Over the past year, I witnessed a flood of co-branded marketing; witnessed event marketing like 'live-streaming reversing aesthetics', 'the most down-to-earth business war', 'dopamine', 'Maillard', and 'It's not that XX is unaffordable, but XX offers better value'; witnessed the collective resurgence of domestic brands after a single eyebrow pencil incident; witnessed the strong rise of hit new products; witnessed small brands leveraging their strengths; witnessed large models moving from 'behind everything' at the start of the year to 'front and center in marketing' by the end... At the same time, we realized that brand competition has entered a new environment of stock competition; marketing has also shifted from investing for growth to accumulating for growth; technological innovation is a core force in brand competition; and the emotional value provided to consumers is the most scarce value. In 2024, we have entered a new consumption cycle, and for brands, growth still holds great potential. Through the excellent growth paradigms on various platforms last year, we have summarized the 'underlying opportunities' for brand growth, from merchants to winners, from planning for tomorrow to envisioning the day after.

Xiaohongshu's Growth Node: Take a Gamble, Turn a Bicycle into a Motorcycle In the next 1-2 years, whether for platforms or brands, seeking growth from Xiaohongshu is equivalent to seeking opportunities in a blue ocean. Xiaohongshu has 260 million monthly active users, 20 million monthly active creators, and over 3 million daily note posts (data from end of last year, conservatively estimated to be higher this year). On this basis, Xiaohongshu is the only UGC community on the internet that focuses on ordinary people's experience content. Sharing among strangers has evolved into the most effective content for planting seeds. For ordinary users, content entrepreneurship opportunities remain significant. Starting with Dong Jie's live stream at the beginning of the year, Xiaohongshu's community commercialization path has fully run through. Many ordinary women have emerged on Xiaohongshu selling pajamas, pants, accessories, and even their own spicy noodles. A sincere comment like 'Girls don't deceive girls' can close a deal. For merchants, especially small and medium-sized ones, they are more willing to refine marketing methodologies on Xiaohongshu, which is recognized as the platform with the lowest basic cost for influencer marketing (and still effective). With the same 50,000 yuan, on other platforms you might only find 1-2 influencers, and they might be mid-tier or lower, but on Xiaohongshu you can find a group of influencers, creating a significant explosive growth. For large brands' growth, Xiaohongshu's search this year has shown them the deep value of good content. Whether KFC's new product is tasty, whether Li Jiaqi's live stream items are worth it, or how to combine orders for the best deal, all these have UGC content proliferating on Xiaohongshu. Not long ago, there was a case on Xiaohongshu: Casarte had a water heater featuring zero scale and strontium-rich mineral bath that nourishes the skin. Simply sharing 'taking a good-quality hot bath' was too monotonous, but Xiaohongshu guided Casarte to create the product nickname 'Little Private Spa' using the strontium-rich mineral bath, directly defining the scenario of 'soaking in a hot spring at home' on Xiaohongshu. The topic 'Casarte Little Private Spa' remained highly popular, product searches on e-commerce platforms increased by 415%, and ROI reached an astonishing 9 times. Therefore, authentic UGC content from offline users (especially heartfelt good content) cannot be achieved just by throwing money at it. It requires Xiaohongshu's guidance, brand keyword presets, and everyone working together to find the ignition point, guiding more detailed content sharing to help consumers make purchase decisions, ultimately achieving 'organic' growth. Looking back now, the beauty industry's topics like 'Big Red Bottle', 'Little Light Bulb', 'Red Waist', and 'Ex-Boyfriend' all originated from Xiaohongshu. Xiaohongshu's community monetization path is actually replicating the growth seen in beauty a few years ago across all brands.

Tmall's Growth Node: AI E-commerce and Small and Medium Merchants Are the Future C-position This year, Tmall underwent bold reforms, whether it was the independent split or the major reshuffle at the end of the year, signaling that the e-commerce elephant is dancing. The reshuffle at the end of the year, first, brought in a younger management team with a strong technical background; second, focused on the two core businesses of 'e-commerce' and 'cloud'. Both changes point to the inevitability of AI e-commerce. Industry insiders say that AI e-commerce, for merchants (especially large ones), is characterized by cost savings, using technology to optimize supply chain management, improve inventory turnover, reduce operational costs, and ensure efficient product inventory and logistics. The insider also said that the industry view is that once users enter the AI e-commerce era, per capita ROI will be much higher than traditional e-commerce platforms. This is because marketing losses, information transmission losses, and errors in predicting consumer preferences will all be reduced, and many tedious, repetitive, and mechanical tasks will be replaced by AI. If in the AI e-commerce era, brands spend money on the blade, then in the traditional e-commerce era, brands spent a large portion on the back of the blade. The implementation of AI e-commerce can provide brands with tools, integrate resources, and pursue higher-quality revenue growth. On the other hand, attention is on the growth potential of small and medium merchants. During the year-end good price festival, small and medium merchants took the C-position. Tmall gave them many traffic subsidies, exclusive traffic support in search, live streaming, and marketing activities, and free service market operation tools. A wool sweater merchant from Xinji, Hebei, said that on the industrial belt, Taobao store live streaming is very friendly to enterprises with supply chain advantages. On one hand, store live streaming has traffic tilt, raising the development space for small and medium merchants, allowing them to complete the transformation from 'store' to 'brand'. On the other hand, the main issue with C-stores, the mismatch between buyer shows and seller shows, is being corrected through store live streaming. Store live streaming complements the refined detail pages and filter-induced 'internet celebrity' feel, as users care more about product authenticity, and even return rates have decreased. Large brands and small merchants can find their positioning in Tmall's ecosystem. In the future, whether it's the efficiency gains from AI e-commerce or the breakout that small and medium merchants expect, as long as you are in Tmall's C-position, there will always be a spotlight on you.

Pinduoduo's Growth Node: Billion Subsidies and Light Overseas Expansion In 2023, brands loved Pinduoduo's Billion Subsidies even more. Take Double 11, for example: domestic brands and high-quality agricultural product merchants on Billion Subsidies grew by more than 2 times year-on-year. Notably, during this Double 11, the number of brands participating in the multi-person group play for the first time increased by more than 10 times, and the number of brand products participating in the single-item discount activity exceeded 50,000. Signing up for multi-person group or 10,000-person group activities not only brings traffic support from the platform but also captures consumer mindshare. Whether mature or new brands, the 10,000-person group is a platform stage where brands perform. An FMCG brand said that after calculation, even if the 10,000-person group doesn't fill up, selling a few thousand orders is 'thicker' for the brand than finding a top influencer or achieving a few thousand orders through natural traffic. Especially for some agricultural brands (such as goji berries, black fungus, white fungus, and hazel mushrooms), large-scale promotion of 'multi-person group' in flash sales and Billion Subsidies can also connect with specific node marketing like the agricultural goods festival and New Year goods festival, quickly achieving the brand's goal of 'going out'. There's also an interesting corroboration: Pinduoduo itself is low-key about the multi-person group and 10,000-person group play, but now this approach has been copied by several of Pinduoduo's big brothers. In current parlance: just copy Duoduo's successful methodology; you'll succeed without a word. And Duoduo's cross-border second curve has shaped the trend of 'the world loves Pinduoduo'. A second-generation factory owner from Zhejiang said that Duoduo's cross-border move poses a significant challenge to giants like Amazon, and also gives many OEM factories hope of escaping OEM work. Now, more and more second-generation factory owners are starting to cooperate with Duoduo cross-border. After all, the fully managed model gives enterprises that focus on 'goods' more confidence, as all logistics, promotion, warehousing, distribution, customer service, traffic investment, and after-sales are completed by the platform. This model allows many foreign trade brands to dare to start again on Pinduoduo.

JD.com's Procurement Growth Node: Low Prices Become JD's Unique 'Positive-Sum Game' A while ago, Brother Dong (Liu Qiangdong) gave everyone a raise, with the highest increase going to the procurement brothers, in stark contrast to e-commerce live streaming platforms that don't give their top sellers due treatment. So never question Brother Dong's feelings for his brothers. Previously, many people thought ordinary anchors weren't polished enough? Never question a person's brilliance in their professional field. In the procurement live stream room, the usually shy procurement staff explain their product categories with great expertise. They don't need to look at the manufacturer's copy for product prices or selling points; it's part of their daily work, almost 'muscle memory'. After the Double 11 procurement live stream craze, a brand's marketing department revealed to Node Finance that they liked this model of 'no influencer commission', 'no tricks', and 'no slotting fees'. On one hand, the model offered by procurement is indeed cost-saving. During Double 11, a washing machine gave users a 60-day free trial, and the first wave sold over 1,100 units, while waiving slotting fees and commissions, saving over 400,000 yuan, and users remembered the new brand. On the other hand, talking with procurement is more valuable than talking with top influencers. A brand marketing department said that procurement is a part of the industry chain; they can feed back into our production. Procurement is like a 'human large model', learning and refining to tell us about more promising functions and systems. They can also leverage some JD on-site advertising resources. Of course, we are willing to deepen our relationship with procurement. This year, Brother Dong reflected that JD is at an important moment, but procurement's live streaming still gave us surprises, showing that procurement is breaking the bottleneck of live streaming e-commerce relying on shouting, and confirming that 'finding low prices' is itself a multi-party game, and when professional matters are left to professionals, the game is more likely to become a positive-sum game.

Kuaishou's Growth Node: Seize the Demand of New-Tier Cities and Make Money Quietly Kuaishou's voice in brand growth is not as loud, but whether it's Kuaishou or the brands on it, the focus is on 'making big moves quietly'. Not only is it profitable, but it also makes trust-based e-commerce a must-pass path for brands going down-market. In the future, Kuaishou has a prominent growth point: in the down-market, Kuaishou's trust-based e-commerce can find a broader world for high-ticket consumer brands. Previously, Kuaishou proposed the concept of 'new-tier cities', summarizing users in third-, fourth-, and fifth-tier cities that Kuaishou can deeply influence. We all know that Kuaishou's base is relatively down-market. Compared to first-tier cities, users in new first-tier and second-tier cities, and the 'old brothers' in new-tier cities, have less pressure from mortgages and car loans, leaving more funds for consumption and more disposable income. Kuaishou also gave an example: Dreame floor washing machines on Kuaishou have an average order value of over 2,300 yuan, with the best-selling product being a 2,500-yuan model that combines suction, mopping, washing, drying, and sterilization; among consumers who bought Haier appliances on Kuaishou in 2022, nearly 20% chose to buy multiple products as a 'full set' in 2023, with an average order value of 6,000-7,000 yuan. Why does Kuaishou do so easily what brands spend so much money to achieve in channels and mindshare? First, Kuaishou's ecosystem is a 'pan-acquaintance community'. Many old brothers use Kuaishou as half of their Moments, and Moments can greatly enhance brand user stickiness and word-of-mouth. For example, a Haier washing machine model, through Kuaishou, influences a county user, and it's likely that through relatives, it forms a local consumption trend in the county. Moreover, Haier has a three-dimensional store matrix on Kuaishou with 'official flagship store + brand flagship store + POP store' dozens of stores, giving latecomers the mindshare that buying Haier on Kuaishou is cheap and convenient, starting from a single Haier product and entering the Haier family bucket. Second, Kuaishou's 'localization' is the most down-market among all internet giants (except local life platforms), with different offline activities in different regions, giving it a broad mass base. And in Kuaishou's next target, local life, since the overlap with Douyin and Meituan users is not high, the same-city section has become Kuaishou's blue ocean. Kuaishou's local services like job hunting, second-hand trading, and driving school training are growing rapidly. In the end, it's one point: with a mass base, why worry about attracting brands, and why worry about growth? What brands need to do on Kuaishou is 'from the masses, to the masses'.

Douyin: Yes, Sales and Brand Mindshare Are 'Both Must-Haves' This year, there's a trend: brands no longer agonize over whether to build brand or do business on Douyin? Because both are needed; both brand mindshare and sales KPIs must be satisfied. Let's talk about mindshare building first. It's hard to quantify, but I believe that this year, Douyin e-commerce's open-source content has directly demonstrated mindshare building. For example, the live streams of Xiao Yangge, Mao Maojie, and some brands have highlight clips that can be replayed. Some brands have also adopted a live stream matrix with dozens of regions online simultaneously, integrating into consumers as ordinary content and deepening emotional connections. As Li Wanqiang mentioned in 'Participation', which tells the story of Xiaomi's entrepreneurial methodology, the way brand mindshare spreads should change from 'splitting the mind' to 'sneaking into the brain'. The typical approach of splitting the mind is trying to brainwash and educate users; sneaking into the brain is word-of-mouth recommendation, getting users involved. Additionally, the biggest change in Douyin e-commerce in 2023 was pushing shelf e-commerce to the forefront. Full-scenario interest e-commerce has fully run through the three major transaction venues: self-broadcast, influencer broadcast, and mall. The combination of tools like Xingtu, Qianchuan, and Ocean Engine Cloud also enables the accumulation and reuse of audience assets. So in Douyin e-commerce, it's not only about showcasing brand advantages and attracting consumer attention; it's also about stimulating purchase intent and deeply integrating product and sales. And many big brands that already have basic sales and mindshare in Douyin e-commerce are using shelf e-commerce to find their hit product positioning. YSL, nicknamed 'Yangshulin' by girls, has been maintaining 'search after watching' in shelf operations, stimulating long-tail traffic for products; adding node hot words to product titles improves conversion efficiency; and signing up for the 'Super Value Purchase' channel in Douyin Mall to frequently appear and boost sales. It can be said that they practice the path from 'having demand → being interested → making a decision' very skillfully. 'Super Value Purchase' is now a channel many big brands rush to sign up for because it not only boosts shelf performance but is also one of the main ways new products become hits. The best way for brand growth is to immerse yourself in an ecosystem that is itself growing rapidly. The full-scenario interest e-commerce ecosystem is growing rapidly; why not consider 'leveraging the trend'?

Video Account's Growth Node: New Audiences and New Markets in Private Domain Not long ago, Tencent clearly stated that Video Account will become a supplement and improvement to WeChat's public domain capabilities for mini-programs. The model of both will bring more public domain traffic to Video Account, and then through the WeChat ecosystem, users will be precipitated into the private domain for follow-up. The official has finally confirmed this path, but many brands have been doing this for a long time. A high-end women's clothing brand, Ying'er Group, used Video Account + mini-program + private domain high-end women's clothing live streams to solve two problems. One is to explain to target customers why their women's clothing is 'expensive'; the other is to objectively describe product features to address the gap between user expectations and the actual product. Especially for clothing, which can convey a lot of meaning, through WeChat, a social platform for acquaintances, user recognition is important for brand communication. For example, many customers choose to transact in the private domain based on the stickiness of the salesperson. Also, high-ticket brand Chow Tai Fook: in 2023, its WeChat mini-program GMV exceeded 1.5 billion yuan. Now, Chow Tai Fook's customers are reached at the tens of millions level in its WeChat ecosystem, and 50,000 salespeople nationwide serve customers through WeChat Work, then connect with customers through mini-programs to complete the transaction loop. Industry insiders say that WeChat Video Account live streaming is actually easier for users to form brand awareness. Especially since Video Account and Douyin have significantly different audiences, including age, purchase price, and consumption preferences. In other words, many people with consumption potential are on Video Account and WeChat, but they haven't been successfully engaged before, so Video Account faces new audiences and new markets. Also, the prospects for service industries on Video Account should not be underestimated. In 2023, service institutions like real estate, home services, and matchmaking have invested heavily in Video Account. The service industry is highly dependent on 'people' because 'people' determine the experience. When offline service personnel and customers have the opportunity to establish private domain connections, service brands can build trust with users, and trust is always the foundation of transactions and repeat purchases, not constantly chasing new customers and activation.

Baidu Marketing's Growth Node: Generative AI Is Here, Tremble, Humans! Brand growth in Baidu Marketing is the most special because in the future, the decisive role of 'humans' may diminish. In July this year, a case circulated widely: Baidu Marketing partnered with Fotile disinfection cabinets to create the first fully AI-customized marketing event in the domestic home appliance industry. Generative AI completed the entire marketing chain—planning, scriptwriting, storyboarding, and ad placement—in 7 days (normally, hiring an ad agency would take over two months), and the results were not inferior to traditional ad agencies, achieving billions of exposures, 2.57 times the industry interaction rate, and a 38% increase in brand assets. Industry insiders say that AI leveraging brand growth may have limited impact on C-end users, but for B-end, it's an essential tool for growth. Now, large models can be trained to output strategies with long-term memory and better understanding of users, and multimodality means text, video, images, posters, etc., can all be invoked for the brand side; additionally, with large models, digital humans will evolve further. For example, Baidu Marketing's newly released 'Brand Agent' at the end of the year has five capabilities: perception, memory, planning, action, and personality, comprehensively enhancing interaction with users. Through the Brand Agent, brands can create 'hit' marketing events at low cost, and also use 'personified' product images to communicate with consumers and gain recognition. I hope that next year, ERNIE Bot 5.0 or 6.0 can replace researchers to write the 2025 outlook.

Brand Growth Node: The Pulse of Corporate Longevity Brand growth not only affects C-end mindshare but also the confidence of enterprises and B-end partners, and determines market pricing power. In today's industry environment, growth is not achieved through competition but by finding the right strategy and running with it. I hope that in the 2024 competition, brands can stay clear-headed. When others try to express 'I'm fine', you can tell users 'You need me'; when others are self-interested, you can show a user-centric altruistic attitude, adjust your mindset towards brand compounding, and drive new growth with new products, new perspectives, and new scenarios by being half a step ahead in action and a foot thicker in accumulation. Eight platforms, eight traffic pools, understanding growth nodes, embracing platform changes, and leveraging consumer mindshare—this is a structured and rhythmic 'big project'. In 2024, brand growth still has a long way to go.