Regarding the cut to the marketing department, I feel there is still much to be said. Let's delve deeper into the concept of the market.
What is a market? I once posted this question on social media, and the answers were varied. According to Baidu, market = the place for buying and selling goods + the people who buy and sell goods!
Keyword 1: Goods!
Think: The premise for goods to exist is that they have exchange value. In a company, who decides the genes of a product? Who decides its past and future? Is the marketing department the father or mother of the product?
Keyword 2: Buying and selling!
Goods serve as carriers of value. Exchange is based on demand, and price differences arise from information asymmetry or policy protection in sales management. Does this process involve the marketing department?
Keyword 3: Place!
For consumers, place = point of purchase = terminal (e-commerce has changed traditional marketing logic, as B2C bypasses all intermediate steps and reaches consumers directly).
Keyword 4: People: buyers and sellers!
The sales department deals with sellers (distributors, terminal store owners) every day. What about the marketing department? Do they get information through the sales department, or through surveys and visits?
From this analysis, let's look at the traditional marketing department's touchpoints: solving packaging after product birth (mostly provided by third parties, with the boss making the final decision), providing auxiliary materials for sales venues, and information dissemination.
In the chain: product production → distributor shipping (sellers) → terminal distribution (sellers) → consumer purchase (ubiquitous distribution in circulation channels, strong terminals guiding or forcing purchases...), sales volume is proportional to the number of terminals and the sell-through rate. The sales department determines the number of terminals; they are the channel engineers. There is no place for the marketing department in this chain!
The market is determined by the dialectical concepts of buying and selling. If the sellers are convinced, sales can be achieved; even driving competitors out of the field with infantry can achieve sales. Those who achieve this are the infantry brothers, the sales department comrades!
What can the marketing department do? With just a few people and a couple of guns, facing hundreds of thousands or millions of consumers, they can only stare into the dark!
When categories were scarce, sales engineers thrived, doing the four Ps of Coca-Cola well, dominating channels, and monopolizing categories (through acquisitions, exclusivity, controlling upstream raw materials, etc.) until there was no second player...
Now, the era of oversupply has arrived, and no one can escape it. Sales brothers face collapsing performance, fighting desperately, but consumers remain unmoved. The spirit of "Bright Sword" is the best story for sales brothers, and execution has become the best means to compensate for product shortcomings.
Today, many talk about craftsmanship. It seems that after marketing directors exhaust their marketing tactics, they suddenly discover they can shift blame to the production technology director: "It's not that I can't sell, but you can't make a good product..." Category sins combined with economic crisis inevitably lead to an era of marketing incompetence and no solutions.
Go to the front lines and see: sales brothers who have lost battles are everywhere, with unshaven faces, tears and snot, blood and sweat. Many frontline brothers have jumped ship to industries like internet and finance, even as ground promotion or courier workers.
Enough said; these are the tears of the real economy, filled with the blood of frontline sales brothers!
Life is hard without air force support!
The day the marketing department rises is the day innovative bosses wake up. Bosses who try to squeeze another drop of water from a dry towel of execution will become cannon fodder. The transformation starts in the marketing department—a marketing department with R&D capabilities, an enhanced version, equipped with American-style weapons and high-tech tools!
Transformation path for existing enterprises' marketing departments: new brands, new regions, new teams, new tools, new models!
Everyone talks about consumption upgrading, the well-known move toward mid-to-high-end. But they just can't learn it, can't do it no matter what. Why?
1. The determination for transformation must come from the boss! More importantly, there must be collective crisis awareness. Tradition is not scary; what's scary is that tradition has been solidified within the organization.
2. Defend the existing market, conquer new territories! Dare to organize new people, give them new regions, create new brands, form new teams, explore new models, and use new weapons!
3. Benchmark and differentiate in product R&D, going against the mainstream! What the mainstream does, I don't do!
4. High support, low barriers, new mechanisms, let them run! For internal incubation, don't expect practitioners to be rabbits that find grass while running. Treat them as an egg; the boss must sit on it for 49 days. When that day comes, you'll only hatch a few chicks...
5. Not an organization, but an ecosystem! The new department must have capabilities in product R&D, packaging design, copywriting communication, and use of new tools. It's not a few people, but a group, even an ecosystem. This cannot be achieved by a single company's circle, nor supported by a small team; it's a multi-linked ecosystem!
6. A new engine emerges! As a team mastering new technologies and tools, the restructured marketing department will not just be a department, but the starting point of new drivers. Traditional employment methods may not match the needed talent; a combination cooperation model might be an option. Once the project is defined, gradually implement division of labor!
.......
Small and medium enterprises have no resources to leverage communication in traditional marketing environments. Today, the rules of communication have fundamentally changed, from monopolistic to decentralized, fragmented communication. In this field, many traditional enterprises have not turned their ships around. The inherent organizational structure, supply chain system, and sales capture logic cannot smoothly transform, which gives daring enterprises enough time and space!
Many companies think that communication in the new media environment is cheaper than in the past, always fantasizing about using small resources for big returns. In reality, it's not; it's just that fewer people are playing in this field!
The transformation of the marketing department is the first step in adapting to new communication rules. Brands that relied on traditional advertising are almost collectively in trouble, facing poor communication and difficulty in making their voices heard. They are used to speaking from the company's perspective and expecting others to listen; if you don't listen, they repeat like "sheep, sheep, sheep." This one-way communication habit gradually pushes users away, let alone resonates with consumers.
Many have questioned me about certain trendy young brands that speak like literary youth and use youthful, fashionable packaging, thinking these products must be sold to young people. No, definitely not! Groups are always followers. By borrowing the language of young people, giving the group a leader, giving the media something to talk about, it's just creating content!
Currently, consumer segmentation made in offices, based on age or occupation, is all nonsense! The only way out is to connect with enough consumers, engage in individual communication, group leadership, equal dialogue, and understand what true emotion, belonging, and respect are!
The era of class divisions is over; no one is the ruler anymore. The consumer market's rebellion against being ruled will grow stronger. Channel fragmentation caters to consumer personalization and demand fragmentation. The collapse of uniformity will happen like an avalanche! This striking power is enough to liberate the sales brothers fighting desperately!
The outcome of a city or a region depends on opportunity and execution, but the overall campaign may not rely on one or two departments. The marketing department's cut is only the first step of transformation! Don't fantasize about big single products anymore. From south to north, from past to present, stable and consistent big single products will be hard to appear again. Under industrialized mass production, unchanging packaging and flavors that suit everyone will gradually decline in the existing market (there is still time; large enterprises that don't rush to transform won't die soon, no need to be pessimistic or criticize them. Existing market is existing market; with it, no one can do anything!)
China's market is vast, and the consumer price chain is long and wide, determining that there is no niche market in China. Focusing on any price band will create a brand larger than any country's. Moreover, developed logistics has completely changed the principle that some categories can't travel far!
There are people who understand modern communication, and many who understand marketing, but few who understand both communication and traditional marketing deeply. Being tough in words and not weak in action might be a good path for traditional enterprises to counterattack!
The saying "cut the marketing department" is just a convenient expression. The scapegoat marketing department has carried the black pot for years, not because it's incompetent, but because the times didn't give it enough energy and space. The new marketing department (communication department? engagement department? new media department...)? In the era of new media, it will truly rise! The precise strikes of the air force and the use of new weapons will liberate the sales brothers fighting desperately!
Sales brothers, take a break; marketing brothers, step up!
Note: The brothers coming up must not be holding fire sticks, nor the millet plus rifles of the past! Brothers coming up, look at what you have in your hands!