---
title: "The Internet Era Needs Brands More Than Ever, But the Internet Itself Cannot Build Them"
description: "The magical year of 2020 pushed China's economy into an era driven mainly by domestic circulation, with online economy surging and livestream commerce creating a trillion-yuan trend, deepening the internetization of Chinese consumption. As the internet becomes a major consumption arena and users spend more time on mobile, views like 'brand-effect and performance integration' and 'the internet no longer needs traditional brand methodology' are gaining popularity again. However, what is called 'brand-effect and performance integration' is often 'brand-effect and performance separation,' where traffic-driven transactions and 'traffic equals sales' often mask the value of brands and overlook the importance of brand mindshare."
author: "胡喆"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2021-03-16"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-internet-era-needs-brands-more-than-ever-but-the-internet-itself-can-1408a188/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-internet-era-needs-brands-more-than-ever-but-the-internet-itself-can-1408a188.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/luSyxA-uGhkOZNaReU4VCw"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E4%BA%92%E8%81%94%E7%BD%91%E6%97%B6%E4%BB%A3%E6%9B%B4%E9%9C%80%E8%A6%81%E5%93%81%E7%89%8C-%E4%BD%86%E4%BA%92%E8%81%94%E7%BD%91%E5%8D%B4%E6%89%93%E9%80%A0%E4%B8%8D%E4%BA%86%E5%93%81%E7%89%8C-1408a188.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-internet-era-needs-brands-more-than-ever-but-the-internet-itself-can-1408a188/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# The Internet Era Needs Brands More Than Ever, But the Internet Itself Cannot Build Them

> The magical year of 2020 pushed China's economy into an era driven mainly by domestic circulation, with online economy surging and livestream commerce creating a trillion-yuan trend, deepening the internetization of Chinese consumption. As the internet becomes a major consumption arena and users spend more time on mobile, views like 'brand-effect and performance integration' and 'the internet no longer needs traditional brand methodology' are gaining popularity again. However, what is called 'brand-effect and performance integration' is often 'brand-effect and performance separation,' where traffic-driven transactions and 'traffic equals sales' often mask the value of brands and overlook the importance of brand mindshare.

The magical year of 2020 pulled China's economy into an era driven mainly by domestic circulation. The online economy suddenly strengthened, and livestream commerce rose as a trillion-yuan trend, further deepening the internetization of Chinese consumption.
As the internet increasingly becomes a consumption hub and netizens' mobile usage time continues to grow, views such as "brand-effect and performance integration" and "the internet no longer needs traditional brand methodology" are becoming popular again.
However, what is often called "brand-effect and performance integration" is in many cases "brand-effect and performance separation." The "traffic equals sales" derived from traffic-driven transactions often masks the value of brands and overlooks the importance of brand mindshare.
In fact, in-depth research reveals that the traffic dividend has gradually ended in recent years. Most successful brands, such as Genki Forest, Miaolan Blue, Xiaoxian Dun, and Qiaqia Yellow Bag, did not succeed by relying on so-called pure traffic tactics.
On the contrary, the rise of these new consumer brands often involves continuous and repeated exposure in the living spaces that consumers pass through daily, planting the seed of the brand in their minds unconsciously, which blossoms and bears fruit one day.
This cumulative influence is often subtle, moving from quantitative to qualitative change. Once it crosses the inflection point, it embeds the brand deeply in people's minds and achieves sustained high growth.
Therefore, our conclusion is: **The internet era indeed needs brands more than ever, but the internet itself cannot build brands.**
To validate this conclusion, you must navigate three major cognitive misconceptions.

**-01-**
**Misconception 1: In the internet era, brands are no longer needed**
Livestream commerce in 2020 greatly shocked a group of traditional brand practitioners and gave rise to a new argument: the internet era no longer needs brands.
Proponents of this view argue that brands are "cognitive markers" of products, a product of the era of information asymmetry. In the internet era, information is increasingly symmetrical and transparent, allowing consumers to find any relevant information, so brands are less needed to "prompt" consumers.
In fact, this view is not limited to the present. As early as several years ago, when mobile internet and self-media were just emerging and livestreaming had not yet become widespread, similar statements were made. A representative one goes like this:
**Mobile internet brings products and users face-to-face, with full information transparency. So, what is the significance of advertising and brands? Just look at the product directly.**
**What is the essence of mobile internet? It is convenience and distance-free communication. Because of this convenience, traditional channels disappear; the internet is the channel. Traditional brands disappear; internet fan groups are the brand.**
This view completely ignores the fact that China's economic and social macro background has quietly changed—the demographic dividend is weakening, retail sales of consumer goods have hit an inflection point, while production and supply capacity has been rising rapidly.
Simply put, the number of people buying goods is decreasing and aging, while the goods available to the market and the enterprises wanting to sell them have increased almost without limit. The internet's involvement further provides an infinite number of choices, so many that they are dazzling and hard to decide on.
From this perspective, it is not difficult to see the flaws in the earlier argument:
The premise of "products and users face-to-face" is that "the product must be selected by users from billions of choices" before it can be "face-to-face";
The premise of "internet fan groups replacing brands" is that "you must have brand appeal to have fan groups";
This actually illustrates that in the context of extremely abundant supply and rising traffic costs, the core factor for success is how to make your product recognized and chosen by consumers among billions of options. To achieve this recognition, approval, and even purchase, the most effective method to date remains the brand, especially a high-potential brand.
Therefore, this misconception should be revised: with the internetization of the entire retail environment (that is, fragmentation and dustification), the value of brands has been highlighted as never before, even surpassing product strength itself.
**The richer the information and the more developed the communication channels, when the internet allows everyone to voice their opinions online, consumers with limited attention become overwhelmed. As an information simplifier, the role of brands will grow, and consumers will rely more on brands to make purchasing decisions.**
Thus, in the internet era, brands are needed more than ever.

**-02-**
**Misconception 2: Precision traffic advertising and livestreaming can replace brands**
A major argument for the internet "replacing" brands is so-called precision marketing.
With the advancement of internet technology, big data can accumulate consumers' identity information and behavioral data. Enterprises can use this data for user profiling and demand prediction, thereby pushing advertisements to consumers relatively precisely.
If you are a mature brand with strong brand potential, using precision advertising as a means of immediate monetization is a good tactic. But if you have not yet built a brand and hope that precision advertising will build it for you, it is like climbing a tree to catch a fish.
A market includes four types of people: decision-makers, purchasers, experiencers, and disseminators. Performance advertising only reaches a portion of users with data support, ignoring other types and their interactions. Therefore, performance advertising limits brand influence to a small circle, losing many sales opportunities.
In 2019, Adidas' global media director said that performance advertising accounted for as much as 77% of their investment in the past year, which damaged performance—exactly for this reason.
"Precision" advertising is characterized by silent communication with a subset of customers, with no group effect, no media influence, no demonstration effect, no brand potential enhancement, and even Baidu Index does not fluctuate. It may indeed facilitate some transactions, but it absolutely cannot build brand influence, let alone achieve the effect of igniting the market.
This is why we emphasize that most new consumer brands and renewed old brands do not place the task of brand ignition on the internet, but rather in core living spaces such as office buildings and apartment buildings that mainstream urban consumers pass through, using high-frequency repetition to achieve concentrated ignition.
You might say, if precision cannot ignite, what about livestreaming? Doesn't livestreaming have many viewers and is very popular?
The question is: if a product has only a few minutes of introduction time, would you choose a branded, familiar big-name product, or a product from a brand you have never heard of?
The core of livestreaming is selling goods, not brand building. The only KPI for livestreaming is sales volume. The basic methodology of livestream influencers is to stimulate consumers to make immediate purchase reactions and quick decisions—nothing more. This does little for brand awareness; to some extent, livestreaming with constant discounts and promotions can even lower the brand's perceived tone.
The format of livestreaming is also not suitable for brand communication. A brand is not a functional introduction or product description; it is a positioning and mindshare. Therefore, trying to explain in a few seconds of traffic advertising or a one- or two-minute livestream what the brand does, what unique value it offers, and why it is trustworthy is unrealistic from the start.
If you have been on a top influencer's livestream, you may have experienced more deeply that among livestream products, the ones that sell out instantly are mostly "big brand + deep discount" types. What helps consumers make instant decisions is not just the eloquence of the Li Jiaqis, but the long-term mindshare planted by big brands.
More importantly, even if you pay a high fee and actually sell some products, this has nothing to do with "building a brand."
The over-promotion of livestream e-commerce and "brand-effect and performance integration" leads people into the misconception that brand advertising is no longer needed.
**In a fragmented and dustified world, traffic and livestreaming only solve "buy," "when to buy," and "at what price," but they do not solve "love" and "why love." Purchases without love are one-time and not lasting. Without brand advertising to accumulate and solidify brand awareness and trust, sales are unsustainable. Consumers may buy your product today because of a low price to try it, but they will turn to competitors tomorrow because of an even lower price.**
Whether it is performance advertising or livestream recommendations, one characteristic is that the display time is very short, releasing impactful information like discounts to prompt quick decisions. This format not only has no positive effect on brand building but also heavily relies on "brand potential" and brand recognition.
In short, livestreaming and precision advertising not only cannot help build brands but also highlight their dependence on brand potential. Only the brand is the true, long-lasting free traffic and mindshare tool.

