme" was proposed by British biologist Richard Dawkins [3], derived from the Greek word "mimeme" (imitation), modeled on "gene" in structure and pronunciation. Just as genes replicate and mutate through heredity, memes transmit and evolve through imitation in society and culture. Dawkins defined memes as the basic unit of cultural transmission. Every day on social media, we witness countless memes. A meme can be a melody, a dance, a joke, an ad slogan, a story, an emoji, a funny image, a clothing style, a life skill or habit—anything transmitted from person to person through imitation is a meme. So "meme" is like passing from one "me" to another "me." Beyond academic definitions, my understanding of meme is the motive for imitation, the replicable factor in communication. In layman's terms, a meme is a "梗" (geng). "Geng" comes from Tianjin dialect, a quyi term, specifically a corruption of "gen," meaning funny speech or actions, like the punchlines in crosstalk or sketches. When a "geng" appears, sparking public discussion, replication, and parody, and everyone participates in "playing the geng," the goal of information transmission is achieved, and a new pop culture phenomenon is born. The key to brand communication is how to create "geng" in communication to form a nationwide phenomenon; how to embed memes to create large-scale social imitation. Meme-imitation is the dual-meme drive of brand communication; the quality of memes determines the quality of communication. Especially in content seeding, this replicable factor must be injected. Through influencers and lifestyle demonstrations, it forms person-to-person replication, like "Guotai Min'an makeup," "plain water makeup," camping, frisbee, dopamine dressing, Maillard style, Tindall dressing, stove-boiled tea, mulled wine, "20-minute park effect," and other hot social media terms and seeding phenomena—all are memes. Another British psychologist, Susan Blackmore, in her book "The Meme Machine," defined memes as "behavioral directives stored in the brain and transmitted through imitation" [4]. Because memes are behavioral directives, they are easy to replicate on a large scale. On September 22, 2020 (Autumn Equinox), a netizen posted a chat record: her boyfriend sent her a red envelope with the message "Buy you the first cup of milk tea of autumn." Subsequently, "the first cup of milk tea of autumn" quickly sparked imitation and spread online, and its popularity has grown each year. Now, "Autumn First Cup" has become the "Double 11" of the milk tea industry, but the date has changed to the Start of Autumn (Liqiu). In this topic, there's a clearly defined scenario and prominent emotional value. The first cup of milk tea is the autumn atmosphere, self-indulgence, and a way to express love and romance. Crucially, "Autumn First Cup" uses timing prompts to issue a direct behavioral directive: you must have it on Liqiu. More importantly, it uses timing to directly command action—you must drink it on Liqiu. Many even express love to partners, friends, and family by buying milk tea or sending red envelopes that day—"I won't allow you to miss the first cup of autumn." Let's look at the data for "Autumn First Cup" on August 8, 2023 (Liqiu):
  • Chabaidao: single-day revenue of 100 million yuan
  • Luckin Coffee: over 7.39 million cups sold that day
  • Mixue Ice City: 12 million cups sold in a single day
  • Heytea: highest single-store daily sales of 4,500 cups
  • Naixue Tea: store sales increased 400-500%, some stores up 800% month-over-month
  • Meituan Waimai: 40 million cups sold that day, with 150,000 milk tea stores participating
  • Weibo hot search: 430 million reads
  • Douyin topic: 10.75 billion views
  • Xiaohongshu: 200,000+ sharing notes Clearly, "Autumn First Cup" is a meme—a behavioral directive prompted by Liqiu. This directive drove product sales and created a widely imitated social phenomenon. The variables in scenarios are powerful boosters for consumer purchases; whether scenario prompts appear at the right time determines whether consumers act and whether brand communication succeeds. Action is Habit The value of scenarios goes beyond issuing directives and driving action. Because scenarios are often embedded in consumers' lives, they can fix product usage in daily routines, cultivate habits, and drive repeat purchases. Sustained action forms habits. For health, I've bought many products for home, like nuts, vitamins, probiotics, fish oil, protein powder, barley grass juice, etc. But often, I'd eat them for a few days after buying, then forget amid busy schedules. When I rediscovered them in the cupboard, fridge, or office drawer, they had expired. Also, due to long hours at the desk, I've developed lumbar strain and frozen shoulder, with stiffness and pain in my back, neck, and shoulders. I selected some rehab exercises on Keep and practiced a few times, finding moves like glute bridges, superman, dead bug, plank, cat stretch, "lucky cat," and wall slides effective for relieving neck and shoulder discomfort and improving back pain. But I didn't practice daily; it was intermittent. Self-analysis: First, I have strong motivation to stay healthy, especially to relieve symptoms—no doubt. Second, I have the ability: financially, I can afford these products; they're not expensive supplements, and consumption is simple. Time-wise, the exercises only take half an hour a day, and the equipment is just a yoga mat. But why haven't I formed the habit to persist? I think the key is the lack of prompts. I didn't match these