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Whether in national or regional markets, using new products or brands to change the competitive landscape is often the preferred approach for Chinese companies. Although statistics show that over 80% of new products and brands fail, the same surveys prove that successful ones can contribute up to 31% of a company's profits!

Why do some companies repeatedly succeed in new brand marketing while others stagnate? Analyzing all successful new brand marketing reveals that "winning through speed" is their common secret. Speed is not only the most formidable weapon against competitors but also the sharpest tool to cut into the market. New brand launch marketing is both a rigorous technique and a practical science, making the study of how to win through speed one of the most important topics in corporate marketing.

Three Principles of New Brand Marketing: Stability, Accuracy, and Aggressiveness

Principle One: Stability! This means the preparation for a new brand launch must be solid, steady, and thorough.

Just as free competition inevitably leads to an era of meager profits, an open market environment means companies must constantly face uncertain challenges. For new brand marketing, uncertain environmental factors are often the most likely to cause companies to either fail to achieve speed or fail at the last step. These are the most variable and hardest-to-control factors in marketing.

Four Key Elements for Achieving Fast Success

To achieve fast success in new brand marketing, besides implementing the above three principles, attention must be paid to the following four key points during execution.

Key Element One: Conduct a Comprehensive and In-Depth Investigation of Competitors

Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated. In new brand marketing, competitor research differs from general market research. The focus is on investigating the strengths and weaknesses of major competing brands and their strategic movements in the region where the new product attack campaign is planned, to identify the areas, channels, media, and steps for the attack.

Competitor research should mainly cover:

  1. Market share and brand awareness;
  2. Advertising spending (including media types, creative level, spending volume, etc.);
  3. Competitive product situation: quality, product line mix, new product launch trends, price and tier, profit margins;
  4. Channel situation: channel distribution, number and distribution of distributors, cooperation status, channel levels, terminal performance, etc.;
  5. Promotions: promotion channel selection, promotion methods, promotion intensity, promotion frequency;
  6. Sales team organizational structure and function: number and distribution, salesperson quality, execution ability, etc.;
  7. Consumer feedback: complaints, customer satisfaction levels.

Through these investigations, clarify the strategic direction for the new brand marketing attack. In regional selection, pay attention to your own strengths and weaknesses compared to main competitors, choose markets with regional relationships, and accurately anticipate how much of a strike in the competitor's strong market or channel might trigger a follow-up reaction. As Sun Tzu said: "To assess the enemy and plan for victory, to calculate the dangers and distances, is the way of the superior general." Investigating major competitors is crucial to strategic success.

Key Element Two: Adjust and Set Up an Appropriate Organizational Structure

Launching new brand marketing is like waging a war. Wartime management and organization differ from peacetime structures, emphasizing efficiency, combat effectiveness, and collaboration. It is necessary to break and abandon some management measures that seem stable but are inefficient in peacetime.

For new brand marketing, companies should establish a rapid-response marketing operation management mechanism, breaking the original linear, decentralized, or matrix management frameworks. They can pull personnel from marketing, sales, production, and other support departments to form new specific project departments, or appoint a "imperial envoy" responsible for the new product, directly commanding in key regional markets, ensuring timely feedback from the front lines and flexible tactical deployment from headquarters.

In regional markets, to achieve the first breakthrough in new brand marketing, form a "tip of the spear" marketing team to focus on key attacks, using the most flexible mechanisms and direct operations to tear open market gaps, achieving rapid response and fast success.

Many large companies appear to have clear organizational structures and defined functions, but in practice, they are prone to bureaucracy. The result is that headquarters is aloof, slow to respond to market feedback, unable to grasp the new product's market situation in time, and misses opportunities. This is often a major taboo in new product launches.

Key Element Three: Strengthen Execution and Focus on Actual Results

New brand marketing often determines the fate of the product. Therefore, in a "wartime state," the entire team responsible for new brand marketing must be on high alert, extending work hours, increasing visit frequency, and boosting sales. Before action, a pre-battle mobilization is essential.

