In the era of shrinking volume, both brands and channels will further consolidate, and there will be more opportunities in niche tracks. Regardless of the economy, the top 3 companies will fare better, as per industry rules.

On August 19, 2025, at the main forum of the 7th China FMCG Conference hosted by New Distribution, Ms. Ruan Penghua, partner and vice president of Xinchao Media Group, delivered a speech titled "Winning the Mind-Share War: Forging Brand Moat in the Era of Shrinking Volume."

Ruan Penghua, centering on the conference theme of "New Supply, New Demand," deeply analyzed the internal logic of consumption patterns, media transformation, and brand evolution, resonating with over 2,000 FMCG practitioners on site.

New Distribution hereby reports the essence of her speech for our readers.

Communities Become the New Battlefield: Brands Seize "Doorstep Business"

Where people are, consumption is. As urbanization enters the deep-water zone, the focus of population movement is shifting from office areas to living spaces—communities have become the main battlefield for new consumption.

Data shows that there are about 60 million white-collar workers in Chinese office buildings, while the population living in communities exceeds 900 million. More people are distributed in industrial parks, factories, complexes, and other areas, but their final destination is also "back to the community."

For this reason, 70% of consumption behaviors in China are completed within communities—here is not only the starting point of life, but also the end point of consumption decisions.

The lifestyle preferences of the younger generation are also accelerating this trend. Tencent big data shows that 76% of post-95s and post-00s advocate a "lazy" lifestyle, pursuing efficiency and convenience, which has driven the explosion of instant retail and community e-commerce.

Over the past year, the "flash purchase war" around instant retail has sparked heated discussion. Some criticize its excessive spending, while others question its profitability. But it is undeniable that when users form a habit of "everything delivered to home within 30 minutes," this consumption model is hard to reverse.

You may have noticed that whether it's buying groceries, ordering food, or even buying a toothbrush, more and more orders are being placed near residential areas. Data shows that over 60% of instant retail orders are delivered to communities.

As a result, e-commerce platforms have begun to focus on the "last mile": JD.com and Meituan are deploying front warehouses; Hema and Dingdong Maicai are going deep into communities; Taobao and Douyin are moving live-streaming rooms to the doorsteps of offline stores.

Behind this is a new round of "technology + channel" transformation.

Back then, Wanda, which prioritized location, popularized countless chain brands; the "people-find-goods" e-commerce era driven by JD.com and Alibaba gave birth to many "online brands" such as Three Squirrels and HSTYLE; and algorithm-based interest e-commerce like Pinduoduo and Douyin used algorithmic recommendations to create "new sharp brands" like Perfect Diary and Yaya Down Jackets.

We see that each generation of e-commerce models has rolled out a batch of new brands. These brands quickly respond to channel changes and penetrate the market efficiently at low cost.

Now, as "instant retail + community e-commerce" becomes mainstream, these brands are feeding back into offline channels, actively engaging in communities and deepening touchpoints, hoping to complete the brand awareness and transaction loop at the moment users "return home."

Elevator Media: A New Path for Brand Growth

This shift in the "brand and channel" race is not just an evolution of retail models, but also a restructuring of brand architecture.

From an international comparison, private label channels account for 40% in Europe, 30% in the US, and over 60% in Japan, while in China it is only 5%.

But it is precisely in this blue ocean that a group of representatives of "brand equals category" are rapidly rising—Huang Tian'e's big single-product breakthrough and David Mop's category reshaping are true portrayals of channel empowerment plus brand independence.

Their common success factor is knowing how to leverage new channels for brand explosion. One channel that has been increasingly validated by brands is elevator advertising.

Xinchao Media, through big data and algorithms, has achieved precise matching of "people, goods, and scenes" in advertising placement:

Which residential area's people are suitable for what products

What time period is most likely to convert ad viewing

Which area is suitable for front warehouse or instant delivery

From algorithm-based site selection, content placement to warehousing and distribution decisions, Xinchao Media's operating model has formed a closed loop.

Ruan Penghua mentioned that Xinchao Media focuses on community media, with elevator advertising screens growing from 220,000 screens in 2017 to 1.6 million screens now, covering over 400 million terminal communities and family members.

To date, Xinchao Media has deployed over 700,000 smart screens in more than 100 cities nationwide, precisely covering 180 million urban middle-class people. Among the BRANDZ Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands, 80 have chosen Xinchao smart screens.

Once, TV advertising, as the "first community media," laid the foundation for the glory of national brands like Moutai and Mengniu; today, elevator smart screens, with their advantages of high frequency and precise reach, have become a new weapon for brands to quickly penetrate family scenarios.

Thirty years ago, families sat in front of the TV and were "seeded" by ads; today, we might just spend 30 seconds in an elevator and complete the awareness of a new brand, or even scan a code to place an order.

So, this is not simple advertising, but a systematic process from capturing consumer attention to stimulating their purchasing power.

From "Explosion" to "Closed Loop": Practice and Evolution of Community Marketing

If "community is the new home turf for brands," then how to fight this battle becomes the most concerned issue for brands. With limited resources and scarce mind-share, enterprises must form a closed loop between "marketing" and "sales" to achieve both brand and performance. This is exactly the new logic of community marketing advocated by Xinchao Media.

So, how to do it specifically?

Ruan Penghua believes that the key to good community marketing lies in integrating online and offline resources, brand building and traffic conversion, and public and private domain linkage, using closed-loop thinking to drive the efficient operation of the entire chain.

To this end, Xinchao has built a product matrix including Brand Ignition, Jingchao Plan, Liangchao Plan, and LBS site selection, from the starting point of brand awareness to the end point of consumption conversion, achieving a truly connected "people, goods, and scenes" full path of community marketing.

The case of Huang Tian'e eggs is particularly typical. In the "egg" category, which is almost undifferentiated and low-attention, Huang Tian'e chose to redefine the category standard from the "sashimi-grade" angle, and anchored on young mothers as a high-sensitivity, high-repurchase precise group.

Through the value narrative of "safe," "no fishy smell," and "high nutrition," combined with repeated exposure on elevator media and trust endorsement from premium channels, Huang Tian'e completed its brand breakthrough from 0 to 1, and implanted the perception of "Huang Tian'e = sashimi-grade eggs = high-quality eggs" in consumers' minds.

Another brand, "David Mop," used the positioning of "mop expert" to strengthen professionalism, insisting on offline deep cultivation and cooperation with Xinchao for six years, turning "buy a mop, choose David" into market consensus. The brand grew from about 200 million to over a billion, relying not on short-term traffic but on sustained strategy implementation and media synergy.

There are many such successful cases. iFlytek, with its promotion of "speech to text, not a word missed," successfully sold out and took the top spot in the e-commerce category; Maoren achieved a breakthrough from 500 million to 10 billion with precise community placement...

These brands are all doing one thing: using clear positioning + high-frequency reach + repurchase scenarios to win consumers' decision-making power.

In an era where traffic is increasingly expensive and information is increasingly cluttered, "placement" is no longer the core of marketing; efficiency is.

The "Jingchao Plan" relies on JD.com's big data, making offline placement no longer blind, with placement effects monitorable and feedable back to JD Digital for secondary optimization.

Aptamil precisely targets community scenarios, using JD tags to filter residential areas with dense mother-and-baby populations, achieving efficient reach. In 2024, Aptamil achieved double firsts in sales and brand with this approach.

The "Liangchao Plan" follows the same logic, using Ocean Engine's 8-day active user data to accurately identify community population density and path behavior, and making concentrated placements in specific areas to maximize brand penetration.

New sharp brands like "Turtle Papa" are precisely leveraging this small-scale, high-frequency pilot approach to quickly build brand awareness and complete category breakout.

The key to community marketing is never "how big to hit," but "how precise to hit."

In summary, community marketing is no longer a channel tactic, but a trend of the times. The core of brand growth is no longer casting a wide net, but "deep rooting"—rooting deeply in communities, in the life rhythms and consumption decisions of people.

Final Thoughts

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second best time is now." Ruan Penghua concluded her speech with this sentence, also sounding an alarm for all brands at the moment.

In this mind-share war without gunpowder, the victory of a brand is no longer determined by the breadth of communication, but jointly shaped by the depth of awareness and the efficiency closed loop. Whoever can build a cognitive moat first will gain a place in this blue ocean of community consumption.

Winning mind-share is winning the future!