Source | Sales and Market
Phenomenon: Brand Commoditization and the Awkward "Consumer Insight"
With the continuous development of the economy and society, the constant replacement of consumer generations, and the disruptive changes brought by the internet and social media, the identity cognition of "target groups" in marketing theory has undergone multiple conceptual leaps: from "customers" and "buyers" in the product era, to "consumers" in the brand era, and then to "users" in the internet era... In corporate marketing practice, familiar phrases such as "enhancing user experience" (Xiaomi) and "scenario-defining products" (Haier) have emerged endlessly. However, against the backdrop of global market contraction, many industries are trapped in severe market involution and product homogenization. Many companies are unwilling to take risks on innovation and lack the resources to cultivate consumers. Even some leading brands have "safely" returned to listing product functions in their product and communication concepts. Homogenization, to some extent, has become a suitable strategy in the "prisoner's dilemma." "Strategy failure," "creativity is dead"... Product marketing seems to be gradually falling into a vicious cycle of "stereotyped insight—homogenized expression—inefficient reach." Facing this brand commoditization dilemma, if we trace back to the identity cognition of "target groups," we find that existing concepts such as "customer," "buyer," "consumer," and "user" are only one-dimensional slices of consumption relationships. As profit-oriented organizations, companies have "objectified" individuals—who are originally three-dimensional, rich, and even complex social beings—into objects of transaction. From the corporate perspective, "people" are merely the final link in commercial monetization. This leads to two situations: first, commercial creative activities based on so-called "consumers" or "users" inevitably degenerate into zero-sum games of traffic grabbing and quick harvesting; second, "consumer insight," which should be the starting point and core of marketing, becomes thin, hollow, and even dispensable. In marketing practice, it is common to see the awkward phenomenon of "having the child (product) first and then looking for the mother (consumer)," where product concepts and communication concepts are disconnected.
Dilemma: The Rigidity and Confusion of the STP Paradigm in the New Marketing Era
Thanks to the pioneering contributions of American marketing scientist Wendell Smith's market segmentation theory in the mid-1950s, the positioning theory of famous American marketing experts Al Ries and Jack Trout in the 1970s, and the systematic construction by Philip Kotler, the "father of modern marketing," in his book Marketing Management, the STP analysis framework has become the cornerstone methodology of modern marketing.
This theory advocates that companies identify differences among consumer groups through market segmentation, select target markets, focus resources on positioning, shape unique brand images, and formulate competitive strategies.
However, in the current era of accelerated consumption behavior iteration and technological changes reshaping the business ecosystem, the inherent flaws of the classic STP analysis framework are becoming increasingly prominent, requiring systematic reflection from both theoretical and practical perspectives.
First, STP theory is a static cognitive model derived from the traditional market environment. It assumes that the market consists of stable, predictable consumer groups, segmented by explicit variables such as age, gender, and income. This static cognitive model is difficult to adapt to the current volatile, high-frequency, and personalized market demands.
Second, STP theory ignores the deep motivations behind consumer behavior. Its demographic clustering simplifies consumers into groups with homogeneous needs, failing to explore the psychological mechanisms such as emotional drivers and value identification behind purchase decisions. However, with the rise of the experience economy, social media, and interest-based e-commerce, purchase behavior often stems from the pursuit of implicit values such as emotional satisfaction, identity recognition, and social currency.
Third, STP theory lacks attention to the "person-product" interaction scenarios in the digital economy society. Traditional theory views the market as an abstract collection detached from time and space, ignoring that consumption decisions are highly dependent on numerous scenario variables (such as time, space, social relationships) that constitute the consumption context. More importantly, the scenario revolution brought by mobile internet and artificial intelligence technologies has integrated product display, social interaction, and consumption, completely overturning the logic of market analysis and positioning based on demographics, behavior, geography, and psychology.
From a practical perspective, in recent years, international brands like Coca-Cola have shown sluggish marketing strategies and severe product aging, displaying a "fatigue" in the Chinese market. Although there are many internal and external factors leading to the decline of foreign companies, their adherence to traditional marketing models and missing out on new trends like the scenario revolution is undoubtedly a major methodological failure. This contrasts sharply with the strong rise of Chinese new brands like Perfect Diary, Genki Forest, and Luckin Coffee.
"Life-oriented" (Seikatsusha): The Identity Reconstruction of "People" in Consumer Society
"Life-oriented" is not a completely new concept.
At the philosophical level, Marx revealed in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 that humans are not abstract beings but concrete, living "life-oriented" individuals; Engels' classic work The Condition of the Working Class in England further clarified that production and consumption, as core practices of social life, jointly shape human development. "People-centered," as a basic principle of Marxism and practical experience of socialism with Chinese characteristics, embodies the concept of "life-oriented" from a development perspective, showing high respect for human subjectivity and profound insight into social development trends.
At the economic and social level, the cognition of "life-oriented" originates from the "Seikatsusha Movement" in Japan's social transformation. This movement advocated a new consumption concept and lifestyle, emphasizing the pursuit of life quality in the consumption process, shifting the market perspective from commodity supply to human needs. It later led Japan's retail industry to take the lead in completing the cognitive leap from "consumer" to "buyer" to "life-oriented," prompting retail to shift from shelf sales to life solution provision. It should be said that Japanese corporate practice has also verified the market practicality and operability of "life-oriented insight."
As shown in Table 1, unlike the "consumer" perspective, the marketing logic of "life-oriented" shifts from a transaction-oriented approach centered on enterprises to a life panorama centered on people. In marketing practice, it no longer one-sidedly focuses on consumer shopping behavior and sales conversion, but dynamically observes the individual values, behavioral trajectories, and evolution of "people" (or "life-oriented"), emphasizing emotions and values, and highlighting interaction and resonance.
The development of the digital society has also transformed consumers from passive product recipients into active constructors of life meaning. Currently, the flourishing of social media and content-sharing platforms such as WeChat, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and Bilibili precisely indicates that people's consumption behavior has gradually entered the stage of "lifestyle narrative." Especially in the process of seeking belonging and self-actualization in virtual spaces like social media, goods and services have become symbolic carriers for constructing life scripts.
The shift in the social role of "people" and its manifestation in consumption relationships urgently require companies to reconstruct their identity cognition of "target groups." Coupled with severe market environment challenges, Chinese enterprises urgently need to transcend the transactional dimension with "consumers" and instead deeply understand and empathize with the dynamic needs, emotional conflicts, and specific behaviors of "life-oriented" individuals in specific time and space, thereby promoting the brand's role from "function provider" to "co-creator of life solutions."
"Life-oriented Insight": A Three-Dimensional Framework of "Scenario-Emotion-Behavior"
Based on the classic framework for depicting complex human behavior—the "condition-stimulus-response" model—I believe the core of "life-oriented insight" lies in understanding people's needs, emotions, and behaviors in different life scenarios. The "condition-stimulus-response" model reveals that individual behavior arises from environmental stimuli under specific conditions, which then trigger corresponding behavioral responses.
Here, "condition" refers to the background context in which behavior occurs (such as scenario and psychological state), "stimulus" refers to the specific triggers that elicit behavior (such as needs, conflicts, unmet gaps), and "response" refers to the behavioral output (including consumption and non-consumption behaviors) generated by the individual in response to the stimulus. Accordingly, we can subdivide "life-oriented insight" into three dimensions: life scenarios, emotional conflicts, and non-consumption behaviors.
First, the life scenario dimension. Life scenarios depict the specific spatiotemporal contexts in which people's needs are triggered. Canadian marketing expert Russell W. Belk's situational theory points out that consumption situations consist of five core elements: physical environment, social environment, time, task, and antecedent state.
For example, the difference between a working mother's need for meal management in a refrigerator during overtime scenarios and her need for quick-cook recipe recommendations during parent-child time is the result of the combined effects of physical environment (office/home), time pressure (urgent/relaxed), and task goals (efficiency/companionship).
Second, the emotional conflict dimension. Emotional conflict points to the psychological tension individuals experience when needs are unmet. American psychologist Edward Tory Higgins' self-discrepancy theory states that when there is a gap between the "actual self" and the "ideal self" or "ought self," individuals experience negative emotions such as anxiety and frustration, which in turn generate motivation to change the status quo.
For example, a working mother may feel guilt for not being able to balance efficient work and quality companionship. A smart refrigerator's efficient meal preparation system not only solves the physical meal management problem but also alleviates her anxiety about missing companionship at the emotional level.
Third, the non-consumption behavior dimension. Non-consumption behaviors provide alternative solutions when users have not yet come into contact with a product. That is, when facing life pain points or unmet needs, users often solve problems themselves through "resource bricolage" or "adaptive behaviors." This process is actually the real life behavior of "life-oriented" individuals as social beings. These behaviors reveal the deep needs of "life-oriented" individuals and can provide clues for product concept innovation.
Case Analysis
Case 1: Maternal-Infant Refrigerator—Scenario Construction and Emotional Connection
Taking the product communication concept of a certain brand's maternal-infant refrigerator that sells well on e-commerce platforms as an example, we can explore the value of scenario construction and emotional connection from the "life-oriented" perspective for product marketing innovation.
From the official website details page of this maternal-infant refrigerator, its main functions are: refrigerated dry-wet separate storage, frozen intelligent constant temperature; three temperature zones for precious items, maternal-infant, and 0°C, providing one-stop exclusive health protection for mothers and infants; EPP ultra-clean system, combining five effects: sterilization, deodorization, virus removal, pesticide residue reduction, and mold prevention.
This shows that at the product function level, the support points of this maternal-infant refrigerator are mainly temperature control, sterilization, and purification technology modules. Obviously, in the refrigerator industry, which has reached a mature stage in the product life cycle, technologies like temperature control and sterilization are not "breakthrough frontier technologies" as claimed by the manufacturer. For most manufacturers, apart from slight performance differences, the other functions of this maternal-infant refrigerator are basically standard configurations.
So, why has this maternal-infant refrigerator become a hot seller? Why has it become a category keyword on e-commerce platforms?