Key points for mobilization include:

  • Goals: Clearly define phased improvement targets and explain the reasons and methods for increasing sales, making everyone believe in them;
  • Division of labor: Clearly specify each person's role, daily tasks, and targets;
  • Value: Let participants feel the value and benefits of special efforts;
  • Example: Managers must lead by example, and administrative staff must also adjust their schedules to create an overall atmosphere;
  • Rewards: Set temporary awards such as highest sales, most outlets, best service, and best dedication, linked to the new brand launch's phased goals. New brand marketing pursues an ideal state, so use incentives to boost employee morale. No temporary penalties are needed, but verbally announce "extreme punishment" for those who do not execute or are idle!

The core of pre-battle mobilization is to ignite employee enthusiasm. In specific operations, clarify the commander's authority to make on-the-spot decisions. Beyond existing rules, "grant extraordinary rewards and issue extraordinary orders," because for an attack, ensuring speed and execution requires giving the commander decision-making power!

To ensure execution, strictly manage sales processes and control. Process management includes defining daily standard actions and time slots. For example, a mineral water company entering the Zhengzhou market stipulated: 8:00-8:10 is for salespeople to sign in, tidy their appearance, wear badges, organize previous day's sales data, and prepare customer materials and promotional items. 8:10-8:20 is the morning meeting to report sales progress by district, review previous day's sales, address market issues and competitor dynamics, convey the latest marketing policies and market requirements, praise the top seller from the previous day's leaderboard, encourage laggards, and build team morale. 8:20-8:40 is order-taking time, where salespeople plan routes, forecast sales, and issue delivery orders. 8:30-9:00 is loading time, with products loaded within the specified time. 9:00-18:00 is route sales time, during which salespeople must visit 100% of customers on the planned route, and only after completing the route can they take phone orders. During distribution, salespeople must also fill out sales data cards. 18:30 is for returning to the warehouse, reporting, and filling out forms. During this time, salespeople fill out daily sales reports, organize customer files, and fill out weekly reports every Saturday afternoon.

To ensure distribution effectiveness and timely tracking of targets, implement target and process management with measurable standards. For FMCG, assess whether distribution, visits, service, communication, and inventory management are in place. Distribution checks the salesperson's distribution rate; visits observe their attitude; service evaluates customer relationship handling; communication reflects their presentation and expression ability; inventory management aims to avoid stockouts and ensure timely replenishment. Additionally, salespeople must fill out forms like the Daily Distribution Report, Customer Visit Form, and Sales Target Tracking Form.

Key Element Four: Focus on Wartime Support System Management

Modern warfare is often about logistics, emphasizing the overall operation of the supply chain; sales also fight on logistics! Besides frontline resources (personnel, vehicles, promotions, advertising), non-frontline factors are equally important: strategy, systems, leadership, communication, processes, cross-departmental coordination such as order processing, production, logistics, finance, administration, and human resources, all must be integrated around the new brand marketing effort.

Sun Tzu said: "In war, follow the enemy's intentions, concentrate your forces, and strike a thousand miles away to kill the general; this is called cleverness in achieving success." Integrating internal resources is like building a "runway" or "launch platform" for sales growth. Strictly speaking, it involves two aspects: support and motivation. Support factors like production, logistics, and systems are absolutely necessary; motivation factors like strategic wisdom, communication, and leadership are sufficient conditions for victory.

The opening phase of new brand marketing is often the hardest. In a regional market, it's not easy for salespeople to get products into supermarkets, and they must also focus on timely replenishment, terminal maintenance, information feedback, handling customer complaints, and maintaining customer relationships. Only when the sales support department takes these seriously and responds promptly will the salespeople's efforts not be in vain.

Therefore, regional managers should emphasize and value coordination with relevant departments and personnel. The implementation of these support tasks cannot be taken lightly. Only by doing these supply tasks well can frontline salespeople fight with confidence.

Whether at headquarters or in regional markets, before launching a new brand, ensure thorough preparation and stable performance to calmly face any challenges. Never let morale and footing be disrupted before the battle begins. Therefore, seeking "stability" is about risk control and management before the new brand launch, doing everything possible to prepare for the worst. Companies should especially prepare in the following areas before launching a new brand:

First, re-examine internal management processes. A new brand launch often affects the entire company, involving quality management, production organization, logistics, material procurement, personnel assessment, and logistical support. Each link is interconnected and essential. Once large-scale sales begin, these links face the ultimate test.

