Most traditional brands' marketing still involves continuous advertising for maximum exposure, then filtering target audiences through a funnel model to achieve sales. Many brands use the same advertisement for decades; we've memorized it, it's nationally known, but does purchase decision really depend on who memorizes the ad better? In fact, most mature brands do not lack awareness, and the product remains the same old one; blindly seeking exposure is undoubtedly wasting the marketing budget. In the summer of 2013, Coca-Cola's nickname bottle was launched, and that summer belonged to Coca-Cola. As a carbonated beverage that hadn't changed its formula for a century, switching to nickname bottle packaging that summer brought huge sales growth and a lot of social sharing, making people feel as if Coca-Cola were a newly launched product. This classic case might offer some inspiration for traditional brands. Especially in the internet age, knowing a brand, or even liking a brand's advertisement, does not mean consumers will buy the brand. The new generation of consumers increasingly values absolute product power. So in contemporary times, marketing should be attached to product power, integrating marketing with the product. Today we discuss how traditional brands, especially FMCG brands, can break through in marketing; besides the funnel model, what else can they do? Disconnected Communication and Product: Meaningless Exposure Let's first talk about the problem: Do you recall any brand that marketed well but couldn't sell products? I won't name specific brands. But I can cite a case: There was a viral video called "Tomato Scrambled Eggs" (番茄炒蛋). As an industry practitioner, I had to search carefully to find out it was for China Merchants Bank's study abroad credit card; the advertising agency became the biggest winner. The content was good, but it had little to do with the product or brand. That is to say, good marketing content does not equal good marketing; good marketing makes others praise the product. Another issue is that most mature brands face not a awareness problem, but a more fundamental product power problem. However, since marketing personnel cannot change the product, they can only start from the marketing angle, so they stick to old products and make new ads; people see the new ads but still don't buy the old products. A few days ago, I saw a practitioner's comment: They bought ads on a major high-traffic platform, got over 1 million exposures, over 6,000 clicks, and zero conversions. This is meaningless exposure. For big brands that spend millions on advertising films, the final result might be that industry insiders comment on the production quality and creative level, but no one talks about the product, let alone converts to purchase. For traditional FMCG marketing, we need to return to the more fundamental product issue, or rather, solve product problems through marketing, whether it's product aging or product perception, ultimately aligning consumer expectations with brand expectations. So, how to solve product power issues within the marketing scope, and how to better integrate product and marketing for more effective communication? Let's illustrate with cases: Marketing Should Dare to "Develop" New Products When I wrote "Marketing Department Skills Sinking" (市场部技能下沉), a key point was that marketing personnel should do product-oriented creativity and operation-oriented creativity. Most people think this is for internet brands; for traditional brands, the marketing department simply cannot touch the product. Yes, we cannot change the product formula, but as the Coca-Cola nickname bottle mentioned at the beginning shows, even without changing the formula, we can still change the product in other ways. Marketing personnel should dare to touch the product, dare to "develop" new products. While ensuring product quality and not changing the product's essence, they can develop marketing-oriented products, experimental products, drive consumption with innovative products, and consumption brings product reputation, thereby achieving sustainable growth. The next case is the co-branded packaging of Guli Duo (谷粒多) with "One Piece" (航海王). Guli Duo is Yili's first grain milk containing large grains. "One Piece" aired in 1999, and this year marks its 20th anniversary. It has many fans in China, and Guli Duo's audience happens to be the generation that grew up with One Piece. This case is not a simple brand crossover; it's a product innovation crossover sold through all channels, so it's worth discussing. "One Piece" is a story about dreams; the protagonist Luffy inspired a generation's growth. Guli Duo's selling point is "hunger-resistant" (扛饿), and through this co-branding, they aim to shape Guli Duo's brand image and concept of providing strength to people on their dream-chasing journey. The key to this marketing is not just creating brand content, but creating new products. Without changing the product's essence, they create a different product through IP co-branding, giving consumers freshness and endowing the original brand with richer attributes. And communication based on the "new product" becomes more concrete, with a clear focus, making it effective exposure. Next, we'll interpret the case from three levels: incremental information, mass communication, and brand building. Incremental Information For traditional products like Guli Duo, a product typically goes through a long preparation and experimentation period from development to actual launch. Once it becomes a mature product, its essence almost never changes. Similar products are common in the FMCG field. A mature product, from packaging to formula, may remain unchanged for decades. For such products, marketing is difficult. For such products, marketing personnel should also dare to innovate products and create increments. Guli Duo's solution is co-branded packaging, crossing over with the One Piece IP. We can imagine that from the packaging dimension alone, many tricks can be played. IP co-branding is one way, similar to the Coke nickname bottle, and Wei Chuan juice has played similar games. There must be more ways worth exploring. Through the above methods, you can create an innovative product lab, produce a packaging, test in small batches, and if feedback is good, follow up with large batches. Continue to do more experiments sustainably, continuously create incremental information, and bring freshness to consumers. For Guli Duo, this might be its market solution. Mass Communication For mature brands' old products that already have awareness, there's no need for repetitive communication. But when there's a One Piece co-branded custom packaging, communication can be done. How to communicate such products is also worth learning from. Guli Duo chose to combine product selling points with IP attributes, using the theme "Real Grains Resist Hunger, Ignite Dreams and Set Sail" (实粒扛饿,燃梦起航) for a round of new product communication. When there's a concrete new product, the purpose of mass communication becomes clear: push the new product out and tell those who should know. I generally divide communication logic into two types: One is slow communication, first accumulating power under the river surface, and when the momentum is strong enough, then surface for strong exposure; the second is fast communication, where events or big exposure lead, then detailed in-depth communication follows. Guli Duo belongs to the second type, because One Piece's momentum is large enough; no need to accumulate momentum. On August 21, the One Piece custom packaging was first launched on JD.com. That day, two actions were carried out simultaneously: first, big exposure through Moments ads, Weibo opening screen, Weibo information flow, new media KOLs, and inviting Wei Daxun as celebrity spokesperson. Exposure continued until the 24th, with saturated placement to thoroughly penetrate the message. The second thing was launching a One Piece H5 simultaneously, coordinated with media channels like Moments ads and Weibo information flow. But the H5's purpose was to gather fans and prepare for the next action. The H5 was customized for One Piece fans and offered many benefits, including limited gift boxes, custom packaging, One Piece merchandise, etc., creating viral communication within the fan circle. The H5's ultimate grand prize was tickets to a maritime press conference. The maritime press conference was held on August 24, inviting 100 One Piece fans, with celebrity Wei Daxun serving as captain, boarding the ship with fans to fulfill the dream of sailing with companions. It was Guli Duo's press conference and also a tribute to One Piece's 20th anniversary. Then from August 24 to September 24, in Guangzhou, where One Piece fans are most numerous, they conducted media placement with subway car and station wrapping, forming iconic media placement for fans to photograph and share. Finally, during the September school season, they went deep into college student groups for interaction, holding large-scale activities for Guli Duo and One Piece. To summarize, the overall communication logic is first strong exposure, i.e., the saturated placement on WeChat and Weibo on the 21st, then starting with the H5 for deep fan interaction, from the maritime press conference, Guangzhou subway wrapping, to the upcoming campus activities in the school season. Of course, with such a large-scale communication, channels must keep up. After the JD.com launch on the 21st, the product was fully launched across online and offline channels nationwide, with a total of 2 months of all-channel sales. Brand Building The short-term benefit of IP co-branding is sales conversion; the long-term benefit is attaching the IP's tone to the brand, accumulating intangible brand assets. Short-term is effectiveness, long-term is brand, achieving both. The essence of brand building is to reconstruct the brand through marketing-oriented products in a productized way. What Guli Duo reconstructs is the brand's personality, linking hunger resistance with dreams, then marketing in a productized way, ultimately achieving brand consensus and taking the brand further. In front of contemporary consumers, brand building is no longer about preaching but direct experience. So, when we only rely on ads to teach consumers to be themselves, to be free, to have dreams, it's no longer effective. The correct way is to integrate brand values and the message to be conveyed into the product, letting consumers directly experience the product. Just like Guli Duo is doing, linking the brand with dreams, then directly creating a product related to dreams. The hardcore point of this case is that it's not just an ordinary IP co-branding; it's sold through all channels and lasts for 2 months. For a marketing case, this is true product-oriented creativity, with countless product coordination, channel chain integration, etc., involving the whole company, not just the marketing department's project. So, I admire this hardcore project. It's precisely because of this that mass communication is willing to invest, because the product can be seen in all channels; perhaps it's already on the shelves of the small supermarket downstairs. Ultimately, product is media, and consumption is communication. Summary: Consumption Is Marketing The trend is returning to product power; absolute product power brings absolute brand power. Brands detached from products will have no value. The new generation of consumers is a generation that has seen the world and is not easily fooled. Their consumption decisions value product power more than awareness and brand scale. In this context, the role of marketing is diminishing, or the role of advertising is fading. Good marketing and good ad creativity often cannot drive sales growth. If marketers continue to follow the old ways, only managing marketing and ignoring products, leading to a disconnect between marketing and products, there will be a lot of ineffective marketing. Even if they produce quality content, if it's not related to the product, it's still ineffective. In the past, it was small products with big brands; a Brain Gold (脑白金) spent over 100 million yuan annually on advertising. Now it's heavy on products and away from advertising. New consumer brands like Heytea (喜茶) are valued at 10 billion yuan and never do traditional advertising, yet they've built a very good brand. This is the victory of product power. So for traditional consumer goods, product power will be greater than brand power. For marketers, they need to go deep into the product and carve out a marketing-oriented product, a product used to create the brand. For traditional products like Guli Duo, marketers cannot change the product formula, so they develop new products outside the formula. The Coke nickname bottle and Guli Duo's One Piece co-branding are good reference cases, and these should be what marketers do. There are more new consumer products that can open up marketing-oriented new products. For example, Heytea, with extreme product power and high-frequency new products; or traditional clothing brand Li-Ning, where a runway-style product from the e-commerce line directly drove brand upgrade. For many traditional consumer brands, the marketing department should become a new product lab, reverse-developing products based on marketing insights, and then use products to drive the brand. As for mass communication, its mission is simpler and more direct, more as notification, exposure, and explanation of product functions. What truly shapes the brand will be absolute product power. Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted.