Since the reform and opening-up in 1979, China's economy and society have undergone several profound changes, and the evolution of the consumer market most directly reflects the trajectory of progress of the times and society. If we use the Engel coefficient as a criterion, we can clearly observe three major era characteristics of China's consumption development:
Changes in consumption structure (Source: National Bureau of Statistics, CBNData, Mob Research Institute)
The First Consumption Era (1979-1998) was a typical stage of a "deficient economy," where people pursued going from nothing to something, and the primary task of consumption was to meet the most basic material survival needs.
At that time, the advertisements for Wang Shouyi Thirteen Spices and Xurisheng Iced Tea broadcast on radio and television represented the consumer psychology of an era of material scarcity.
The Second Consumption Era (1999-2018) As the Engel coefficient dropped to 30%-50%, people entered an era of "affluent economy."
The mainstream consumers of this stage, especially the urban middle class born in the 1980s and 1990s, began to transition from basic material satisfaction to improving quality of life. Brands needed to provide not only products but also guarantees of quality and functionality. At this time, TV advertising and e-commerce rose, and the popularity of brands such as Yili milk and Snow Beer reflected the collective demand of this generation of consumers for functional satisfaction and life improvement.
And from 2019, China officially entered the Third Consumption Era. At this time, the Engel coefficient stabilized below 30%, and consumption was no longer focused on basic material satisfaction or functional improvement, but entered a stage of "experience economy" centered on emotions, experiences, and identity recognition.
Young people care more about the emotional resonance and spiritual value brought by consumption. Mixue Ice City's low-priced small happiness, Pop Mart's blind box joy, and Laopu Gold's cultural symbolic value given to gold jewelry constitute typical representatives of the new generation's consumption landscape.
Entering the Third Consumption Era, we observe a deeper trend: consumers' marginal utility for material consumption has significantly diminished, and the pursuit of spiritual and emotional satisfaction has become the mainstream driver of the market.
"What to buy" is no longer the main question; "why must I buy it now" is the new challenge that brands must face. This change is not simply a product replacement or channel innovation, but a profound leap from physical needs to psychological needs, a fundamental transformation from functionalism to emotionalism.
Therefore, today all brands have to seriously consider and re-answer: In an era of material abundance and increasingly prominent spiritual needs, how should brands complete a self-reconstruction around consumers' new emotional and spiritual needs?
Obviously, this is not just a simple adjustment of brand strategy, but a comprehensive and in-depth brand redo.
The Essential Characteristics of the Third Consumption Era
and Consumers' Jobs to Be Done
When the consumer society enters the Third Consumption Era, the core driving force of consumer demand has undergone a significant shift. On the surface, this shift manifests as the diversification and emotionalization of consumption patterns, but the deep essence is that consumers have shifted from simply pursuing material satisfaction to pursuing emotional satisfaction and spiritual value recognition.
First, the essential logic of consumption has undergone a qualitative change:
Past consumption decisions were mostly based on the rational logic of "price-function-brand," but today's consumers, especially the new generation led by Gen Z, make consumption decisions more driven by emotional and psychological needs. Consumption behavior is no longer a simple functional choice, but has become an instant "emotional processing mechanism."
This change is specifically reflected in consumers' "jobs to be done":
(1) Emotional and psychological processing tasks
In a fast-paced, high-anxiety, and fragmented social environment, the primary job to be done for consumers is to alleviate their own anxiety, loneliness, or stress. They need to seek emotional comfort and psychological balance in the consumption process. Brands need to provide not only the product itself, but also emotional response and psychological comfort.
Companionship and security: In the context of a lonely society, consumers obtain psychological companionship and security through IP characters, brand images, and emotional connections, such as Pop Mart's blind box toys and virtual idol IP figures.
Identity and belonging: As traditional social relationships gradually decline, consumers find new identity belonging and emotional recognition through identification with brand values and resonance with brand stories. For example, Laopu Gold satisfies consumers' cultural identity through the narration of national style culture and spiritual symbols.
(2) Social identity expression tasks
Against the background of increasingly blurred traditional identity labels, consumption behavior has become an important way for individuals to express their social and identity positions. Especially young consumers of Gen Z, through purchasing and displaying specific products, establish their identity position in their social circles.
Presence and social currency: Special products such as "limited editions" and "co-branded items" have become important ways for young people to show themselves and build circle identity. The fact that limited badges of Genshin Impact have been speculated to tens of thousands of yuan is a typical manifestation of young groups' desire for social recognition and circle belonging.
