---
title: "Insights: Three Cognitive Misconceptions That Marketers Must Avoid!"
description: "The era of rapid brand proliferation in China is over, and the market has entered a stage of high-quality development with stock competition, requiring more refined brand cultivation and management. Misconception 1: Successful advertising equals immediate results. The correct approach is to reposition marketing cognition and view brand assets with a long-term perspective. Some brand ads do not immediately boost sales, leading marketers to think the investment was wasted. However, strong Chinese brands today did not rise overnight; they achieved growth through marketing strategies laid out three, five, or even ten years ago."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2021-12-23"
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# Insights: Three Cognitive Misconceptions That Marketers Must Avoid!

> The era of rapid brand proliferation in China is over, and the market has entered a stage of high-quality development with stock competition, requiring more refined brand cultivation and management. Misconception 1: Successful advertising equals immediate results. The correct approach is to reposition marketing cognition and view brand assets with a long-term perspective. Some brand ads do not immediately boost sales, leading marketers to think the investment was wasted. However, strong Chinese brands today did not rise overnight; they achieved growth through marketing strategies laid out three, five, or even ten years ago.

The era of rapid brand proliferation in China is over, and the market has entered a stage of high-quality development with stock competition, requiring more refined brand cultivation and management.
**Misconception 1: Successful advertising equals immediate results.**
**Correct approach: Reposition marketing cognition and view brand assets with a long-term perspective.**
Some brand ads do not immediately boost sales after being aired, leading marketers to believe the investment was wasted. However, strong Chinese brands today did not rise overnight; they achieved growth through marketing strategies laid out three, five, or even ten years ago.
In the fierce competition of the Chinese market, brands that continuously accumulate momentum will keep moving forward and stand out.
Advertising not only drives short-term sales but also prevents homogeneous competitors from entering, creating a strong competitive barrier through the "siphon effect." These brands' years of consistent ad spending have solidified into a moat of brand assets.
Brand assets are a key driver for brand development and differentiation.
In Kantar BrandZ™ research, we found that one key element for leading brands to stand out is achieving "meaningful differentiation," meaning the brand must lead market trends, differentiate from competitors, and meet emotional and functional needs.
Among the brands on the "2021 Kantar BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands" list, the higher-ranked brands performed better in "meaningfulness" and "differentiation."
Additionally, Kantar's 360 TMROI (Total Marketing Revenue of Investment) research confirms that in real market environments, 70% of sales occur in the medium to long term, driven by brand assets, while short-term direct conversions account for only 30%.
Therefore, ad spending and brand asset accumulation must adhere to long-termism and avoid short-sightedness. Brands must see both short-term sales growth and the long-term sales boost from brand assets.
Brands are memories and associations accumulated in consumers' minds. When consumers have a need in a category, they should reflexively think of a brand—that is the effect of brand building.
**Misconception 2: Marketers' perceptions equal consumers' thoughts.**
**Correct approach: Focus on consumer perceptions and resonate with them.**
Kantar's latest "Media Reactions 2021" is the world's largest media asset evaluation report. It points out differences in ad receptivity between marketers and consumers across channels.
Marketers show a net preference for certain social and online ad formats, such as influencer content marketing (net preference* 87%), social platform content sponsorship (76%), feed ads (69%), online display ads (64%), and online video ads (59%), but consumers are often indifferent, with net preference rates around 10% or below. Marketers' perceptions and choices are not consumers' thoughts.
*Definition of net preference: In this survey, both marketers and consumers were asked to rate ads on various media as "very positive," "somewhat positive," "neutral," "somewhat negative," or "very negative." Net preference is the difference between the percentage choosing "very positive" and "somewhat positive" minus the percentage choosing "very negative" and "somewhat negative."
Ad investment aims to win consumer attention, so professional marketers should value and choose channels that better attract consumer attention.
In recent years, consumers have shown increasing attention and favor toward elevator media. Kantar's "2021 China Urban Residents' Ad Attention Study" shows that ads from elevator media, social media, and short-video platforms are more memorable for brand names, with elevator ads leading at 3.29 average ad memories per person.
Elevator media, represented by Focus Media, has become a preferred medium for making consumers remember ads, favored by many traditional and new consumer brands. Besides occupying apartment and office buildings that 400 million mainstream urban consumers pass daily, it is almost the only mainstream ad medium in today's fragmented media environment that consumers cannot avoid, is repeatedly reached, and can form saturation attacks.
**Misconception 3: Investing in traffic is a universal marketing solution.**
**Correct approach: Coordinate efforts across different media touchpoints.**
Some brands over-pursue "result-visible" traffic media but neglect long-term brand building and underinvest. Traffic can quickly achieve sales growth but cannot help brands escape price wars or enter consumers' minds.
To capture minds, compelling brand content and a compatible placement environment are equally important. Brands must continuously shape the "brand memory" in consumers' minds.
The internet creates massive real-time information, with increasingly diverse information channels and touchpoints, overwhelming consumers with limited mental capacity, thus reducing communication efficiency between brands and consumers.
To reverse this, more brands are emphasizing the synergistic effects of marketing activities. Kantar's Context Lab research shows that synergy across media touchpoints is key to success, with 34% of campaign success attributed to synergy. Using certain media alone may leave many consumers indifferent.
Media touchpoint synergy is like investing: you must choose media with high certainty. Using media with high attention and trust helps brands achieve replicable, cumulative, and stackable strategic goals.
CTR Media Intelligence ad monitoring data shows that in October 2021, brand investment in elevator ads increased 22.7% year-on-year. "Weibo, WeChat, Douyin, and Focus Media" have become the core way for many brands to build brand power. The interaction and resonance between brand ignition in daily life scenes (represented by Focus Media) and social media brand seeding (represented by Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin) are the core battlegrounds for brand growth.
**Summary:**
In the turbulent Chinese market, today's disruptors may be disrupted tomorrow. Whether new brands want to establish a foothold or giant brands want to expand, creating momentum and following trends require fast and accurate consumer insights.
Brands that return to basics can avoid short-sighted marketing, adhere to long-termism, focus on consumer perceptions, and effectively coordinate multiple channels. Such brands will gain strong brand assets, truly win consumers' minds, and enjoy sustainable growth.
**Are you "watching" me?**


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