From a technical perspective, the maternal-infant refrigerator is not a new product, let alone innovative. Even many senior technical developers in the refrigerator industry may scoff at it: "We had such products long ago!" However, they should reflect on this: Why have similar technologies or functional configurations not led to the creation of new product concepts with a more lifestyle-oriented approach? Why, when product concepts are already highly homogenized, do they continue to crowd into competing on performance parameters?
As Peter Drucker, the "father of modern management," emphasized in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, innovation is not just technological breakthroughs but also the reintegration of market needs, organizational models, and social value.
Therefore, technical concepts are by no means equivalent to product concepts, nor can they replace product communication concepts. Technical concepts are product solutions; product concepts include insight into user needs; product communication concepts need to consider effective interaction between the product and the target group.
Specifically, the maternal-infant refrigerator as a product communication concept, with the main line of "parenting stage—scenario needs—functional response—emotional satisfaction," achieves scenario construction and emotional connection between the product and "life-oriented" individuals. Its innovative thinking offers at least three insights for the industry:
First, it depicts vivid life scenes, such as a mother storing breast milk during lactation (0-4°C golden preservation), and a new father's task of "sterilizing breast pump parts";
Second, it strengthens distinct identity recognition, as the "maternal-infant" concept awakens the self-identity of loving parents and triggers emotional resonance in young families;
Third, it aligns with daily purchasing behavior, as life-oriented language is more in line with online shopping keyword search habits than technical jargon.
Case 2: LABUBU—Identity Recognition and Meaning Co-creation
LABUBU, which has recently become popular from Pop Mart, is also a classic example of "life-oriented" marketing. According to financial media reports, the hidden edition of the LABUBU series, with its limited production and random acquisition mechanism, has become a collector's focus in the trendy toy circle.
As of mid-June 2025, the average second-hand transaction price of the LABUBU 3.0 hidden edition "True Self" has reached 4,621 yuan, a surge of over 45 times from the original price of 99 yuan. Some rare hidden editions have even exceeded 10,000 yuan in the second-hand market, fully demonstrating their astonishing collection value and market heat.
Although "symbolic consumption" itself is controversial, it indeed reflects the consumption changes and deep psychological needs of today's society.
From a social perspective, traditional social relationships and identity definitions are gradually weakening. Especially the atomized Generation Z urgently needs new identity labels and sources of belonging. Identity recognition provides "life-oriented" individuals with clear social positioning, and meaning co-creation further deepens the psychological connotation of consumption. In today's world of abundant material products, mere product functions cannot satisfy the public's consumption needs; people crave spiritual meaning in consumption.
The popularity of LABUBU is essentially Pop Mart's successful activation of "life-oriented" individuals' desire for "symbolic consumption" based on identity recognition and meaning co-creation, using "life-oriented" marketing logic.
- First, from a product design perspective, LABUBU's "no fixed persona" provides space for "life-oriented" individuals' self-narration. For example, owning a LABUBU hidden edition earns the label "lucky dog" and becomes a "trendy toy elite"; modifying LABUBU signals the identity of a "socially anxious office worker."
- Second, from a marketing communication perspective, Pop Mart hands over the initiative to "life-oriented" individuals, forming a closed loop of "user-generated content—brand amplification" through the "official solicitation—secondary creation inclusion" mechanism.
- Third, from a consumption mechanism perspective, the blind box model turns purchasing behavior into an emotional game, making limited editions carriers of life rituals. Thus, consumption is no longer based solely on the material attributes of goods, but through the consumption and re-creation of symbols with cultural connotations, "life-oriented" individuals find connections with others and their own value in consumption, and the brand forms a closer emotional bond with "life-oriented" individuals.
French contemporary sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's cultural capital theory points out that cultural capital, as a social resource, can achieve distinction and separation among social groups through symbolic systems. In "life-oriented" marketing, identity recognition and meaning co-creation jointly shape the core of "symbolic consumption," making consumers no longer passive recipients but active participants and creators.
Brands thereby break through the boundaries of traditional material attributes and achieve value symbiosis with consumers. This is the key to LABUBU's popularity and the success of "life-oriented" marketing.
From Functional Selling to Meaning Co-creation
In the new marketing ecosystem characterized by technological equalization, information flattening, and deep social media penetration, brands must shift their business philosophy from consumer transactions to "life-oriented" symbiosis to bridge the gap from functional selling to meaning co-creation and achieve positive interaction with the market.
By starting from the three dimensions of life scenarios, emotional conflicts, and non-consumption behaviors, constructing a concise and practical "life-oriented insight" framework can provide a new product marketing innovation methodology for companies trapped in product homogenization. More importantly, the "life-oriented" marketing paradigm can redefine the relationship between enterprises and society, achieving a leap from transaction logic to symbiosis logic.
From the "life-oriented" perspective, a company's business vision should be to make its products the "life infrastructure" for "life-oriented" individuals in society. Products are no longer commercial entities outside life but become organic components of the meaningful world of "life-oriented" individuals; product marketing is no longer simply selling functions to consumers but co-creating meaning with "life-oriented" individuals about lifestyle itself, reaching a value consensus.
Ultimately, the relationship between enterprises and society will transcend mere transactions and elevate to a symbiotic relationship of jointly creating a better life.