Source: Yang Buhuai (ID: yangbuhuai01)

Marketing is getting harder and harder. Theories and methods come one after another, and viral cases come in waves, but what do they leave behind?

When talking with marketing professionals from major brands, there is a common feeling of powerlessness, insignificance, and emptiness in the face of the vast internet. Finding KOLs, doing campaigns, even investing in traditional media—a budget thrown into the market is like a drop in the ocean. Marketing is too difficult.

One signal is that advertising revenue across major media platforms has declined across the board this year, and I expect it to continue declining in the future. But I am not pessimistic about this. It doesn't necessarily mean market budgets are shrinking; it's probably just that media budgets are shrinking. People are simply unwilling to invest in mass media.

We are in a transitional period. With the development of the internet ecosystem, the bubble of high-exposure media formats will deflate, and more marketing problems will be solved through other means.

The big logic is shifting from media placement to mass communication. Previously, it was top-down transmission; in the future, it will inevitably be inside-out communication. Under this big logic, marketing should focus on the innermost core. What is being communicated to the masses? That is the key point.

The boundaries of marketing content should continue to expand. First, expand upward—the logic of commercialization, the logic of products, even the logic of doing business, thinking about marketing from a CEO's perspective. Second, expand outward—publishing books, making movies, producing music, art exhibitions, music festivals, etc., can all serve marketing.

Next, I will try to interpret marketing from a perspective outside the marketing profession, hoping to bring some inspiration. Three aspects: thinking outside the framework, product-oriented thinking, and entrepreneurial marketing.

Think Outside the Marketing Framework

Marketing has developed for over a hundred years and has formed an invisible framework. Most people seek solutions within this framework. All marketing theories try to define this framework, whether it's positioning, the 4Ps, SWOT analysis, etc. The final form is presented as PR and advertising.

The resulting habitual thinking is that all brand problems are solved by making a video, and all public opinion issues are solved by getting authoritative endorsements.

Now the internet ecosystem can carry various forms. The purpose of marketing is to solve problems, not to make ads. Therefore, marketers should base their work on the current environment and think with a solution-oriented mindset. Whether the final output is an ad or not is not important.

As the old saying goes: "Transcend the image to grasp the essence." Thinking about marketing problems outside the marketing framework may yield different perspectives.

WeChat Red Packet is now taken for granted, but it was a new species back then. Have you ever thought that treating WeChat Red Packet as a marketing product for WeChat Pay is completely logical? Regardless of how WeChat's team thought at the time, in hindsight, WeChat Red Packet indeed popularized Tencent's online payment to an unprecedented level.

So whether it was launched for marketing purposes or not, it ultimately helped Tencent achieve a huge marketing goal.

Alibaba's 88VIP is something many may know. This membership can be purchased for as low as 88 yuan (if Taobao's Taobao value is above 1000). After purchasing this membership, many products can get a 5% discount. Youku, Xiami, Ele.me, Fliggy, Taopiaopiao, etc., within the Alibaba ecosystem all become members simultaneously. It's a membership card that offers great value, and many people have activated it. I activated it from the beginning.

This 88VIP exists as an independent commercial product, but it is also valid as a marketing product. It connects users across different platforms within the Alibaba ecosystem, bundling the highest net-worth users into a value-for-money membership card, solving the need for consumer operations in the Alibaba ecosystem.

The above two products were probably not created by standard marketers, but they solved huge marketing problems, and not through large budgets. So if marketers don't look outward and upward, product people and operations people will come to take their jobs.

Marketing Commercialization: Turning Marketing into a Business

Among all internet companies, I believe Alibaba has the fastest marketing evolution, or is the best at marketing. Personally, I think Alibaba is a marketing-driven commercial company, a giant marketing group.

Whether it's Double 11, Taobao Maker Festival, or 88VIP, these are all marketing innovations. However, these marketing innovations are not just about spending budgets; they turn marketing into a business model, operating marketing products from a commercial perspective. This is what I think is remarkable about Alibaba's marketing innovation.

If we treat 88VIP as a marketing product, what marketing value does it bring to the Alibaba ecosystem? What brand appeal does it achieve? What can we learn from it? This membership system, which has only been around for a year, is continuously growing, with more benefits being added. It is already the largest membership platform in the world.

Business Model Innovation

Membership is, of course, not a new model, but a membership platform might be. From the perspective of the Alibaba ecosystem, it is platform innovation. Internally, it is called the "No. 1 Project," indicating its enormous value.

First, this is a membership ecosystem. To put it plainly, 88VIP redefines VIP. Previously, VIP was just a membership for a specific product, with some benefits added. But 88VIP creates a membership ecosystem, not a membership for one product, but for many products, plus continuously expanding benefits. This ecosystem remains open to the outside, and the future imagination space is huge.

Then there is the value of activating existing stock. The growth of internet users has hit the ceiling, and acquiring new users is becoming increasingly difficult. The second half of the internet is about competing for existing users.

From the perspective of the Alibaba ecosystem, consumers within this ecosystem may be Taobao users, but not necessarily use Xiami; they may use Ele.me for food delivery, but have never bought Youku membership. After cross-linking as members, the total number of users in the ecosystem may not change, but each product will see an increase in users.

Based on an open strategy, this ecosystem will form a magnet effect. On one hand, it attracts more quality brands to join, with more memberships opening up simultaneously; on the other hand, multiple memberships and continuously expanding benefits will attract more consumers to join, providing user growth for products within the ecosystem. In the future, it may even become an independent membership ecosystem, forming a huge brand membership alliance.

Consumer Operations

Among all internet brands, users within the Alibaba ecosystem are probably the most valuable. They are not just traffic; they are genuine consumers.

And 88VIP members are the highest net-worth users in the Alibaba ecosystem. Retaining this group and providing them with more services will generate enormous commercial value.

Consumer operations are constantly discussed in the brand marketing world. In the future, there will be a shift from brand operations to consumer operations. The marketing value of 88VIP is to help the Alibaba ecosystem operate its core users. This is something that no amount of discounts or advertising can achieve.

Brand memberships are not rare; many brands have them, but they cannot retain consumers because most brand membership benefits are optional and useless, so consumers don't care much.

88VIP, on the other hand, provides many essential benefits. Tmall's selected brands, Ele.me helps you save money, and many resources on Youku and Xiami are not available to non-members. So 88VIP is more essential than other independent brand memberships, and thus can retain consumers.

Alibaba obtains and deeply operates the most valuable users on the internet, while users get essential benefits that genuinely save money. In its first year of operation, 88VIP saved an average of 1,230 yuan per consumer. This is a win-win for the Alibaba ecosystem and consumers.

From a marketer's perspective, 88VIP is already a marketing product that is running and has vitality.

Branding the Marketing Product

Looking at the one-year data of 88VIP: members spend over 100,000 yuan annually, the highest spending is over 2 million yuan, they contribute over 100 million quality shopping reviews each month, and they purchase new products more than a year before the general public. From these intuitive data, it's not hard to see that 88VIP members basically hold the discourse power of contemporary consumption and are the drivers behind consumption trends.

After a year of development, the entire membership ecosystem has become more complete and mature. This year, 88VIP began building its own membership brand.

It upgraded its image, released a new brand logo, launched a new brand TVC, and based on the brand positioning of "one card for eating, playing, listening, watching, and buying," it showcases multi-dimensional consumption scenarios. The creative concept "one person to the end" interprets that every 'me' is a VIP, which is the best expression of 88VIP combining multiple membership identities in one.

At the same time, this year it started the "Alibaba 88 Membership Festival" to make 88VIP more tangible and perceptible to consumers.

Ultimately, 88VIP grows into a mature membership brand. It has its own logo, slogan, brand awareness consensus, and users, becoming a vibrant commercial brand.

Regardless of the original concept, this case provides a path for marketers: you can create commercial products for marketing purposes, and even become an independent commercial brand. It is a path guide to breaking through existing marketing boundaries.

Marketing Department as an Innovation Department

Now the marketing department is increasingly becoming a supporting department. When there's a new product development, the marketing department promotes it; when operations launch an activity, the marketing department promotes it; then they do daily social media management and maintain public opinion with media contacts. It has basically become a passive department. This is the norm for many brand marketing departments.

In "Rebuilding the Marketing Department," I talked about organizational issues. The organization ultimately solves content problems. My personal judgment is that marketing content will become heavier in the future. Previously, constrained by media formats, content was writing a copy or shooting a TVC, very simple forms, relying on genius creativity.

Now many brands are starting to move from making a video to doing a project. Content becomes bigger and more complex, and then communication is based on the project itself. Moreover, many projects become sustainable IPs, such as Double 11 and the Taobao Maker Festival.

I predict this trend will continue. Whether or not marketing professionals are willing to evolve, marketing methods will continue to evolve. When marketers strive to evolve to doing projects, the more cutting-edge is to create a marketing product, such as WeChat Red Packet for WeChat Pay, or 88VIP for the Alibaba ecosystem. Whether they were made by marketers or not, they ultimately solved marketing problems.

Therefore, in the future, marketers should have an entrepreneurial mindset. Not only think within the marketing framework, but also think outside it. Can we solve marketing problems in other ways? Can we make a product to solve problems, or even establish a sub-brand to solve problems? Maintain innovation capability and maintain an entrepreneurial mindset from 0 to 1.

To summarize, my personal bias is that the three keywords for future trends are sustainability, productization, and commercialization.

First, sustainability: sustainable content or sustainable IP, so that the influence of marketing content can accumulate and expand continuously;

Second, productization: it's like building an assembly line that can systematically solve problems in the long term, saying goodbye to the workshop model of producing single pieces of content with unguaranteed quality;

Finally, commercialization: if a marketing product can become a business innovation model, grow into an independent brand, and even generate profits, it's roughly equivalent to entrepreneurial success.

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