The advertising and marketing industry, which began in the industrial era, has traversed 150 years and is about to enter its second half, with the present being a transitional period. Everyone is anxious, exploring, and pondering what to do next and where the future lies.

A few days ago, CEIBS held a CMO forum on 'Brand Growth Drivers,' inviting CEOs and CMOs from Alibaba, Nike, Coca-Cola, Accenture, and many other companies to discuss brand growth. Though not grandly publicized, the forum featured speakers including CEIBS professors, top international brand CMOs, and CEOs from Accenture and GroupM. Besides the speakers, over 200 brand marketing leaders were seated in the audience.

Previously, I mentioned a metaphor to friends: the current marketing industry is like the Hundred Schools of Thought in the Warring States period—many voices but no consensus. Yangzi wept at the crossroads, Mozi wept at the dyed silk; where do the crossroads lead, and how to dye the silk? No one knows.

This forum at CEIBS, which lasted over six hours without a break, resembled the Jixia Academy of Qi in ancient times, where scholars debated what is right and wrong, how to make marketing great again, and how to sustain brand growth. Many viewpoints inspired me and resonated with me. Here are my reflections:

The Lighthouse of the Past

Over the past 100-plus years, how did the advertising and marketing industry evolve? We won't do a historical review but will briefly discuss two most important theories: positioning thinking and big creative thinking. These theories have created countless legendary brands, birthed many legendary creatives, and produced many great works—there is no doubt about that.

Positioning Thinking

Positioning, a product of the industrial era, was once glorious. The more mature the economic environment, the more outdated positioning theory becomes. Positioning theory suits high-growth economies; when filling market gaps, brands need to capture mindshare, and positioning works wonders.

It was first widely applied in Europe and America, then introduced to China, guiding many brands that rose after the reform and opening-up. Facing China's high-growth market, vast market gaps, highly concentrated media, and information-lagging masses, positioning seemed tailor-made for China.

A positioning plus CCTV advertising, and filling offline channels, could create a local Chinese brand, including 'brands' like Naobaijin and Hongmao Herbal Wine.

Big Creative Thinking

When David Ogilvy, William Bernbach, and other advertising masters gathered on Madison Avenue, big creative thinking began its glorious journey. Nike's 'Just Do It,' Apple's 1984, Beetle's 'Think Small'—almost every major brand has a memorable big creative. Many legendary admen still lend their names to major advertising agencies today.

So why have these two great theories become less effective now? Positioning applies to market dividend periods; invent a new concept, need, or positioning, and people will flock. But now the market is saturated, concepts are occupied, and in recent years even pseudo-needs have emerged. So the situation is that the world has grown up and no longer needs positioning.

The reason big creative was great is that media was concentrated enough and people's information load was small enough, making big creative stand out. In the last five or even ten years, has there been a classic case of a big creative building a brand? I can't recall one. It's not that today's creatives lack skill, but that people are bombarded with information daily and have become numb to big news, big events, and big creative—long ago numb.

Clients weep at crossroads, agencies weep at dyed silk; where does the future lead? No one knows.

Chaotic Present: Problems Matter More Than Answers

The past temple is collapsing, and the new lighthouse is not yet erected. In this transition, everyone is confused, anxious, trying, and exploring, each with their own rationale, seemingly convinced their methodology will dominate the future. But before solutions, can we first understand the problems? What are the core issues facing the industry now?

First, there's a surface chaos: the industry's organizational structure is disrupted. Previously, brands would hire a 4A agency as their core agency, which would do overall brand planning and then coordinate with other vendors, forming a good collaboration.

But now, who is the agency is a problem; it seems everyone wants to be the agency. 4A agencies, domestic creative hot shops, content platforms, MCNs, production companies, KOLs, artists... the list is long. When I was on the client side, the 'agencies' I dealt with were all sorts.

Then there's the business problem: marketing serving business is the essence, but now there's marketing with unclear objectives, and a certain opposition between business and brand in debates. Some, under the guise of serving clients' business, blatantly produce bad ads. Others, with the sentiment of helping clients build brands, openly pursue personal art. I think both are problematic; everything should serve business, with purpose at the core.

I forgot where I saw statistics: marketing executives hold only about 1% of board seats in 100 companies. Marketing is drifting away from business. In the industrial era, marketing was mass sales, the main driver of business growth. Now it seems less effective, and whether marketing can drive brand growth becomes a question. So how marketing drives business growth is the core issue marketers face. How to bring marketing back to the core of business and make it great again?

The Future Marketing Operating System

First, we must see a trend: the world is becoming more complex, but not chaotic. Today's world is one where people are tamed by internet big data, with desires and loneliness fragmented into pieces. In such a decentralized society, with collectivism and individual heroism fading, how can brands sustain growth?

At the Growth Drivers forum, Alibaba systematically presented Unimarketing. Proposed by Alibaba CMO Zhang Wuji, Unimarketing, as a marketing component of Alibaba's business operating system, aims to become the next-generation marketing operating system. I left two months after Zhang Wuji became CMO, so I had only heard of Unimarketing but didn't fully understand it.

What is Unimarketing?

It relies on Alibaba's powerful database and business operating system to conduct comprehensive data insights, full-scenario touchpoints, omnichannel coverage, and full-funnel traffic. Starting from insights to discover brand growth opportunities, find growth paths, including incubating new products, online launches, online sales, fan operations, and ultimately growing into a brand.

In other words, from what to do to how to do it, and how to sustain growth after launch, a marketing system from zero to infinity can be realized on Alibaba.

Brand growth can be simply split into two things: discovering growth opportunities and finding growth paths, then taking action.

Growth Opportunities

Previously, insights were based on gut feelings or small-scale surveys. But now it's an era of decentralization and de-massification; no one's personal feelings are universal, and everyone lives in a cognitive cocoon.

In this situation, only big data has true insight capability—first, it's large, and second, it's real. Alibaba's database may be the most valuable in the world.

Alibaba has big data on over 600 million people, called 'same-source panoramic' data in Unimarketing—all data under one ID, including demographics, consumption habits, lifestyle preferences, and social relationships. Who you are, what you consume, what you collect, your interests, which KOLs you follow—all are integrated for comprehensive analysis.

Alibaba Unimarketing can use the Data Bank to analyze brand-specific problems with real big data, discovering where to grow and where growth opportunities lie. Is it a wrong scenario, wrong path, or channel mismatch? The answer comes from big data.

Growth Paths

After data insights and diagnosis reveal problems and growth opportunities, the next step is how to achieve growth—the growth path.

Alibaba Unimarketing provides undeniable brand-and-effect integration because insights are effect-oriented. Through consumption insights, products are incubated, then within circles, trials and iterations build word-of-mouth, and finally, they launch on Alibaba's platform. It also provides full-funnel marketing after launch to drive sustainable brand growth.

The value Unimarketing offers brands is, first, sales growth, and second, consumer assets. I value the second more; only when consumers iterate does sales growth naturally follow.

As I mentioned in a previous article, brand, product, and user interact; using extreme single products or topics to shift consumer cognition, then consumers will reversely shape overall product upgrades, ultimately driving brand upgrades. The most important is the extreme single product or topic.

Tmall Innovation Center has incubated about 400 new products, using data insights and innovative products to help brands iterate consumers and promote sustainable growth.

In summary, it can go from data insights to new product development, from launch to becoming a brand. Of course, some brands may not need the whole process; some need data insights, some need brand diagnosis, some need new product development, or full-media touchpoints and marketing path planning for existing products.

As a former Alibaba employee, I believe it can help many brands discover growth opportunities and find growth paths. I also believe Alibaba is highly likely to become an excellent marketing group in the future. But for brands outside Alibaba's system, how to cooperate with Alibaba or change themselves to adapt to the future?

Action Guide: Integration and Collaboration

In one word: integration. Whether it's Alibaba's operating system or other future systems, facing the complex internet requires integration and collaboration, creating chemical reactions. Data drives insights, insights discover opportunities, incubate products, and iterate brands. In marketing, all categories—online, offline, advertising, PR—will be broken and reclassified; perhaps there will be no new categories, only effective solutions.

Organizational Integration

To change things, first change the people doing them. Organizational structure is what I felt most deeply in my client-side career; it must change, or you'll die. Once, I had a small product idea; with an external creative team and internal operations, product, and UED teams, we did a product creative experiment. As the project initiator and connector between internal and external teams, I almost got depressed. What was a 95-point idea, after various hardships, finally became a 55-point idea.

How to change the organization? Drawing from Alibaba CMO Zhang Wuji's sharing, we should build horizontal collaborative organizations, which is also what Alibaba has always practiced. Vertical management lines are necessary, but horizontal collaboration must be opened up, with project-based horizontal teams at the core. This requires top-down change and organizational culture infusion.

For example, in my case, everyone on the vertical line had their own tasks and KPIs. When I approached them, they treated it as a favor, helping only if it didn't affect their KPIs. So I had to get over a dozen people from three or four departments to help in their spare time, and they also had to help each other. How could that produce a passing result?

In summary, with solutions at the core, establish project teams for solutions and open up collaboration across horizontal departments. It's easy to say, but changing organizational form, KPI assessment, horizontal management, and integration requires strong organizational management capability—it's very difficult.

Marketing Method Integration

After changing people and organizations, the next is to open up thinking. I've talked before about being a 'cunning' advertiser, meaning an advertiser shouldn't be purely an advertiser but also a PR person, communicator, interactive creative, etc., needing to open up lateral thinking.

Previously, advertising agencies, PR firms, social media agencies, e-commerce operations agencies, events, production—these specialized companies were clearly separated. Ad agencies made films, handed them to media and communication companies for distribution; PR firms sent press releases; collaboration was stiff.

Regardless of big data or Unimarketing, practitioners first need to broaden their thinking. Advertisers need some PR and communication thinking; PR and social people need some content thinking to maintain content tone. Just doing this well can make you stand out among many agencies.

Marketing can no longer be divided into advertising and PR; it should be problem-solving at the core, correctly using tools like advertising and PR. Currently, few agencies can truly integrate various thinking to produce solutions, but the future belongs to those who can provide solutions, and those may not necessarily be agency vendors.

People often tell me, 'We don't want to hear big trends and principles; we want definite answers that work immediately.' I want to say that techniques, tricks, and hot topics are not important; any technique applies only locally, so don't treat them as treasures, and there is no secret formula.

What you really need to do is understand more people's lifestyles, understand the more complex world, and find the direction to the future. But there is never a ready-made answer; everyone must hit the road alone and find their own answer.

Source: Yang Buhuai (ID: yangbuhuai01)

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