The starting point of all marketing and brand building is to think back to consumer behavior patterns, so we can understand how brand marketing actually works. When we start marketing, we first focus on the consumer's purchase decision process, which is the behavioral chain of 'information search - comparison evaluation - purchase action - sharing and diffusion', to find user touchpoints and influence their purchase behavior. Consumers buy because they have needs. Human needs come from the overlay of desires and life scenarios, which are based on a person's self-concept and lifestyle. For example, a consumer wants to buy a luxury family car, such as the Li Auto L9 or AITO M9. This car purchase need may be because he is married with children and needs a car to take the whole family on trips (lifestyle and scenario; the scenario brings a specific purchase task); And, subconsciously, he wants to be seen as a trendsetter, a modern elite, and a family-oriented person, so he buys a new energy luxury flagship SUV rather than a fuel-efficient MPV (self-concept and desire). Tracing back further, self-concept and lifestyle come from the combined influence and effect of people's complex inner world (personality, individuality, emotions, attitudes, cognition, learning, etc.) and external cultural world (family, circles, social class, reference groups, popular culture, subculture, etc.). This is full of factors that are hard to articulate and hard for marketing to reach, so we won't discuss them for now. In short, marketing is about two things: stimulating demand and influencing decisions. First, stimulate consumers' interest and willingness to buy your brand, making them realize that your product can solve problems in their lives, meet their needs, and is important and significant to them, creating a strong desire to own it. Second, influence their decision-making process, so that when they buy similar products, they form a preference for you, choose you first or specify you, thus defeating competitors in the comparison and consideration stage, and ultimately making the purchase. For marketing, these two aspects constitute the overall influence on consumer purchases. From this perspective, let's look at two types of advertising cases. One type is category-occupying advertising. For example, Milkground (Miaokelanduo). In the past few years, Milkground has invested heavily in advertising to promote the benefits of cheese, especially repeatedly and massively airing the ad 'For cheese, choose Milkground'. This slogan is Milkground's brand proposition. Such slogans are often called brand positioning statements. Their purpose is to occupy the category by emphasizing their position in the cheese market, ensuring that consumers think of Milkground first when buying cheese. Thanks to heavy advertising and rapid brand awareness growth, from 2018 to 2021, Milkground's revenue and net profit both increased significantly. But the good times didn't last; in 2022, its net profit began to decline, and in 2023, both revenue and net profit fell sharply. Financial reports show that in 2023, Milkground achieved total revenue of 4.049 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 16.16%; net profit attributable to shareholders was 63 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 53.9%. In May 2024, the topic '#Milkground's market value evaporated 36.5 billion in three years#' even made it to Weibo hot search. The reason for this stark contrast is simple. The aggressive advertising bombardment led to a significant increase in Milkground's penetration in the cheese market, quickly squeezing the existing market dry, and the market space is close to the ceiling. Now Milkground must open up new markets, attract and persuade those who don't usually eat cheese to eat cheese, thus developing a second growth curve. But obviously, just shouting 'For cheese, choose Milkground' cannot stimulate consumers' interest in eating cheese or push people to eat cheese. Its role is only to influence the probability of people choosing Milkground when they already have the habit of eating cheese. Moreover, cheese is not a necessity. Cheese sticks, as children's snacks, are highly substitutable, but they cannot replace milk. Milkground cannot gain new consumer groups, so its advertising effectiveness will inevitably continue to decline, with diminishing marginal returns. I believe many people have seen Milkground's ads and should remember the brand, but the question is, did you buy it? To make matters worse, Milkground has attracted many brands like Yili, Bright, and Junlebao to enter the cheese market, intensifying competition and turning the market into a red ocean, with gross margins also declining rapidly. Over the past three years, when I gave speeches on 'Brand Growth' at various industry summits, I often used Milkground as a case to illustrate the inherent flaws in its brand strategy, making growth unsustainable (with PPT slides and summit photos as evidence). This is not targeting Milkground, but I believe its approach represents a typical pattern and thinking trap in the marketing industry. I have a habit of taking photos of ads. The following two ads are ones I took at airports and high-speed rail stations in the past two years, such as 'For professional sports earphones, choose Shokz' and 'For olive oil, I only love Olivoilà'. These are