---
title: "Zhao Bo of New Distribution: PEST Market Growth Strategy in an Era of Surplus"
description: "In the current Chinese market environment, consumption is undergoing a structural shift: the dominant reason for purchase is moving from 'physical value ranking' (function, performance, price, availability) to 'psychological value ranking' (relative position, identity narrative, meaning of recognition). This article proposes a systematic framework—four logics and two structures—to explain the current economic and market issues, and offers strategic solutions for enterprises to adapt."
author: "赵波"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-08-17"
categories: "Dealer Operations, Management & Methods"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/OQ-nUYHbQsvH_JIyPw6RtQ"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E6%96%B0%E7%BB%8F%E9%94%80%E8%B5%B5%E6%B3%A2-%E8%BF%87%E5%89%A9%E6%97%B6%E4%BB%A3%E4%B8%8B%E7%9A%84pest%E5%B8%82%E5%9C%BA%E5%A2%9E%E9%95%BF%E7%AD%96%E7%95%A5-32c4e3c7.md"
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citation: "赵波. “Zhao Bo of New Distribution: PEST Market Growth Strategy in an Era of Surplus.” New Distribution, 2025-08-17. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/zhao-bo-of-new-distribution-pest-market-growth-strategy-in-an-era-of-sur-32c4e3c7/"
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---

# Zhao Bo of New Distribution: PEST Market Growth Strategy in an Era of Surplus

> In the current Chinese market environment, consumption is undergoing a structural shift: the dominant reason for purchase is moving from 'physical value ranking' (function, performance, price, availability) to 'psychological value ranking' (relative position, identity narrative, meaning of recognition). This article proposes a systematic framework—four logics and two structures—to explain the current economic and market issues, and offers strategic solutions for enterprises to adapt.

Layout: Liu Zhen

In the current Chinese market economy environment, consumption is undergoing a structural shift: the dominant reason for purchase is moving from "physical value ranking" (function, performance, price, availability) to "psychological value ranking" (relative position, identity narrative, meaning of recognition).

I have been pondering whether there is a systematic logical framework to explain the current economic and market issues, so that enterprises can adjust their strategies and tactics accordingly. After long deliberation, I have roughly summarized four logics and two structures:

**Four Logics**

**Logic 1: Emotional Value**

The social structure of the third consumption era shows a significant trend toward atomization (singleness and non-marriage, smaller families, fewer children, high divorce rates).

At the same time, due to the characteristics of modern society and the division of labor in large cities, kinship ties and traditional community social bonds have become weaker.

Highly specialized division of labor has weakened the sense of meaning derived from work. Meanwhile, the implicit nature of emotional labor has actually increased.

Modern society is highly rational, and people cannot escape the crisis of meaning in modernity as described by Max Weber; people's life meaning begins to become nihilistic.

When people cannot obtain psychological achievement from work, cannot feel needed from kinship ties, cannot gain responsibility and mission from marriage and children, and cannot find solace from religion, they urgently need to seek compensation and construct new meaning from other sources to resolve their existential meaning crisis.

Emotional value has shifted from being optional in an era of scarcity to a necessity in an era of surplus.

People begin to pursue spiritual sustenance and self-healing behaviors. Goods and services are no longer merely "things," but carriers of emotion, meaning of life, and symbols of identity.

**Logic 2: Ranking Scarcity**

The essence of competitive barriers is built on the occupation of scarce resources. In the past, P&G's HBG (capacity, media, channels) was essentially the occupation of scarce resources to gain competitive barriers.

In the past, the development of the Chinese market, whether in economics or marketing models, was based on scarcity.

But when the Lewis turning point and the population growth turning point arrive, and the Engel coefficient drops below 30%, people's perception of material and information begins to shift from scarcity to relative surplus, entering comprehensive surplus.

In today's market environment, most scarce resources have become surplus. Chinese people have not yet learned how to do business in an environment of surplus.

This is a profound subject: How can enterprises re-occupy scarce resources in an era of surplus?

