Nobel laureate and psychologist Daniel Kahneman's bestseller 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' suggests that most people tend to believe everything has a cause-and-effect relationship. That is, if two things happen consecutively, people easily believe the former caused the latter.
There are good examples in the career development of marketers.
For instance, in 2017, Coca-Cola eliminated the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) position and created the CGO (Chief Growth Officer) role. Most marketing friends' first reaction was: "Oh, the CMO has been renamed."
The second reaction was: "Our future promotion target should be CGO."
(Keith Weed, outgoing CMO of Unilever)
Who told you that? Who said the original CMO became the CGO?
Look closely at Coca-Cola's definition of the CGO's scope: besides marketing, it includes corporate innovation, product development, sales, data, and technology. Can brand people do all that?
When cars were invented, did all coachmen become drivers?
This year, there are rumors that my former employer, Unilever, will also eliminate the CMO position.
Whether they will create a CGO is not mentioned.
My interpretation is that Marketing, or traditional Marketing, may no longer reach the C-level in the future.
Recently, there's an article by Yang Buhuai titled "Marketing Department Skills Sink" that's widely circulated.
I think the status of the marketing department may sink faster.
Ah, what a painful realization!
01 How to Do "Consumer Operations"
Although most CMOs may not become CGOs, coachmen still need to learn to be drivers.
The development direction for marketing professionals is inevitably linked to the G in CGO, Growth.
In my article "The Direction of Marketing Efforts for the Next Decade" written a few months ago, I quoted Li Jiaoshou and used the example of Japan's Tsutaya Bookstore to explore this issue.
In the future, the growth that marketers need to achieve should be in "consumer operations."
Traffic growth is almost at its peak. Take Alibaba as an example: platform consumers grew rapidly from 450 million to 699 million, and reaching 750 million by the end of this year is without suspense. This almost includes all Chinese people with spending power. What's next? It's about how to properly operate existing consumers and make them spend more.
To truly achieve consumer operations, the most important thing is the use of data. Only by knowing who your brand's consumers are, what needs they have, and successfully reaching them can you maximize the commercial value of consumers.
There's a particularly interesting point: traditional brand logic seems to contradict "consumer operations."
Brands generally emphasize focus, because only focus can make brand characteristics distinct and easier to remember, thus occupying consumer mindshare.
Consumer operations mode emphasizes the crowd. As long as it's what that specific crowd likes, I'll try to provide it, regardless of focus.
But the specific methods of "consumer operations" have been unclear. Although I visited several Tsutaya Bookstores during the Spring Festival this year, it's hard to see how data is used to optimize consumer experience.
But later I figured it out.
Thinking about it alone is hopeless.
You need to look at successful cases in the same industry, which companies are leading and have achieved phased success, such as the internet-famous brands that have risen in the past two years.
Look at how cross-industry players do it, such as thoroughly studying Tsutaya Bookstore and Strawberry Travel Agency.
More importantly, keep a close eye on what major players in business data, like Alibaba, are doing.
There's no choice in this matter: the data is in their hands, and they set the rules. The wisest approach for brands is to keep up with Alibaba and make full use of its exploration results.
Moreover, Alibaba has gathered so many smart people and a large amount of external brain resources, so their IQ should be higher.
02 Alibaba's Exploration in "Consumer Operations"
Over the past two years, I have been closely following Alibaba's evolution in data application. From the launch of the Data Bank in 2017, to the successive introduction of products like the Strategy Center and Innovation Center; from the AIPL crowd classification logic to the launch of the FAST indicator, Alibaba has been actively exploring the specific path of "consumer operations."
First, they launched the Data Bank product, which uses AIPL logic to digitize the relationship between brands and consumers. Brands now know how many consumers they have on Alibaba's platform, what kind of people they are, and their relationship with the brand.
This provides a solid data foundation for brand consumer operations.
Aware: Includes the number of consumers reached by brand or product information through any channel within the Alibaba ecosystem.
Interest: Includes the number of consumers who have expressed interest in the brand or product.
Purchase: Includes the number of consumers who have purchased brand products minus loyal consumers.
Loyalty: Includes the number of consumers who have given positive reviews or made repeat purchases.
Then, led by Tmall's FMCG division, the Consumer Operations Health Indicator (FAST) was launched.
Fertility (F) - AIPL population total index: The result of indexing the deduplicated total of consumers who have reached the AIPL state.
