**-01- Why can big brands make more money from consumers? Wang Dongyue in his book "The Theory of Evolution" mentioned a very important point: The ultimate goal of humanity is not to seek truth, but to seek survival. Therefore, the principle of least action is the foundation guiding all our values in life. What is the principle of least action? You can understand it as: to achieve something, people habitually use the minimum input to obtain the maximum output. To explain this logic, let me give you a fill-in-the-blank question: Hengyuanxiang, _________. This year, no gifts for the festival, ___________. Thirsty and tired, ___________. You see, as soon as the first half is said, you know the second half without thinking. According to cognitive psychologists, a habit is "an unconscious behavior induced by situational cues", an action we take almost without thinking. Human energy is limited, so the brain, in order to do more complex things, often finds various ways to take shortcuts; habit is one of them. Neuroscientists point out that there is an area in the human brain responsible for unconscious behavior, called the basal ganglia. The conditioned reflexes that occur unintentionally in our daily lives are stored in this area in the form of habits, allowing people to have energy to focus on other things. When the brain tries to take shortcuts and no longer actively thinks about what to do next, habits are formed. Nearly half of human daily activities are governed by habits; habits are one of the ways the brain masters complex actions. Why did humans evolve the ability of "habit"? From the perspective of energy consumption, we know that the brain is a very energy-consuming organ. Although it accounts for less than 2% of body weight, it consumes 25% of our energy. In the long process of evolution, in order to survive more effectively and reduce energy loss, humans gradually evolved a stingy cognitive habit: in principle, if a problem can be handled by habit, try not to use brain analysis. So-called habits mean safety and saving cognitive energy. Corresponding to human behavior, we tend to choose practices that have proven effective in life. The brain's reasoning process is: if this method worked in the past, it is still safe now. Why talk about habits? Because habits are very important for brands. Once a product can make users form a usage habit, it gives the brand a competitive advantage, and other products will find it difficult to replace it. How high is the cost of replacing a habit? Let me share a phenomenon: I have asked many people and found that most people born before 1995 use the nine-grid keyboard when typing on their phones, while most people born after 1995 prefer the full keyboard. Why is there such a difference? If you think about it carefully, it is not hard to find that because before 1995, the first phones people used before school were feature phones, and the keyboard layout of feature phones was a nine-grid layout. After people got used to typing with the nine-grid layout, when they later used smartphones, they migrated this habit. But those born after 1995, when they went to college and came into contact with phones, most were already smartphones. On touch screens, they are more accustomed to typing with a full keyboard that has the same layout as a computer keyboard. I asked these people: if you were asked to change your habit now and type with a full keyboard or nine-grid, would you be used to it? Almost 100% of people would say they are not used to it. This is an example of habits in our lives. Regarding the migration cost brought by habits, let's continue with the keyboard as an example: The keyboard layout we use on computers now is called the QWERTY keyboard, which came out in the 1870s and was initially applied to old typewriters. One characteristic of the QWERTY keyboard is that common characters are separated widely. At that time, the designer's purpose was actually to reduce typing speed. Why design it this way? Because the typing bars of the original typewriter were placed in a basket-like container. When typing, they would rotate up, print on the paper, and then return to their original position. If two adjacent letters were struck too quickly, the typing bars would jam together. Moreover, in English, there are indeed many letters that are frequently used. Christopher Sholes, the inventor of the QWERTY keyboard, solved the jamming problem by using a reverse operation method, that is, separating the most commonly used letters the farthest, so the typewriter would not break easily. This keyboard layout design was quickly adopted and promoted by manufacturers, but this keyboard had a huge drawback, especially when typing English: the most frequently used letters often heavily involve the ring finger and little finger, which made the learning cost for newcomers extremely high and typing efficiency very low. There was a professor at the University of Washington named Dvorak. He felt that the QWERTY keyboard was not very user-friendly, so he spent a full 10 years researching how to improve typing speed and in 1932 invented a keyboard named after himself, the "Dvorak keyboard". Compared to the QWERTY keyboard, the Dvorak keyboard is more ergonomic and greatly improves typing efficiency. Unfortunately, after its launch, not many people used it. Today, the worry about typing bars jamming is completely unfounded, yet the QWERTY keyboard is still used on desktops and laptops. Later, when phones had keyboards and smartphones began to have virtual keyboards, the layout still followed the QWERTY structure. It can be said that QWERTY is the most convincing case of people's dependence on habits. We are so familiar with this keyboard that we can type proficiently without looking at it. It has become an unthinking habit, passed down from generation to generation. Not only is there path dependence in usage habits, but the power of habits is also enormous in people's memory of food and taste. In 1985, Coca-Cola, on the eve of its centennial, made a major decision to change its traditional formula. Why change the formula? On the one hand, competitor Pepsi was pressing hard; on the other hand, Coca-Cola believed that consumers preferred sweeter drinks, so the new formula was sweeter. Now it seems like no big deal, just a product iteration, but at the time, this change triggered a huge crisis. The American media and the public were furious, saying that Coca-Cola had "betrayed" them. They said: "Changing the taste of Coca-Cola is like God turning the grass purple." Others said: "There are only two things in my life: God and Coca-Cola. Now you have taken away one of them." Facing the angry American public, Coca-Cola realized that Coca-Cola had become a national belief and could not be changed at will. So they quickly restored the traditional taste and never dared to mention changing the formula again. The two stories above are actually about the same thing: once users form a habit, it is difficult to change. As long as brand owners embed their products into consumers' consumption habits, they can make more money from consumers' habits. This is the secret that big brands never tell. So, if consumers rely on habits to make decisions, do small brands have no chance? **-02- Red Button Syndrome—Opportunities for Small Brand Innovation Let's do a