---
title: "Creating Increment | What Exactly Is the 'Scenario' That Marketers Always Talk About?"
description: "The term 'scenario' has been a hot concept for over a decade and is widely used. In the context of internet marketing, channels, e-commerce, stores, and other transaction venues are scenarios; payment is a payment scenario; looking at phones and browsing platforms are media consumption scenarios; specific tasks in enterprise marketing such as new product launches, promotions, and brand building are marketing scenarios. In short, everything in marketing can be called a scenario. However, the author believes that to discuss something clearly and accurately, one must start with a clear definition of the concept. The author defines scenario as: under specific spatiotemporal accompanying conditions, a specific task that appears in a consumer's life, which requires purchasing a brand to complete, thus generating specific needs and consumption behaviors. In short, scenario equals spatiotemporal conditions plus task resolution."
author: "空手"
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published: "2024-09-11"
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# Creating Increment | What Exactly Is the 'Scenario' That Marketers Always Talk About?

> The term 'scenario' has been a hot concept for over a decade and is widely used. In the context of internet marketing, channels, e-commerce, stores, and other transaction venues are scenarios; payment is a payment scenario; looking at phones and browsing platforms are media consumption scenarios; specific tasks in enterprise marketing such as new product launches, promotions, and brand building are marketing scenarios. In short, everything in marketing can be called a scenario. However, the author believes that to discuss something clearly and accurately, one must start with a clear definition of the concept. The author defines scenario as: under specific spatiotemporal accompanying conditions, a specific task that appears in a consumer's life, which requires purchasing a brand to complete, thus generating specific needs and consumption behaviors. In short, scenario equals spatiotemporal conditions plus task resolution.

The term 'scenario' has been a hot concept for over a decade and is widely used.
As we know, the marketing world, or rather internet companies, have always had a bad tendency to invent jargon, and once a concept becomes popular, it gets abused. 'Scenario' is exactly such a case.
In the context of internet marketing, channels, e-commerce, stores, and other transaction venues are scenarios; payment is a payment scenario; looking at phones and browsing various platforms are media consumption scenarios; specific tasks in enterprise marketing such as new product launches, promotions, and brand building are marketing scenarios. In short, everything in marketing can be called a scenario.
But personally, I believe that **to discuss something clearly and accurately, one must start with a clear definition of the concept.** If the concept is not clear, logic becomes chaotic, cognition deviates, and when it comes to action, one feels at a loss or even goes in the opposite direction.
Therefore, we should cultivate a good thinking habit in daily life: **for every word we use, we should know exactly what it means, what its essence is, and where its boundaries lie.**
My understanding of scenario is: **under specific spatiotemporal accompanying conditions, a specific task that appears in a consumer's life, which requires purchasing a brand to complete, thus generating specific needs and consumption behaviors.**
In short, **scenario = spatiotemporal conditions + task resolution. A scenario is a slice of a consumer's lifestyle, presented at a specific time and place; it is also the embodiment of a consumer's social relationships, driven by them.**
This definition is inspired by Clayton Christensen, a famous professor at Harvard Business School, who has a classic theory called **JTBD (Jobs To Be Done)**. People buy products to complete a specific job in their lives and help solve their life problems.
Take eating, for example.
Eating is actually a basic human need, but the specific conditions and social relationships accompanying this need—when to eat, where to eat, and with whom—determine the different tasks consumers need to solve, and ultimately their choices differ.
Therefore, family dinners, friend gatherings, business banquets, couple dates, weekday brunches, solo dinners after work, and late-night snacks after overtime constitute scenarios.
If dining out and choosing a restaurant, we often think consumers first look at the cuisine and dishes, then consider various indicators such as reputation, ratings, environment, service, and per capita consumption before making a comprehensive decision.
But in reality, consumers first pay attention to the scenario. Different scenarios lead to different criteria for choosing cuisine and restaurants. This thinking process is so natural and smooth that many people don't realize it is the starting point of their decision-making.
For example, in a family dinner scenario, what task does the consumer need to complete? It is that the whole family can eat, especially ensuring the elderly and children eat well. So in this scenario, consumers won't choose hot pot or barbecue; not spicy, not oily, and not heavy-flavored is basic, and they pay special attention to the health and nutrition of the dishes. Therefore, choosing Xibei, Jiumaojiu, Pizza Hut, etc., is more appropriate.
Switching to a friend gathering scenario, the consumer's core task becomes making everyone eat happily and enjoyably, releasing emotions, and enhancing feelings. At this time, they will choose happy and exciting dishes, such as hot pot, barbecue, skewers, and grilled fish, which are great.
Another example is a couple's date scenario. The consumer's task is to enjoy a sweet and romantic atmosphere, with the couple's world undisturbed (especially during the passionate phase), so they care more about exquisite dishes and elegant environments, such as creative cuisine or Western restaurants, which are more suitable.
