When smartphone shipments no longer grow, and the total online time increasingly approaches its ceiling, traffic anxiety spreads among internet giants, and former online kings are all extending their tentacles offline, as evidenced by the phenomena above. Because in a sense, compared with online traffic, the scale and imagination of offline traffic determine whether giants can get a ticket to the second half of the internet. Wei Xi summarizes several important trends in 2019 offline marketing—

| Trend 1: Product as Media Product as media is a very important trend. The so-called product as media means turning a normal product into such a medium. Why can a product become media? The logic behind it is that the business model of media works because it occupies our time and attention, but we often overlook the reality that the products we encounter daily also occupy our time and attention. Thus, NetEase Cloud Music collaborated with Nongfu Spring. At that point, Nongfu Spring's product became a medium. Each bottle of Nongfu Spring takes at least one minute for a consumer to finish, meaning that within that minute, the NetEase Cloud Music on the bottle will occupy the consumer's attention. Countless bottles of Nongfu Spring constitute a media group of considerable scale. Product as media typically has two monetization methods— The first method is to turn the product into media to promote certain characteristics of the product itself, thereby generating specific media value. For example, a certain brand of juice prints "Listen to Mom, Drink Juice" on the packaging. Coca-Cola's lyric bottles and nickname bottles are also important representatives of this trend. These "product media" undoubtedly gain sufficient exposure for free, allowing consumers to deepen their impression of the brand through this method. Why do many clothing brands like Uniqlo and Muji invest great effort in designing their shopping bags? Because they deeply understand that "product is media"—a bag itself will serve as a mobile medium for multiple exposures, which is a crucial moment for shaping brand image. Three Squirrels, a snack brand that has risen in recent years, also knows this well—its packaging reveals brand tone from inside to outside, from the express outer packaging to the inner flyer, fully operating the product as media. The second method is to promote products with consistent or complementary brand tone through cooperation or sale, such as the collaboration between NetEase Cloud Music and Nongfu Spring, a typical cross-border case. Through Nongfu Spring, NetEase Cloud Music gains exposure, and through NetEase Cloud Music, Nongfu Spring enhances its brand tone. Another example is the cooperation between Pepsi and QQ. Pepsi prints an AR icon on cans; scanning it with QQ's AR feature leads to a World Cup interactive page co-created by Pepsi and QQ. This is another case of product as media.

| Trend 2: Digitization of Offline Traffic We usually think offline traffic is called offline traffic because it cannot be digitized. However, with technological progress and changes in business models, the digitization of offline traffic has become an important trend, and it is also a key way to improve offline marketing efficiency. Take Hema Fresh as an example. As an offline fresh food new retail enterprise, Hema Fresh requires all customers to pay and order through its APP, aiming to digitize every transaction. Combined with Alipay-related data, Hema Fresh can conduct detailed user profiling and behavior analysis of its customers, which traditional retailers find hard to achieve. Another example comes from the catering industry. Koubei provides digital solutions for offline business to many catering enterprises. For instance, Jin Ding Xuan launched mobile ordering, with over 90% of customers ordering via mobile. The number of waitstaff per store decreased from 11 to 7, saving 240,000 yuan in labor costs annually, and paper menu costs save 350,000 yuan per year. Users can order before arriving at the restaurant, reducing queuing and effectively increasing table turnover rate. More importantly, after digitization, it can accurately identify user preferences for dishes, track repeat customers, and conduct online re-marketing. Zhang Yong pointed out at the "New Net Merchant Summit": "An important sign of moving towards new retail is to achieve consumer identification, reachability, insight, and service. Every enterprise must become a data company to move towards new retail." Zhang Yong's words are also the goal pursued by many offline traffic owners. There is also the case of Guazi Used Car Direct Sales Network. Recently, they opened offline retail stores; for example, their Beijing flagship store has over a thousand cars. How to count how many times each car is viewed by customers? Guazi created a smart key cabinet. To show a car, a salesperson must first apply for a work order in the APP, which guides them to cabinet 12 to retrieve the key, and return it after viewing. Thus, the system clearly records which salesperson viewed each car and how many times daily. This digitization of offline data also helps Guazi better grasp supply-demand relationships and price used cars more accurately. Let's look at another hot case—the traffic-ization and digitization of elevator advertising. Xinchao Media, as an elevator media for middle-class communities, has performed exceptionally well in digitizing offline scenarios. Traditional elevator advertising has high costs, low efficiency, and lacks flexibility. To address these pain points, Xinchao Media developed the Bee Intelligent Delivery System (BITS), supporting programmatic advertising. Advertisers can flexibly use fixed pricing or bidding for ad purchases, changing the previous single sales method for elevator ads. Xinchao Media developed "Xiaoqu Tong," an advertising product that spans online and offline. Simply put, before offline placement, advertisers can use online data to target users, thereby improving offline delivery efficiency. After offline placement, using LBS data and partner data, Xiaoqu Tong can achieve online secondary coverage, creating a three-dimensional impression on target consumers.

| Trend 3: Scenario and Efficiency Become Key to Offline Marketing Although offline traffic is extremely abundant, effective utilization is not easy because offline traffic is highly fragmented, difficult to manage, and has poor scale effects, leading to vastly different utilization efficiencies. Many chain business locations have massive offline foot traffic but low utilization efficiency, which industry insiders call "sitting on a gold mine eating steamed buns." So how to effectively utilize offline traffic? The answer is scenario and efficiency. Why did the wave of O2O in 2014 recede so quickly? One important reason is ignoring the key factor of efficiency. For example, APP-based door-to-door car washing seems simple and convenient, but in reality, it requires at least two people carrying various professional equipment and enough water to reach the consumer's parking location. In one hour, two people can wash at most two cars, which is far less efficient than a fixed car wash shop. When the price increase consumers are willing to pay is lower than the efficiency decrease, the business cannot sustain. You walk into a mall, connect to the mall WiFi, and the WiFi connection page gives you a coupon for Haidilao in the mall and informs you of a 50% discount at Uniqlo on the third floor. Such scenario marketing is highly efficient. You buy a movie ticket on WeChat's Maoyan mini-program, and within 10 minutes after watching the movie, you receive a push notification inviting you to write a review. This scenario is very precise. Mini KTV, besides replacing the functional part of traditional KTV, can also automatically record, store, disseminate, and share through the backend, turning the KTV from a machine into a social tool, meeting another social need for some people. This is scenario re-creation. New retail emphasizes "people, goods, and scenes." One important meaning of "scene" here is scenario. When a suitable scenario is found for goods and people, consumption becomes easier. Scenarios that are closer to people and appear more frequently naturally become marketing focus points, such as the elevator scenario everyone experiences. Xinchao Media, focusing on middle-class community elevators, occupies high-frequency life consumption scenarios. When a family goes out, the first thing they pass is the elevator screen. At this time, when family-consumption-oriented ads appear, they naturally trigger discussion and fermentation among family members. Compared with crowded, serious business elevators where effective communication is difficult, ads are more relaxed and effective. Moreover, Xinchao Media's vertical screens better meet the requirements of the social media era. Watching vertical videos on Douyin on your phone and vertical ads in the elevator have low switching costs and natural connection, making Xinchao Media favored by family-consumption advertisers.

| Trend 4: Quality Offline Traffic Becomes a Scarce Resource As online traffic becomes increasingly saturated, traffic competition shifts offline. Since 2017, smartphone shipments in China have stopped growing, and netizens' online time is gradually approaching the ceiling. "National total online time" has become a stock concept. In this situation, advertisers continuing to chase the online market results in soaring online traffic prices, reaching an unbearable stage. Against this backdrop, both giants and startups choosing offline becomes a natural and logical move. In July 2018, Alibaba's 15 billion yuan investment in Focus Media was the most obvious signal. Alibaba, as a giant ship, must rely on offline traffic to maintain high-speed navigation. Similarly, in November 2018, another giant Baidu invested in Focus Media's competitor Xinchao Media. Compared with Focus Media, you may be less familiar with Xinchao Media, but this dark horse in elevator advertising has rapidly grown into a competitor Focus Media cannot ignore. Let's look at the underlying logic behind its rise. "In China, all businesses are worth redoing." The endgame of elevator media is far from over: Xinchao Media found a new blue ocean in the context of consumption upgrade—middle-class community elevators. According to statistics, the national market has 5 million elevators, and Focus Media covers only 10% of them, leaving a huge market for Xinchao Media. Focus Media occupies 97% of commercial office buildings, with its advantage in commercial office buildings, while residential elevators become a blue ocean—currently, Xinchao Media has covered 700,000 elevators in 100 cities nationwide, becoming the leader in this field. Although compared with commercial office buildings, residential elevators lack the former's high mobility and wide coverage, they cover a high-frequency consumer group—family consumption. For many families, a considerable proportion of consumption demand is driven by the elderly, children, and housewives. They are the main force and decision-makers for daily household consumption, and often play a decisive role in important family purchases. These groups are not covered by office building elevator ads. An important characteristic of offline traffic is fragmentation, which leads to low utilization efficiency. Therefore, media with scale effects like Focus Media and Xinchao Media are favored by capital. The above are several important trends in 2019 offline marketing summarized by Wei Xi. In the context of increasingly saturated online traffic, online giants will extend more tentacles offline driven by growth. This trend will only strengthen amid increasingly fierce competition. Let's wait and see the 2019 offline drama.

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