Looking back at the past decade, how has the mobile marketing industry grown exponentially? What key events have erupted in the industry? Amid the ebb and flow, which internet platforms, brands, and marketing companies have become the biggest winners? Drawing on the past decade, how should the advertising and marketing industry navigate the next ten years? What industry opportunities should not be missed in the future? To this end, Morketing has launched a major 2024 series: "The Decade."
In the first episode of "The Decade," Jiang Nanchun, a 30-year veteran of China's advertising and marketing industry, joined the livestream for a dialogue with Morketing's founder and CEO, Zeng Qiao.
During the conversation, Jiang recalled the dramatic changes in China's marketing industry over the past decade, noting that Chinese brands have experienced a period of "involution" and "loss," and thus identified three directions worth persisting in for the next decade: "pay attention," "plant trees," and "touch."
He also pointed out that over the past decade or even two to three decades, the common trait among Chinese brands that have crossed cycles and remained in consumers' hearts is their persistence in the "Tao" of brand management, not just the "techniques." It is gratifying that some new consumer brands are also on the path from "techniques" to "Tao."
In addition, Jiang discussed the needs of the new generation of Chinese consumers for brands, key opportunities for brands in the next decade, what kind of AI era we will enter, and the changes and constants of Focus Media over the past 20 years...
For brand professionals, whether pausing to reflect on the past decade in the fast-moving mobile marketing era or betting on future opportunities in the AI era, Jiang offers unique perspectives and insights worth pondering.
The following is compiled from the livestream dialogue, with slight adjustments:
Zeng Qiao Ivy: "The Decade" is a major livestream series by Morketing this year. For the first episode, we invited an old friend with rich industry experience, Mr. Jiang Nanchun, founder and chairman of Focus Media. Focus Media is the first advertising media stock listed on the US stock market in China. First, let's invite Mr. Jiang to introduce himself.
Jiang Nanchun: Before 2003, I ran an advertising agency for 10 years; in 2003, I founded Focus Media, and for the following 20 years, I have been in the media business. Ivy's "The Decade" topic is very interesting. What topics have run through the past decade and what will be hot in the next decade? I think this is a valuable thought.
The Past Decade
The "Loss" and "Precision" of Chinese Brands
Zeng Qiao Ivy: What changes have Chinese brands experienced over the past decade or so?
Jiang Nanchun: More than a decade ago, the "TV era" was a centralized era. Brands like Gree, Midea, Master Kong, Nongfu Spring, and Wahaha from that era are still well-known today and remain the mainstay of China's consumer goods market. This shows that brands built in the TV era have the ability to cross cycles.
The second stage was the "variety show era," with examples like JDB and The Voice of China, Yili and Dad, Where Are We Going?, Ambrosial and Running Man, Mengniu and Super Girl, Head & Shoulders and China's Got Talent... Each year, variety shows drove brand explosions. The variety show era spanned about 7-8 years and produced many catchy brands.
The third stage is the "fragmentation era." The era of centralized media has ended; now we are in a fragmented era of precise distribution and personalized seeding.
It's quite difficult now: from 0 to 1, building a company worth a few hundred million can be achieved through seeding and precise distribution; but if you aim for a company worth several billion by brand standards, you still need centralized media platforms to ignite. This era has also produced some new consumer brands, such as Genki Forest, Miaolan Duo, Jianchun, Deyou wet wipes, and KONGKE pasta.
Zeng Qiao Ivy: Over the past decade, mobile internet has been the core reason changing brand communication. How would you summarize this period with three keywords?
Jiang Nanchun: The first keyword is "traffic is full, brand is weak." In the BrandZ brand ranking, brand value in 2023 fell 19% from 2022—this is the first time I've seen a decline in brand value in over a decade. So the past decade has been a lost decade for brands.
The second keyword is "brand content is increasingly fragmented, and awareness is increasingly shallow." Over the past decade, we've talked about "no content, no marketing." While creating content is right, when everyone does content and seeding, it leads to weeds and poisonous weeds everywhere. When everyone does the same thing and takes the same path, eventually there is no path left.