activities with a specific scenario to fix them in my daily routine. This again shows that without scenario prompts, behavior isn't stable or sustainable, even with motivation and ability. Take nuts, for example. Nuts are healthy food—this is well-known, appearing in the "Dietary Guidelines for Residents" every year. The nut market has existed for a long time; many people buy nuts and know their benefits, but like me, they don't eat them daily and often forget. After all, life is busy, and it's hard to remember such a small thing every day. Why has "daily nuts" suddenly risen in recent years, creating a new snack market worth tens of billions? Its key innovation isn't new nut varieties or better taste, but the convenient one-bag-per-day design and the "daily" consumption prompt, reminding consumers to eat every day and develop a good habit. (That's why many "daily" series brands have emerged, like Daily Dark Chocolate, Daily Fresh, Miss Fresh, Weiquan Daily C—also scenario-based naming.) For daily nut brands, if they only promote health benefits or emphasize large size and natural quality, it might strengthen motivation, but people will still easily forget to eat. So I've always thought that brands like Qiaqia Little Yellow Bag should not promote "mastering key freshness preservation technology," but rather "Qiaqia Little Yellow Bag, add one bag at breakfast," making it a standard part of three meals, and strengthen binding to various scenarios, like "For the next generation, add one bag after school," "Add one bag in the morning, full energy all day," "Add one bag while studying, inspiration flows," "Add one bag at work, stay focused," etc. Only then can it continuously remind consumers to eat in various scenarios, retain users, consolidate habits, and become part of life. Loyalty management has always been a key part of brand marketing. For companies, retaining an old customer is far more valuable than acquiring a new one, especially as acquisition costs rise. Customer retention and repeat purchases determine marketing success. Moreover, retaining old customers is easier than acquiring new ones. When first buying a brand, consumers often deliberate, weigh options, and compare parameters; but once they form a repeat purchase habit, they no longer need to decide—they just repurchase based on past experience and inertia, greatly reducing marketing difficulty. Traditionally, to enhance customer loyalty, we've focused on two directions: First, strengthen brand identification through emotional and value marketing to make consumers love and resonate with the brand. Second, establish benefit binding through points, membership, prepaid rebates, etc., to stimulate repeat purchases and increase switching costs. But both approaches have problems. Brand identification is hard; making consumers love a brand requires strong brand equity, value-driven, excellent storytelling, cultural output, IP building, continuous innovation, and technical barriers to win fans' admiration. Most brands can't achieve this. Besides, today's consumers don't even want to love a person; will they love your brand? Benefit-based loyalty is essentially disguised promotion, increasing costs, and many users don't become more active; companies just incur sunk costs. Like phone cards, credit cards, and airline miles, points attract users, but data shows only about 15-30% of points are actually redeemed; most expire or are abandoned due to low perceived value. Points don't significantly enhance stickiness; they become a liability. Without periodic clearing or expiration, if all users redeemed at once, it could bankrupt the company. To improve loyalty, we need to start from the essence: promote habit formation and make the brand part of consumers' daily routines. Like "Autumn First Cup of Milk Tea," "Afternoon 3 PM milk tea," KFC's "Crazy Thursday," and Suntory's "Every 3rd day, get Suntory," these aren't just promotions; they aim to build habits. For individuals, to develop good habits, insert them into appropriate positions in life and use scenario variables to prompt yourself repeatedly. For example, Proya's successful "Morning C, Night A" and Luckin's "Morning coffee, afternoon tea" serve this purpose. Consumers don't need to understand skincare ingredients; just remember to use C in the morning and A at night. Even I, a straight guy, have developed the habit of morning C, night A. In this article, I've mentioned "habit" many times. For individuals, good habits benefit a lifetime; for companies, if they can cultivate consumer repurchase habits, they gain customer lifetime value. Scenarios help the brain establish an autopilot system, directing consumers to automatically complete purchases subconsciously, without thought. Scenarios shape behavior: they issue directives for immediate purchase and cultivate habits for sustained purchase. Professor Fogg, mentioned at the beginning, is also called the "Millionaire Maker" in the US because many of his behavior design PhD students have become millionaires through entrepreneurship. Behavior design is a very practical discipline. Scenario marketing, closely related to behavior shaping and habit formation, is also full of treasures for companies. References [1] B.J. Fogg, "Fogg Behavior Model," Tianjin Science and Technology Press, 2021-10; [2] Gabriel Tarde, "The Laws of Imitation," CITIC Press Group, 2020-01; [3] Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary Edition," CITIC Press, 2018-11; [4] Susan Blackmore, "The Meme Machine," China Machine Press, 2022-03.