typical category-occupying ads. Their common problems are— First, occupying a category can only influence decisions, but it is difficult to stimulate demand. These ads only work when consumers already have a need, have entered the purchase decision stage, and have a fixed consumption habit for the category. In plain terms, it's fine to love Olivoilà for olive oil, but the problem is consumers don't love olive oil; it's fine to choose Milkground for cheese, but the problem is people don't eat cheese. In this situation, large-scale advertising can indeed make consumers remember the brand and establish some brand awareness, but it is not enough to change their attitudes and behaviors. No matter how much you advertise, even if consumers know you and remember you, it's useless if they just don't eat it. Second, the premise of occupying a category is that the category size is large enough. When the category itself is limited in scale and user data is insufficient, occupying the category is not very meaningful. Many new products and new categories make this mistake in marketing, spending a lot of money on occupying categories and increasing penetration, but consumers have no interest in their products or categories. Especially, this approach is extremely costly. Consider that any category will have competitors, potential entrants, and substitutes. To monopolize or own a category means huge investment, requiring heavy spending to educate and brainwash consumers. And when there are strong competitors in the category, even if you significantly increase marketing investment, the difficulty of expanding market share rises sharply. Last year, I saw an interview with Liu Bin, vice president of Manting, and I resonated with it. He said: 'Many new brands, when starting to operate in the market, mostly aim to seize a niche category market, but their business profits and operating structure are actually unhealthy. The excessive proportion of marketing expenses, especially influencer placement costs, is a common problem in the industry.' For Milkground, the real problem is that most Chinese consumers haven't developed the habit of eating cheese. Too few people buy cheese. The domestic cheese market is only so big, and the share you can take is limited. Moreover, with so many competitors, you can't take it all. To solve the problem of consumers not buying cheese, Milkground added a new advertising appeal in 2022, called 'Add one slice to a nutritious breakfast'. The ad says that Chinese eating habits are mainly carbohydrate-based at breakfast, so adding a slice of cheese with porridge, buns, or youtiao is just right. You see, this is scenario-based advertising to cultivate the habit of eating cheese at breakfast. The difference between 'For cheese, choose Milkground' and 'Add one slice to a nutritious breakfast' is the difference between influencing decisions and stimulating demand. But cultivating the market requires patience and long-term investment. Milkground's investment in this ad is insufficient, and the company clearly lacks patience. Most ads still aim to influence user decisions, hoping to boost sales. But without stimulating demand, where does market growth come from? Another type is functional selling point advertising. Let's take another example. There is a specialty in Yunnan called flower cake. Friends who have traveled to Yunnan should have bought it. The representative brand Jiahua's slogan is 'Three roses make one cake'. Personally, I think this copy is very good, with detailed and vivid selling points, precise and specific numbers. But the same question arises: after seeing this brand proposition, did you consider ordering flower cakes? Or did this sentence stimulate your desire to eat flower cakes? I think probably not. Why? Because you don't have a scenario for eating flower cakes in your life. When to eat? Where to eat? With whom? Consumers have no concept of these. And friends who have bought flower cakes know that the only scenario that truly stimulates purchase demand is when traveling to Yunnan and bringing gifts for relatives and friends. In the absence of corresponding consumption scenarios, functional promotion will be half the effort with double the result. Like category occupation, functional selling point promotion often only strengthens people's decision-making patterns but does not always stimulate purchase desire. When consumers already plan to buy flower cakes, 'Three roses make one cake' can prompt them to consider buying Jiahua's cakes. But when consumers have no need or consumption scenario, no matter how the brand promotes 'whole rose petals in the filling, real ingredients, freshly baked', or 'self-owned base direct supply of flowers', 'selected good ingredients, organic double certification', it is difficult to work, even though these selling points are real. Without demand, there is no purchase decision. In 1997, when Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he gave a speech inside the company. In the speech, Jobs mentioned: 'The dairy industry spent 20 years trying to convince people that drinking milk is good for you. They tried their best, but milk sales were like this (Jobs made a downward gesture); then they launched the 'Got Milk' marketing campaign, and sales became like this (upward gesture).' 