The third keyword is "touchpoints are increasing, but attention is decreasing." When I joined the advertising industry 30 years ago, discovering consumer touchpoints was very simple. Now we have many ways to reach consumers, but consumers pay less attention to us.
These are the three losses we've experienced in the past decade. For the next decade, I think there are three things worth doing.
First, we need both traffic and "attention." Brands that only focus on traffic won't last long; they'll only get more tired.
Second, we need both seeding and "tree planting." Today everyone talks about seeding. When everyone is seeding, what is your brand's central idea? For example, Mercedes-Benz is "luxury and dignity," BMW is "driving pleasure," Volvo is "safety," Tesla and BYD are "electric," Ferrari is "speed," Jeep is "off-road"... These leave a deep impression. But today we find that the "trees" are gone, and the streets are full of "grass." The core value of brands is hard to articulate.
Third, we need both reach and "touch." Consumers are reached by many media every day, but are we often touched? This is also worth reflecting on.
Zeng Qiao Ivy: Indeed, the fragmentation of mobile internet has impacted brand building. Has it brought any positive empowerment to brands?
Jiang Nanchun: The first point is precision. The precision of internet platforms is one-to-one precision, such as analyzing users based on their historical browsing and purchase data. Offline media has formed scale precision, such as Focus Media's backend, which can match based on property prices, business districts, crowd characteristics, and potential customer concentration.
Ali and Focus Media have a strategic cooperation, allowing brands to target areas with higher label concentration, etc. Whether it's one-to-one precision or scale precision, the granularity differs, but almost all provide digital analysis for brands.
The second point is closed loop, that is, the synergy of brand and performance. Whether on Douyin, Tmall, or JD.com, brands can see the entire process of consumers clicking and purchasing after viewing ads, forming an effective closed loop.
Offline media has also begun to form closed loops. For example, Focus Media has connected with Ali and Douyin, so information like "who saw the ad" and "the brand placed ads in 5,000 buildings, specifically covering what people" flows back to Tmall or Douyin data. Brands can then retarget these regional audiences, forming a closed loop.
For example, seeing KONGKE pasta ads in elevators with the slogan "Only Mom, No Cooking" over a dozen times, then returning home and opening Taobao to see KONGKE recommendations—this is a typical retargeting for the "delicate moms" segment, achieving online-offline data integration and closed loop.
The third point is evaluability and optimization of results. Tmall's "DMP" and AIPL (Awareness-Interest-Purchase-Loyalty) consumer behavior chain clearly show a user's journey from A to I to P to L. Douyin's 5A audience model is similar.
Brands can see differences in click-through rates and conversion rates after ad placement and continuously optimize in future campaigns. Offline is the same; in the past, traditional media couldn't return data, but now metrics like impressions and cost per view can be presented.
With this data, an important point is that brands can compare the "exposed" and "non-exposed" groups, focusing on differences in actions like add-to-cart, follow, favorite, and browse.
Crossing Cycles
Seeing the "Tao" and "Techniques" of Brands
Zeng Qiao Ivy: In rapid changes, which Chinese brands have left a deep impression on you?
Jiang Nanchun: "Nongfu Spring" and similar brands have come through the eras. After decades, consumers don't feel the brand is aging; they still see it as an important part of their consumer life.
In various industries, you can find old brands that have been renewed in the new era, such as Bosideng down jackets and Feihe milk powder. They may not have been leaders in the TV era and experienced brand aging, but now they have become top brands after brand renewal, even the first choice for China's mid-to-high-end consumers.
Zeng Qiao Ivy: Over the past 30 years, without brand aging, what did Nongfu Spring do right?
Jiang Nanchun: Nongfu Spring's communication is very simple. Over the past 30 years, it has only had two slogans: "Nongfu Spring is a bit sweet" and "Nature's porter."
In 2014, Nongfu Spring established a strategic cooperation with Focus Media. The slogan "Nature's porter" has remained unchanged from 2014 to 2024. But from the perspective of the entire advertising market, from TV to variety shows to elevator ads, Nongfu Spring has seized different media platforms at different times.
