In recent years, many people feel that brand marketing has become increasingly difficult. If you ask them, "What are the main challenges?" A flood of complaints emerges:
Traditional marketing channels are less effective; Finding viral moments is hard, and big investments often go down the drain; Consumer attention is harder to capture; Improving marketing conversion rates is difficult; Expensive endorsements are less effective than before. As a result, many marketers have made selling hit products the core of their marketing. They spend large appearance fees on top influencers to turn one or two products into bestsellers, achieving high exposure and sales with ease. But those who have done it know that influencer marketing often leads to unpaid orders, high return rates, and widespread traffic fraud. Unilever was once deceived and publicly announced it would no longer cooperate with influencers who buy followers. Crucially, when consumers buy a brand's product because of an influencer, it's different from buying due to the brand's own marketing. In the former case, consumers identify with the influencer as a medium; without the influencer, the brand is forgotten. In the latter, consumers truly identify with the brand. This issue appears to be a change in the marketing environment, but the solution lies with consumers. -01- Consumers are becoming less sensitive to brands in many categories. Observe the market around you, and you'll see that many F2C (Factory to Customer) businesses have seized this opportunity. For example, when buying socks or a suitcase, based on different requirements, you might choose one of the following: If you don't care about quality and only look at price, you might go to Pinduoduo; If you care a bit about quality, you might go to Miniso or NOME; If you care more about quality, you might go to NetEase Yanxuan. If the decision is truly important, such as for a special occasion or as a gift, you might consider big brands like Nike or Samsonite. **Why does this happen? **Because there are too many brands and too much information; if you had to gather information for every decision, it would be exhausting. Moreover, due to brand premiums, for big brands, as product quality rises, prices increase exponentially, making it hard to ensure cost-effectiveness. Therefore, many people prefer to find a shopping channel that follows a simple formula: price is linearly related to product quality; the better the quality, the higher the price. Platforms like Pinduoduo, NetEase Yanxuan, Miniso, and NOME sell F2C products, and their value lies in helping consumers avoid brand premiums. Think back: as a consumer, how long has it been since you carefully chose a brand when buying shampoo, toothpaste, or a drink? In fact, many mature categories in the consumer goods market have entered a stage where consumers are more sensitive to the category than the brand. Yet companies in these categories still invest heavily in brand promotion. -02- There are many reasons for this consumer numbness to brands, but two are particularly important. 1. First, from an industry perspective, due to technological progress and modular production trends, the barriers for competitors to imitate and follow are lowering -- competition actually leads to product homogenization. Over a decade ago, Volvo was known for high safety and practicality as a family car, while Audi was known for entry-level sports car performance and design. However, recently, Audi surpassed Volvo in safety tests, and Volvo's ads now emphasize driving pleasure. In the 20th century, a single advanced technology in the automotive industry could sustain a company for decades. Honda, with its advanced engines, went from a small company to a major competitor against Toyota and Nissan in the 1970s, even becoming Japan's first car manufacturer to participate in F1. In categories like cars, phones, headphones, and daily chemicals, different brands have become competitors that are slightly different but essentially similar in use. (For example, Huawei has better cameras, Apple's system is smoother, but in practice, they're similar.) The root cause is that once a feature is developed in a category, the barrier to follow is low. For instance, if a new phone has fingerprint unlocking, facial recognition, and voice features, competitor phones released months later can have the same features. 