**-03-**
**Misconception 3: Users spend 6-7 hours a day on their phones, so the internet is the core platform for brand building**
Affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020, Chinese mobile users' time spent on mobile apps increased significantly. In the severely affected first quarter, the average daily usage time per person reached 6.7 hours, an increase of more than 10% compared to 2019. Among them, instant messaging and e-commerce shopping apps remained absolute rigid demands for user time, while the concentration of sub-markets such as short video, entertainment, and livestreaming continued to increase.
6.7 hours is a rather terrifying duration, leading some to draw a hasty conclusion: since users spend the most time on the internet, the internet is the core media platform for brand building.
But if you analyze carefully, you will find that the core direction and requirements of internet advertising and brand building are not aligned.
First, traditional feed ads and search keyword ads have little effect on brand building. How many feed ads can you remember in a month?
After years of use and "education," users are already very familiar with the "protective coloring" of feed ads. Therefore, on feed platforms that are increasingly over-commercialized in pursuit of revenue, users' tolerance for feed ads is decreasing. Coupled with the relatively fixed format of feed ads and limited room for "disguise," they are increasingly easily "seen through" by users, who often pre-eliminate them from their reading goals, leading to a significant drop in attention—what we commonly call "swipe past."
Does that mean feed ads are ineffective? Not entirely. In conveying strong stimuli like discounts and subsidies to attract consumer attention, feed ads still have some traffic-driving effect.
But as psychology experts point out: "Any emotional stimulus is only suitable for short-term impulsive consumption and has almost no help in cultivating long-term brand preference and consumption habits. Because emotional effects come quickly and dissipate even faster."
This is not only unrelated to brand building but also runs counter to it.
So, in the final analysis, why are internet advertising and brand building at odds?
Because in our analysis, it is not difficult to find that **the essence of internet advertising is traffic; the essence of traffic is attention; attention can only bring short-term stimulation; the essence of a brand is mindshare; building mindshare requires long-term effort and ignition at critical moments.**
Using internet advertising for brand building is like trying to drive a car into the sky. No matter how powerful the engine or how firmly you press the accelerator, because the basic principle of a car is not to generate lift for takeoff, no matter how strong the car, it cannot fly.
If you think that the long time users spend on the internet is enough to offset the shortcomings of its advertising format and duration, consider this data: authoritative research from Ipsos tells us that among the top 10 popular, highly recognizable, and mindshare-occupying advertising slogans in 2020, 47% of consumers' awareness channels came from TV advertising, 56% from internet media, and 83% from elevator media.
The total number of mobile phones is 1.59 billion, with an average daily usage time of over 6 hours as mentioned earlier. The total number of elevator media and elevator poster points is no more than 3 million, and each user passes by for only a few minutes a day. Yet the difference in effectiveness between the two in building recognizable brand advertising is very obvious. In the field of brand building, centralized ignition and high-frequency repetition are the way to go.
In fact, if we must say that internet advertising can build brands, one format was once relatively suitable: the full-screen pre-roll video ads on internet video, which we commonly call the 90-120 second pre-roll ads before long-form video content.
In terms of format and attracting user attention, this type of ad is closest to TV advertising. During the pandemic last year, the viewing time of comprehensive video apps increased significantly year-on-year. In February 2020, when the pandemic was severe, users traveled less and cinemas were closed, and the viewing time of long-form video apps reached 270 billion hours.
However, unfortunately, the biggest problem with long-form video ads is that ads on video websites can be removed by paying. At least 200-300 million long-form video users choose to pay to avoid ad interruptions. For long-form video websites, as long as they can compensate for revenue through membership income, they do not mind removing ads. But for the internet as a whole, this means that the scenario most likely to provide centralized brand display with a certain mandatory nature has also disappeared.

**-04-**
**Summary**
The discussion in this article focuses on one key point: internet advertising, characterized mainly by traffic, is not suitable for building brand mindshare and core potential, making it difficult to establish brand security and trust.
Kahneman, in his book "Thinking, Fast and Slow," points out that humans are creatures that must remain alert in their environment. Repetition triggers a comfortable sense of cognitive ease and familiarity. If a message appears repeatedly without negative consequences, it becomes a safety signal. Over time, safe becomes good, and familiar becomes liked. This is what psychology calls the exposure effect and repetition effect.
The format of internet advertising runs counter to this basic psychological principle. However, the fact that internet advertising does not help build brands does not mean the internet cannot be used for brand building. For example, the familiar "seeding" on social media, content marketing, product introductions, function promotion, and even building fan groups are all good methods and paths for brand building.
This is what Kantar China CEO and BrandZ Global President Wang Xing said: the current optimal paradigm for brand building is the combination of "WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, and Focus Media," organically integrating and resonating content marketing represented by "WeChat, Weibo, Douyin" and scenario marketing represented by Focus Media elevator media, which is the core way to enhance brand value.
**Here's a spoiler: the combination and coordination of social media and scenario marketing is a profound subject, far from a single tactic or model. We will soon publish an in-depth article that will let you understand the wonderful uses and magical effects of various combinations at a glance.**

Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan upon adoption.


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671