In an era of comprehensive surplus, why can some enterprises still form barriers even with highly homogeneous products? The answer: they gain attention.

Under infinite information supply, what will people's limited attention focus on? The answer: ranking scarcity (superiority, access, influence).

Therefore, an enterprise's competitive strategy must shift from occupying material-level scarce resources to occupying psychological-level ranking scarce resources.

Brands need to establish scarcity, professionalism, leadership, as well as emotional resonance and value consistency in the mind. They provide consumers with superiority, belonging, and identity.

**Logic 3: Jobs to Be Done**

When consumers find that social supply and infrastructure are very convenient, their consumption decisions and purchasing behaviors shift from planned search to scenario-triggered triggers.

All immediate consumption behaviors have strong scenario-based characteristics. Motives, needs, pain points, and problems to be solved can be understood as jobs to be done.

Jobs to be done are divided into functional jobs and psychological jobs, and the more supply surplus, the stronger the psychological job attributes.

Scenes are not only triggers for tasks, but also points where meaning is generated.

Attention should be paid to: functional tasks → emotional tasks → social tasks → self-actualization tasks.

**Logic 4: Archipelago-style Values**

1. The fragmentation and dust-ization of media make corporate communication extremely difficult. But similar people are more likely to gather together, interacting socially under a topic hotspot and hobby.

2. Technological equalization allows many professionals in various fields to leverage basic internet tools. For example, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and WeChat public accounts have become KOLs, indirectly influencing more people.

3. The technical black box of platform algorithms shifts traffic distribution from humans to algorithms. The algorithm that feeds preferences accelerates the correlation between people and information, values, and events.

4. A large number of KOLs + private domain models make human connection patterns form archipelago-style connections. They are intertwined yet distinct.

The same person may belong to multiple archipelagos (professional, interest, regional, etc.). These bridge connectors are key nodes for cross-circle communication.

I summarize these four elements into a model, constructing a PEST strategic growth compass:

Position (create mental scarcity) × Emotion (provide emotional value) × Scene (design jobs to be done) × Tribe (connect archipelago circles) = New growth flywheel

But it is important to note that ranking scarcity is not about becoming the first in a category, but about becoming the first choice for a specific group of people in a specific scenario. For example, Genki Forest does not aim to be the "first beverage," but to allow consumers to become the best version of themselves.

The creation of emotional value needs to deepen from "functional satisfaction" to "meaning construction." Consumers buy not just products, but also a lifestyle identity and a vehicle for self-expression.

Scenes should not be understood as usage occasions, but as "problem-solution" matches. Behind each scene is a task to be completed or a need to be satisfied.

The key to operating archipelago circles is to find "seed users" and make them co-creators and disseminators of the brand, not just consumers.

**Two Key Population Structures**

The Chinese market population shows K-shaped differentiation in consumption and M-shaped stratification in population.

Consumption shows superimposed diversification of needs and behaviors (X-axis: scenario-based, immediate, planned, impulsive; Y-axis: pain, fear, pleasure, itch).

The population can be roughly summarized into four quadrants (X-axis: high and low income; Y-axis: focus on material value vs. focus on psychological value).

The market is no longer a single market or a high-low hierarchical market, but multiple parallel markets, each with its own rules. Enterprises must learn to re-understand and decide which market to enter.

The same person may adopt different consumption behaviors in different jobs to be done, and the same job to be done may show the same consumption behavior across different spending power.

Enterprises must have the ability to operate by layers and also across scenarios.

**Strategic Solutions**

**Ten Shifts for Enterprises**

1. **Value Proposition Remodeling**

Provide two extreme values: ultimate efficiency (saving time & cost) and deep experience (worth spending time & money).

From product thinking to script thinking: use MOT (Moment of Truth) to design the user's "hero experience" journey.

From functional competition to meaning competition: products should not only solve problems, but also create stories.

From standardization to personalization: but this personalization is not product-level customization, but meaning-level co-creation.

2. **User Relationship Reconstruction**

From traffic thinking to stock thinking: not acquiring more users, but deeply cultivating user lifetime value.