'And the 'Got Milk' series of ads didn't mention product indicators at all, and even deliberately downplayed the product's presence.' It sounds counterintuitive, but that's the way it is. It's not that if your product has a unique selling point and you promote it, consumers will naturally buy it. The cost of educating consumers is high, and changing consumer perceptions is difficult. Of course, I don't mean that we shouldn't do functional promotion, but that we need to find a place for functionality to be used. That is, to find or create scenarios in consumers' lives where they use the product, and around those scenarios, show how the product solves their problems and pain points, hitting their inner anxieties and desires. For example, Jiahua flower cakes could create a scenario of a girls' afternoon tea or camping, promoting the quality and taste of roses in that scenario, letting consumers feel that flower cakes can add romance to their lives; In a gathering and leisure scenario, convey the warmth and happiness that flower cakes bring; or in a scenario of a couple in love dating or a young couple's family life, convey love and sweetness through the plot of preparing flower cakes for a lover. From the functional quality of flower cakes to the emotional value enhancement of flowers, convey this function and value in the scenario. Also, with Mid-Autumn Festival approaching, I have developed a desire to buy Jiahua's Yunnan ham and mushroom mooncakes. Consumers understand product value through scenarios. Scenarios have an inherent educational effect. Putting functionality in scenarios makes it more perceptible to consumers, and scenarios give product marketing a handle. Returning to the beginning of this article, marketing is about two things: stimulating demand and influencing decisions. The common problem with category-occupying ads and functional selling point ads is that their marketing models are incomplete. They only have the part that influences decisions and reminds purchases, but lack the part that evokes demand and establishes consumption habits. Without the existence and support of demand, whatever companies do is futile. So everyone must understand the relationships between selling points, categories, demand, and decisions. Selling points are not equal to demand. We need to let consumers perceive product functional selling points in scenarios and stimulate their interest in the product; Occupying a category is not entirely equal to decision-making. It is only trying to gain priority selection. We need to let consumers naturally make decisions in scenarios and drive their behavior. Scenario precedes product function; scenario is greater than category positioning. In addition, you can look at many ads on the market, whether they are brainwashing shouts, symbolic visuals, quality endorsements, or emphasis on sales leadership and market position. The business intent behind them is mainly to make consumers remember the brand and strengthen the brand's influence in its category, thereby increasing the probability of consumers choosing the brand. In the end, these are all about influencing decisions, but not stimulating demand. And the funny thing is, we often think these ads have more 'sales power'. In fact, the traditional approach to brand marketing is, on the one hand, to increase advertising investment to inform consumers of the brand's existence, repeatedly remind consumers, and brainwash them about the product's and brand's goodness; on the other hand, to increase distribution, pushing the product to consumers through various channels, making it appear within consumers' reach. When consumers had just escaped material scarcity, with scarce goods and strong shopping desire, companies did this and consumers would order. But now, this approach is increasingly ineffective. To create consumer demand, it's not enough to just push the product in front of consumers; you must create opportunities in consumers' lives. As Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz said: 'We don't want to push the product to consumers, but rather find a way to bring consumers to our product.' Creating demand through scenarios means creating opportunities for consumers to use the product in their lives, turning buying the product into a natural task in consumers' lives. With the injection of scenarios, the marketing model becomes complete. American psychologist John Watson, founder of behaviorist psychology, was also a successful advertiser. During his time as vice president at the famous advertising agency JWT, there was a classic case involving the promotion of coffee products, when coffee was not yet popular in the United States. Watson believed that selling coffee should not just emphasize how good coffee tastes, but rather create more opportunities for consumers to drink coffee, thereby changing their behavior. So, Watson launched a 'coffee time' campaign in the United States, making 'coffee time' a fixed ritual and behavioral habit for consumers at home, in factories, and in offices, thus driving coffee sales. This approach of creating product opportunities in consumers' lives is what we call scenario today. To influence consumer decisions, we already have many means, including appealing to product functional selling points, quality endorsements, and category status; to stimulate consumer demand, we need to do more interpretation and research on consumer life scenarios. Recommended Reading