Subculture and circle expression: The rise of the "guzi economy" (showing off goods, arranging formations) also reflects contemporary young people using subcultural products to precisely express their personality and cultural taste. This consumption behavior is essentially a kind of circle socializing, confirming self-identity through consuming products and gaining group belonging.
(3) Spiritual value pursuit tasks
After basic material conditions are fully satisfied, consumption gradually shifts to higher spiritual values. Consumers not only hope to get "better products," but also hope that products can help them achieve self-worth and spiritual meaning.
Self-realization and meaning construction: Consumers begin to pay attention to whether brands reflect their own ideals and values, such as buying environmentally friendly products to reflect social responsibility, or buying limited IP merchandise to express personal aesthetics and cultural taste.
Meaning participation and cultural construction: Consumption is no longer passive acceptance, but has become an active participation in meaning production. Brands need to build cultural narratives and spiritual value so that consumers can actively express personal meaning in the consumption process.
In summary, the consumer jobs to be done in the Third Consumption Era have shifted from the functionalist logic of material satisfaction to the emotionalist logic centered on spirit and emotion.
If brands hope to achieve sustained success in this new era, they must clearly identify and revolve around these new jobs to be done, completing a profound reconstruction of their strategy and brand value system. This is also the core reason why brands need to be "rebuilt once" in the Third Consumption Era.
Why Do Brands Need to Be "Rebuilt Once"?
In the Third Consumption Era, consumers' choice logic has undergone a profound transformation, but most brands still remain in the previous generation's market logic, continuing to use "function stacking + price wars" to compete for user attention, trying to exchange higher cost performance, stronger performance, and lower costs for user loyalty.
This path was effective in the Second Consumption Era, but today, facing the new logic of spiritual, emotional, and symbolic consumption, it is increasingly ineffective and even gradually marginalized.
(1) The failure of traditional brand logic
1. Functional surplus, insufficient perception.
**When the entire society has entered a stage of "extreme material abundance," product functions in most industries have become highly homogeneous, and users' perception of "a little better" is becoming numb. What you can do functionally, others can too; the price you can lower, others can too. Product differentiation is increasingly difficult, and brand loyalty is decreasing.
2. Excessive rational competition, lack of emotional connection
Traditional brands pursue "clear selling points and efficient channels," but neglect the spiritual connection with consumers. Products can be copied, but emotions cannot. For this reason, only those brands that can truly trigger users' emotional resonance and form spiritual belonging have the premium ability and anti-cyclicality for long-term growth.
3. Treating people as "traffic," ignoring their "roles"
Many brands still focus on "customer acquisition cost" and "conversion rate," treating users as traffic units rather than complete individuals with flesh and blood, beliefs, and emotions. Ignoring human nature is the fundamental reason why many brand marketing efforts fail today.
(2) The times are evolving, but brand narratives have not kept up
In the past 20 years, brands have played the role of "solution providers," offering consumers more convenient and efficient lifestyles. But in the Third Consumption Era, this role must undergo a qualitative leap:
Consumers' needs have changed from "whether to buy" to "whether this can represent me"—brands must be the expression medium of consumers' emotions, values, and identity, not just a product label. This structural change determines that brands need not just "update once," but rebuild once.
(3) If not rebuilt, brands will be abandoned by the times
1. Young people "don't buy it"
Gen Z consumers are no longer moved by standardized, monolithic brand rhetoric. They pay more attention to the values, cultural temperament, and emotional expression behind the brand. If a brand cannot build "empathy," it is easily eliminated quickly in the attention economy.
2. Brand life cycles are extremely shortened
With the development of social media, live-streaming e-commerce, and AI content generation, the speed of information dissemination has increased exponentially. New brands are easier to break out, and old brands are easier to be forgotten. If brands do not make strategic spiritual positioning, they will become flash-in-the-pan "traffic labels," losing deep user stickiness.
3. Platform logic is devouring brand logic
Platforms like Douyin, Taobao, and Pinduoduo compress brands into SKUs or promotional tools. If brands do not build independent personality and spiritual value, they can only become parasitic roles that "attach to whoever gives traffic."
(4) The true meaning of brand "rebuilding"
Brand "rebuilding" is not as superficial as simply changing a logo, shooting a TVC, or doing a co-branding, but a systematic reconstruction from product view → human nature view → value view. The core is one sentence:
Brands no longer sell functions, but become part of the user's spiritual world.
Who are you? What do you represent? What feelings do you evoke in users? What role do you play in their lives? These are questions every brand must re-answer in the Third Consumption Era.