Second, develop a meticulous, rigorous, and practical new brand launch plan, clarifying overall goals and key milestones, overall budget and phased market expectations, key regional markets and main personnel plans, making new brand marketing control clear and structured, anticipating difficulties to avoid major adjustments and deviations during implementation.

Third, unite all forces that can be united, gain the broadest support, and create the best atmosphere for the new brand launch. Whether it's employees at all levels within the company, suppliers, distributors, government, or social resources, their active participation and support are needed. New brand marketing is not just the responsibility of the marketing or sales department; it is achieved with the participation of the entire industry value chain. Therefore, the interests of all participants must be clarified to fully mobilize enthusiasm, achieve relative balance of interests, and generate true synergy, enhancing the company's ability to withstand market uncertainty.

Principle Two: Accuracy! This means the target consumers and market segments for the new brand or product must be accurately judged, clearly profiled, and aimed to hit the mark in one shot.

Today's new brand marketing is no longer the simple, formulaic approach of designing a product for mass needs, selling through mass channels, promoting through mass media, and pricing for mass acceptance.

Even when facing a regional or niche market, precision is essential. First, we must find the core consumers and opinion leaders who best match the new product's attributes and design the most impactful communication model for them. With countless competitors and highly fragmented consumer minds, our target consumers are often not obvious but may be hidden in marketing blind spots beyond the reach of public media and channels, requiring careful analysis, judgment, and definition. For example, selling lactic acid bacteria drinks in a prefecture-level city requires distinguishing target consumers such as children, women, and the elderly, considering competitors' market influence, and identifying the most effective media from newspapers, TV, radio, DM, etc. Remember, past success experiences often become the biggest obstacle to new brand success. Simply repeating the past may lead to the greatest failure!

Second, we must design the most direct and effective breakthrough for new brand marketing—channels and terminals. Before launching, find channels and terminals suitable for the new product, favorable to us, weak for competitors, or even emerging, and quickly occupy them to achieve a point-to-surface breakthrough. For lactic acid bacteria drinks in a regional market, channels could be traditional supermarkets or new terminals like schools, communities, direct sales, or innovative combinations. An accurate and effective sales channel is like the flight path of an air-to-ground missile, leading our product to appear before consumers with maximum impact.

Principle Three: Aggressiveness! New brand marketing emphasizes concentrating forces, striking through to the end, and pursuing a "short, flat, fast" effect strategically.

The "aggressiveness" in new brand marketing is the most critical. It reflects confidence in the new product's success and ensures concentrated resource allocation and maximized input-output efficiency. New brand marketing never relies solely on the product itself for rapid success; it is a multi-pronged combination of product, price, channel, promotion, publicity, and brand strategies. Only through this powerful marketing "synergy" can it achieve an unstoppable force.

To achieve "aggressiveness," scientifically plan the battle zone layout, combining the space and time of the new brand marketing campaign to achieve the desired effect: mobilizing competitors, disrupting their advantageous layout, and creating favorable conditions for the general attack.

The design of the battle zone layout is a planning process from "point" to "momentum," related to resource distribution and crucial for the decisive battle:

  • Point: Use administrative divisions (city, county, town) as units to identify segmented channels as target points;
  • Line: Sequence the attack steps in time to form a clear attack route;
  • Surface: A surface is not just a wide attack area; it must consist of interconnected points, as Sun Tzu said: "If you prepare for the front, the rear will be weak; if you prepare for the rear, the front will be weak; if you prepare for the left, the right will be weak; if you prepare for the right, the left will be weak; if you prepare everywhere, you will be weak everywhere." When points and lines form a surface, the foundation for a successful attack is laid.
  • Momentum: To achieve "aggressiveness," concentrate force. An attack must have a final strong push, usually after the initial warm-up period, bursting rapidly from the most important points, achieving rapid, geometric sales growth.

New brand marketing must avoid hesitation, stop-and-go, or going soft halfway. Some companies, when encountering difficulties in new product promotion, temporarily adjust targets or reduce investment, fearing wasted money, often ending up like boiling water at 99 degrees, wasting resources and missing the best opportunity.

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