Source | Teacher Liu's Scene Marketing ID | liuchunxiong1964
The Boiling Water Methodology
Using firewood to boil a pot of water, you find the firewood is insufficient. The master asks the apprentice what to do. One apprentice says, "Go find more firewood," another says, "Borrow some," and another says, "Buy some." The master retorts, "Why not pour out some of the water?"
This is an ancient Chinese wisdom story. I looked it up online, and the common interpretation is "only by giving up can you gain." I heard such stories long ago. I regard this story as a methodology for success.
This methodology has two key points:
First, the threshold for accomplishing something. In the story, boiling the water is the threshold. Not cold water, not warm water, but boiling water. The threshold is sometimes called the inflection point or the critical point. It is the critical point where quantitative change leads to qualitative change.
Second, match the size of the task to the resources available. If firewood is scarce, boil a smaller pot of water.
You can boil a smaller pot, but you must bring it to a boil.
The above two points have always been my guiding principles in marketing. Scene marketing follows the same two points.
Bring the Water to a Boil
In the story, when it says "boil a pot of water," there is no need to explain; it is generally understood to mean bringing the water to a boil.
Why is there no need to explain? Because it is life experience.
Cold water, warm water, boiling water, and cooled boiled water each have their uses. Life experience tells us that drinking cold water has risks, but once water is boiled, even if it cools, it becomes safe to drink.
Academically, there is a term that expresses something similar to bringing water to a boil: threshold, which is the maximum or minimum value at which an effect occurs. The threshold tells us that this is the standard for accomplishing something; below the threshold is meaningless.
Your product is excellent, but only one person knows about it. Does it have commercial value? For FMCG, it basically has no commercial value.
In commercial cognition, the threshold manifests as cognitive density. That is, how many people within a certain range have formed awareness.
Internationally renowned brands, nationally renowned brands, locally renowned brands, niche brands. These concepts convey two meanings: first, a renowned brand must be known by a considerable density of people; second, the density of awareness covers different regions.
Without cognitive density, it is not a brand. In other words, density is brand.
What is the value of cognitive density? There are at least two aspects.
First, when cognitive density reaches a certain threshold, brand information dissemination shifts from brand-to-consumer to consumer-to-consumer. This is the result of quantitative change leading to qualitative change.
Second, a positive cycle forms between channels and consumers. Consumers can buy, and stores can sell. This creates an adaptation between channels and consumers.
This is the significance of "must bring the water to a boil" in the story.
Teacher Ye Maozhong is a well-known brand expert. I remember he once said: "Buying a half-way ticket will never get you to your destination."
A half-way ticket means not reaching the threshold.
I know many bosses complain that when they meet Teacher Ye, he asks directly: "How much are you prepared to invest?"
Many bosses feel uncomfortable. I think this is being responsible to the boss. The most irresponsible consulting is to build a brand without spending money, or with low cost. That is like saying, "Just buy a ticket and go wherever you end up."
Teacher Ye Maozhong builds brands through advertising; we now build user awareness through scene marketing. The methods differ, but the logic is the same.
So how do you know what the threshold of cognitive density is? It is like boiling water for the first time; you have no idea how much water a pile of firewood can boil.
That's okay; you'll know after one try.
In marketing model innovation, trial-and-error, trial-and-success, and large-scale replication are the three necessary steps.
Trial-and-error validates the logic. Prove the logic is correct.
Trial-and-success validates replicability, determining the upper limit of cost rate (threshold) and the upper limit of time.
How much firewood to boil a pot of water. That is the upper limit of cost rate.
How long to boil a pot of water. That is the upper limit of time.
Once the upper limits of cost rate and time are determined, based on the resources at hand, you can decide how big a pot to boil and for how long.
The Three Pots
In scene marketing, I use the term "three pots" to express something similar to "bring the water to a boil." The goal of scene marketing tactical actions is to reach the threshold and create cognitive density.
When the goal is defined as "bring the water to a boil," you face a question: How big is your pot? How much firewood do you have?
The logic is simple. Match the size of the pot to the amount of firewood.
Positioning expert Trout said in Marketing Warfare that there are only two marketing strategies: the blitz strategy and the rolling strategy.
In fact, the rolling strategy is also a small-scale blitz strategy.
However, in marketing communications, successful cases often use the blitz strategy. Or, cases using the blitz strategy receive more attention.
If a theoretical system can only be implemented by large enterprises with abundant resources, then it does not have universal methodological value.
Even large enterprises with abundant resources cannot invest unlimited resources in every market or every product. Resources are always limited; that is the norm in marketing.
The epistemology and methodology of scene marketing should be applicable to large, medium, and small enterprises.
For large enterprises, like Coca-Cola, they can launch multiple sub-scenes each year. For example, in 2024, they launched the City Walk scene, barbecue scene, New Year scene, and Oreo companion scene.
For small startups, it is also possible. For example, Lidu's "immersive experience" that began 10 years ago was a small-circle scene, while the "banquet scene" vigorously promoted in 2025 was only possible after gaining sufficient strength. Ten years ago, Lidu had a "three don'ts" policy, which included "don't do banquets."
The three pots of scene marketing are a methodology designed for different types of enterprises, or for different stages of the same enterprise.
The three pots are the small pot, medium pot, and large pot.
The smallest pot is the bC integrated small circle.
The medium pot is either multiple small circles connected or a small regional breakthrough. For example, townships, counties, cities, etc.
The large pot is the national market.
The three pots are not independent. The small pot uses the rolling strategy to bring the medium pot to a boil; the medium pot rolls to bring the large pot to a boil.
If a company is strong, it can directly boil the medium or large pot, bypassing the small pot.
Boiling the Small Pot: bC Integrated Small Circles
In the past, marketing only had national and local (regional) market concepts. The smallest marketing unit in China was the county. Some companies tried townships as marketing units, but it proved unworkable.
In the past, when serving enterprises, I preferred using county-level markets as "pilots." There were two reasons: first, short time; second, low cost. Use less time and less cost to "bring the water to a boil," proving the logic and method are feasible.
Since proposing the bC integration concept, I have found that the smallest marketing unit is actually the bC circle. The bC circle is not necessarily a closed region, so it is not suitable to describe it as a small area.
Why is the bC circle the smallest marketing unit? There are three reasons:
First, there is a strong relationship between b and C.
Relationship is trust; relationship transfer is trust transfer. Trust can reduce the cost and time of marketing cognition. That is, with strong bC relationships, you can "bring the water to a boil" with less cost and time. Therefore, bC relationships are also important marketing resources.
As mentioned in previous articles, the difficulty of scene cognition is greater than category cognition, which is greater than brand cognition. With such a high cognitive threshold, the cost of cognition is relatively high, and the time is relatively long, so we need to leverage strong bC relationships to solve this problem.
Second, the bC circle is relatively closed.
There are three types of bC circles: first, network circles, where people know each other. Products like baijiu, craft beer, and tea belong to this type; second, community circles, which are relatively high-frequency. Daily consumer goods, such as milk, belong to this type; third, multi-bC circles, such as beverages.
When cognitive density forms within a relatively closed circle, you gain visibility in the small circle and it begins to spread on a small scale. If it is a social product, when users buy it and others appreciate or approve, the value is realized.
Third, b and C leverage each other, forming a closed loop.
From b to C is the first leverage, using relationship transfer; from C to b is the second leverage, where C-end recognition activates the b-end.
Within a small circle, the b-end's goods are bought by the C-end; the C-end has demand and can find the b-end to buy.
In scene marketing, boiling the small pot is very important. Even when the medium and large pots are already boiling, you still need to boil the small pot.
The reason we say scene marketing generates incremental growth is that it creates new consumption awareness through scene education, which may not have existed before.
Since it is new consumption awareness, the cognitive difficulty is high. Therefore, through bC integration, reaching the scene and conducting cognitive education face-to-face with users in the scene is very necessary.
The cognitive method of boiling the small pot, because it has strong relationship endorsement and can reach the scene directly to face users, scene experience is the method with the highest cognitive level and the highest conversion rate.
However, no matter how many scenes and users you reach, if you cannot activate the b-end, it is inefficient. The b-end is the cognitive amplifier; as long as the b-end transfers user resources, it is basically successful.
The amplification of small-pot cognition mainly relies on private domain dissemination; public domain dissemination has limited effect.
Boiling the Medium Pot: Small Regional Popularity
The medium pot must be a small region.
When small pots are connected, it naturally becomes popular in a small region. The method of connecting small regions is "rolling boil" of small pots. The teacher's "base area rolling development" and Trout's rolling strategy are both like this.
Of course, the medium pot is not simply a stack of small pots; it is not just boiling a batch of small pots, but adding more factors. In practice, we have discovered three factors.