psychological experiment first. Suppose you live in a paradise where you have no worries about food and clothing. Whatever you want, you get it, and all your requirements are met. But there is only one thing you cannot do: you can never press a red button in front of you. Once pressed, no one knows what will happen. Now, please choose: will you press it or not? Option A: Press Option B: Do not press Psychologists found in this psychological test that the vast majority of people will be driven by curiosity and press the red button. In fact, the test subjects knew that once they made a choice, it was likely to be disadvantageous to them. But they just couldn't help it. Of course, you might attribute cheating to being flirtatious, job-hopping to being too ambitious, and pressing the red button to curiosity. Actually, behind these behaviors, there is a common point: people are releasing their desire to choose, that is, the desire to choose. Even if you have already gotten the best option, you still have the impulse to choose. In fact, what you want is not the best option, but the choice itself. Psychologists call this strong desire to choose the Red Button Syndrome. In other words, the desire to choose is an irrational instinct. And choice is rational thinking. Daniel Kahneman, in "Thinking, Fast and Slow", splits human thinking models into two systems: fast thinking and slow thinking. Fast thinking is the emotional brain, called System 1; slow thinking is the rational brain, called System 2. System 1 thinking relies on intuition and is unconscious, which is the habit we talked about above. System 2 is a thinking system that requires active control and is conscious. When people make decisions, both systems play a role, but System 2 is lazy, and System 1 often dominates. So, what is the relationship between the two? You might think that rationality must dominate. Impulsive situations are after all in the minority. In fact, the truth is the opposite: the rational brain is the follower of the emotional brain. Its responsibility is not to correct the emotional brain, but to verify it. For example, when you meet a person, your intuition tells you he is not a good person. At this time, your rational brain will start to look for evidence to verify the judgment of the emotional brain. For example, speaking too loudly indicates he does not consider others' feelings; shifty eyes indicate he has a guilty conscience, etc. The relationship between the desire to choose and choice is like this: once the emotional brain activates your desire to choose, the rational brain will only help you analyze the options. It never tells you that at this moment, you should actually be content with the status quo and not consider making any choice. The human desire to choose is governed by the emotional brain. As long as there are options in front of you, your desire to choose is automatically activated. As for how to choose specifically and which one to choose, the rational brain is responsible for analysis. This desire to choose is a trial-and-error mechanism that humans have evolved over millions of years in the face of unknown environments and things. Although this mechanism is disadvantageous to the individual, it is very helpful to the group. People's spirit of adventure and habit of trying new things come from this desire to choose. This is also the opportunity for small brands to regain consumer recognition and favor through innovation in a market monopolized by big brands. **-03- Airplane Takeoff—Product Innovation Often Fails Due to Lack of Patience The enlightenment we get from the power of habits and the Red Button Syndrome is: although consumers like novelty, persuading consumers to try a similar new product is much more difficult than continuing to buy the old product. The consumption habits users form for products are the competitive advantage of large companies. So, for a new brand in an industry, it is very easy to get consumers to try a new product once, but it is very difficult to make them form a consumption habit for that brand or product. This is why many entrepreneurs, including Lei Jun, emphasize that if your product or service is only 50% better, or even twice as good, than existing products and services on the market, it is useless. Because users may have already formed usage habits for the original product, you must achieve excellence to possibly disrupt existing products or services. There is a consensus in the industry that the cost of acquiring a new user is 5-10 times the cost of maintaining an old user. John Gourville, a marketing professor at Harvard Business School, said: "Many innovations fail because users over-rely on existing products, while businesses overestimate new products. Therefore, for a new product to gain a foothold in the market, it must have an absolute advantage, not just a slight edge." Therefore, the cost of user education for an innovative product is huge in the initial stage. Let's use an airplane flight as an analogy: A Boeing 747-400 consumes nearly half of its total fuel for the entire journey during the first 20 minutes of takeoff! But once it reaches the stratosphere, the fuel consumption compared to that required for climbing is almost negligible. At the beginning, Taishan Beer launched Taishan Raw Pulp with a 7-day shelf life. During 2014-2015, in order to let consumers quickly experience Taishan Raw Pulp, Taishan Beer did a lot of free tasting. As long as consumers scanned the code and shared it with seven friends to like and help, they could get a box of Taishan Raw Pulp beer worth 72 yuan! At its peak, hundreds of thousands of bottles were given away from the author's hands every day! Now think about it, what an investment it was to break through the iron wall of the five major beer giants and carve out a path! In a sense, the reason why small brand innovation is difficult to break the monopoly of big brands is because in the early stage of product launch, with insufficient resources, the investment in consumer habit formation education is insufficient, and the brand does not enter the consumer's habit zone. In addition, we see that many large enterprises such as Master Kong and Wahaha have very strong innovation capabilities and develop a large number of innovative products every year. They also have natural channel advantages and can quickly penetrate and reach users. However, their problem is that they are very stingy in consumer cognitive education and are unwilling to invest for the long term. This is like an airplane that keeps doing the takeoff action during flight but is reluctant to step on the accelerator during the climb phase, making it difficult for products to fly into the stratosphere. Can you imagine that Uni-President's Tang Daren and Laotan Sauerkraut were launched in the same year? So, the problem with brand innovation today is that it is easy to reach and cover small groups of people, but it is extremely difficult to make large-scale users form long-term consumption habits. You have to touch, invest, and wait! | Founder of New Distribution FMCG industry channel expert, author of over 400,000 words of FMCG industry research articles For communication, you can add WeChat by long-pressing. When adding, please indicate your company, position, and name. Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted.