How does a brand do marketing? If Apple sells apples, would you buy them? ?

Let’s first look at two interesting marketing hypotheses:

• Hypothesis 1: One day, Apple really sells apples, right! It's the kind of apple that can be eaten. Would you buy it?
• Hypothesis 2: A fruit company that sells apples (for example, it is called "Red Fuji Co., Ltd."). Red Fuji is the No. 1 in the apple industry. One day it starts selling mobile phones. Would you try to buy one?

One is Apple selling apples, and the other is Fuji selling mobile phones. Comparing these two assumptions, please think about it for a few seconds and then say: Which one do you accept more?

1

I asked people around me, and most of them felt that "Apple selling apples" was relatively more reliable, and they would not easily try "Fuji selling mobile phones".

Why is this happening? Can you explain the reason clearly?

In fact, the reasoning behind this is precisely about the core of the brand .

Teach you to understand what a brand is in the simplest way. When we come into contact with a brand, a bunch of words, associations, images, sounds and other information will definitely pop up in your mind. This information may be a specific product, an abstract emotion, or an impressive symbol.

A brand is actually an information package consisting of a series of information.

For example, in the information package of the Apple brand, we will find concrete information such as the Apple logo, iPhone, iPad, as well as abstract feelings such as innovation, extreme, high-end, good design, strong technology, reliable quality, and even elements such as Steve Jobs and the think different slogan.

When you mention Red Fuji, words that pop up in your mind include red, crisp and sweet, large, original, natural, the leader in the apple world, etc. You may also think of apple orchards and hardworking farmers.

For example, Hunan Satellite TV is a brand. This information package will include a mango-shaped logo, stars such as He Jiong , Wang Han, and Xie Na, as well as programs such as Happy Camp and Star Detective, as well as associations such as youth, entertainment, and fashion.

What we call a brand can influence consumers' purchasing decisions, which essentially means that certain information in the information package is influencing you.

When you buy a mobile phone, information such as high-end, powerful technology, good design and reliable quality will pop up and influence your decision. We choose to buy Apple phones because of this kind of information in the information package. When you buy apples to eat, information such as freshness, crispness, sweetness, large size, and originality will affect your decision. You choose Red Fuji because its information package contains the most of these.

Therefore, we rethink the assumption at the beginning: does the information in the two brand information packages add points to consumers’ purchasing decisions? Or deduct points? This determines which hypothesis consumers are more accepting of.

When Apple sells apples, although the information package does not contain information such as crispness, sweetness, large size, and originality to add points, the company does have information such as innovation, extreme, high-end, fashion, and strong technology, which can still add points to the fruit category. Why? Because this information is likely to make us think that Apple is very fashionable and high-end, that it is likely to be developed with the latest technology, that Apple can make such a difficult product as a mobile phone, so it will definitely have no problem making fruit, that the quality of Apple's products must be reliable, etc. In short, the apples sold by Apple will arouse people's curiosity, expectation and trust, thereby increasing the chance of purchase.

On the other hand, when Red Fuji sells mobile phones, there is no information in its information package that can add points to products like mobile phones. On the contrary, a fruit company's information package will contain some information that is traditional, agricultural, and incompatible with high-tech products, which will have the effect of reducing points.

This is why we are more accepting of hypothesis one: “Apple sells apples”.

2

Since a brand is an information package, the most important thing in building a brand is to design this information so that it is imprinted in the minds of consumers and influences their decisions.

But the reality is just the opposite. Many business owners think that the most important thing about building a brand is to get as much exposure as possible, and the more people pay attention to it, the better. However, they rarely consciously design the information in the information package. In the end, although it seems very lively, there is nothing retained in the brand information package, and users will soon forget about you.

For example, the most basic information of a brand is its name. Why do we need a name? The purpose of a name is to reduce the cost of memory. My name is "Nanbei", easy to remember, right? Actually, my real name is not Nanbei, but my real name is difficult to remember, so I designed this pen name for myself. This name will be engraved in your mind as long as you say it once.

In reality, many business owners are actually increasing the memory cost when designing the brand name information. For example, there is a company called "Dianshi Interactive". You need to use your brain to remember it, and you may not be able to remember it even after reading it once. In addition, can you know what it does just by hearing the name? Many people cannot answer this question, so the company needs to keep explaining it over and over again. In fact, it is a mini-program generation platform. There is another company in the same industry called "Reliable Mini-Program", which is easy to remember and understand.

A good name does not require effort to remember, nor does it require secondary explanation.

Many entrepreneurs think that names are trivial details and are not that important. In fact, if the name is poorly designed, your communication costs will naturally be higher than others. Others may spend 1 million to get it done, but you may have to spend 1.5 million to make consumers remember it. It’s just that all of this is hidden in every marketing campaign, and there is no specific comparative data to show you, but in fact, money is slipping away through your fingers.

For example, "brand positioning information" is also a very important information in the information package. It means what makes you different from other brands and directly affects consumers' decisions. You must spend a lot of time thinking about and designing it.

Take the milk powder industry as an example. After the melamine incident in 2008, sales of domestic milk powder were sluggish for a time. Coupled with the fact that imported milk powder aggressively occupied the market, domestic brands had a hard time. At this time, Feihe milk powder was becoming more and more similar to other domestic brands, and price wars were fought again and again. However, it had no brand advantage and was unable to fight back when faced with imported milk powder. At that time, there was nothing in Feihe's brand information package that consumers could remember, especially the brand positioning information. Consumers did not have any differentiated understanding of "what is different about Feihe", so there was no incentive for them to pay for it.

Later, Feihe spent a lot of time re-examining its brand positioning, looking at customers, the industry, competitors, and itself, and finally came up with the brand positioning message of "milk powder that is more suitable for the physique of Chinese babies." This design cleverly avoids the advantage of foreign milk powder that it comes from abroad, and takes advantage of the consumer psychology that "Chinese companies understand Chinese people better", directly bringing competitive advantages to Feihe, a domestic brand. Feihe then adjusted the company's products, pricing, and channels around this brand positioning, and made massive efforts in communication, ultimately achieving a counter-trend rise. Other domestic brands are still caught in a bitter price war. If they want to learn from Feihe at this time, many aspects cannot be adjusted.

The boss of Feihe later half-jokingly said that just the phrase "milk powder that is more suitable for the physique of Chinese babies" is worth 10 million, which actually shows the importance of brand positioning information.

To sum up

Every day when we go shopping, eat, surf the Internet, and watch TV, we are exposed to countless brand information packages. The information in these packages is carefully designed and arranged. They subtly enter your mind and influence your consumption decisions.

Therefore, when our company builds its brand, we must change our previous practice of only focusing on communication efforts and ignoring the design of brand information packages. Before spending money on promotion , think about what information should be included in your information package and how to design this information to win the first battle in the minds of consumers!

The author of this article @南北商業笔记 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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