5 Laws of Strategy | Use the first one and you can ignore the other four

Before formulating a communication strategy, marketers should first understand the three “forces” facing the brand (internal situation, external situation and overall trend).

Next, can we start strategy design right away?

The answer is yes.

For experienced marketers , they may even compress the first step - understand the brand situation while starting strategy design (just like professional athletes can compete with you while eating); but as the line in the movie "Cold War" - "It's never a problem to learn to run before learning to walk, but you have to ask yourself if you are a genius." In most cases, we believe that it is necessary for marketers to think more about the "laws" of constructing cognition before designing strategies.

The "law" in the SLTC law refers to the basic rules, laws and principles for building cognition. Good strategy depends on a familiarity with these laws. As Byron Sharp, professor of marketing at the University of South Australia, puts it:

"Marketing is similar to architecture, both of which require creativity. The world's top architectural works, such as the Taj Mahal and the Sydney Opera House, are all the result of the extraordinary creativity of architects. However, no architect would only care about creativity and ignore the laws of physics such as gravity. All creativity can only be developed and realized on the basis of respecting objective laws ."

So specifically, which “laws” should marketers grasp in depth when designing strategies? Here are the five laws we believe are the most important:

No.1 Law of Perception

"Discovery marketing" is a kind of "value perception theory". All problems are derived from the perspective of "perception" of value.

In marketing, "perception" is different from "cognition": "cognition" means that users have a clear awareness of the brand , which is the result we strive to achieve. Because of this, we often say that communication is to "build cognition"; and "perception" just explains the path to building cognition, which is to let users "feel" and then "know" ; feeling is the cause, and knowing is the result; everyone receives brand information and forms cognition through their five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch), so "no feeling" is destined to be "ignorance".

But if we think deeper, why are people sensitive to some information and insensitive to others? At the most basic level, there is actually a "heart" that dominates; it is the user's mental laws that determine the way, scope, and intensity of the user's perception of information; therefore, the communication strategy must conform to the user's mental laws and cognitive mechanisms, and conform to the user's deep and hidden psychological needs. This is what we call the law of perception.

How consumers perceive the mental laws and psychological needs of things is a mechanism that has been continuously evolved by humans over a long history. Throughout the history we can look back on, human nature has always been a very stable "constant", and more importantly - nature will not change suddenly!

The above picture is a "mental map" that we have drawn for you after sorting out, recording a series of key points that strategists need to pay close attention to, such as:

• The mind likes the familiar and rejects the unfamiliar. When consuming, people tend to choose brands they have "heard of", and this hearing may just be from seeing advertisements.
• The mind seeks to “feel good about oneself.” The mind regards all products and brands that can be grasped as tools to express the "self" and help the "self" establish advantages; knowing this, communication must consider "facilitating" this basic desire of the mind; for example, MINI's communication - "Who actually bought the MINI CIUBMAN" is a typical example.

• The mental space is limited, so actively filter information. How can brands avoid being filtered? Repetition is a fundamental method. For example, Marlboro has continued to repeat the word "cowboy" for 60 years and successfully built a clear brand awareness.
• Although I like familiarity, my mind resists the status quo. This is also an advertising resistance issue that strategists have to consider: cowboys have to constantly change scenes - by the campfire, in the woods, by the river; Google will often change its logo according to the holiday theme.
• The mind is very stubborn and has preconceived ideas. Based on this, don’t focus too much on products that users “feel” are bad; don’t try to prove that you are better than competitors in communication, but highlight the differences; before designing any communication strategy, you should first pay attention to users’ existing perception of the brand.
• The mind lacks security and is heavily dependent on reference to others. No matter what evidence is provided, you will never go to a restaurant if no one eats there; when an article in your circle of friends has more than 10 reposts, you are very likely to click on it (no matter what the title is); a large number of advertisements like to say that sales are far ahead, which essentially takes advantage of the mind's tendency to seek "evidence from others."
• The mind is easily disliked by the old and easily attracted by the new. "New" is largely interpreted by us as "good"; for example, the L'Oréal brand emphasizes "the new L'Oréal Paris" almost every time it "appears", and this strategy always succeeds in attracting our attention.

There are many more mental laws, which are not listed one by one here; communication must conform to the laws of the human mind, which can be said to be the most important "law of laws" in strategic design. Many other communication principles need to refer to this law, so SDi puts it at the first of the "5 laws" to emphasize it.

No.2 The Law of Exclusivity

From the law of perception, we know that the user’s mind is in “filtering” mode most of the time. Therefore, if we want users to be aware of the brand, our communication needs to be continuous and focused. Simply put, if you talk about this today and that tomorrow, users will be confused and not understand what you represent; they will not be able to remember it because it is difficult for the mind to remember contradictory and uncertain information.

This is the second of the five laws - the "law of exclusivity".

After the direction of dedication is clear, the next question arises - how to define "dedicated"? What does it mean to be "single-minded" when focusing on it?

Different marketing schools have different answers to this question. For example, positioning theory believes that one should focus on the "concept". For example, Volvo needs to focus on "safety" and BMW needs to focus on "driving pleasure". David Ogilvy believed that one should focus on "image", he said "every advertisement is a continuous investment in brand image"; integrated marketing communications believed that one should focus on "voice", communication should "speak with one voice".

From the perspective of discovery marketing (SDi), we believe that the terms "concept", "image" and "voice" are not necessarily perfect. For example, “concept” is mostly language logic information, which can hardly include emotions and ideas; although “image” has a sense of picture, brand awareness will always go beyond the picture; and “sound” is even broader and it is unknown what it refers to.

As a "value perception theory", SDi believes that brand communication must focus on "value". More specifically, you must focus on the brand's "core values."

What are the core values ​​of a brand?

Core value is not a "fragment" of value at a single point, such as the "ultra-light" and "ultra-thin" features of a certain notebook, nor is it consumer benefits in some single dimension, such as "safety", "comfort" and "anti-heat"; it is closer to the DNA of a brand, or something called the "central idea"; it is a brand's unique understanding of "what is value" . At SDi, we call it “value discovery”.

A brand may use a phrase, such as "Think Different," to express this value; but the core value is not these expressions, but what is behind the expressions. It is to allow people to perceive a more complete attitude and concept through various expressions (language, images, sounds, and experiences).

From this perspective, perhaps only what Steve Jobs said - " Marketing is about values " is closest to the essence of this matter.

For example, Apple’s core value may be: “Technological products with humanistic spirit and aesthetic awareness can help people expand their creativity.” This passage summarizes this “value discovery,” but Apple’s core value is richer than words. It contains “implied meaning” that words cannot convey. Therefore, our communication is to "express" this value from different angles and in different forms, and repeat it continuously in an innovative way. This is what we believe is the true meaning of “exclusiveness” in communication.

(Note: This view of Jobs comes from this speech shortly after he returned to Apple. At that time, he had just stayed up all night for the "Think Different" advertisement and appeared at the breakfast meeting the next day with a tired face. In this speech, Jobs very rarely expounded his understanding of marketing, which is very worthy of everyone's collection and repeated study.)

No.3 The Law of Simplicity

It is undeniable that Jobs was a groundbreaking technological giant, but what is often overlooked is that he was also a true master of brand marketing . Does he have any principles that he always adheres to in marketing?

Simplicity is the marketing principle that Jobs always adhered to.

Ken Siegel, who had worked with Jobs for a long time and participated in Apple's "Think Different" advertising planning, faithfully recorded this in his book "Crazy Simplicity".

For example, in terms of business positioning for the enterprise: Faced with Apple's precarious financial situation and complicated product lines, Jobs used a simple 4-grid chart to clearly indicate what Apple would do, as simple as "laptops and desktops serving ordinary users and professionals respectively." It became the most eye-catching product line simplification in the history of technology.

In terms of design, Apple's simplicity is talked about the most, and the iPhone's "one-button design" is enough to explain it all. In terms of product naming, Apple's "i" series also forms a sharp contrast with names such as "Casio G`zOne Commando" or "Sony DVPSR200P/B" of the time.

In terms of public relations, the picture above shows Jobs' speech and slides at a meeting. There are a total of 4 pages of PPT, with only 24 characters, and we can also feel the charm of this ultimate simplicity.

When designing a communication strategy, keeping it simple has many benefits:

First, simplicity can make the information structure clear and highlight the key points, thus reducing the user's cognitive cost;

Secondly, concise information is easier to be effectively recognized and remembered in a cluttered environment;

Third, simplicity has the charm of “less is more” (of course, there are deep technical issues involved). Classical Chinese pursues “conciseness and conciseness”, which can mobilize the reader’s thinking participation; on the contrary, overly detailed information will often “kill” the brand and limit the user’s imagination.

Finally, simplicity is also important for good execution. If strategists pursue multiple goals and fail to control their desire to express themselves, it will be difficult for them to explain their demands clearly when communicating with executors. This will also increase the number of links and steps in the actual execution, increasing the risk of execution deviation.

No.4 Law of Focus

Focus may be the oldest and most classic tactical idea of ​​mankind. " The Art of War" by Sun Tzu says: "The method of employing troops is to surround them if you have ten times as many as the enemy, to attack if you have five times as many, to divide them if you have twice as many..." When your troops are ten times as many as the enemy's, you must surround the enemy; if they are five times as many, you must actively attack; if they are one times as many, you must try to disperse the enemy forces so as to concentrate your advantage to destroy the enemy. This is the principle of focus that emphasizes constantly creating local military advantages.