Advancing (A) - AIPL population deepening rate: The index of the proportion of consumers with improved AIPL status in the total AIPL population.
Superiority (S) - Super user population total index: The result of indexing the deduplicated total of high-net-worth, high-value, and high-propagation consumers, i.e., those who intend to interact with the brand, such as members.
Thriving (T) - Super user activity rate: The proportion of super users who have active behaviors (including adding to cart, favoriting, claiming benefits or points, interacting, etc. within 180 days) in the total super user population.
On FAST, Tmall's FMCG division has released two white papers, mainly to help brands improve the efficiency of consumer operations.
They move so fast that I can't keep up.
But do you think consumer operations is fully realized? I think it's still early.
Because the current application of consumer data is mainly in touchpoint conversion. More importantly, what products and services should be provided to consumers has not yet been implemented.
But based on my understanding of Tmall's FMCG division over this period, they can't wait long.
03 GROW Growth Model
As expected, last week there were rumors that they were working with BCG (Boston Consulting Group) on something new called GROW.
Why do they like to use four-letter acronyms?
Also, GROW FAST, that's a good name.
The so-called GROW should be called the "GROW Growth Model." (Wow, growth model, it really hits the heart of brands.)
The official explanation is:
"The GROW Growth Model provides a category lifecycle matrix and corresponding growth model explanations. It starts from the core opportunities of the category, combined with a series of platform operations and data tools, to help brands refine specific category growth levers and corresponding implementation strategies based on their positioning and strategy.
Finally, it provides a set of quantitative indicators: to help quantitatively understand TOP opportunity categories, growth directions (G/R/O/W), and help brands track and improve the capture of opportunities (by benchmarking industry capture of the same category opportunities). Among them, the four major elements identified by GROW that drive sustained category growth include: Gain (penetration), Retain (repurchase), Boost (price), and Widen (extension)."
Are you confused?
Don't worry, I am too.
I specifically asked a BCG lady to explain the model to me in detail, and I finally roughly understood the main meaning.
Let me give an exclusive interpretation:
First, the GROW model is mainly to help brands find growth opportunities. Moreover, with Alibaba's big data support, each opportunity can be quantified.
Second, the GROW Growth Model looks at "brand consumer groups." That is, it temporarily does not consider "new customer acquisition," but focuses entirely on existing groups and taps their value.
It's truly the home of consumer operations!
Third, the GROW Growth Model thinks from the category dimension. If FAST is still looking at people, GROW connects people and products.
The four letters of GROW are:
This allows "consumer operations" to start landing!
When quantifying category opportunities, BCG is also very meticulous. They divide the population into ten levels according to industry consumption levels, and look at the opportunities in penetration, repurchase, price, and extension within each level. This is vastly different from our previous rough classification by household income.
The entire workflow of the GROW Growth Model is as follows:
- First, determine the category's lifecycle based on category growth rate and incremental contribution to the industry/parent category.
Are you in the potential period, star period, maturity period, or problem period? This determines your next growth model: should you quickly accumulate consumer pool and capture explosive product opportunities; or continue consumer penetration and seize category mindshare; or encourage and increase innovation; or even dig deep into core needs and "look outward and go outward"?
- Next, focus on your growth levers.
Are you going to do Gain (penetration), Retain (repurchase), Boost (price), or Widen (extension)?
- Finally, the GROW Growth Model provides a set of indicators to help brands quantify growth opportunities.
The lady from Tmall's FMCG division gave me a chart like this:
This is the TOP 5 growth opportunities for a maternal and infant brand. This quantitative table not only gives the overall growth opportunity quantification for each category, but also gives specific growth opportunity quantification in penetration, repurchase, and price.
It also provides the category average and the average of the merchant level as references.
From AIPL to FAST to GROW, Alibaba is really making big strides every half year in data-driven marketing.
I don't know why, but I suddenly remembered how we used to do Source of Growth:
Everyone worked hard to read piles of research reports;
Each person contributed growth opportunities they thought of, and discussed enthusiastically;
Very roughly estimated the size of growth opportunities, wildly guessing;
Sorted by size and difficulty, voted, and selected the top five growth opportunities;
Left the office yawning and went home;
The next day, the boss told everyone the growth opportunities he had thought of, which were different from what we thought yesterday...
Looking at this growth opportunity quantification table presented by the GROW model, I couldn't help but sigh:
Technology changes life!
Source: Yogurt Brother's Workplace Travel Guide
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