I am referring to marketers. These include marketing experts, marketing consulting firms, marketing executives, ordinary marketing personnel, and distributors. That generation refers to people born in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, as well as some born in the 1980s. Of course, I am among them. In fact, I had already stepped down by 2012. In 2014, I announced my withdrawal from traditional marketing and stopped taking on projects. Actually, there were no projects to take on anyway; voluntarily exiting is more dignified than being forced out. As some say, an elegant exit shows true character. This has nothing to do with the achievements of that generation, nor their intelligence or knowledge; it is only about the times. Some companies have already replaced their marketing teams with "young Turks" due to performance issues, but who can say that the "young Turks" are not traditional marketers themselves? How can a marketer prove their value? They need to do something valuable for the company. How to prove value? Hard indicators are sales volume and profit; soft indicators include transformation. In terms of hard indicators, almost no one can do anything. The total market is capped; can you overcome the overall trend? You can't say that because of my value, our company's decline is slower than others; I don't even agree with that statement. However, structural adjustment and improving profits are areas with great potential, but following traditional methods to upgrade products and distribute them has almost all failed. The "mainstream gear shift" that Mr. Shi Xianlong and I had high hopes for is the same; now we can only hope for the "rise of new edges." In terms of soft indicators, the transition to the internet is almost a different world for traditional marketers. A friend said that now those doing traditional business don't understand the internet, and those doing internet business don't understand traditional business. It's completely like talking to a wall. At least for now, few marketers can show performance that proves their ability. Mr. Jin Huanmin has always lamented that his disciples have been "beaten back to their original form." In fact, Mr. Jin and I are no different. Even someone as successful as Chen Chunhua—I have carefully read her series of articles—although she incorporates elements of the times, her core is still very traditional. During her three years at New Hope, although sales declined, she was determined to transform. Whether the transformation will succeed remains to be seen. A doctor who cannot cure a patient's illness should not take on patients. A consultant who cannot solve a company's problems should not serve others. I truly admire some doctors who dare to take on any patient, and some experts who dare to save any company, regardless of whether they can actually save them. In the past two years, a group of marketing experts have been trying to save themselves because manufacturers no longer trust them. Now it seems that commission-based consulting services and investment-promotion-style incremental services are also difficult to continue. Some marketers still cling to traditional methods, saying it's not a problem of methods but of execution. I believe that even if execution is improved, it might get a little better, but it won't fundamentally improve. Perhaps only the thinking behind tradition is useful; at the method level, almost everything has failed. Traditional people have not yet taken their final bow; they are just waiting in line. The biggest problem now is that the post-90s generation simply doesn't play with us, and the sales team has no successors. In the past, no matter how we said the post-80s were different, they were basically assimilated by traditional organizations. Now the post-90s stick together; some companies are purely post-90s organizations, and some are dominated by post-90s. They have begun to refuse assimilation, and the remaining traditional people may be the ones being assimilated. The biggest issue is that our generation's "tradition" is deeply ingrained in our bones. Take me as an example: I was born in the era of agricultural civilization, grew up in the era of industrial civilization, and now have entered the era of information civilization. In the era of industrial civilization, I kept reflecting that no matter our identities—professors, PhDs, executives—what is in our bones is actually from agricultural civilization. To put it bluntly, it's peasant consciousness, "small peasant consciousness." Don't count three generations; our generation was originally peasants. People often criticize the gap between China and Western countries, but behind the apparent gap is a gap in consciousness. The biggest gap is between our industrial thinking mixed with "peasant consciousness" and the West's complete industrial thinking. Perhaps a few individuals can break out, like Ma Yun, who was born in the 1960s. But a group of people is unlikely to break out; a group is always limited by the times. Compared with the post-90s, what we lack is not internet tools, nor even the consciousness of information civilization; we carry too heavy a burden of "peasant consciousness" and "industrial consciousness." That's why transformation is so heavy. In the transition of times, group consciousness is too powerful. Zhang Zhidong was already good; he only advocated "Chinese learning as the foundation, Western learning for practical use." "Chinese learning" is from agricultural civilization, and "Western learning" is from industrial civilization. But that was already the "greatest common divisor" of society at that time. Even now, some so-called masters of Chinese studies believe that "Chinese studies can save management." The wisdom of Chinese studies is beneficial, but overall, Chinese studies is a product of agricultural civilization. How can its production methods adapt to the industrial era? Lifestyle is another topic. Does the same problem exist in the transition from industrial civilization to information civilization? In recent years, I have also been trying to save myself. We are not "natives" of the internet; we either become "refugees" (retire) or "immigrants." But immigration is very, very difficult. I have around me a group of people who are trying hard to integrate into the internet, but almost none have fully integrated. To "immigrate," I have changed many circles and learned from many people. Although others have not held back, as a traditional marketer, I always feel that the skin and flesh are not one. More importantly, no one is willing to be our experimental field. The internet approach is not to think clearly before acting, but to think clearly in the process of acting. Jiangxiaobai is a company that does internet marketing well, and President Tao is willing to openly share with everyone, but has anyone learned it? Recently, I am particularly grateful to a company (I won't name it for fear of advertising suspicion) that is willing to experiment together and transform from traditional marketing to internet marketing. In this transformation experiment, I found that if you only treat the internet as a tool, you simply cannot use it well. The combination of the internet and marketing requires comprehensive and systematic change. Now the internet and tradition are two worlds, and very few people can bridge them. The practice of O2O was supposed to do both online and offline, but in reality, it was internet people doing offline. That's hilarious! The failure of O2O proves that it is also difficult for internet people to understand tradition. In the future, there will be only two types of business: one is pure internet, and the other is a combination of tradition and internet. Of course, during the transition period, there will still be a pure traditional segment, but it is shrinking. In the future, there will definitely be a group of people who understand both tradition and the internet, and they will be the future masters. For traditional marketers, those who are younger and at the grassroots level may have more hope. On the contrary, the current traditional experts and executives are overall in more danger. Some people say that they want to change people, but there is no one to replace them with. There was a period when "boiling frog" was popular, and now it has reappeared. The internet cuts off a piece of the traditional "territory" every so often: platform C2C, platform B2C, vertical B2C, B2B, micro-commerce, and in the future R2C. Each cut reduces the living space for traditional marketers. Traditional people will not be overthrown, because tradition is still the largest piece. But with each cut, the traditional territory shrinks. With each cut, a group of people takes their final bow. The prospect for traditional marketers is that there is no prospect. Some people will break through the encirclement, but not many. If a tip is adopted, a reward of 400-2000 yuan will be paid.