For a company, nothing is more important than creating customers, but today companies face four major problems in this process: 1. Communication has shifted from mass to niche; 2. Products have shifted from single blockbusters to multiple products; 3. Channels have shifted from single to multi-channel; 4. Supply chains have shifted from low-cost to high-cost delivery. Behind this is the oversupply and insufficient demand caused by technological revolution, creating a two-way squeeze. Based on these changes, our marketing methods must also shift from memory-based marketing to experience-based marketing. Today, creating customers is essentially about creating excellent consumer experiences. Today's consumer goods must rebuild their marketing systems based on consumer experience, the current market environment, and new technological means. This system includes four major parts: cognition, transaction, delivery, and relationship. This classification transforms the past supply chain model centered on products, brands, and channels into an omnichannel marketing model centered on user experience. We must continuously create good consumer experiences for users throughout their entire lifecycle. Cognition: Mass communication becomes niche communication, selling becomes recommending Cognition: Mass communication becomes niche communication, selling becomes recommending, and operating product function concepts becomes operating community value consensus. Communication is a very important marketing factor in the consumer goods industry because without communication, there is no consensus on product value, and without value consensus, there is no brand. In the past, brands operated on two fronts: the marketing department handled consumer awareness of the brand, and the sales department handled channel distribution. But today, the internet has made mass media ineffective. From a consumer behavior perspective, people's memory and retrieval of information have shifted from the memory mode of the mass communication era to a mode of memory, search, recommendation, and feeding. In different scenarios, users choose different shopping methods. For example, for immediate consumption, users choose memory-based purchasing; for planned consumption, users use search-based purchasing; and under content recommendation and feeding modes, users make impulsive purchases. But these purchases all bring a problem: they are based on algorithmic recommendations and involve price comparison. Even impulsive consumption based on content makes it difficult to generate brand premium. This is the biggest problem we face today in building brand influence on consumer cognition. So how to solve this problem? I believe mass communication was based on content and information scarcity, but when information is oversupplied, we must effectively use small media to achieve niche communication. The so-called niche communication refers to using the principle of pressure to conduct high-intensity, high-density, high-experience communication to specific groups in physical or virtual spaces where a certain fixed population gathers. Only in this way can we solve the brand awareness problem for some consumers. But this population gathering must have a core characteristic: the group must have some community nature. The so-called community nature means that the gathering must have a common scenario. This scenario can be physical, such as life, work, or social interaction; or virtual, such as interests, hobbies, entertainment, or certain physiological, emotional, addictive, or health needs from the body. Without these community characteristics, our targeted communication will fail to build brand value consensus because there are no social relationships within the group, meaning our high-cost investment is ineffective. This means that our media placement methods will undergo fundamental changes. Any place that can achieve traffic touchpoints with consumers, or places that occupy consumer attention, we must analyze. If it matches our product, we must invest and influence. I have always held the view that the elevator media of Xinchao and Focus Media are among the few effective television media in this era. But this is only targeted placement based on LBS. In addition, the oversupply brought by unlimited online shelves also causes consumer choice paralysis. When consumers don't know what to choose, compared to push advertising, consumers are more willing to listen to algorithms, KOL/KOC, and recommendations from friends. Therefore, companies not only need niche communication, but also the ability to recommend based on algorithms, KOL, KOC, and friends. That is, while deepening community communication, they must also have word-of-mouth fission effects within the community. Transaction: Omnichannel coverage, transaction online, data online, behavior online Over the past few decades, the distribution chain for consumer goods companies has been a process of continuous deepening and evolution: Late 1980s: Brand → Wholesaler Mid-1990s: Brand → Distributor Early 2000s: Brand → Distributor → Sub-distributor After 2005: Brand → Distributor → Sub-distributor → Retail store After 2013: Brand → Consumer, Brand → Distributor → Sub-distributor → Retail store (dual-line distribution) Most food and beverage companies in China have adopted a deep distribution model. Brand owners complete product distribution through many ecosystem partners such as distributors, sub-distributors, wholesalers, and retailers. This is a value delivery chain, and behind each transaction is the brand's pricing strategy. In the deep distribution model, price is the lifeline, and the interests of supply chain members must be shared equally. This is why brand owners are so sensitive to price. But this distribution model is helpless against the internet's ability to bypass intermediate links, price