2. Second, because consumers habitually use inductive thinking for decisions, the increase in product information makes the differences between brands in the same category more abstract in consumers' minds. Take shampoo: thirty years ago, shampoo was only divided into anti-dandruff and moisturizing, with different scents, so consumers could easily distinguish brands. For example, Head & Shoulders represented refreshing anti-dandruff, and Pantene represented moisturizing. The shampoo market is completely different now. Besides anti-dandruff and moisturizing, there are oil control, anti-hair loss, blackening, split-end repair, smoothing, and even refreshing effects. Scents range from tropical fruits to Nordic plants, everything imaginable. At this point, we're overwhelmed when making decisions because there are too many categories of functions and scents; the brain can't summarize so many differences for shampoo. So, when shopping, many people simply choose based on whether it has silicone, imported or domestic, or even just price. This is also why the market share of mainstream brands in many FMCG categories is declining. Finally, in many industries, companies can only survive if they achieve product homogenization to ensure economies of scale and marginal benefits. In the shared bike industry, from the initial war of a hundred companies to subsequent bankruptcies, and then the remaining being acquired by internet giants, the logic behind it is always the failure to find a profit balance, leading to broken capital chains. Have you noticed that the remaining shared bike brands are very similar? Even Mobike, Qingju, and Meituan bikes are basically the same except for color; the handlebars, seat adjustment, and locks are all the same. The logic behind this is not hard to understand: if these bikes use the same molds for components, the production cost of these components decreases due to the huge scale (supplying all bikes of several major brands), thus reducing the production cost for each individual shared bike brand. This principle of competitors using the same products exists in many other fields. For example, Estée Lauder, DIOR, Lancôme, and CHANEL share the same OEM factory in China; Foxconn has assembly lines for Apple, Nokia, Dell, and HP simultaneously. -03- Facing this dilemma, on one hand, you need to reduce costs through modular production, but on the other hand, you must avoid brand value dilution from homogenization. What else can brand marketing do? 1. Use Dichotomous Positioning As I mentioned earlier, due to increasing information noise in the same category, consumers can only perceive brands through the simplest generalizations. How does this information noise manifest? Mainly in constant attention switching and information redundancy. For example, while watching a video on a website, an ad pops up, and you might pick up your phone to check WeChat or Weibo. When you look back, the ad is over. This is attention switching, which greatly reduces the effectiveness of traditional ads. As a representative of functional drinks, Red Bull was popular for a long time with its positioning of enhancing vitality. But now, when it comes to functional drinks, there are those that supplement vitamins, calcium, zinc, or are sugar-free, and so on. This is information redundancy. In this situation, the challenge for brand marketing is no longer how to create a positioning, but what positioning to choose -- the answer is to choose dichotomous positioning as much as possible. Traditional positioning means adding an adjective in front of a product in a category and continuously strengthening the connection between that adjective and the brand. For example, airlines can be cheap, luxurious, have good service, good food, convenient, etc. Dichotomous positioning is finding an opposing concept that can only be divided into two and is exhaustive, then linking to one side. For example, the vitamin functional drink mentioned above is not dichotomous because besides that category, there are countless other "XX functional drinks" (XX can be any substance beneficial to health). What is dichotomous positioning? For example, domestic/imported. This dichotomous concept is very common and powerful. Many well-known brands -- Huawei, Xiaomi, Hongqi, Great Wall, Haier -- have benefited from the positioning of "domestic high-end." If we look back at Red Bull's success, it also found a dichotomous positioning. When the market was full of soft drinks, water, and alcohol, functional drinks were a dichotomous positioning, corresponding to all the "non-functional" drinks. Why is dichotomous positioning so important? Here I want to introduce an important concept from consumer behavior -- "decision tree." A decision tree refers to how consumers make decisions, like answering a series of screening questions about products until they decide what to buy. Since screening is necessary, how can the brain save energy? The answer is to start with 50/50 options. For example, when considering buying a TV on Double 11, deciding between domestic/imported can save you a lot of time. So dichotomous positioning often sits at the front of the decision tree, making it easier for consumers to recall. There's a popular chocolate brand called "Daily Dark Chocolate" (每日黑巧). It focuses on pure imported dark chocolate, but its brand positioning is "healthy chocolate," which has been very successful. The reason is that if positioned as dark chocolate, there are still white chocolate, milk chocolate, single-origin chocolate, protein chocolate, etc., waiting. But "healthy chocolate" forms a dichotomy with the vast majority of "non-healthy chocolate" in the market, making it easier to resonate. 