Click 'Read Original' for details. At the launch of 'Marketing Encounter,' I recalled teacher Shi Wei saying that in the internet age, marketing has more variables. I once read an article with the same title and resonated with it. But the complexity mentioned in that article referred to 'scattered users,' 'expensive traffic,' 'consumers are harder to fool,' 'innovation is harder,' and 'more competitors.' Of course, these are facts. But compared to the complexity Shi Wei refers to as 'more variables,' it's not on the same scale. The variables Shi Wei mentions are the fundamental variables of marketing. Marketing is about establishing 'connections' between demand and supply. Connections must solve three problems: cognition, transaction, and relationship. This is the most concise and abstract description of marketing. It doesn't change with the times. Any marketing theory can be tested against these three concepts. Marketing has over 20 sub-variables. Some have consolidated them into the 4Ps, which is already quite concise. The advantage of the 4P framework is its intuitiveness; even beginners can easily get started. However, 4P analysis still operates at the level of action thinking. The refinement of cognition, transaction, and relationship belongs to abstract thinking, which is more difficult and harder to understand. Business in agricultural society was hard but not complex. Cognition, transaction, and relationship had only one dimension to realize: geographic space. From a cognitive perspective, because crossing geographic space was difficult, information was asymmetric. From a transaction perspective, because distances were long, transactions were difficult. From a relationship perspective, also because of distance, building relationships was hard. Because there was only one variable—geographic distance—it wasn't complex; because transcending geographic space was hard, it was difficult. In industrial society, marketing variables increased. Besides geographic space, there was mass media. Now there were two variables. From a cognitive perspective, mass media made information transmission more efficient. From a transaction perspective, urbanization increased population density, lowering transaction costs. Changes in channels and retail innovation were results of urbanization. From a relationship perspective, urbanization and advanced communication tools reduced the cost of building relationships. With two variables, marketing became more complex. Mass media had oligopolistic characteristics, raising the barriers to mass communication and marketing. Because mass media and geographic space were separate, marketing became more complex. For example, companies set up two departments: one for communication (cognition) and another for sales (transaction). The separation of cognition, transaction, and relationship made marketing complex. In the information society, there are three dimensions (scene, community, network), with more variables than in industrial society. Don't underestimate the addition of one variable; marketing becomes much more complex. In fact, although mass communication is declining, it still has considerable influence and can be considered a fourth dimension. The new community and network dimensions actually add two more variables. What's more, each of the scene, community, and network dimensions can independently solve cognition, transaction, and relationship. Connecting any two or three dimensions also allows for solving cognition, transaction, and relationship through transformation. Traditional marketing, e-commerce, and social e-commerce all solve the trinity of cognition, transaction, and relationship within a single dimension. New marketing advocates connecting the three dimensions, allowing for solving the trinity across them. Solving cognition, transaction, and relationship in a single dimension involves only one variable but three steps. Solving them in two dimensions involves two variables and three steps, but because cognition, transaction, and relationship are separated, there are only 6 combinations. Solving them in three dimensions, with three variables and the ability to connect, yields 21 combinations. If we add mass communication as a variable, the number of combinations increases further. The complexity of marketing increases exponentially with the number of variables. The difficulty of a single variable and the complexity of multiple variables are of different magnitudes. With a single variable, you can understand it but may not be able to achieve it. For example, in the past, 'merchants value profit over separation' actually indicates that business was extremely difficult. The difficulty of multiple variables is actually complexity. Complexity is hard to understand. Complexity is a threshold. Source: Teacher Liu's New Marketing