Zeng Qiao Ivy: Over the past decade, Focus Media has accompanied thousands of brands in their growth. What is the most profound thing you've learned personally?
Jiang Nanchun: We've spent over 100 billion yuan of clients' money. My biggest takeaway is learning "what can truly cross cycles."
In the consumer goods market, the "Tao" doesn't change much, but each stage has some new "techniques." For example, the logic of new consumer rise is: first, create a hit product; second, seize traffic dividends. But the downside is that hit products can be quickly copied, and prices quickly spiral down.
When the traffic cost of competition in a category reaches a certain level, you suddenly find that the business model no longer holds. Brands once thought they had created a category and were confident, but suddenly they fell back into trouble.
Brands that can cross cycles have these characteristics: first, supply chain capability; second, deep distribution; third, seizing mind share—I think for consumer goods, these are the "Tao."
Nongfu Spring has over a dozen water plants and a logistics circle of nearly 800 kilometers, so it controls core costs very well, maintaining strong efficiency and supply chain capability over 30 years of operation. Whether Nongfu Spring or Wahaha, deep distribution ensures they have 5-8 million retail outlets, truly achieving visibility in any city level across the country. Seizing mind share means that when consumers want water, they reflexively think of these brands. The brand has become a standard, a common sense, and an unthinking choice.
So companies with the "Tao" can cross 30 years, while companies with only "techniques" face the dilemma of being easy to become internet-famous but hard to stay famous long-term.
People love to discuss traffic codes, but in my memory, the real traffic dividend period was 2017-2019, when the 24-month survival rate for brands was about 15%; but from 2019 to 2021, the 24-month survival rate was less than 1%.
Traditional Chinese consumer goods bosses were very anxious at some stage, thinking, "They have a set of internet tactics and traffic codes that I don't know, so I'm going to be eliminated."
But in fact, it was these companies that were eliminated. The so-called traditional companies with strong supply chain, deep distribution, and mind share capabilities were not eliminated; they truly crossed cycles. Looking back, the most profitable consumer brands in China today were mostly born 20 years ago.
Zeng Qiao Ivy: In the past two years, some new brands have emerged. Why are they successful?
Jiang Nanchun: For example, Genki Forest, Miaolan Duo, Deyou, etc. Some of these brands are new products from big manufacturers; others are new consumer brands that have "turned regular" because they learned "deep distribution" and "seizing mind share."
After the traffic dividend period, you can see Genki Forest has over 1 million terminals, Miaolan Duo has millions of terminals. Essentially, they have learned the strengths of old consumer brands and shed some traits of new consumer brands.
Chinese Consumers:
Want Face, Substance, and Brains
Zeng Qiao Ivy: How do you think the relationship between brands and consumers has changed over the past decade?
Jiang Nanchun: Ten years ago, most brand ads were "passively accepted." Whether TV, variety shows, pre-roll ads, or Focus Media, they were mainly passively accepted. In the mobile internet era, this interactive relationship has changed from passive to active to dual-driven.
Dual-driven refers to "one Douyin, one Xiaohongshu, one Focus." Douyin and Xiaohongshu users generate content themselves; Focus is a new generation of passive media. The former is active traffic, the latter is passive traffic.
The advantage of active media is seeing consumer comments; the disadvantage is potential loss of control. The advantage of passive media is that users can't swipe away; the disadvantage is no comments—dual-driven advertising combines the strengths of both.
Second, today we have both centralized media and essay-style media. The former is like Focus, watched by 400 million people nationwide, capable of spreading "central idea" content, like "Cheese, choose Miaolan Duo," building unified awareness through a unified voice. The latter is diverse, using different KOLs and KOCs from different angles, scenarios, and content. Together, they form an ecosystem that plants both trees and grass.
Third, from single-point explosion to full-chain resonance. Centralized media, whether CCTV, variety shows, or Focus, implement saturation attacks at a single point.
Now it's full-chain resonance. For example, Focus can solve the A1 stage, making consumers realize "Deyou created the wet wipes category." This stage is "awareness" ; at A2, brands create content and topics on Xiaohongshu to form stronger "identification" ; at A3, Tmall and Douyin let consumers "subscribe" ; at A4, after purchase, brands build private domain and loyalty programs; then there's retention, frequency increase, dormancy, awakening, repurchase... This is a full-chain resonance process.
So I think over the past decade, the relationship between brands and consumers has changed dramatically.
Zeng Qiao Ivy: In the past two years, there has been much discussion about young consumers' consumption downgrade and pursuit of cost-effectiveness. Now the concept of "white label" has resurfaced. What changes have you observed in Chinese consumers?
Jiang Nanchun: First, the daily consumption level of top ultra-high-end and high-end users hasn't changed much; it's still upgrading. Because daily consumption accounts for a small proportion, and when consumers are more cautious in investments like stocks, they are more relaxed in consumption.
Second, the middle-class market. China has formed 300-400 million middle-class consumers. Their characteristic is demanding quality and performance upgrades, but hoping prices don't rise or rise slightly.
Third, low-income groups at the bottom pursue price replacements. There are many types of replacements, including mass-market replacements like Pinduoduo and 1688 platform factory white labels, big-brand quality factories, white labels from export supply chains, and mid-range replacements for high-end brands. In the Chinese market, replacements meet many consumer needs.
Of course, in the market, you replace others, and others replace you—from the perspective of foreign century-old brands, in the end, head brands profit and receive the most consumer recognition. So the term cost-effectiveness should be viewed comprehensively: cost-effectiveness = (tangible value + intangible value) ÷ (tangible cost + intangible cost).
Tangible value and tangible cost will become increasingly close. A company's ultimate profitability depends on how it reduces intangible costs (where trust cost is a large part) and increases the proportion of intangible value (including aesthetics, identity symbol, social attributes, etc.).
In 2019, I discussed a point: China's consumption upgrade wave is shifting from "cost-effectiveness" to "appearance-effectiveness" (beauty-price ratio) and then to "heart-effectiveness" (mood-price ratio, spiritual-price ratio). But today, many Chinese consumers want cost-effectiveness, appearance-effectiveness, and heart-effectiveness all at once—face, substance, and brains. This is a trend worth noting.
Zeng Qiao Ivy: Under such a trend, what can brands do?
Jiang Nanchun: China's manufacturing capability is too strong, and material abundance is unprecedented, so people's demands for spiritual level are increasing. Spiritual pleasure surpasses material function. From this perspective, this is an inevitable leap from material pursuit to spiritual pleasure in Chinese society, especially in big cities. So it raises requirements for brands: provide greater "heart-effectiveness."
Zeng Qiao Ivy: How to provide heart-effectiveness?
Jiang Nanchun: Heart-effectiveness includes brand taste, style, aesthetics, etc., but I think the most important is "health." Consumers now pay great attention to health.
For example, the food industry consumption is "5+" : add calcium, add cheese, add probiotics, add protein, add fiber; "5-" : reduce sugar, reduce fat, reduce calories, reduce oil, reduce salt; "5 no" : zero sucrose, zero coloring, zero flavoring, zero preservatives, zero additives; "5 pursuits" : pursue freshness, naturalness, lightness, greenness, and organic. In the milk tea and tea beverage industries, these health trends are visible.
Zeng Qiao Ivy: What kind of brands will Chinese consumers need in the future?
Jiang Nanchun: There are three paths.
First, the "three-high path" : brands with high quality, high brand value, and high cost-effectiveness simultaneously, like Japan's Uniqlo and Muji. This is a brand type that can cross cycles in the future.
Second, "continued upgrade" : upgrade the brand's unique value, provide non-material value that brings spiritual pleasure, serving consumers through product aesthetics, self-labeling, and social value.
Third, "emotional value" : like IP-based blind boxes, theme parks, short dramas, movies, concerts, etc., which don't provide function but soothe the soul and emotions.
The Next Decade:
4 Growth Opportunities for Brands
Zeng Qiao Ivy: How can brands sustain growth in the next decade? What opportunities are worth attention?