2. Authenticity-Guided Communication A influential study by foreign universities challenged many brand theories. It found a pattern in the global restaurant industry: whenever a country's O2O restaurant website or app became popular (including Urbanspoon, Opentable, Yelp in the US, Openrice in Hong Kong, Zomato in India, etc.), chain restaurants' business declined, while independent restaurants' business improved. This result confirms a major shift in modern consumption -- in the past, information was scarce, so our parents' generation could only rely on brands; now, people don't look at brands, only at star ratings. The principle behind this is that internet and big data technologies have increased the granularity of information. In the past, consumers looked at brands because of the inherent assumptions behind big brands -- big brands mean larger scale, more users, higher error costs, better quality, etc. In economics, there's a set of concepts: prior/posterior experience. Prior experience means that when you see something, you immediately understand its use value. A chair: you know what it's like to sit on it without buying; a gas station: you know the car will run after filling up; a vase: you know how it looks with flowers at home. Conversely, posterior experience means you must own something to understand its use experience. A blind date: you need to spend time together to know their character; A hotel: you need to stay to know the service and experience; A school: you don't know the faculty and teaching quality without attending. In the past, when information was underdeveloped, brands helped consumers make product experiences prior. So at that time, for industries with posterior products, such as hotels, airlines, restaurants, and cars, big brands often monopolized, and small brands struggled to survive. But after the internet and big data developed, consumers gained means other than brands to make posterior experiences prior -- by increasing the granularity of product information (down to individual consumer reviews), which is the core value of many O2O websites. For this reason, we see many famous O2O websites born in the industries mentioned above, such as Ctrip for hotels/airlines, Meituan and Dianping for restaurants, etc. Finally, through large shopping platforms like Taobao/JD, all products have user review systems, essentially making all products prior. I often say the ultimate goal of brand marketing is to change consumer behavior. But now that consumer decisions are prior, the goal of guidance has changed -- previously, it was to get consumers to buy; now, it's to get them to buy and also share their experience after purchase, ensuring a positive cycle for subsequent sales. (Note: Using incentives to get customers to review is the platform's task. The positive feedback here refers to customers making positive reviews that attract future consumers.) If persuading customers to buy is essentially about amplifying perceived value and reducing perceived cost (increasing cost-effectiveness), then there's only one way to persuade: help them prove that choosing your product is right. This year, Harvard Business Review published a study on the impact of brand "Authenticity" on customer behavior. Experts surveyed two industries: restaurants and music streaming. The study found that when a restaurant or singer is known for a certain characteristic, if customers can clearly feel the authenticity of that characteristic in their experience, they are more likely to give high ratings in reviews. There's a hidden psychological logic: when customers give high ratings, the subtext is "I've verified this restaurant/singer, and it indeed matches expectations." So when a restaurant claims to be authentic California BBQ, a genuine BBQ meal is likely to get high ratings; a blues singer is more likely to get high ratings for a typical blues song. Conversely, if a hotpot restaurant has better stir-fried dishes, even if the dining experience is good, customers tend not to give a high rating. In fact, this finding runs counter to the "nudge persuasion" strategy many businesses use to get consumers to pay. When a brand aims for "customer purchase," it often uses means other than the product itself, such as discounts, extra products, or services as final sales tactics (e.g., buying a house with a parking space, longer warranties). Therefore, if a brand's marketing goal shifts to "customer purchase and positive feedback," it needs to create experiences consistent with brand perception through "authenticity" in the product and service itself. 