disruption, and transaction diversification. E-commerce's transaction-first, express delivery to home, group buying price disruption from social retail, and live-streaming retail from Douyin and Tmall have greatly disrupted the past transaction chain. Brand owners are constantly patching this distribution system, setting up new departments to cover new channels and protect their original pricing strategies. But today, consumers' shopping channels have greatly diversified. Consumers have evolved from simple memory-based shopping at physical stores to a hybrid of memory, search, and recommendation. That is, we cannot clearly say whether a product is bought online or offline. Brand owners must redesign transaction systems for online e-commerce, offline physical retail, social networks, media and entertainment networks, and 24-hour all-time, all-scenario touchpoints where we can reach our users. This transaction system must first achieve omnichannel coverage: see it and buy it. That is, wherever there is a transaction touchpoint, the transaction loop must be completed. If the loop cannot be completed, massive information will instantly make users forget our product needs. Delivery: One inventory for online and offline, routing, precision, efficiency, flexibility The biggest problem with the deep distribution model is the very long value chain, which includes two functions: transaction and delivery. At the same time, the direct delivery model of e-commerce has the biggest problem of being unable to cover B2B scenarios because the chain cost is too high. Today, we see that the relationship between cognition, transaction, and delivery has shifted from a single model of cognition online, transaction + delivery offline, to a dual-line distribution model of online cognition + transaction, offline delivery, and online cognition, offline transaction + delivery. Most consumer goods brands currently adopt a dual supply chain strategy, where the e-commerce supply chain and distribution supply chain are not connected. But based on users' omnichannel transactions, the most efficient way for delivery is to separate the flow of goods from the flow of business, and separate the transaction system from the delivery system, building an integrated online and offline inventory system. This system integrates e-commerce and distributor logistics into a complete delivery network. Products are online throughout the entire process, and delivery is routed based on user needs. Where the goods are is not important; what matters is the integrated online and offline inventory. No matter where consumers transact—whether in-store, social networks, e-commerce networks, or O2O—all are delivered from one inventory. Relationship: Private domain operations, membership systems, KOC, KOL Brands are built on the value consensus generated by consumer memory. In the past, mass communication also had large market demand. Today, oversupply brings a serious problem: users no longer remember consumption. The niche communication era does not mean consumers have no large demand, but this demand must have a premise: the product must match the user's usage scenario and values. China's consumer population structure has shifted from a pyramid to an olive shape. A large number of middle-class consumers have the ability and willingness to consume better, higher-quality products. Moreover, this group has shifted from functional consumption to emotional consumption and value-identification consumption. Whoever can bring them emotional infection and value identification will win their wild consumption. This wild consumption is just a metaphor. In fact, in the internet age, people also find groups and content with similar interests and hobbies to communicate and interact. When such groups gather, they form a tribe or community. Community: refers to a way in which a group of people with value consensus or similar interests and hobbies gather, reflecting certain consumption preferences, behavioral preferences, or having specific cognition and abilities. It is an organization that can generate physical or network connections. Brand owners must build their own private domain communities on one hand, and on the other hand, participate in communities that match their brand tone, deeply operating KOLs and KOCs. Only in this way can the true value of private domain be realized: brand value consensus. Brands like Pop Mart, Lululemon, Taishan Beer, and Lidu Liquor have all achieved brand communication and product premium based on this logic. Summary Why cut it this way? Let's summarize: our marketing system has shifted from the past model of single blockbusters, mass communication, and deep distribution to a model of multiple products, niche communication, omnichannel transactions, integrated online and offline inventory delivery, and private domain. This is essentially a new marketing and supply chain model based on changes in consumers under the current technology environment. This model does not break our past supply chain model but requires more refined division of labor and integration. For example, distributors shift from transaction + delivery to operators, separating their logistics network and integrating it into the socialized logistics delivery network. While brand owners handle large-scale communication and transactions, distributors handle regional small-scale communication, small transactions, small private domains, and operations of same-city users. Only through such deepened division of labor can we solve the marketing dilemma brought by today's fragmented market. | Founder of New Distribution, expert in FMCG industry channels, with over 400,000 words of original research articles on the FMCG industry. For communication, you can add WeChat by long-pressing. Please indicate your company, position, and name when adding. Are you "watching" me?