Jiang Nanchun: For brand growth, I think we should look at four directions.
First, the ignition of new products. After long-term intense competition overseas, giants like P&G and Unilever have formed a relatively stable competitive landscape. Everyone operates under a similar methodology, forming a relatively fixed situation.
But China's manufacturing is strong, and competition hasn't fully settled. So, creating new categories and building differentiated value still has many opportunities in the Chinese market. For example, no one imagined that Genki Forest, KONGKE pasta, or Miaolan Duo would grow from their unique categories.
Old brands also need to continuously innovate; otherwise, they'll be quickly eliminated. For example, Head & Shoulders can't just fight dandruff; it also needs to care for the scalp. This is a process of continuous iteration.
In the Chinese market, the ignition of new products is a growth core.
Second, scenario triggering. How to stimulate consumer desire? Professor Christensen said: People don't need products; they need the scenario problems that products solve and the emotional meaning in scenarios.
For example, "Fear of getting heaty, drink Wanglaoji" is a functional need, while staying up late to watch football, overtime, eating barbecue or hotpot outdoors are scenario consumption.
Take a Focus client example: In the past three years, sales of Taiji Huoxiang Zhengqi Oral Liquid increased from 1 billion to 1.7 billion, then to 2.5 billion, and this year it's expected to reach 3.5 billion. What did it do right?
For young people, "Eating hotpot and drinking ice beer, dampness enters the body, dispel heat and dampness, have a bottle" and "High temperature and craving cold, dampness rises, dispel heat and dampness, have a bottle" successfully used familiar life scenarios to expand the brand's consumer base from middle-aged and elderly to young people.
Another example is Juewei Duck Neck. Ten years ago, the slogan "Fresh, fragrant, spicy, and numbing Juewei Duck Neck" is now well-known, but how to stimulate consumption?
In the past year or two, its ads on Focus Media were "Travel without taste, have some Juewei," "Binge-watching without taste, have some Juewei," "Gaming without taste, have some Juewei."
It embeds the lens into the most daily life scenarios, becoming a part of your life. These scenario triggers create incremental consumption when consumer desire isn't strong.
Third, channel assistance. When we place ads online, such as brand ads, data should flow back to Tmall Data Bank to form a complete closed loop; offline ads also need to drive business growth at terminals, not only educating C-end but also leveraging B-end.
For example, in pharmaceutical ads, terminals vary across the country: in Shandong, it's Shuyu Civilian Pharmacy; in Guangzhou, Dasenlin Pharmacy; in Shenzhen, Haiwang Pharmacy; in Changsha, Laobaixing Pharmacy; in Sichuan, Quanxiantang... Each city has its mainstream pharmacies. So when Huoxiang Zhengqi Oral Liquid advertises on Focus, it points to local pharmacies, driving both C-end and B-end.
Fourth, content diffusion. For example, after Bosideng's New York Fashion Week, it needs to distribute event content online. But there's too much content online; not all distribution gets attention—unless the brand has super IPs like Lei Jun or Yu Chengdong. In this case, we edited Bosideng's NYFW content into a one-minute short video and "planted trees" on Focus.
Another example: Budweiser likes to do concerts and electronic music festivals, but the number of people actually attending is limited. So we need to use IPs like celebrities and music to expand content influence and let more people see the brand. Good content diffusion deepens consumers' understanding of brand momentum and drives business growth.
Zeng Qiao Ivy: In the future, how can AI help brands at various levels?
Jiang Nanchun: First, there will be more massive content, as human content creation is costly; second, rapid generation capabilities, including TVC posters, images, slogans, etc.; third, AI can help us gain consumer insights. Many answers from ChatGPT represent public and broad-spectrum thoughts. AI can also assist in ad placement evaluation and optimization, allowing brands to see data feedback in real-time, optimize, and re-place promptly.
Crossing Cycles,
Focus Media's Next Decade: Downward, Outward, and AI
Zeng Qiao Ivy: How does Focus Media do digital marketing transformation for offline consumers?
