Click the image for details 1. The Marketing System That Built FMCG Giants Before discussing new marketing, let's talk about traditional marketing. Due to natural objective factors (vast territory, large population distribution, uneven development across regions, etc.), China's market is a multi-layered, three-dimensional market. To illustrate with data: China has 285 prefecture-level cities, 15 regions, 30 autonomous prefectures, 3 leagues, 2,856 counties, and 41,658 townships. To distribute products to so many places in such a "large and broad" market and gain consumer recognition is extremely complex. First, in fierce market competition, one must have keen insight to identify or discover a huge dividend market. What is a dividend?
A giant's niche market (huge potential target user group);
No leading brand yet, or no high-share competitor;
Ability to acquire customers through simple and fast means (e.g., OPPO and VIVO control terminals in rural markets, essentially using advertising bombardment + deep distribution for the vast low-tier market users);
The target user group has potential purchasing power. If these characteristics are met, it can basically be confirmed as a huge potential market. For such markets, traditional marketers have a specific set of marketing tactics:
Refined terminal layout (distribution rate, tiered management)
Terminal visualization construction (deployment of various visual materials, with standardized usage)
Terminal activation and interception (using shopping guides, promotions to intercept users)
Terminal incentives (sufficient profit margins to stimulate channel distribution)
Quick sell-through (high turnover rate, achieving rapid capital recovery)
Empowering partners (professional skill training for partners)
Proactive off-store marketing (breaking retail space limits, conducting activities in areas with dense target traffic) Yes, the above is the deep marketing system that has dominated China's FMCG market for nearly 20 years. This marketing system has created countless FMCG giants. 2. The Underlying Logic of Deep Marketing Failure Since 2013, China's FMCG market has experienced large-scale stagnation. The reasons, from a macro perspective, are three issues: market saturation, rising costs, and internet impact. Among them, the biggest impact on the market is the internet's impact on the consumer market, mainly reflected in three aspects:
Total consumption has not grown much, but online growth is too fast, continuously eroding offline;
The internet's distributed communication and interactive promotional communication have severely impacted traditional centralized, broadcast media;
Consumers who grew up in the internet era are not interested in traditional "hawking" advertisements. Besides bringing rich purchasing experiences (convenience, vast selection), the internet has more critically led people to gradually become accustomed to living in an "interconnected" online world. When the working environment, social structure, and lifestyle undergo significant changes, consumer behavior changes become particularly prominent: • Individual consumption capacity stratification • Fragmented and diverse consumption scenarios • Diverse personal values In the past, without the internet, people's living and working environments, lifestyles, values, and social structures were a single linear structure. Often, your position in the "social structure" basically determined your corresponding lifestyle, values, and living environment. But after the internet emerged, people began living in a more three-dimensional space, able to cross physical space, communicate with friends far away about life, colleagues about work, and even live on the internet. At this point, consumption needs formed multi-dimensional combinations: From a geographical perspective, China has long had a dual structure: urban/rural, high-income/low-income, high-education/low-education, open information environment/closed information environment; From a consumption capacity perspective, China has long had a three-tier structure: mass, niche, and personalized. The increase in income, changes in social structure, technological progress, and cultural changes integrated into the internet, leading to cross-combinations of needs and the emergence of multi-dimensional demand characteristics. But note, new demands do not entirely replace original demands; rather, multiple demands coexist long-term, with some rising and others falling. With so many segmented demands emerging, it becomes complex for enterprises to discover and satisfy them. Brand owners need to move from broad markets to segmented markets, requiring different marketing strategies to satisfy them.
Traditional 4P marketing strategy mix, responding to the traditional broad market (market to satisfy)—mass;
Classify the broad market, find small-scale consumption demand sets, and use different marketing strategy mixes to respond separately (market to discover)—niche;
Only choose one extremely segmented market and use only one marketing method to respond (market to co-create with consumers)—personalized. In summary: from value for money, to catering to preferences, to being the first choice in mind. 3. Behind New Marketing Is a New Connection Method Brand owners produce goods, which are ultimately purchased/consumed by consumers. From product to consumer, traditional connections are one of two types: the customer's cognitive chain and the product/service transaction chain. The cognitive chain is solved through communication, with the basic characteristic of mass communication; the transaction chain is solved through distribution, with the basic characteristic of multi-link transactions from distribution to retail, ultimately delivered to consumers. △ Traditional bridge connecting supply and demand Characteristics of the traditional mass communication chain:
Facing undifferentiated mass customers, pursuing communication breadth, scope, and reach;
One-way communication, I speak, you listen, with non-direct contact with customers;
Occupying or controlling the commanding heights and resources of mass media as much as possible;
The key to communication competition is resource or capital investment;
Through repeated integrated communication over time and space, ensuring more consumers are exposed to information for longer, thereby controlling consumer cognition. But in the internet context, the communication chain and distribution chain have merged, achieving integration. This means that the past mass communication chain and distribution value chain have undergone fundamental changes, giving rise to two new concepts: customer interaction and supply chain services. The core carried in between is, on one hand, enterprises must achieve online-offline integration in marketing, with communication and transaction integrated, and during the communication process, be able to achieve transaction conversion. On the other hand, enterprises must achieve high flexibility, high routing, high efficiency, and precise, visible rapid delivery capabilities in R&D, production, and supply chain. △ New bridge connecting supply and demand Today, we focus on the customer interaction chain. The emergence of new technologies has led to the reconstruction of relationships among products, users, and places. In the past, people went to fixed spaces to find "goods"; now, "goods" find people. From the enterprise perspective, shifting from passive to active requires your "goods" to be attractive enough, and in addition, the communication methods must also be more attractive. When people, goods, and places change, marketing and communication must also change accordingly: New principles for customer communication in the internet era:
From mass communication to segmented (tiered)
From rough communication to precise communication (technology)
From functional to emotional (consumption upgrade)
From instilling communication to inspiring communication (creation)
From pre-transaction communication to post-transaction communication (funnel to ripple)
From single communication to integrated communication (full network, full channel, spatial sense) Given the current state of online-offline integration, the marketing rules for enterprise-consumer interaction must also undergo systematic reconstruction: cognition, relationship, transaction integrated with online, social, and offline! A: Online VS Cognition: Communication must be ubiquitous Social VS Cognition: Solve trust issues through KOLs Offline VS Cognition: Cater to core users' needs, create exclusive scenarios B: Online VS Relationship: 24/7 online, real-time interaction. Social VS Relationship: Through communities, build a core 1990 community matrix Offline VS Relationship: Build relationships with consumers through good offline experiences C: Online VS Transaction: B2C, C2C, O2O Social VS Transaction: Social commerce, content commerce, community commerce Offline VS Transaction: Deep distribution, precise distribution Three cores:
Enhance user cognition: ubiquitous;
Build relationship goal: first choice in mind;
Achieve transaction key: value for money. Application tools: Official accounts, mini-programs, WeChat groups To summarize new marketing: The logic of marketing has fundamentally changed, and traffic rules have evolved from location-based traffic and platform-based traffic to social traffic. As mentioned earlier, multi-dimensional consumption demands coexist simultaneously. Enterprises need to solve cognition, transaction, and relationship using a combination of multiple marketing tools and methods to achieve effective marketing in this era. This article is a reading note on Mr. Shi Wei's masterpiece "Connection." Mr. Shi Wei takes a high-level strategic perspective on the underlying logic of new marketing in the internet era: three-dimensional space, trinity. It systematically and comprehensively explains how enterprises connect between consumer needs and enterprise value in the internet era. This is a textbook-level excellent book, strongly recommended for friends preparing to learn new marketing. New Distribution will hold the 2019 (5th) FMCG + Internet Conference during the Chengdu Spring Sugar and Wine Fair from March 16 to March 18. This conference will focus on the topic of "Breaking the Game" and conduct in-depth discussions with numerous brand owners, supply chain service providers, distributors, and retailers. Compared to previous conferences, this summit will be fully upgraded. In addition to original topics such as channel innovation, city distribution logistics, and distributor transformation, it will add multiple parallel forums on new marketing cases, IP + FMCG empowerment, community group buying, and innovative retail. Through three days of ten high-density, high-quality expert sharing and exchanges, we believe every brand owner and distributor can learn the latest business models, expert viewpoints, and practical methods, finding new tools and methods to break the game in 2019 and return to the track of rapid growth. -END-