---
title: "Marketing Is Dead: Marketing Can No Longer Solve Marketing's Problems"
description: "During the 7th FMCG Conference in Shanghai, a discussion with brand experts Miao Qingxian, Chen Siting, and Fang Gang highlighted that marketing has been stigmatized and is failing to address its own issues. The article argues that modern marketing theories have hit a ceiling, and the infrastructure of mass production, mass communication, and mass distribution has been deconstructed, calling for a new framework."
author: "刘春雄"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-09-08"
categories: "Brand Marketing"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/DKBpO3RgGR4ylKotZTLQNg"
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citation: "刘春雄. “Marketing Is Dead: Marketing Can No Longer Solve Marketing's Problems.” New Distribution, 2025-09-08. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/marketing-is-dead-marketing-can-no-longer-solve-marketing-s-problems-5dd160b2/"
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---

# Marketing Is Dead: Marketing Can No Longer Solve Marketing's Problems

> During the 7th FMCG Conference in Shanghai, a discussion with brand experts Miao Qingxian, Chen Siting, and Fang Gang highlighted that marketing has been stigmatized and is failing to address its own issues. The article argues that modern marketing theories have hit a ceiling, and the infrastructure of mass production, mass communication, and mass distribution has been deconstructed, calling for a new framework.

**Marketing Stigmatization**
During the 7th FMCG Conference in Shanghai, I had a small gathering with brand experts Miao Qingxian, Chen Siting, Fang Gang, and other luminaries, where we discussed a current topic: marketing can no longer save marketing. There are several phenomena.
First, marketing has been stigmatized. Marketing is seen as PUA, as a trick or even a scam. Because marketing is so tainted, some marketers try every means to avoid the concept. For example, some who advertise heavily claim they don't do marketing. Entrepreneurs avoid marketing like the plague.
The prevalence of productism and anti-marketing models is an attempt to avoid the stigma of marketing. Few attribute their success to marketing. It seems marketing is a separate skill from product and brand.
Because products are not good, marketing is needed. Good products sell themselves. Marketing has become a negative term.
Some say the name "marketing" is bad and needs to be rectified.
Second, marketing consulting is dead. In this industry, there are fewer firms and fewer projects. Experts who study marketing and write about it are dwindling. Some say there is no marketing consulting in the US, only brand consulting.
Third, modern marketing has long reached its ceiling. Since the 1980s, no new marketing theories have emerged. Except for adding internet marketing, current marketing textbooks are not much different from those of the 1980s.
Fourth, Kotler's book has reached "Marketing 6.0". It took 50 years from Marketing 1.0 to 3.0, but only 10 years from 4.0 to 6.0. The internet world no longer uses marketing language.
Looking at the first two phenomena, Chinese marketing is sick and too tainted. Looking at the latter two, marketing is sick, unable to adapt to the internet age, and terminally ill.
If Chinese marketing is sick, we can change it. If marketing is sick, then should we change marketing or start anew?
Is modern marketing worth patching up?
**Why is Chinese marketing so tainted?**
Chinese marketing is indeed tainted, but this is not unique to China; Europe and America were also tainted in the past, such as the historical "muckraking movement". The stigma is a characteristic of a certain era in marketing evolution. Europe and America have long passed the tainted era. Compared with European and American marketing, Chinese marketing has three characteristics.
First, Europe and America use 1P marketing, while China uses 4P marketing.
Those in Chinese marketing know 4P, but Europe and America do not; they actually only have 1P, typical 1P marketing.
1P is product (brand), 4P is product, price, place, promotion. What's the difference?
1. 1P's main battlefield is in the back end: R&D and brand investment.
2. Europe and America have long passed the high-mid-low stage and moved to mass, segmented, and niche classification.
3. In Europe, America, and Japan, channels have long been third-party, and channels have actually become fulfillment capabilities. There are no 2B salespeople in Europe and America, only 2C salespeople. China has up to 80 million 2B salespeople, while the US has only 10 million 2C salespeople. China has not included 2C personnel in the sales system—except for specialty stores.
4. There is a difference in understanding promotion. In Europe and America, promotion is broad, including advertising, PR, personal selling, and sales promotion (SP). In China, promotion is narrow, just SP.
Even for SP, in Europe and America it is retailer behavior, while in China it is manufacturer and distributor behavior.
Second, 1P marketing competes in the back end, while 4P focuses on the front end.
Back-end competition is product R&D and brand investment. It's a battlefield without visible smoke. It's competition for talent, technology, and resources. In short, it's competition of internal strength and resources, not tainted, and high-end.
4P competition is front-end. Visible channel competition and visible promotion competition are absolute battles on the battlefield.
China's deep distribution competition for terminals is exclusive and zero-sum. Europe and America have long passed the deep distribution stage. Channels have become third-party, turning into fulfillment capabilities for consumers.
In Europe and America, sales promotion is only in the form of discounts. In China, there are various tricks, including misleading promotions.
Front-end competition inevitably involves dirty tricks and conspiracies; back-end competition involves invisible grand strategies and open schemes.
Third, European and American industries have long entered the oligopoly stage, while China still has many long-tail players.
The four forms of competition are: perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly. In European and American FMCG industries, early on there were many long-tail players, but later they either died or were acquired, entering the oligopoly stage. For example, Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola acquired many brands, which were losers in competition.
In long-tail competition, there are always companies on the verge of death, trying every means to survive, using dirty tricks and bad moves to save themselves, even if they can't.
As long as there is a long tail, there are always companies in regulatory blind spots or evading regulation, using all kinds of dirty methods.
Deep distribution has already cleared out many long-tail players, but platform e-commerce is naturally long-tail, and China's platform e-commerce started with C2C, making it even longer. Every rise of a new platform, like Pinduoduo and Douyin, brings a batch of C-end players, starting a competition of dirtiness.
**The Era When Marketing Made Its Name Is Becoming History**
Marketing has been stigmatized. This is an unavoidable stage. However, the stage Europe and America went through is not within our sight. The "muckraking movement" in American history and the history of PR are processes of de-stigmatization.
There are many stigmatized words in China, like "xiaojie" (miss). If you don't say "xiaojie" and say "meinv" (beauty), it still doesn't work.
If marketing changes its name, will it no longer be stigmatized? Rectifying the name of a concept is far less effective than rectifying through action. Rectification through action requires progress of the times and patience.
The history of reform and opening up has proven that many abnormal phenomena in the past have disappeared after being filtered by time. Time and development are the best filters.
However, rectifying marketing's name may be too late. Because marketing may be eliminated by the times. Or, the era when marketing made its name is passing.
Marketing can no longer solve marketing's problems, including two aspects: first, marketing cannot rectify its own name; second, marketing cannot escape the fate of being eliminated by the times.
Management and strategy are ancient words, but modern management and modern strategy have been given new connotations through evolution. Marketing and brand are not modern concepts; in Chinese tradition, they were called "maimai" (buying and selling) and "koubei" (word of mouth). Even in English-speaking countries, Marketing is a derived word, not an original one.
Marketing is a difficult word to translate worldwide; some simply transliterate it. In China, it is a free translation, and the concept was finalized through interaction between theory and practice, formed in the historical process.
My view is: rectifying the name may be useful, but it's difficult.
Words created by history are eliminated in new history. That's what I want to talk about. Not only modern marketing concepts, but also modern strategy and modern management theory systems have faced challenges.
Rather than rectifying marketing's name, it's better to create a concept more in line with the times.
Rather than patching up the modern marketing system, it's better to create a new framework.
The question now is: Is the era that gave birth to modern marketing really passing?
**Tracing the Lineage of Modern Marketing**
History is the prologue to the future. Looking back is to look forward.
Modern management, modern strategy, and modern marketing were all born in the 50-70 years after the First Industrial Revolution.
Any theory has its boundary conditions for existence. But in long-term application, people forget the boundary conditions and assume universality. Defenders of outdated theories often forget the boundary conditions. Why after the Second Industrial Revolution, not the First?
Let's trace the four key time nodes of modern marketing.
First time node: Radio applied to mass communication.
In 1920, KDKA in the US became the world's first commercial radio station with a license. Subsequently, P&G's Ivory soap advertised on radio, instantly spreading across the country, becoming a pioneer in using mass media advertising. The prototype of brand theory originated from mass media advertising.
Second time node: The first proposal of the marketing concept.
In 1957, John McKitterick of General Electric proposed the "marketing concept" philosophy, first explicitly stating that enterprises should shift from "product-centric" to "consumer demand-centric".
Consumer centricity is the result of surplus caused by industrial mass production. Modern marketing entered the consumer-oriented stage, and consumer orientation became the "political correctness" of the marketing world.
Third time node: The proposal of the 4P concept.
In 1960, McCarthy proposed the "4P" marketing mix theory (product, price, place, promotion), providing a systematic tactical framework for modern marketing.
Fourth time node: The formation of strategic marketing and the marketing system.
In 1967, Philip Kotler published "Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, and Control", first elevating marketing to the height of strategic management, systematically integrating the STP (segmentation, targeting, positioning) + 4P framework, marking the formal formation of modern marketing.
Kotler's "Marketing Management" framework can be summarized as: R (research) → STP (segmentation, targeting, positioning) → 4P → I (implementation) → C (management, control).
The HBG theory states it more clearly: mass production, mass communication, mass distribution. This touches on the soil, or boundary conditions, of modern marketing's birth.
Mass production is due to industrialization, which brought surplus. Because of surplus, consumers are "God".
Mass communication: because of the role of mass media in communication, brand theory was born. All brand theories have two basic premises: first, invest in mass media; second, study the psychology of consumer information reception. Whether positioning theory, conflict theory, or USP theory, they are all based on mass media communication.
Mass distribution: because of urbanization, population concentration, and the high development of modern retail, mass distribution became possible.
Therefore, mass production, mass communication, and mass distribution correspond to the infrastructure of industrial mass production, mass media, and urbanization. A society's infrastructure determines the form of marketing.
Entering the 1980s, Western infrastructure reached its peak, and no new marketing theories emerged.
After entering the PC era, people thought PC internet was a supplement and replacement for mass media, but it did not change the infrastructure of modern marketing.
