This article is authorized and written by Ding Ding. This is an era of 'consumption upgrade', but more importantly, an era of 'consumption stratification'. This is my basic judgment on the consumption characteristics of the current era. 01 A few years ago, with the viral spread of Mr. Wu Xiaobo's article "Going to Japan to Buy a Toilet Seat", we became deeply aware of the strong desire of Chinese people for consumption upgrade. This sparked a nationwide discussion on 'consumption upgrade' that lasted for years. However, as time passed and we all accepted the theory of 'consumption upgrade', the consumption concepts of Chinese people quietly changed again—within the process of 'upgrade', 'stratification' emerged. What made us realize this reality was Pinduoduo. Last year, Pinduoduo successfully listed on the US stock market, becoming China's third-largest e-commerce platform in just three years. At that time, there was a lot of controversy, mostly questioning its model, such as its social fission approach and the presence of counterfeit and fake goods. However, despite the almost one-sided criticism and questioning in the media, Pinduoduo continued to develop rapidly, with transaction volume and user numbers rising steadily. This can only show one thing: those who question it are not its users, while its users are the silent majority. In the words of Pinduoduo founder Huang Zheng, "people within the Fifth Ring Road" are not his target users; his users are "outside the Fifth Ring Road". This was the first time the public became aware of the opposition between different social circles. Regarding this matter, I also wrote a dedicated article last year: "As for Pinduoduo being criticized, I think it is essentially a moral self-indulgence of the new middle class. Although I also think its group-buying tactics are too crude, we need to see who is criticizing and who is buying. Basically, those who criticize will not buy, and those who buy do not care whether it is fake or counterfeit. What they care about is simply that it is cheap. This is stratification. Two circles are like two parallel worlds, each unable to understand the other, except that one holds the discourse power." Actually, saying all this is to make one point: our society has become highly stratified, and the consumption needs, consumption psychology, and value perception of different circles are vastly different. This is a very important fact today. If we fail to recognize this, it will be difficult to achieve success in business. 02 In the era of consumption stratification, whether it is product development or marketing communication, it must be based on target users. You only need to serve them well and gain their recognition. You can completely ignore the various doubts from non-target users. Nowadays, there are many niche or vertical products. Those who like them love them to death, spreading word-of-mouth everywhere, eager to recommend them to everyone around. Those who do not like them may think the product is not good, or even worthless. The same product may be perceived as great value for money by the target group, while non-target groups may think it is unreasonably expensive. For example, the cat paw cup that went viral on Starbucks recently. Those who liked it queued overnight or even fought over it, and if they could not buy it in stores, they would rather buy it online for over a thousand yuan. But those who were indifferent to it even thought the original price of 199 yuan was too expensive. Similarly, recently, we collaborated with Fenjiu Co., Ltd. to create a fashionable baijiu for new middle-class women—F Rose Fenjiu. During the initial launch, we found that those who liked it would buy by the case, while those who were not interested would not even try a single bottle. Why does this 'stratification' occur? This is mainly determined by changes in the structure of consumer demand. In the past, we valued the physical functional value of products and pursued pragmatism, and the perceived value of a product in terms of function was not significant. Now our consumption needs have upgraded; function becomes a basic need, while emotion becomes a strong need. The demand for emotional and spiritual value far exceeds functional needs. Emotion is very subjective, so the perceived value brought by emotion varies from person to person and can be quite different. This is also why different people have such different perceptions of the value of the cat paw cup, because the perceived emotional value is different. 03 Based on the above understanding, I think in this era of 'consumption stratification', precision is very important in both product development and marketing communication. From 'consumption upgrade' to 'consumption stratification', our marketing must also enter a new cycle. In this new marketing cycle, we should practice the following principles: 1) Precise positioning: Different circles have completely different consumption needs and value perceptions. So do not try to 'please' everyone with one product. Positioning must be precise. Before product development, the clearer the user profile, the higher the chance of success. 2) Brand personification: Personification means giving products and brands personality and warmth. Only in this way can we shape the emotional value of the brand and more easily win the favor and preference of target users. 3) Community-based channels: Supermarkets and other mass distribution channels meet the needs of everyone, so such channels will only be suitable for daily high-frequency essential goods in the future. For products with unique positioning, placing them there is like looking for a needle in a haystack, very inefficient, and causes a lot of waste in promotion and distribution costs. In the future, besides the continued existence of mass distribution, there will also be a trend of 'community-based' channels, which arises in response to the changes in consumption characteristics such as 'stratification' and 'consumption stratification'. People flock together; social media like WeChat have provided convenient conditions for the gathering of 'like-minded' people, and also provide the best platform for precise placement of these niche and vertical products. 4) Social communication: Personified brands can only be accurately conveyed through social means, and emotional value can only be better perceived in social interactions. In this new marketing cycle, one-way mass communication has lost its original effectiveness. Social and interactive communication can lock onto the target circle and establish emotional connections with them. What I want to express above is actually one sentence: just serve your target users well, and nothing else matters much. This article is reprinted from Deep Fan Marketing ID: sdfenxiao -END-