The first factor is multiple thresholds. In deep distribution, a phenomenon called "369" has long been discovered. If the distribution rate is below 30%, once distribution stops, terminal coverage will increasingly decline; when the distribution rate exceeds 60%, terminal coverage will still increase after stopping distribution; when the distribution rate exceeds 90%, the remaining 10% will be regarded as outliers by consumers. (Special note: the current policy-based distribution does not apply to the 369 phenomenon)
369 represents three thresholds for distribution. It also indicates a phenomenon: scene spillover is the most important benefit. Scene marketing has a relatively high cost, but the benefits often lie in scene spillover.
The second factor is the impact of private domain dissemination. Boiling the small pot relies more on interpersonal communication (word of mouth); boiling the medium pot relies heavily on private domain dissemination through WeChat Moments and groups. For example, those in the baijiu industry know banquets are a rigid demand, but Lidu, which uses banquet scenes for scene marketing, discovered that the task for banquet scenes is "announce to the world, leave lasting memories," which found a breakthrough for private domain dissemination.
How to leave lasting memories? Through ritual.
How to "announce to the world"? Capture the ritualistic moment and then spread it.
Who to use for private domain dissemination? The hosts of the banquet and the guests can all be initiators of dissemination. As long as there are enough initiators, there will be more dissemination.
The third factor is same-city public domain.
Offline scene experiences have cognitive intensity but lack cognitive density. Private domain dissemination based on offline scenes is a bonus, but it is still difficult to "bring the water to a boil." If you add same-city public domain dissemination, cognitive density is more reliably guaranteed.
To summarize: boiling the medium pot requires a certain density offline, and at the same time, relying on offline private domain dissemination. After reaching a certain level, use public domain dissemination to break through the threshold, and you succeed.
Boiling the Large Pot: UGC Ignition
From the previous narrative, boiling the medium pot is a bonus on top of boiling the small pot. However, the logic for boiling the large pot is completely different.
Traditional marketing is the same. National brands must rely on CCTV advertising. Regional brands can do without advertising, as long as they have long-term deep distribution to remain stable.
National dissemination used to rely on central media; later, there were internet media combinations, such as Xiaohongshu + Bilibili + Zhihu; now it relies more on Douyin's UGC content.
To boil the large pot, you must understand the mainstream media of different eras. The strongest media now is Douyin, and the only content that can achieve explosive dissemination on Douyin is UGC mode content.
How to ignite massive UGC is not the core content of this article. Moreover, there are currently UGC that ignites, but there is no methodology for igniting UGC.
This article discusses: once UGC ignites, how can enterprises handle it?
The once-popular new consumer brands almost all failed, raising our question: internet dissemination lacks the sustained mechanism of past CCTV advertising, and lacks the closed-loop combination of "brand department does dissemination, sales department does channels," causing the phenomenon where dissemination disappears, traffic disappears, and sales disappear.
In the past two years, traditional enterprises like Baixiang, Wahaha, Jinxing, and Nongfu have created miracles. The miracle is not only in UGC dissemination ignition, but the greater miracle is that offline channels have taken over online traffic, making offline stronger, and products have also gained internet genes.
The cases listed above are after all a minority. So, how to stabilize offline channels when UGC has a certain amount of dissemination but is not as strong as the aforementioned cases?
My view is that even with online voice, offline small pots still need to be boiled. It is just that online is already close to boiling, so offline only needs a small fire. At the same time, with online voice, offline same-city dissemination "reinforcement" is still needed.
The current problem with first-tier brands promoting new products is that they have online super IPs but lack offline reinforcement actions. Offline is lukewarm, and the result is inevitably "the water doesn't boil, but naturally cools."
Boil a Small Pot of Water, Bring It to a Boil
Boil a small pot of water, bring it to a boil. This is a very important life philosophy and a very important marketing methodology.
This marketing methodology has accompanied my entire marketing career.
The teacher's "concentrate forces to fight a war of annihilation" is similar thinking. "Concentrate forces" when at a disadvantage is "boiling a small pot of water." Fighting a war of annihilation ensures absolute victory—bringing the water to a boil.
For an enterprise, the most important value is not what it does after success, but how it grows from small to large. Large enterprises were also small when they started. The growth process is more useful than the growth result.
Whether in marketing or war, the final victory is determined by the balance of forces. There is an overall balance of forces and a local balance of forces. Boiling a small pot of water means being in an absolutely advantageous position in the local balance of forces.
If forces cannot guarantee absolute victory, then shrink until you reach the smallest marketing unit. The smallest marketing unit is the bC integrated circle. This is the smallest pot, and no matter how small the scale, it can still be brought to a boil.
As long as it doesn't boil, pour out some water until the firewood can bring it to a boil.
Start by boiling the small pot, then the medium pot, and finally the large pot.