After entering platform e-commerce, people thought e-commerce was media and channels. It supplemented and modified modern marketing but did not change its framework.
**Marketing Deconstructed**
In the Western world, since brand theory matured, no new brands have been born.
Modern marketing, modern management, and modern strategy theories all died in the 1980s. At that time, American industrial civilization had reached its peak. China's reform and opening up was a make-up lesson for industrial civilization.
Since then, the HBG logic of the industrial civilization era—mass production, mass communication, mass distribution—has been deconstructed.
First, the deconstruction of mass production: modularization of production.
One day in the 1980s, a few genius engineers at IBM designed a rule to decompose IBM/360 into several modules, with "design rules" between modules to solve compatibility issues. After that, these engineers started businesses, and each module became a startup's product. Silicon Valley grew because of this.
This was the birth of global economic modularization. China's becoming the world's manufacturing center depends on the modularization of the global economy. Multinational corporations worldwide "crowdsource" to Chinese manufacturing modules.
Previously, the scale within multinational corporations formed economies of scale. With modularization of manufacturing, economies of scale benefited small and medium enterprises. The development of China's platform e-commerce and the prevalence of the platform + OEM model benefit from manufacturing modularization.
Simply put, modularization of manufacturing is the equalization of scale. Small enterprises can also enjoy the scale advantages of manufacturing.
Second, the deconstruction of mass communication: internet communication.
Without mass media, there would be no modern brand theory. The marginalization of mass media in the internet age has also marginalized modern brand theory.
In China, since the rise of e-commerce, no new brands have been born. There are many fleeting IPs and internet celebrities.
The birth of new brands involves a process of saturated communication. And the premise is massive investment in mass media.
In the internet age, even the most perfect slogan (now called PGC) has lost its medium for placement. The traffic rules of internet media are: 50% goes to UGC to form a traffic pool, and 50% is used for PGC to monetize traffic.
Merchants' resources can be used for PGC placement, but it's hard to form the past super-saturated communication. And PGC is uncontrollable; it can only be triggered.
Third, the deconstruction of mass distribution: e-commerce and instant retail.
Mass distribution is a result of urbanization. China's deep distribution was pioneered when urbanization was not high, establishing an efficient distribution system. This system is still effective in developing countries. The so-called going global in developing countries is "re-doing deep distribution with the internet".
The essence of distribution is convenience. Thus, modern retail is divided into 5-minute, 30-minute, and 2-hour purchase radii.
The rise of e-commerce has captured about 30% of the share. The rise of instant retail is even more rapid; 30-minute fulfillment will cause earth-shaking changes in modern retail and channels. The fulfillment of e-commerce and instant retail systems is no longer traditional channels.
Even in the US, channels are third-party, and channels are just fulfillment capabilities, not controllable marketing elements for manufacturers.
More important than the deconstruction of HBG is that consumer-oriented thinking has also hit a bottleneck. When tracing the time nodes of modern marketing, we regarded the birth of consumer demand orientation as an important node. Now, market segmentation no longer generates incremental growth.
**Looking to the Future of Marketing**
Why are modern strategy, modern management, and modern marketing theories not synchronized with the industrial revolution? Counting from the Second Industrial Revolution, there is a delay of at least 50 years.
When revolutionary new technologies emerge, they penetrate all resource barriers. Technology itself is an extremely powerful competitiveness. When machine guns and atomic bombs first appeared, they were extremely powerful without any theoretical guidance.
For the future of marketing, I think we need to pay attention to three points.
First, the commercial cognition of internet media.
This is equivalent to the value of radio for brand communication.
When tracing the time nodes of modern marketing, I put the commercial use of radio first. Because media changes cognition.
The single biggest variable that changes marketing is the change of media. So, whoever makes regular cognition of the application logic of internet media is the beginning of future marketing. In our application of scenario marketing, we have gained some insights, but we haven't formed regularities yet.
Second, the emergence of new marketing orientation.
This is equivalent to the value of the proposal of consumer orientation.
In the past, consumer orientation was the political correctness of marketing. Whether it will be so in the future, I have doubts. The scenario orientation we propose is a substitute for consumer orientation.
Third, the re-cognition of business logic.
This is equivalent to the value of the 4P concept and Kotler's "Marketing Management" theory system.
For this, the "three-dimensional space" (scene, community, and online) and "trinity" (cognition, transaction, and relationship) theories proposed by well-known management and strategy expert Shi Wei are very important.
What will replace the marketing concept, and what will be the logical framework and theoretical system of future marketing? This is an evolutionary process, difficult to predict.
Now is still the peak of internet technology breakthroughs. Powerful technology does not need marketing theory support. When the peak of technological breakthroughs passes, the demand for theory will become strong.


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 刘春雄
- Published: 2025-09-08
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/marketing-is-dead-marketing-can-no-longer-solve-marketing-s-problems-5dd160b2/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/DKBpO3RgGR4ylKotZTLQNg

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