From transactional relationships to companionship relationships: brands should become part of the user's lifestyle, not just suppliers.

From one identity to multiple scenarios: provide "solutions" for the "trouble lists" of the same user's different personas.

3. **Market Channel Rebuilding**

From occupying shelves to occupying mental scenes: not being visible everywhere, but being remembered at critical moments.

From reaching shelves to triggering purchases: build "new" jobs to be done that are non-essential but enticing for consumers.

From channel coverage to deep archipelago connectivity: make the "islands" deep and the "chains" connected; more advanced: create islands → build bridges → build moats.

In simple terms, use bipolar value to compete for scarce entrances, use jobs to be done to carry consumption scenarios, use emotional resonance to complete value experience, and use algorithm distribution × community connection to build channel penetration.

**Tactical Implementation**

**Three Solutions**

1. **MVP (Minimum Viable Product) rather than Minimum Viable Product**

> Functional baseline: meet basic needs
>
> Emotional anchor: create memory points
>
> Social currency: provide talking points
>
> Identity label: strengthen identification

2. **Three-dimensional Matrix of Scene-Task-Emotion**

> Scene dimension: work, life, social, solitude
>
> Task dimension: solve problems, gain pleasure, social expression, self-actualization
>
> Emotion dimension: anxiety → peace; boredom → excitement; loneliness → connection; confusion → certainty

3. **Content-Community-Commerce Growth Flywheel**

Content attracts (customer acquisition) → community accumulates (retention) → commerce monetizes (conversion) → user-generated content (viral growth) → loop reinforcement

**Conclusion**

Max Weber's description of "disenchantment": rationality and efficiency dispel myth and tradition, but also make the world cold and lacking in intrinsic meaning. While gaining freedom, individuals also lose the identity and existential meaning previously conferred by the collective, falling into "existential loneliness."

People seek solace (emotional value) in the future, then use consumption to gain identity (ranking scarcity), and through completing carefully designed jobs to be done, they gain a sense of control over life, and finally through community connection, they gain the meaning of existence (being needed, provable).

Therefore, oversupply does not stop people from consuming; on the contrary, it creates more demand due to the richness of scenarios. When goods are in oversupply, their marginal value declines, and merchants must find new scarcity to create value.

It's just that the old growth map has become invalid, and the new map is not yet widespread.

Psychological scarcity is the new continent on this land. Psychological scarcity must be built on consumers' belief and identification, not naturally existing. It requires collective identification and social consensus to be established.

But it is also very simple and plain: a smile from a waiter, a thoughtful word, a warm community atmosphere can bring astonishing customer loyalty.

The awakening of consumer subjectivity. Traditional marketing is the brand unilaterally defining value, telling consumers "we are the industry leader"; now consumers care more about "how using your product defines me." This is like the shift from "I use Apple because it's good quality" to "I use Apple because I'm a creative professional."

In the era of emotional consumption, consumers are often willing to pay a premium for identity, belonging, and superiority. The simultaneous success of Pinduoduo and lululemon shows that different groups are using consumption choices to define their social position.

The essence of consumption has shifted from "satisfying needs" to "creating meaning." Enterprises are no longer producers of products, but scriptwriters of meaning, directors of experience, and suppliers of identity. In this new paradigm, scarcity is not discovered but created; needs are not satisfied but awakened; value is not exchanged but co-created.

Successful brands are not "creating" emotions and identities, but "discovering" and "amplifying" group emotions and identity demands that already exist but are not fully expressed. This requires enterprises to have deep social insight and cultural sensitivity. It's not about being the first in consumption, but about being the only one for a certain group, scene, emotion, and relationship.

In an era of material surplus and meaning deficit, what kind of "proof of existence" can your enterprise provide for consumers?

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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 赵波
- Published: 2025-08-17
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/zhao-bo-of-new-distribution-pest-market-growth-strategy-in-an-era-of-sur-32c4e3c7/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/OQ-nUYHbQsvH_JIyPw6RtQ

## Copyright and AI use

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