Regarding the topic of the marketing department, I have published several articles in the past few days, which have received significant responses. Many netizens have made serious comments. I thank Teacher Liu Chunxiong, Teacher Miao Qingxian, and Zhao Bo from New Distribution for their intellectual support! After synthesizing the comments, I think it is necessary to conduct a deeper discussion: On the functions and classifications of the marketing department:

  1. Management-oriented marketing department. This type of marketing department generally appears in foreign-funded enterprises, with the main function being decision-making planning and decomposition implementation of the marketing system. Its main functions are the formulation of marketing strategies and the supervision of their implementation, including the management of brand expenses and sales expenses! This type of marketing department is often a strong department, occupying a leading position in the management sequence within the enterprise's marketing system.
  2. Service-oriented marketing department. Most marketing departments in domestic enterprises fall into this category. Due to the dividends of Chinese-style marketing, where channels and terminals are king, enterprises often generate a powerful sales department, especially in the context of deep distribution, with sales departments having thousands or tens of thousands of personnel! The function of the marketing department is to provide promotional materials (design), advertising creativity, and release for the sales department. To a large extent, it can be understood as an affiliated unit of the sales department. From the evolution of many Chinese enterprises' marketing systems, the marketing department generally emerges after the sales department. The discovery and mining of market demand theoretically should belong to the marketing department, but in reality, consumer demand is a fixed target; enterprises only need to take it, modify it, and then satisfy the market, at most innovating in packaging and advertising forms! Especially for FMCG enterprises, the supply chain of many categories is fixed, and the space for innovation from raw materials to equipment is limited. That is to say, the internal part changes little, while the external expression part can change in a thousand ways. On this basis, with the help of third-party service companies, many enterprises derive the function of the marketing department. The Chinese market is vast, with a large number of small and medium-sized brands innovating and seeking change. Large enterprises often do not need to study these ants and microorganisms (consumers); they only need to keep an eye on anteater enterprises. Once an anteater grows big, they either acquire it or study and imitate it to launch to the market! If it fails, it doesn't matter; there is no R&D cost and energy investment, so the cost is very low! The cruel reality is: The more products are developed through scientific research, with large amounts of funds and experience, and through rigorous logic, the lower the survival rate. The survival rate of new products in China is less than 1%! So, from the above, the function of the marketing department is entrusted with high hopes by the industry and enterprises, hoping to gain insight into consumers and make sales redundant. However, the distance between reality and dreams is always so far... Lack of the boss's patience and foresight, lack of sufficient resources and support, and even more lack of professional talents to devote themselves wholeheartedly to research... A great dream VS a weak department, this is the trouble of many enterprises where things do not go as expected: high hopes are placed, but the return date is far away! It is better to have a sales department with strong execution, which can hit wherever it points, and sales volume will show immediate results! The dream of a perfect marketing department creates illusions in many enterprises, and also causes many enterprises to hope for a dragon but end up with a worm, making the marketing department truly a chicken rib department! 1. Seesaw principle. For an enterprise organization, the marketing department is just a department. No matter where it is positioned, it will be like a seesaw with energy conservation. If the marketing department is strong, the sales department is weak (except for internet e-commerce enterprises). The factors determining the weight and balance are nothing more than the allocation of power and resources. Channel-oriented enterprises unconsciously allocate the vast majority of sales expenses to channel terminals, and the product price chain does not include the marketing department. For example: terminal price 98 yuan/piece, purchase price 68 yuan, first-tier distributor price 58 yuan, then terminal purchase incentives, distributor purchase incentives... The marketing department's expenses can only be drawn from "profits"! Many enterprises' marketing departments only exist at the headquarters, and there is basically no penetration or extension of marketing department functions at the grassroots level! Under this logic, the marketing department is definitely a weak department, a vulnerable group with no resources, no expenses, and no rights! 2. Sales gene. The sales entry point of traditional enterprises comes from terminals and channels. Sales come from the terminal's own traffic. The connection between consumers and the enterprise is a disconnected relationship. The intermediate connection point is through the terminal or distributor boss. Enterprise information can be transmitted through advertising and activation, but consumer information has no transmission channel. Therefore, in this logic, the marketing department cannot reach consumers, nor does it need to connect with consumers. The 2B logic determines that the main push is based on push, and the core of push comes from interest distribution! In the 2C logic, flattening eliminates channel levels and also abolishes the position of a strong sales department. 3. Industry marginal and differences. The lower the gross profit product, the heavier the dependence on channels; the higher the gross profit industry, the more emphasis on consumers! The characteristics of channels are high distribution efficiency and low cost. Therefore, the higher the FMCG attribute of the industry, the weaker the marketing department function! The marketing department in high gross profit industries is often high-configuration, even far stronger than the sales department! 4. Brand and category. Categories satisfy the needs of all people, while brands satisfy the needs of some people. This is often the key point that leads many enterprises into misunderstandings! One is the enclosure method: draw a territory, and within this territory, eat both big and small fish, characterized by dense distribution and multi-product line coverage; the other is the layer-cutting method: I only do a certain price band, and beyond this range is not my dish! One does depth, the other does breadth! In the process of switching and grasping these two degrees, the marketing department is often led into a ditch by the decision-making layer: performance is greater than everything, even if it means drinking poison to quench thirst! It is undeniable that almost all brands and categories face a powerful wave of consumption upgrading! After eating too much steamed bread and rice, naturally you want some dumplings and wontons, provided you have some money! When the economy develops to a certain stage, the diversification and fragmentation of consumption cannot be stopped. At this time, brands are no longer limited to awareness and reputation, but lie in the ability to meet changing needs, and more in the original attributes of the category! Against the backdrop of high expectations, the marketing department will appear in various enterprises under various names or functional divisions. It may be difficult to rely solely on internal enterprise resources. Whether to boldly use new tools, widely link external resources, or even build a new type of marketing department based on the logic of a shared ecosystem is determined by the enterprise according to its industry attributes and strategic needs! The importance of traditional brands will definitely be diluted. The process of reconstructing the marketing department is a process of redoing the enterprise or industry, from the reconstruction of thinking to the reconstruction of product organization and brand! If you want to communicate and discuss more with Teacher Fang Gang, you can add friends by long-pressing the QR code below: -END-