Jiang Nanchun: If it's an offline business with many outlets, we use apartment and office buildings—the core living spaces of consumers—to ignite communication, as offline transactions often occur near these terminals. If outlets are few, like only in FamilyMart, we precisely drive traffic within one kilometer around FamilyMart to ensure target audience reach.
If it's an online business, we can also help brands precisely identify target audiences. By opening Tmall Data Bank, analyzing buyer label data, and inputting it into Ali's Tiangong system, we can know which apartment and office buildings have the highest potential customer concentration. Moreover, these ad performance data can flow back to Tmall data daily, forming further brand-performance synergy.
Our clients have discovered many interesting channel tactics, linking terminals to form closed loops. For example, Yuexianhuo fresh milk: upward to Tmall, JD, Douyin; downward to FamilyMart, RT-Mart, and Snack Busy, exchanging traffic and activities with these channels. Because the brand drives traffic to terminals, these channels give the brand more shelf space and more first recommendations, and business naturally rises.
Zeng Qiao Ivy: What do you think is the core thing that allows Focus to cross cycles?
Jiang Nanchun: To sum up in one sentence: Embrace change, bet on the unchanged.
When Focus was founded in 2003, people thought it was a "niche." At that time, outdoor media mainly included bus shelters, buses, airports, high-speed rail, etc. Elevator advertising was a form that didn't exist globally.
With an embracing-change mindset, we created Focus Media—I believe urbanization would be the main theme of Chinese social change. Building buildings requires elevators, and elevators are infrastructure that influences the mainstream urban population.
At the time, people didn't believe in this concept, but after 20 years, the advantages of elevator ads have become apparent. In enclosed elevator spaces, people are more likely to remember ads than in open spaces, so we've been able to cross cycles.
Over these 20 years, we've remained unchanged: we didn't transform into bus shelters, buses, or other outdoor ads, nor did we move to mobile apps. We've stuck to enclosed advertising scenarios like elevator posters, office building posters, mall ads, and cinema ads.
But we've also changed: from the PC era to the mobile internet era, from big data to AI, in every trend, we've applied advanced technology to Focus's core business. Today, our ads include real-time internet delivery, precise distribution, data feedback, evaluation, and retargeting...
That is, we embrace the benefits of mobile internet and digitalization while persisting in high-frequency presence on the daily paths of 400 million people, forming very effective communication in enclosed spaces. The unchanged helps us cross cycles; the changes of the times give us stronger competitiveness.
20 years ago, elevator ads were just an innovative idea; by around 2021, Focus Media not only became mainstream but also the world's largest outdoor media company by market value. On one hand, this is because China's market is vast; on the other, because we created a new advertising category and achieved embracing change and betting on the unchanged.
Zeng Qiao Ivy: What will be Focus Media's focus in the next decade?
Jiang Nanchun: Downward, outward, and AI.
First, downward. In the past, Focus, as a new media form, was deployed in major cities. Now it has become mainstream, covering over 400 million people, with 900,000+ screens and 1.5 million+ elevator posters (excluding stakes).
Next, we hope to continue downward, increasing coverage in lower-tier markets, as these markets are also undergoing urbanization. Within a few years, we hope to expand to 500-1,000 cities, growing from 400 million daily active users to 700 million, which will cover the mainstream consumer population in cities.
Second, outward. Over the past five years, we've established Focus networks in Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and India. Now we're building networks in Japan and the Middle East.
New energy vehicles, 3C products, etc., are going global. Chinese brands need a vast overseas presence to achieve full globalization. So we want to continue improving overseas networks along the Belt and Road route, helping going-global companies build brand awareness locally.
Third, AI. First, AI can do more precise and efficient building and building population analysis; second, AI can conduct small-scale content testing to find more suitable content; third, AI can link social feedback, using product searches on Xiaohongshu, Baidu, WeChat, Douyin, etc., within a week or two to judge whether placement needs optimization; fourth, AI integrates with in-site data, optimizing front-end ad placement frequency, breadth, and content iteration, and automatically learning to generate a placement model; finally, AI can pre-estimate changes in brand awareness and social index before placement.