A recent advertisement by COFCO Group on WeChat Moments has gone viral. The state-owned giant COFCO Group announced its entry into WeChat business. This event is likely to excite many business owners looking to transition to the internet, thinking they have found a new marketing method. Let's first look at their campaign: COFCO's e-commerce city is actually a WeChat service account named "COFCO Health Life". According to the service account information, it is officially operated by the Health Food Business Unit of COFCO Group's subsidiary, China Tuhsu, with the account主体 being Zhonghong Bioengineering Co., Ltd. The mall is positioned around "health", mainly selling snacks, instant drinks, health products, grains and oils, flour, and beauty care products. All products are COFCO's own brands, and free shipping is offered for orders over 88 yuan. Many products already have sales records. Unlike previous straightforward WeChat business advertisements, the promotional language with rebate features has caused the ad to spread rapidly in WeChat Moments. This gameplay easily reminds people of "referral" distribution ads. The promotional language mentions, "The earlier you follow, the more downlines you have, and when they spend, you get money." This feels very similar to previous distribution ads, even pyramid schemes. COFCO responded specifically, saying this is a misinterpretation of their marketing method: "Our company and the WeChat accounts we operate have never been involved in direct sales or multi-level distribution. Instead, based on our current marketing promotion methods, we provide cash discounts as rebate rewards to recommenders." Let's set aside whether COFCO's actions are legal or comply with WeChat's rules. Today, let's discuss whether WeChat marketing is reliable for FMCG companies, using the COFCO Health Life event as a case study. First, let's determine why COFCO's campaign won't succeed: Why won't it succeed? The COFCO Health Life campaign focuses on users, relying on the WeChat platform for marketing, and building relationships with users through benefits. Such activities are not as good as they appear:

  1. Users brought in from offline are not attracted by your high-quality products or unique competitiveness, but by short-term rebates. Fan growth relies on spending money; once promotions stop, users will immediately unfollow.
  2. To retain users for secondary conversion, you need high-intensity continuous promotions and stimuli to drive conversion. This means the model requires constant burning of money to keep the activity going. The conversion rate is extremely low, and the input-output ratio will not be proportional.
  3. Even if they use the three-level rebate model, it won't have much effect, because if selling to friends were truly viable, then WeChat businesses selling face masks would have reached trillion-scale levels long ago, and wouldn't still be half-dead. Another major issue is that all activities are based on the WeChat public platform and are highly dependent on it. If WeChat confirms any rule violations, accounts and IPs will be banned, and previous investments will be wiped out immediately. Second, WeChat marketing is currently just a tool to enhance interaction Two years ago, I did a micro-marketing project for a beer company in Shandong. The method used third-party WeChat marketing tools, combining offline and online activities, interacting with users through sharing activities, allowing users who hadn't tried the product to experience it, and retaining some fans who appreciated the product, then turning those fans into the main body for secondary dissemination and consumption. This project was extremely popular during execution, with hundreds of thousands of participants in a day, affecting over a million people. It easily gained tens of thousands of followers a day, and within a few months, attracted 210,000 fans. But after gathering the fans, we found an awkward situation: After the activity, about 30% of fans would drop within a month, and nearly 50% within three months. Of the remaining half, they would unfollow when ads were pushed, and if no activities were held, they wouldn't interact. Less than 5% would interact with the company, and highly active users were less than 2‰. This data was obtained even with strong product strength. Where was the problem? Later, we figured out something: WeChat is a semi-closed social tool based on熟人 relationships. Following you and interacting with you requires recognition of your product and content. If the connection is built on benefits through promotional activities, either you can't retain them, or those you retain are mostly "wool party" (deal seekers). Your fans are not necessarily users who follow you, and users who follow you are not necessarily your fans. Therefore, for such marketing activities, don't place too high hopes on conversion; instead, focus more on the impact the activity itself creates. In the past year, many media have talked about economic downturn, consumption upgrading, and the impact of the internet on offline businesses. Traditional companies feel they should go online to play. Some create a public account and e-commerce to be "online", others change packaging and act cute thinking it's product upgrading. But after actual operation, they find these methods have no effect, yet they don't know how to break through. It's understandable that companies have a mindset of selling things through various means, but times have changed. Still thinking about selling goods through channel innovation is like wearing new shoes on an old path; it doesn't solve the fundamental problem. What fundamental problem? The biggest change in the mobile internet era is the complete transformation of consumption patterns. Future business models will no longer rely on channels, nor will they focus on channel competition. If compared with traditional marketing, the biggest difference is the upgrade of consumption dimensions! Not the upgrade of channels! For traditional companies doing internet transformation, the most taboo thing is to start with strategy and platforms. Remember, the internet changes too fast; by the time your platform is launched, your strategy may already be outdated! Don't consider whether to make an app, recruit e-commerce talents, promote on multiple platforms, or do omnichannel marketing. None of that is needed. At the beginning, focus on one point, make it as sharp as a needle, irreplaceable, and it can penetrate any barrier. That point must first be a sufficiently differentiated product! It must be an irreplaceable experience during the user's consumption process! You just need to figure out why users buy your product and how they can turn the purchase/use/after-sales experience into word-of-mouth. In the past, once a sale was made, the relationship between the company and the user ended. Now, it's just beginning! Previously, marketing was about how to make users more willing to buy your product and how to make it convenient for them to buy. Now, what companies need to do is: solve why users must buy your product, and whether after buying, they are willing to share the product with friends and buy again! Channels will become less and less of a problem in the future. The question is why your channel is a problem? Poor product experience is not the focus; the focus is whether the user's next experience with your product is still that bad! Remember, your product is media, your users are media. Good or bad, it will be amplified countless times. Forget those messy internet marketing tactics; making a good product is the key. So, if companies want to play micro-marketing, first play well with the product. -END- The best learning platform for FMCG distributors in China Dedicated to providing professional, practical, and actionable tutorials for companies and distributors Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry Reply with the red number below to get corresponding content Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base | 001 Excellent article selection | 002 Distributor market operations | 003 Terminal visit management | 004 Sales supervisor skills | 005 Sales improvement techniques | 006 Channel expansion | 007 Managing distributors | 008 Distributor development | 009 Distributor internal operations management | 010 Team management | 011 Efficient distribution techniques | 012 Sales manager's eighteen skills | 013 KA operation methods and strategies | 014 First lesson for new salespeople | 015 Internet, brand | [Long press QR code to follow] Join QQ/WeChat groups: Click: Read original text