Brand Operations: How do brands influence consumer behavior?

Recently, all the major subway lines and bus stops in Beijing seem to be occupied by this poster of Kris Wu.

Yesterday on the subway, a friend suddenly asked, "Is Wu Yifan's endorsement fee 10 million? Do you think 10% of the profit from this Xiaomi phone model will go to Wu Yifan?"

I have recently been researching the value of “brand”. In the mobile phone industry, VIVO and OPPO have the most and loudest advertising. It is said that VIVO's annual advertising budget is over 6 billion . The bombardment-style advertising has indeed made VIVO and OPPO a great success. Although some people have always criticized their cost-effectiveness, it has not affected consumers' enthusiasm for them at all.

What is the purpose of manufacturers spending huge sums of money to invite top celebrities, sponsor variety shows at sky-high prices, and compete for prime advertising space in airports? I believe most people would say without hesitation that it is branding . Yes, we are indeed working on branding and conversion . So, what exactly is a brand? What impact will it have on consumer behavior?

Product placement and sponsorship of variety shows are just the execution layer that we can feel. The motivation behind it is the manufacturer’s real brand strategy . After research, I believe that a brand has four main levels of value . Enterprises and operations workers should spare no effort to build these four levels of value in the minds of consumers from various aspects such as product manufacturing, marketing and promotion. This will be the most important motivation affecting consumer behavior.

Let's start with a small experiment. I walked into a store today and wanted to buy a battery. (I wanted to verify how different battery brands affect store owners' recommendations by guiding them to answer related questions).

This conversation well reflects how brands influence consumer behavior. I will keep it a secret here and point them out one by one in the analysis below.

01 Complete information transmission

The first level of brand value is to convey information that completes the product's usage function . When I asked the boss what batteries he had, he would tell me there were Nanfu, Super, Sunway, and Shuanglu, but he would not mention brands like Haier and Samsung . Because Nanfu’s advertising has instilled in us the perception that it is a battery and completed the signal transmission of its usage function. It’s like we know that Coca-Cola and Pepsi are carbonated drinks; Nongfu Spring and C’estbon are mineral water; and RIO is a cocktail.

This is the shallowest but also the most basic layer of brand value. When we do any operation ( activity operation , user operation , copywriting ...), we must clearly convey to users what the product is for . However, many people forget this simplest layer during the operation process. Li Jiaoshou once gave an example of a group of X-type copywriting.

When you see the text above, can you guess what product it is? It is impossible to imagine that Li Jiaoshou said that this kind of copywriting is using gorgeous language to cover up the emptiness of the content . The end result is the same. I think this goes against the most basic of the four levels of brand value - completing information transmission . When writing copy or planning activities, we must always consider from the user's perspective whether our operations convey the information about the product's usage functions.

02 Provide reasons to buy

Let’s go back to the battery buying experiment we started with. We all know that Chaowei, Chaoba, Nanfu and Sunway are all battery manufacturers, so how should we choose? When I told my boss that I wanted better quality and less expensive products, he recommended "Shuangwei" to me, and I am using it as my current alarm clock. What influences the boss’s behavior ?

I think it is the reason for purchase created by the product. I once mentioned the concept of reason for purchase in the article “ E-commerce Operations - There is no off-season market, only off-season thinking”: the perception that a product creates in the minds of consumers is the company’s positioning of the product . For example, the reasons for purchase created by JD.com in the minds of consumers are: authentic products, fast logistics, and invoices; the reasons for purchase created by Taobao are: large quantity, interesting, and shopping; the reason for purchase created by Xianyu is: damn, this can also be sold (from the opposite side, it is damn, this can also be bought), with a strong social attribute; the reason for purchase created by Zhuanzhuan is: a second-hand trading platform with third-party guarantee.

These purchasing reasons will greatly influence consumer behavior. When I want to buy something particularly rare, the first thing I might think of is Taobao or Xianyu, not JD.com. This is also the reason why my boss recommended Sunway to me, which satisfied my purchasing reason of “good quality without being expensive”.

The core of creating reasons for purchase is the idea of ​​"positioning". Good positioning can quickly enter the user's mind and simplify the user's purchasing decision . For example, the positioning of Zhang Mowen Planning Group:

This is a very successful positioning and a very powerful reason to buy. The second reason for purchase in the planning company is instilled into the minds of consumers. Another example is the famous “ Double Eleven ”. When consumers mention “Double Eleven”, they will definitely think of Alibaba and Tmall . So how did JD.com enter the minds of consumers during "Double Eleven"? It did not say, "We are better than Tmall," nor did it snatch the "Double Eleven" by price war, but it successfully positioned itself as:

The only competitor that can stand against Tmall on "Double Eleven".

03 Create experience value

Apple fans' obsession with Apple products, in addition to the products themselves, is also a reflection of Jobs' paranoid personality. If we study Nike 's advertisements carefully, we can find that Nike's advertisements hardly promote how good the product itself is or how comfortable the AI ​​​​R air cushion is, but they spare no effort to promote sportsmanship and athletes. After so many years of continuous "brainwashing", now when we wear Nike shoes, we will feel inspired by the "charm of sports".

Experience value is the third layer of brand content, which will have a great impact on consumer behavior. During the operation process, we must always pay attention to conveying this value, so that consumers can feel other things in addition to the use value of the product itself when using the product (the strategic goals that we define that the product needs to convey to consumers).

04 Satisfy social needs

In the afternoon, accompanied by the slanting wind and drizzle in Beijing, I lay on the bed and listened to Pu Shu's "Born Like Summer Flowers" on repeat. As I listened, I unconsciously shared this song on WeChat Moments . Songs bring me value and relieve my emptiness. But what about the act of sharing? Why does it happen involuntarily?

I re-studied Maslow's five-level needs theory, and he described social needs like this: "Everyone wants mutual relationships and care. Emotional needs are more detailed than physiological needs." I think this sharing behavior of people is also included in Maslow's social needs theory.

We are used to carrying Starbucks on the way to work, wearing Nike and Adidas when playing sports, and using products endorsed by our favorite celebrities...social needs play a very important role in this. Now we can understand why Xiaomi Note3 and vivo X20 full-screen mobile phones recently spent a lot of money to invite Wu Yifan and Lu Han to endorse them, and spent money to buy so many channels for promotion . It is understandable why our circle of friends this afternoon was flooded with the message: " Hello everyone, let me introduce to you, this is my ××× ." This is a social need inherent in human beings.

Experience value and social needs are the brand values ​​that many companies pursue throughout their lives. It requires a lot of energy and money, and may not necessarily lead to success.

05 Conclusion

This article summarizes the brand into four levels of value : completing information transmission, providing reasons for purchase, creating experience value, and meeting social needs . In the daily operation process, we need to spare no effort to build these four levels of value to help the product succeed. The specific methodology for building these four levels of value will be output in the next article .

At the same time, I proposed the concept of " Full-Stack Operations Lion ". Most operators spend a lot of time doing executive work, but rarely spend time thinking about what every activity we do and every article we write is doing. " Full Stack Operations Lions " refer to senior operations who start from the strategy behind the product and use the strategy to guide executive-level activities to help the product succeed. I believe that " Full Stack Operations Lions " will be very popular and scarce among companies in the future, and will be one of the most important roles in helping products succeed.