The world has changed. If new marketing, which began in the internet era, initially focused on promotion, then in the mobile internet era, especially after the integration of mobile payments, it has completed a closed loop from promotion to sales. New marketing based on communities and social sharing is increasingly showing its significant differences from PC internet-era models and first-generation website and app e-commerce. The rapid success of Meituan, Pinduoduo, and Didi, as well as the popularity of VIPKID, Luckin Coffee, and ofo, with occasional failures, demonstrates that the new marketing model, based on the actual operations of these brands, is increasingly revealing its successful path and patterns. It is clearly disruptive innovation compared to previous generations of marketing. 1 Characteristics of the New Generation of "E-commerce" Traditional e-commerce thinking is nothing more than platforms and independent online stores, with typical operational thinking based on traffic * conversion rate. Its key point is to continuously acquire traffic for sales conversion, and obviously, transactions are more limited to online. But the most significant change in the new generation of e-commerce is that the focus is more on "people" themselves and the way people connect with brands. The term "e-commerce" may no longer fully cover the changes in today's internet era. Although O2O, which was popular a few years ago, has become a thing of the past, it was a beneficial exploration for new retail. Today's Meituan platform and Dianping platform are all deepening of the O2O thinking from back then. The first major feature of new marketing is expanding the scenarios for sales and transactions, and both online and offline can complete transactions. One of the O2O ideas a few years ago was to drive traffic from online to physical stores and then complete transactions. The biggest problem here is the extremely high loss rate in this sales transition. Some consumers prefer to stay at home and click with a mouse or on their phones, while others prefer to go to stores. Forcing so-called online-to-offline traffic seems reasonable at first glance, but in reality, it goes against the common sense of business. Today's Meituan platform provides the possibility of enjoying restaurant services at home. Its significant difference from pure food delivery is that delivery services mostly provide simple products like boxed meals, but the Meituan platform offers an integrated experience of dine-in and delivery. New retail unexpectedly emerged in the new catering industry. Although it was unexpected, on reflection, it was inevitable. Luckin Coffee, which has recently caused a huge impact on Starbucks, is a clear example born from new marketing. It grew out of Shenzhou Youche, which is rooted in the internet, and inherently has mobile internet genes. With the support of capital, Luckin opened nearly 500 stores at the beginning of its brand creation, which is not at all on the same scale as Starbucks' traditional store opening speed. But people know Luckin Coffee more through the mobile internet. With social behaviors like sending coffee and coffee red packets, the Luckin brand penetrates various WeChat communities and Moments. Compared to how Schultz tirelessly told the Starbucks story to the media back then, this has more characteristics of new marketing and faster fission speed. Some Starbucks fans particularly emphasize that Starbucks tastes better, but in fact, both Luckin and Starbucks target light coffee consumers, and their coffee quality is at the same level, with many suppliers being the same. This comparison actually provides topics for communities. Luckin also gains more voice in this comparison and competition. More interestingly, through the Luckin app, it is easier to get a cup of coffee delivered than to queue at a Starbucks store. If the Luckin app is still criticized by some consumers for being too cumbersome to download, then the model of Pangwu Huozhan is even more directly designed for strong connection relationships like WeChat. Pangwu Huozhan cannot be considered successful yet. In fact, it originated from the founder's (who is also the founder of Framedia, later sold to Focus Media for cash) hobby of giving gifts, a "small matter." Pangwu Huozhan almost completely omits the app and focuses on WeChat mini-programs and service accounts. At first glance, its business model is roughly equivalent to a local specialty version of NetEase Yanxuan, but its clever design allows you to reward yourself while also giving gifts, and the gift giver cannot see the recipient's address but can know whether the recipient has received the gift. Mini-program e-commerce combined with clever social sharing design has allowed Pangwu Huozhan to achieve initial success almost without any promotion, and it is expected to receive new financing this winter, entering a new stage of promotion, and the business scale is also very likely to reach a new level. It is undeniable that this mini-program e-commerce, which started from a "small matter," has a great business philosophy. First, it is "light." The essence of selection is to act as a recommender of quality products without bearing heavy warehousing and stocking costs. In addition, mini-programs and service accounts eliminate the hassle of downloading apps. Second, it is sharing. Whether it is giving gifts or sharing promotional methods similar to red packet functions, it is more suitable for fission-like diffusion among friends and groups than traditional e-commerce. In addition to focusing more on social scenarios for traffic acquisition and leveraging social platforms to become more social, the new generation of "e-commerce" also expands transaction scenarios and "shelf" resources for physical stores, making product selection more professional. Product selection was originally a core skill in retail, and buyers are very valuable talents in this industry. However, in the trend of new marketing, this function is gradually being replaced by big data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. Stores like JD Home and Xiaomi Home have product combinations that were impossible in previous retail. Traditional marketing thinking like "focus" and "positioning" does not exist here. JD Home can sell electronics and books, and Xiaomi not only sells TVs but also balance scooters. Setting aside stories like IoT, in essence, they strongly associate products with consumers behind the data, and based on original e-commerce data, they plan offline product displays supplemented by scenarios. A few years ago, some people actually tried this approach, but not many succeeded. The reason lies in the evolution of e-commerce. In the early stages of e-commerce, represented by Taobao, products differed greatly from offline physical stores. The "Taobao brands" (later changed to Tmall Original) that were popular on Taobao and Tmall had significant differences from offline in terms of consumer groups and products. Even major manufacturers often divided products into online and offline. The rapid development of e-commerce is creating a consumer democracy, gradually smoothing out product and price differences between online and offline, providing opportunities for new retail. Moreover, new marketing also connects online and offline data, forming more intelligent product recommendations and providing more accurate basis for subsequent consumer services. But what is a scenario? This is probably an area that needs more focused research and practice. Some new retail scenarios are successful, but some are just patchwork. Why is supermarket plus dining new? How to define the rationality and efficiency of location selection in commercial districts? These are problems that new marketing needs to solve more deeply in the future. 2 The New Playbook of New Marketing In recent months, the rapid rise of Luckin Coffee has provided us with a textbook case of a comprehensive three-dimensional marketing playbook for new marketing. Starting with social topics is the usual opening for new marketing in recent years. This method existed in the past, but at that time, it was just completing a marketing campaign on its own, not closely related to other marketing promotions. But in recent new marketing techniques, the important role of socialization is to start the game and create momentum. The technique Luckin used is the "send" and "share" designed for WeChat, heavily utilizing mini-program and service account functions. Pinduoduo, which is controversial but has impressive performance, used a more direct and even crude group-buying sharing method. But whether it is Luckin or Pinduoduo, they clearly understand that to create a bigger storm, more advertising investment is needed. Social communication has its effects, but overall, it is the kind of style that comes and goes quickly. No matter how big a PR storm is, it may disappear in a day or two. Create topics, stir up a storm, and sustained exposure requires advertising. Surprisingly, many unicorns in the mobile internet era prefer elevator advertising. In terms of CPM calculation, elevator advertising CPM is relatively high, but elevator advertising is highly correlated with office buildings in first- and second-tier cities and elevator apartments where the middle class lives. Jiang Nanchun, founder of Focus Media, said that "urban mainstream groups" are indeed the people reached by this type of media, and the enclosed space of elevators and the TVs at elevator entrances do have another characteristic of elevator advertising that Jiang Nanchun mentioned: "saturation attack." Of course, Pinduoduo's advertising also has many traditional characteristics, such as placements during the World Cup or sponsoring various variety shows. But this is clearly related to the monopoly live broadcast of the World Cup on CCTV, and variety shows are also related to Pinduoduo's target audience. Pinduoduo was once called "rural Taobao," and its target audience is even lower-tier than Taobao. Media has also undergone tremendous changes in recent years due to the proliferation of new media and self-media. In terms of media consumption habits, since the beginning of 2017, video website advertising has replaced TV advertising as the most contacted form of advertising (according to Nielsen research), and video advertising has also created richer advertising forms than TV, such as creative mid-roll ads, which is also a major innovation after video websites gradually switched to membership systems. But overall, the media authority of new media is still not as good as TV, especially CCTV and satellite TV, and the communication models of new media and self-media rely more on content. Early internet advertising explored many models. Models transplanted from traditional advertising, such as Banner and DSP, have been proven to have little effect, and data fraud is very serious. Search engine keyword advertising is controversial not only in the medical industry but also in other industries. After Toutiao rose, feed advertising emerged, and it changed the previous dispensable nature of internet advertising, becoming an effective and highly growing advertising form. But the current popular feed advertising expression is very different from traditional shouting-style advertising, and content-driven has become a common understanding among advertisers. The unicorns of new marketing are clearly proficient in internet, especially mobile internet, communication models, and they also deeply understand the all-media playbook that combines old and new. More importantly, they have changed the previous practice of separating advertising and PR, merging the two, so that new marketing has both the repetition and compulsion of traditional advertising and the social interaction and viral communication characteristics driven by PR content. This is a typical combination of advertising PR-ization and PR advertising-ization. This combination has more explosive power and communication power than any previous era. However, we must not forget that in the era of new marketing, the product is also a medium, and perhaps the most important medium. Since Jobs' groundbreaking product launches, his imitations have been flourishing in China for the past decade. The CEO's desire to perform is one explanation, but more importantly, the product has indeed become the most important media channel. Product is media, and media is message. Through self-media channels like Moments and Weibo, which everyone can have, it adds fuel to the product's spread. Whether it is the strong ties of WeChat Moments or the weak ties of Weibo and e-commerce product reviews, these all make the attribute of product as media stronger and stronger. CEOs calling themselves product managers has become a fashion because they know this is the most important medium to make their companies grow rapidly or attract criticism. "New retail" and "new marketing"—what exactly is new? In essence, it is due to revolutionary changes in the connections between people and between people and brands. The elite-controlled discourse power in the traditional media era has become an interactive self-media era where everyone is media. The development of urbanization and the rise of shopping malls have also caused tremendous changes in China's consumer business districts, especially in first- and second-tier cities. The development of mobile internet and the foreseeable prospects of artificial intelligence have also led to revolutionary improvements in business and marketing technology. The essence of business and marketing is people. This was a slogan in the past, but in the era of new marketing, it is the big data behind it. This is the true secret of new marketing. The world has already changed. Source: Sales and Market -END-