For a weekday lunch, the consumer's task is to quickly solve the eating problem and then rush back to work or take a nap, so they will choose a fast-food restaurant near the office, or order takeout, or bring their own lunch.
As for business banquets, the consumer's task is to make guests eat well, feel respected and honored, and ensure privacy, preferably with a private room for chatting and discussing business. At this time, consumers will choose high-end restaurants like Michelin or Black Pearl.
In August 2023, a social news story circulated online called **"Post-00s Arrange Business Banquet, Chairman Petrified On the Spot"**. A post-00s administrative secretary took a group of leaders and guests to eat at Shu Daxia.
Looking at the various side dishes, dipping sauces, and the boiling red soup base on the table, listening to the noisy neighboring tables, everyone was eating hot pot enthusiastically. The chairman wearing a hot pot apron and the guests looked at each other, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
Does the leader not eat hot pot? Of course not. Leaders can eat hot pot with family, relatives, or company employees at gatherings, but it is not suitable for business dinners.
A company chairman might eat a boxed lunch at the company at noon, take clients to a Michelin restaurant in the evening, and go to a roadside stall for skewers with close friends.
In the first article, I talked about "scenario creates demand," meaning that consumers have different problems to solve and tasks to complete in different scenarios, thus generating different needs. If someone wants to create a high-end restaurant, they should understand that whether consumers eat high-end is not first segmented by population but by scenario.
This shift in thinking from needs to tasks allows us to more accurately grasp what consumers think and feel, gain insight into the essence of their needs, and thus better provide products and implement communication and promotion for consumers.
Based on this definition of scenario, let's look at three restaurant brand cases.
For example, the well-known restaurant brand Xibei once spent tens of millions in consulting fees, hiring multiple top consulting firms to change its positioning. From the earliest "Xibei Youmian Village" to "Northwest Folk Cuisine," within less than a year it changed to "Northwest Cuisine" and "Mutton Roasting Expert," but performance was not ideal. Later, it changed back to "Xibei Youmian Village."
Looking at this series of positioning, they all talk about categories. They solve the problem of "what is Xibei," but they don't solve the most critical problem: "why should consumers eat at Xibei?" For consumers, with so many restaurants in the mall, just because you are Northwest cuisine or Youmian Village, would I spend money on you? This is clearly not a reason to buy.
In the past few years, Xibei has been promoting "If you have a baby at home, eat at Xibei," and that is a reason. As soon as people see this slogan, they know Xibei focuses on the family dining scenario. In this scenario, consumers first consider the children's needs, not their own tastes. Ensuring children eat well is the core task.
To achieve this, Xibei launched children's meals in 2017, upgraded to the second generation in 2020, and launched the third generation "New Seven-Color" children's meal in 2021, focusing on balanced nutrition and variety, so that children not only eat well but also love to eat. To this end, Xibei established a children's meal project team in 2022, with an independent R&D team and marketing department.
Moreover, when parents bring their children to Xibei, they can also experience more designs and facilities for children, such as special bibs for children, eco-friendly rice husk tableware, over 70% of the store's seats can accommodate child seats, cartoons and various children's eating videos are played, and free balloons, paintbrushes, and other small gifts, as well as hawthorn cakes and other snacks, are provided. Staff also play games with the children.
In addition, Xibei has designed parent-child oat noodle experience activities for families, inviting parents to bring their children to Xibei to make oat noodles themselves. There are also birthday parties with meals, special birthday parties, summer children's food festivals, Mid-Autumn parent-child activities, and various other designs.
In the family dining scenario, let's look at Xibei's store design. For example, the representative red and white checkered tablecloths symbolize warmth and intimacy, but such an atmosphere would not be suitable for business banquets or couple dates.
The open kitchen, where the entire cooking process is visible, is a design that makes parents feel reassured and safe, and also adds visual interest and fun for children.
Moreover, Xibei's insistence on high-quality, grassland ecological ingredients also meets parents' high requirements for children's meals.
Especially in this scenario, Xibei's previously perceived shortcomings—high prices, light flavors, and not upscale environment—become acceptable and even advantages.
Xibei's founder, Jia Guolong, mentioned that Xibei received 37.66 million customer visits in 2023, of which children's traffic exceeded 6.4 million, accounting for 17% [2]. Moreover, children's meals significantly boosted Xibei's delivery business. In August 2022, Xibei's children's meal products ranked first in the delivery product sales list.
For Xibei, children's meals are a lever to attract family consumption, which is also the logic that McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, and other brands have always followed.
Now let's look at Hutaoli.
Hutaoli has always focused on the fusion of music, restaurant, and bar. Initially, it positioned itself as a music tavern, and later upgraded to a band tavern. I have seen people analyze this upgrade as a failure from a positioning perspective, saying that Hutaoli should clearly define itself as doing catering, with music and performances as added value, because the overall scale of catering far exceeds the bar business, and people eat out much more frequently than they go to bars.
Actually, this is limiting business thinking to categories and not understanding consumer tasks. Hutaoli focuses on the friend gathering and leisure scenario, where the user's task is to enjoy nightlife.
At Hutaoli, nightlife starts from dinner, and there's no need to switch venues. Moreover, it allows people to enjoy a bar experience at the price of a meal, and the crowd is more mainstream, which can be said to lower the cost and threshold of nightlife.
For consumers who go to Hutaoli, enjoying nightlife is more important than eating. I joke, who would go to Hutaoli just for the food? If you just want a meal, would you choose Hutaoli?
Although catering is a trillion-yuan market, it doesn't mean that positioning yourself in catering will bring you a bigger business. Moreover, Hutaoli's own advantageous resources are music and alcohol, not dishes. Its performance capability can also support it to ride the wave of the Livehouse trend in recent years.
In addition, I have seen many restaurants trying to imitate Hutaoli. Everyone wants to do the restaurant business and then also the bar business. But many fail to imitate it well because they just add some lighting and music facilities to the restaurant without deeply understanding consumers.
I remember once I was eating at a coconut chicken restaurant with my family. After 8 PM, the lights dimmed and a singer came on stage, but the problem was I couldn't even see what was cooking in the pot or whether it was done. The scenario was completely wrong.
Finally, let's talk about Yaojiwang. This is a brand that has risen rapidly in recent years. Last year, I saw data that it had over 680 stores nationwide, including 283 in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.
Yaojiwang has a very important scenario: late-night snacks. For white-collar workers in first- and second-tier cities, they want to eat but are afraid of gaining weight. Friends who order takeout know that late at night, besides McDonald's and KFC, there aren't many options, but eating burgers, fried chicken, or pizza easily makes you gain weight. At this time, ordering half a kiln-roasted chicken and a portion of edamame, which is low-fat and low-carb, is particularly suitable.
In fact, most restaurants can't do business in the late night because they need a chef on duty. But kiln-roasted chicken is a semi-finished prepared dish, so the kitchen labor pressure is low. Therefore, Yaojiwang can stay open until 4-6 AM.
There is a restaurant downstairs from my home that sells Chaoshan rice rolls. It initially promoted 24-hour operation but gave up after a month. When asked, they said the cost was too high and losses were severe. So the low-competition late-night snack scenario ensures Yaojiwang's traffic source and competitiveness.
Scenario is task resolution. This definition actually returns to the fundamentals of marketing. Many people know the famous saying: **Consumers don't buy a drill, but the hole in the wall.** This is a classic interpretation of marketing by Theodore Levitt, one of the founders of modern marketing.
The drill is the product the company sells, while the hole in the wall is the task to be completed in the consumer's life. To complete the task, consumers need to "hire" the drill brand to help them work.
The shift in perspective from the drill to the hole is the foundation of modern marketing. It not only affects how companies view their own products and services and how they implement communication and promotion, but also prompts companies to have a more essential understanding of business model design (for example, companies can also not sell drills but provide rental or on-site drilling services).
Of course, the task of drilling a hole in the wall occurs under specific spatiotemporal conditions, such as when consumers have just renovated their house, or are remodeling a study, or someone in the family is learning to paint and has produced many works, etc. These constitute scenarios.
Therefore, to clearly define scenarios and understand consumer tasks in scenarios, we also need to know **the specific variables of scenarios, including timing, occasion, user relationships, emotions, and frequency of behavior**. We will discuss these five variables later.
Speaking of scenario parameter settings, let me also mention the English translation of "scenario." **Regarding the term "scenario," the most common translation I have seen is "Context."** This word mainly refers to the background in article writing, the social environment, and how to connect with the context.
**Another translation is "Scene" or "Scenario."** Both are common terms in art forms such as drama and film. "Scenario" refers to plot or script, while "Scene" refers to a scene or act in a play, the site where the story and events occur, with meanings of setting, scenery, and scene in a play.
From a marketing perspective, I think neither translation is appropriate. "Context" refers to the entire spatiotemporal background of a literary work, not a specific place and time point, which is too abstract and grand. "Scene" and "Scenario" are closely related to story plots and theatrical scenes.
What I mean by scenario is more about the series of spatiotemporal conditions that accompany consumers in completing their life tasks. It is a specific parameter setting. Therefore, I prefer to use the word "Setting."
**"Setting" refers to the setting and configuration.** It is a series of parameter conditions set for consumer needs and tasks, referring to the specific time and place when the consumer task occurs, as well as corresponding psychological, behavioral, and social relationship variables. Thus, it is most fitting for the original meaning of scenario in the marketing context.
Seizing these parameter settings of scenarios is the opportunity for brand entry and marketing implementation.
**Recommended Reading**


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