3. Adopt Hostile Marketing Since consumers are less sensitive to brands, can we increase marketing stimulation? And what better captures your attention than something that shows you goodwill? Generally, it's something hostile to you, or in other words, something that excludes you. You might not remember many Airbnb listings, but if you have pets, you'll definitely remember which ones reject pets. If normal brand marketing is like giving a whitelist, attracting those who are willing among a large group of consumers, then hostile brands give a blacklist, attracting target consumers by excluding non-target groups. For example, Mini Cooper entered the US car market in 2002 when Americans were obsessed with large cars. The market chased big, gas-guzzling, multi-purpose vans, while Mini Cooper seemed like a matchbox in comparison. In one ad, Mini Cooper used the slogan "XXL XL L M S MINI," meaning "Are you afraid this car is too small? Sorry, it's even smaller than you think." In another ad, a Mini Cooper was placed on the roof of a sedan driving on the highway. This marketing attracted consumers tired of the big-car trend, sparked their rebelliousness, and gained market response. Just as we see people wearing clothes inside out or with collars up on the street, hostile brand marketing aims to attract rebellious consumers. As Professor Youngme Moon said, the key to hostile brand marketing is to remind consumers of what is already excessive, then offer them something they lack. 4. Transcend Industry and Category The three methods above are all considered from brand marketing itself. Actually, there's another approach -- since consumers are now less sensitive to brands than categories, we can start by changing the product category. In the late 1990s, Sony's robotics R&D team made a breakthrough, and the company decided to launch a robot product. At that time, Sony faced a problem: although the robot could technically receive commands and respond, it was far from being truly intelligent. Sony's marketing department worried that if positioned as an "intelligent robot," consumers would have high expectations and find the product didn't meet them. (Think of the 90s, when "intelligent robot" conjured images like the Terminator.) So, in product promotion, the robot became a "robot dog," shifting from the intelligent robot category to pets. Although the robot dog's intelligence was imperfect, sometimes commands were given without behavioral feedback, consumers loved it because real pets don't always obey 100% either. After its launch in 1999, the market gave it great recognition through sales. Even this year, the robot dog named Aibo has new models. This robot dog brings the joy of pet ownership without the hassle of daily care. A flaw as an intelligent robot became a highlight as a pet dog. Changing the product category is essentially replacing the original prototype with a new "psychological prototype," achieving expectation management and leveraging strengths while avoiding weaknesses. In the physical world, we can classify matter with clear definitions. For example, a fruit is an apple, not an orange, which can be verified biologically. But in the business world, these "psychological prototypes" are more often created by brands. For example, a TV can belong to the "video player" category, where consumers expect picture quality, screen size, and audiovisual experience. So if a company's display tube technology isn't advantageous, how can it make TVs? Samsung provided the answer: in South Korea, they categorized TVs under "home decor," so consumer expectations became design and harmony with home decor. (Because a TV in the living room is often one of the first decorations guests see.) Samsung excels in product design, so they cleverly changed the category to leverage their strengths. Here are a few more examples of changing brand categories for deeper understanding. This isn't just in business; we also see examples in daily life, like in sports: LeBron James, originally a small forward, became the strongest point guard when he played that position, becoming a trump card for the Lakers; German goalkeeper Neuer, a forward with goalkeeping talent, became the goalkeeper with the best footwork and pioneered the "sweeper-keeper" style. This is an important way of thinking: through role transformation, you can leverage strengths and avoid weaknesses, even making a trait insignificant in one field a crucial skill in another. -04- To summarize, today I've shared how to do marketing in the current business world where consumer sensitivity to brands has declined. This year's Double 11 just passed; while we see record sales, we can also note that top Taobao live-streaming influencers like Viya and Li Jiaqi can break 1 billion yuan in single-day sales. Consumers' decision-making reference systems now include not only influencers but also e-commerce platform algorithms (which determine what products appear on your page) and even referrals from acquaintances. These factors also make brand marketing more difficult. In this context, I've shared four methods: Use dichotomous positioning to improve decision order in consumers' minds; Use authenticity to strengthen positive feedback communication; Use hostile marketing to enhance brand stimulation; Transcend industry and category to reposition products. I hope this inspires you. Source: He Xiansheng (ID: Yuanwai-HE) Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted.