-01- The harsh winter is the best time to test value No one can deny that the harsh winter can strip away false prosperity and is also the best time to observe a company's true vitality. Zhang Ying, founding managing partner of Matrix Partners China, recently said on Weibo: "During this period, the external financing environment is quite harsh, and the difficulty of financing is infinitely increasing... We will only continue to increase support for those potential companies with consistently strong data and founders who are clearly growing rapidly. For Matrix-affiliated companies that we invested in wrongly and are completely disappointed with, we will no longer waste more new money." Overseas, Uber released its Q3 2019 earnings report, showing a net loss of $1.162 billion, an 18% year-over-year increase. Let's look at Didi, which has a business model very similar to Uber. According to data, since its establishment in 2012, Didi has accumulated losses of 39 billion yuan, with 2018 alone seeing losses of 10.9 billion yuan. Didi's valuation has also shrunk by nearly $4 billion over the past period. Several well-known used-car e-commerce companies have recently begun a low-profile wave of store closures and business adjustments. Many large stores covering tens of thousands of square meters have been closed, and non-core businesses with annual transaction volumes of tens of billions have been divested. Instead, smaller community stores and the nationwide purchase business, which has more user selection, have become the direction to persist in. However, there are also completely different examples. For instance, Meituan Dianping released its Q3 2019 performance report: Meituan continued to maintain overall profitability, with revenue of 27.5 billion yuan, a 44.1% year-over-year increase. Gross profit was 9.6 billion yuan, up 109.8% year-over-year. Another example is Luckin Coffee, which just released its financial report: net revenue was 1.4932 billion yuan, a 557.6% year-over-year increase; net loss was 531.9 million yuan, expanding 9.7% year-over-year. Despite the loss, because Luckin's Q3 2019 performance exceeded expectations, its stock price rose. By the close, Luckin's stock was up 13%, closing at $21.46. If you pay a little attention, you'll notice that these companies, with their mixed rises and falls, joys and sorrows, share a common feature —they are all iconic clients of Focus Media, and their key brand explosion periods and several historical life-and-death lines were all navigated under Focus Media's continuous saturation attacks. If it were a period of economic upturn and soaring stock prices, people might read articles—written by "lazy" journalists—that simply attribute all these magical successes to Focus Media's brand explosion value, equating a company's brand explosion success with the company's overall success. It must be said that this is a convenient and effortless logic, but it is also a simplistic attribution mindset lacking deep thinking. Its characteristic is to infer causes from results, arriving at simple and seemingly "fair" conclusions. However, as entrepreneurial practice matures, the simple and crude entrepreneurial model of financing-advertising-scale-financing, relying solely on marketing pull and lacking refined operational capabilities and core competitiveness, is not as strong as it appears. Therefore, we should also adopt a more objective attitude towards Focus Media and the value of brand explosion. -02- Focus Media has never been the first author of the myth After carefully studying the above cases, I believe that Focus Media has never been the first author of the myth. Let's analyze in detail some cases deeply bound to Focus Media. Was it the recent cold winter that boosted Bosideng down jackets, or did Focus Media's advertising transform a 40-year-old old brand? Both, and neither. Bosideng's advantage lies in its long-term industry accumulation, having achieved a very high level of specialization in the down jacket category. But what does it lack? First, brand recognition; second, premium pricing capability; third, it has not entered the minds of mid-to-high-end consumers. An industry insider told me that without considering brand premium, Bosideng can fully compete with Canada Goose in specific product strength, even to the point of overwhelming it on most indicators. For example, Bosideng's mid-to-high-end series basically uses more expensive high-fill-power goose down, even top-grade white goose down, while Canada Goose only uses goose down in one or two top configurations; the rest are basically duck down, with down content generally 10% lower than Bosideng's. However, what Bosideng lacks is precisely brand enhancement. At the beginning of 2018, people's perception of Bosideng was—domestic product, old brand, quite cheap. Some attribute Bosideng's predicament to weak branding, but Bosideng had previously made single brand efforts, such as opening a flagship store on Oxford Street in London's prime location, larger than an Apple store, but such isolated brand efforts did not work wonders. So, the Bosideng comeback we saw in 2018-2019 was a very complete strategy:

  • First, in terms of product, Bosideng began to consciously target and even crush the technology and performance of benchmark brands. Canada Goose's top product claims to withstand -30°C cold, so Bosideng created an "Extreme Cold Series" that can withstand -30°C; Bosideng leveraged its single-category advantage to continuously upgrade its supply chain, comprehensively improving fabrics, down, wool, accessories, and production processes. At the same time, it established cooperation with top international raw material suppliers, choosing the same down supplier as Moncler, which has a higher brand image than Canada Goose, and launched a top limited edition with 1000 fill power, targeting the 10,000-yuan price point...
  • Second, Bosideng began participating in top international fashion weeks, updating its design language, and producing very fashionable products, including appearing at New York Fashion Week, releasing three international designer co-branded collections, winning the "Outdoor Oscar" Outside outdoor equipment award, and entering Sina Fashion's 2018 Style Awards fashion list. During this period, Bosideng also received favor from several Hollywood A-list stars;
  • Then, Bosideng used knowledge marketing across the internet, releasing various vertical and horizontal reviews, gradually disseminating this information to the audience while strengthening its professional image;
  • Furthermore, channels were fully upgraded. It upgraded terminal image, entered mainstream channels, and expanded into shopping malls, fashion department stores, core commercial pedestrian streets, and other mainstream channels. For example, it cooperated with core commercial entities like Wanda, Intime, CFLD, and CapitaLand. After all these conditions began to converge, Bosideng was fully prepared and only needed the east wind. At this time, choosing to invest in Focus Media was based on a series of arduous and meticulous work, like lighting a torch at the mountain peak, or a flower blooming after nurturing energy. It is worth noting that Focus Media's investment did not end with Bosideng's brand reaching the top; it was just the beginning. Bosideng began to discover that previously, due to its low brand positioning, many large shopping malls in high-tier cities were not very welcoming to Bosideng. But thanks to Focus Media's brand explosion, Bosideng's brand in the minds of more and more mainstream people in high-tier cities greatly improved. Even when urban mainstream people saw Bosideng's black technology ads while waiting for elevators in office buildings, many immediately opened Tmall and even made purchases that day. These signs naturally did not escape the shrewd commercial real estate operators, who opened the doors of Shopping Malls to Bosideng one after another... Since March last year, Bosideng's stock price has risen more than 10 times in over a year, from HK$4.4 billion to HK$45.5 billion. Without all the previous preparatory work, relying solely on Focus Media advertising, Bosideng could not have achieved the successful brand upgrade, the key leap from a mass brand to a light luxury category; but what is more noteworthy is that Focus Media is no longer a simple detonator; it is a continuous accelerator in the process of Bosideng's brand promotion and even store expansion. It can be said to be both an "armor-piercing shell" that blasts open the mind's entrance and a "high-explosive shell" for the brand's continued popularity. Let's look at Luckin Coffee again. Luckin is currently the hottest consumer brand, creating a miracle from nothing in a very short time. From the latest financial report showing expanding losses but stock price still rising against the trend, Luckin has entered a best state—investors are confident in Luckin's future, and short-term fluctuations are not enough to affect long-term optimism. Probably 99% of people saw Luckin Coffee on Focus Media's elevator TVs and frame ads, then casually downloaded the APP to complete a purchase, giving us the impression —that Focus Media is the key to Luckin's success. But in fact, this is not the whole truth. For Luckin's success, people have summarized the BOMB rule—BOMB stands for Brand explosion, Operation differentiation, Marketing subsidies, and Branch density. It's easy to see that the first principle of Luckin's success is brand explosion (Brand), but brand explosion is accompanied by a whole set of tactics. For example, some think Luckin's success is due to having more delivery options than Starbucks, but this is a misjudgment—Starbucks, with the support of Ele.me's dedicated delivery system, is already quite efficient in terms of delivery alone. The real winning reason is Luckin's ability to tap into the incremental coffee market—they believe that the demand for cup coffee among office workers is not met, first because Starbucks is expensive, and second because Starbucks is not as convenient—so Luckin designed a more cost-effective referral marketing plan and a front-end pickup store system densely located in office buildings, allowing users to "instantly pick up" coffee and reduce delivery costs. But, on the other hand, even if Luckin made all these preparations, without an effective media tool to make these infrastructures effective and form word-of-mouth and trends, this business design would be a castle in the air. It can be said that when hundreds of millions of mainstream people simultaneously saw ads endorsed by Zhang Zhen and Tang Wei on their way to work, and also saw very attractive traffic referral marketing tactics—you scan a code to get a free cup, and if you like it, you can send a friend a cup and get one yourself... these previous preparations turned into real momentum. And as Luckin's pickup stores increasingly showed their ability to drive consumption, even becoming a necessity for white-collar workers, more and more office building operators also found—if their building had a Luckin Coffee, it seemed to attract people to work there, so Luckin's stores opened more smoothly. Through such Focus Media advertising and marketing, after only about four months of development, Luckin's APP downloads kept rising, reaching No. 33 on the App Store free chart, while Starbucks was at No. 243, with Luckin leading Starbucks by over 200 places; after full investment in Focus Media's elevator media channels, Luckin's WeChat index grew more than 10 times. Besides Bosideng and Luckin, another typical case proving that Focus Media's ads can be used interchangeably as brand ads and traffic ads, and can also impact the minds of business decision-makers beyond consumer groups, is Feihe infant formula endorsed by Zhang Ziyi. As a domestic infant formula focused on children, Feihe had a persistent problem—its brand strength was insufficient. When distributing to over 100,000 maternal and baby stores nationwide, Feihe found it easy to distribute in lower-tier cities but difficult in higher-tier cities, because these stores often attracted customers by selling imported formula. However, with Focus Media advertising, many maternal and baby stores in first- and second-tier cities found that more and more customers were asking about Feihe formula, but they had no stock. Flexible merchants immediately followed consumer demand—intertwined with Focus Media's advertising impact was Feihe's rapid progress in continuously occupying mid-to-high-end maternal and baby stores offline, ultimately covering 110,000 of the 130,000 maternal and baby merchants nationwide. If we look at earlier success cases like Meituan and Ele.me, it's not hard to observe a phenomenon: Focus Media actually plays not only the role of a key detonator but also a full-lifecycle brand tool. As long as it is used appropriately, the above analyses of Bosideng, Feihe, Luckin, Meituan, etc., can prove that Focus Media, as a weapon, can be used for "siege warfare" in major battles and "assault warfare" in sustained combat. And it is worth mentioning that the higher the frequency of Focus Media investment, the lower the cost—I have interviewed some leading players in local life services and used-car e-commerce, and they all mentioned an important topic: when your brand gradually strengthens and your user base grows large enough to dilute costs, you can actually use Focus Media for daily marketing—Luckin Coffee is a typical case—every new marketing, subsidy, user acquisition, or activity is basically accompanied by a wave of Focus Media investment. Focus Media has run through the entire entrepreneurial cycle, not only for new brand explosion but also for mature brand protection. Similar examples include Miaokelanduo, Feihe formula, Bojue Wedding Photography, and the viral "bao yi tian" Yiche.com. The common feature of these brands is that they not only rely on Focus Media advertising to quickly explode their brands but also prepare to provide customers with good core products and services. -03- Focus Media is a necessary condition for success, but what else do we need? All the above cases illustrate one point—Focus Media is a necessary but not sufficient condition for brand success. Don't think that Focus Media investment can solve all problems, and don't use Focus Media investment to cover up laziness and deficiencies in other areas (such as strategy, product, service). No one denies that Focus Media is a nuclear warhead and an ignition device. But a nuclear warhead that cannot be delivered to a predetermined location cannot be called a nuclear weapon. It is a systematic project, including the design of the launch vehicle, fuel, and crucial navigation and guidance equipment. Therefore, we can deduce several basic conditions that should be in place for brand explosion on Focus Media: First, the competitiveness and product strength of the product and service itself must reach a high level and not have too much discrepancy or contrast with what the advertising proclaims; Second, be familiar with positioning theory and understand that the most valuable resource of a commercial organization is not just capital resources, human resources, and knowledge resources (these resources have not disappeared), but their decisive position must yield to the mental resources represented by the brand. You must clearly define what category you need to create and lead, and what category this brand will represent in the minds of potential customers. These must be prepared before launching a brand explosion; Third, prepare the nail—the nail may seem like just a slogan, but its essence is the core value and mental appeal the brand hopes to bring to the audience. Focus Media's detonator is the hammer that hammers them into users' minds. The force and speed of the hammer affect entry into the mind, but the nail itself is the core; Fourth, carefully observe Focus Media's impact on the minds of other key groups in business operations beyond brand explosion, and find entry points to improve operations. I believe that only by combining many favorable and necessary conditions and then talking about Focus Media's brand explosion can the real myth begin. In this process, do not exaggerate or blindly believe in the value of advertising, do not underestimate or despise the difficulty of sharpening the mental nail, and swing the big hammer at the most appropriate time. The sum of all this is the key to success. And all this must consider one question—what is the essence of Focus Media? I believe that the essence of Focus Media is that it is almost the only infrastructure that retains central explosion capability in this fragmented era. Some may say that fragmented marketing is also powerful, but looking at the overall picture—fragmentation disperses people's focus on brands. In short video and long video scenarios, people's first reaction is to watch content and skip ads; traditional TV's opening rate is getting lower and lower... We do not deny that fragmentation is a feature of the times, but fragmentation just happens to need centralization to unleash greater value. In this era where our attention is extremely dispersed, what can replace the saturated impact of those few key, boring, and unavoidable minutes in front of or inside the elevator on the "commute-home" route? But the premise of all this huge temptation is that you must be prepared, have courage, and have sharp eyes to continuously observe the operational changes brought by the rise in brand momentum. If a tip is adopted, a reward of 400-2000 yuan will be paid.