Therefore, rather than saying "brands need marketing upgrades," it is better to say "brands must reconstruct value." The Third Consumption Era is a spiritual elimination match for brands, not a channel race. All brands must start from users' new psychological motivations and revolve around "consumers' jobs to be done" to complete a full-scale redo. This is a challenge, but also an opportunity of the times.
Revolving Around Consumers' "New Jobs to Be Done"
How Should Brands Reconstruct Their Value System?
If the Third Consumption Era has drawn a new starting line for brands, then the real track has shifted from "product power" to "psychological response power". The task of brands is no longer to make consumers buy, but to make them "identify" and "feel." In this sense, the essence of brand rebuilding is to build a new brand value system around consumers' "psychological to-do list."
(1) The logical starting point of brand building: changes in consumption motivations
In the Third Consumption Era, consumer behavior is no longer driven solely by "rational needs," but by a complex interweaving of emotional, psychological, and social factors. We can summarize four major psychological motivations:
These four quadrant psychological mechanisms determine the underlying logic of "why must I buy now." The core task of brands is to build a "response system" to these psychological motivations, becoming consumers' emotional anchor, social carrier, and spiritual container.
(2) Reconstruction path one: Products are no longer "tools," but "psychological events"
Past brand building focused on "use value," such as durability, aesthetics, and appropriate price. But today, the reason for a product's existence must extend into the user's psychological system. It's not "is this thing good," but "does this thing understand me."
Take three examples: Pop Mart's blind box mechanism is not product packaging innovation, but productizing the dopamine release mechanism of "the moment of unboxing," turning users' curiosity, anticipation, disappointment, and surprise into a set of "consumption emotional rhythms."
Mixue Ice City's 3-yuan ice cream lemonade is not just a drink, but a "low-cost happiness symbol" in a tiring workday, a daily self-encouragement for workers.
Laopu Gold's prayer beads are not decorations, but a ritualistic spiritual projection, a "wearable wish."
In these cases, what we see is not functional competition of products, but "encoding of psychological functions"—brands turn products from tools into "perceivable, emotionalizable, story-able" existences by designing experience scenarios, behavioral rhythms, and symbolic meanings.
(3) Reconstruction path two: Brand value shifts from "information expression" to "identity resonance"
In past brand communication, the focus was "clearly state who I am," but now the core is "make you feel who you are."
Consumers' new task: confirm self in consumption
- Seeking "emotional resonators" in a complex world
- Seeking "cultural belonging" in social networks
- Completing "identity confirmation" in consumption behavior
Brands are no longer just expressing their own personality, but more importantly, mapping and shaping users' personality identity. The meaning of a brand is not "I am cool," but "you become more complete because you like me."
At the operational level, brands must have three identity functions:
Brands are not telling their own stories, but telling "users' stories through me."
(4) Reconstruction path three: Brand strategy must shift from "USP" to "ESP"
USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is the thinking logic of the previous generation of brands, but today, consumers are not always looking for "the best solution," but hope "to be felt."
Thus, "ESP"—Emotional Selling Proposition—becomes the strategic fulcrum for brands in the Third Consumption Era:
To give a brand ESP capability, it must:
- Possess emotional concentration design capability (e.g., blind boxes, contrast copywriting, suspense packaging)
- Have a cultural narrative system (e.g., IP story universe, brand worldview)
- Establish user participation mechanisms (e.g., community co-creation, IP co-branding, content co-creation platforms)
(5) Reconstruction path four: Build a value closed-loop system around "jobs to be done"
We can summarize the "psychological jobs to be done" of users in the Third Consumption Era into five categories:
Brands are no longer single-dimensional product providers, but a platform system for user self-confirmation, self-participation, and self-narration.
(6) Summary: Brand rebuilding is not "marketing again," but "understanding human nature again"
In the Third Consumption Era, the true moat of a brand is not channel monopoly, not functional leadership, but:
- Does it truly enter the user's inner world, responding to their unease, expectations, and ideals?
- Does it truly carry sustainable emotional value and social roles?
- Does it truly become part of their life meaning system?
When a brand can build "psychological resonance" and "emotional anchor points" around consumers' new jobs to be done, it has completed this brand rebuilding—not superficial iteration, but spiritual system reconstruction.
Classic Case Analysis:
How Successful Brands Reconstruct Themselves
In the Third Consumption Era, a group of new consumer brands have taken the lead in completing the value leap "from product competition to spiritual resonance." They no longer rely solely on product power and channel efficiency, but have implanted "meaning anchors" in consumers' minds. Their success precisely confirms the aforementioned logic: brands must reconstruct their value system around users' psychological motivations and jobs to be done.
Below, we take Pop Mart, Mixue Ice City, and Laopu Gold—the "Three Sisters of Hong Kong Stocks"—as examples, combined with the rise of the "guzi economy," to systematically analyze how they precisely cut into consumer psychology and complete brand reconstruction.
(1) Pop Mart: From toys to "emotional triggers," creating a consumption closed loop of instant gratification and identity recognition
User jobs to be done hit:
"I need pleasure" → dopamine-style pleasure "I want to express myself" → social value of collecting behavior "I want to join a cultural niche" → subcultural belonging
Brand value reconstruction logic:
Pop Mart has taken the model of "product = emotional event + social currency" to the extreme, completing the leap from a "trendy toy brand" to a "sample of the emotional economy."
(2) Mixue Ice City: Using a 3-yuan cup of "small happiness" to build a spiritual haven for the bottom community
User jobs to be done hit:
"I need comfort" → affordable consolation for workers' emotional lows "I want social participation" → store IP, emojis, and catchy music create a light social atmosphere "I want pleasure without barriers" → universal emotional entry point
Brand value reconstruction logic:
Mixue Ice City is not selling drinks, but selling people an "affordable happiness", which is a model of "emotional equality."
(3) Laopu Gold: From accessories to "cultural tokens," gold is no longer a value-preservation tool, but an emotional talisman
User jobs to be done hit:
"I want to be protected" → psychological symbolism of products like lucky beads and talismans "I want to express cultural identity" → national style narrative strengthens modern translation of traditional culture "I hope my consumption has spiritual value" → religious/belief substitution mechanism
Brand value reconstruction logic:
Laopu Gold is not selling gold, but selling a wearable spiritual belief and cultural token, which is an emotional depth that traditional luxury goods cannot reach.
(4) Guzi economy: Young people's spiritual sustenance, identity projection, and social weapon
User jobs to be done hit:
"I want to have a spiritual idol" → projection of virtual IP "I want to be recognized in social interactions" → showing off goods, arranging formations, check-in culture "I want to express my niche taste" → niche is noble subcultural logic
Structural characteristics:
In the guzi economy, young people no longer consume "utility," but consume "spiritual connection" and "self-definition."
(5) Summary: The successful paradigm of brand reconstruction is a "identity management science"
The commonality of the above brands is that they are no longer satisfied with "occupying shelves," but are committed to "occupying users' psychological structure":
- Pop Mart sells emotional peak design
- Mixue Ice City sells the spiritual defense mechanism of micro-happiness
- Laopu Gold sells the wearing method of cultural belief
- Guzi economy sells social position and identity symbols in the virtual world
These brands deeply understand a signal of the times: when consumers' spiritual world becomes increasingly diverse and complex, brands must be a medium mechanism for them to understand themselves, express themselves, and connect with others. Otherwise, no matter how good the product is, it is just a "functional module," unable to leave a mark in users' hearts, let alone cross cycles and build brand assets.
How Should Brands Act?
Practical Path Recommendations for the Third Consumption Era
The Third Consumption Era is not a simple market style switch, but a cognitive leap about "people."
Consumers have changed from "rational function evaluators" to "emotional and identity constructors," which means brands can no longer only focus on "product power," "cost performance," and "customer acquisition efficiency," but must redefine their reason for existence from "human nature structure," "emotional motivations," and "social context."
This chapter aims to provide a systematic, executable, cross-departmental collaborative brand reconstruction action path to help brands rebuild influence after "functional failure" and build moats in an era of "meaning inflation."
Action logic: From "operating products" to "operating emotions + identity + community"
Transformation logic diagram:
Brands must shift from "linear promoters" to "multidimensional empathizers," making themselves "have a position, have semantics, have warmth" in users' emotional structure.
Path one: Create an "ESP brand anchor" (Emotional Selling Proposition)
Operational essence:
No longer just emphasize USP (functional selling points), but extract a clear emotional promise to become a "psychological label" in brand mind.
Operational steps:
- Emotional insight: Find the main emotional tension of target users (e.g., anxiety, loneliness, self-doubt, class anxiety)
- Psychological positioning: The brand does not solve all problems, but only serves as a stable anchor for one emotion (e.g., "companionship," "being understood," "expression of faith")
- Perceivable design: Visualize, productize, and IP-ize the emotional proposition (e.g., emojis, packaging language, character roles)
Cases:
Pop Mart = "I need to be surprised and understood" Mixue Ice City = "I deserve small but real happiness" Laopu Gold = "I long for spiritual protection and ritual"
Tip: Emotional value ≠ "selling sentiment," but "long-term design of empathy mechanisms."
Path two: Build the brand's "emotional scene system"
Emotional value is scene-based. Brands must build sustainable and repeatable "emotional fields," allowing users to naturally trigger psychological links to the brand in specific times and spaces.
Four emotional scene mechanisms:
Operational focus: Make "feelings" designable, triggerable, and repeatable.
Path three: Build a "multi-role brand personality" to adapt to complex user emotions
Modern consumers' emotions are "multi-personalized": daytime workers, nighttime social animals, weekend lo-fi literary youths, late-night emo philosophers... Brands must establish multi-role, cross-context emotional adaptation mechanisms to meet psychological switching in different scenarios.
How to build a multi-role brand personality:
Path four: Create a "user co-creation brand system"
In the traditional model, brands tell stories and users listen. In the Third Consumption Era, brands must invite users to tell stories together, establishing "participation" and "ownership," thereby stimulating deep emotional binding and self-propagation capabilities.
Four layers of co-creation brand:
Path five: Build the brand's "spiritual moat"
With information fragmentation and attention inflation, the long-term value of a brand is no longer determined by "new product frequency," but by whether it has a long-term sedimentable spiritual belief structure.
Principles for building a brand's spiritual moat:
Typical characteristics of the FMCG industry:
- High frequency, low price, fast updates, strong substitutability
- High category concentration, severe homogenization
- The era of channel dominance is over; mind share competition has become the focus
Current dilemmas:
- Obvious bottlenecks in new customer growth, difficulty in increasing repurchase rates
- Price wars and channel fees erode brand profits
- Young consumers lack emotional connection to traditional brands
New trend opportunities:
- Consumers no longer pay for "function" and "cost performance" alone, but for "emotional experience" + "psychological identity"
- If FMCG brands can enter the role of "daily emotional companion," they will become high-frequency mind share occupiers
Five major strategic paths for FMCG brand reconstruction:
Schematic of brand language upgrade:
Ultimate goal:
Make the brand a "memorable space" and "warm companionship", thereby possessing structural strength to resist traffic fluctuations and platform reshuffles.
Summary: The future of brands is the operational capability of "human nature systems"
In the Third Consumption Era, brands must win not users' wallets, but their attention, resonance, and trust.
- Can you become a "participatory culture"?
- Do you have a recallable emotional position in users' hearts?
- Have you helped them confirm their identity, connect emotions, and realize some meaning?
This is the fundamental standard for whether a brand can "cross cycles."
The Future of Brands
Is Not Cheaper, But More Emotional
Standing at the node of the Third Consumption Era and looking back, it is not difficult to find: the history of Chinese brand development is actually a history of the awakening of "people." From the survival anxiety of the First Consumption Era, to the functional rationality of the Second Consumption Era, to the emotional expression and spiritual demands of the Third Consumption Era, consumers have always been changing, but most brands have not kept up.
This era is no longer an era of "if you have goods, you can sell," nor an era of "if you explain clearly, you can be believed," but an era of "let users feel who they are." The core mission of brands has also changed from solving life problems to participating in the construction of users' meaning.
Brands are undergoing three role transformations:
From function provider to emotional resonator: Users no longer only need product solutions, but hope brands can accompany them through high-pressure moments and respond to their true inner states.
From information disseminator to culture shaper: Brands no longer rely on "unified rhetoric" to cover the market, but must become the disseminator and landing point of certain cultural symbols in diverse social scenarios.
From consumer business to human engineering: True brands are not selling things, but operating human nature, finding users in different psychological rhythms, social states, and identity recognitions, understanding them, and reconstructing the brand itself based on this.
All brands must be rebuilt once.
Rebuilding is not "making a new set of advertisements." Rebuilding is re-understanding the people of this era.
Where does their pressure come from? What kind of connection are they looking for? In what scenes do they feel happy, valuable, and seen? Can you become a point in their emotional map that is worthy of trust, remembrance, and sharing?
The competition in this era is no longer who is stronger, but who understands people better. It is no longer who has the louder voice, but who can resonate in silence.
Golden rules for future brands:
Function has value, emotion is priceless; products are anchors, meaning is assets; brands are not information, but a force that is felt.
Those brands that can cross cycles are not cheaper, not smarter, but more emotional. They can make consumers find stability in emotional fluctuations, confirmation in identity confusion, and hear themselves in social noise.
This is what truly powerful brands must do in the Third Consumption Era: not only make users remember you, but let them recognize who they are through you.