When we want to promote a new brand, we need to carefully analyze the ratio between our budget (manpower) and the target population we want to influence. Is it close to "five times" or "ten times", or is it in a state of "outnumbered"? Based on our analysis of the situation, our strategy must ensure that we always have a "local force advantage" ; for target users with resources several times greater than ours, the best approach is always to "divide and conquer."

In specific application, strategists first need to set a "focus", which can be the same region, people with the same attributes, the same prominent needs, or the same typical scenario. For example, Wanglaoji first set "hot pot restaurants" as the focus, because this is most conducive to the spread of the brand awareness of "preventing getting angry", and then moved to Sichuan restaurants, and then to more restaurants... and continued to adjust the focus as the income expanded.

For example, Facebook first set "Harvard" as the focus, and then a neighboring school... Zhihu first set a certain type of active topic as the focus, such as " Internet entrepreneurship ", and then moved from one topic to another... The video website first set "film and television dramas" with a head effect as the focus... The bread brand Yuanmai Mountain first set Beijing's "Zhongguancun" as the focus, and before opening a store, it first infiltrated a large number of tasting activities, because this is the area with the greatest online word-of-mouth diffusion effect. These can all be said to be flexible applications of the focusing strategy.

In addition to setting the focus, the second focus of the focus principle is the focus on communication methods and channels . If you can use one means of communication to the fullest, don’t use two; if you can use one platform to influence enough people, don’t think about using two.

This is the same as the requirement of the "principle of simplicity", because the more means and channels there are, the easier it is to distort the execution; more importantly, only by focusing can a brand have a word-of-mouth diffusion effect. For example, if the impact is on 10,000 people but they are scattered in all directions, it would be like sprinkling a handful of pepper on the sea, which would not cause any waves. On the contrary, if they are all concentrated in one place, the brand's communication behavior is like a charge in a narrow area, which can most effectively utilize the intensive interaction between audiences and form the potential energy of circle diffusion.

The third and most important aspect of the focus principle is to learn to focus on the opposite of your main competitors .

There is actually a formula that is not yet well known to the public:

The first step is to accurately identify competition from the vertical "value" dimension. (We talked about this in the last article);

The second step is to find the most important focus ( which will not change easily ) among the core advantages and core perceptions of the main competitor, and then transform it into an opposing proposition .

The third step is to focus on the dissemination of this proposition.

For example, in history, "classic" has been the focus of Coca-Cola's communication. Coca-Cola's early slogan was "The Real Thing", which means "authentic goods"; "classic" and "authentic" are the core perceptions that Coca-Cola will never give up. Based on this, Pepsi Cola targeted “classic” and transformed it into an opposing proposition - classic is “old”, “outdated”, and “the cola that only our parents drink”, so Pepsi launched its famous campaign - “Pepsi Young Generation”, and became known to the world from then on.

For example, when I was working on a community bakery brand upgrade project, through observing consumer behavior, we realized that the main competition of community bakeries was not other bakeries, but community convenience stores.

Based on this understanding, how can we transform the core advantages of convenience stores into opposing propositions? Similarly, with the help of insight methods such as focus groups, we quickly discovered that the core value of convenience stores is "convenient and abundant choices." "Abundance" is a core value that convenience stores cannot give up . OK, now that we understand this, let's imagine what "abundance" means? Abundance sometimes means chaos! A convenience store usually has 2,000-4,000 SKUs, but today they are constantly adding 1,001 products that may meet user needs, such as freshly brewed coffee, ice cream machines, light meals and baked products.

The SKU arms race among convenience store brands, together with their irrepressible desire to sell, has further led to user pain points such as "messy merchandise placement", "difficult to find", "long checkout time and reduced shopping experience". Based on these insights, a more penetrating opposing proposition is actually very clear...

No.5 Law of Delivery

"Delivery" itself is a core module in discovery marketing theory, requiring us to always deliver value to users as the overall strategic guiding ideology ; therefore, the "law of delivery" in communication is actually the implementation of this strategic idea in communication strategy.

In SDi's view, we believe that the reason why Brand A achieves better business returns than Brand B is that Brand A can make consumers "feel" that they have obtained more value, and their perception of this "value for money" exceeds that of Brand B.

Therefore, the application of the law of delivery in communication is mainly to allow users to experience and perceive more value . This is why we often say that good brands are good at creating "brand premium".

There are a number of ways to do this, here are the main three:

A. Optimize the basic expression of the brand . Start with the brand name, logo, product packaging, design, etc.; at the most basic "expression layer", make the brand's value more prominent and easier to understand, which will naturally make users "feel" it is more valuable. For example, a few days ago a friend asked me for communication advice. When I looked at it, I found that their Logo was the brand name, and the brand name was four capital letters of the English alphabet. But from the composition of these four letters, the first letter represents a word, and the last three letters represent another word. I said that first of all the logo needs to be changed, because in one or two seconds, consumers have no idea where to "break the sentence", how to pronounce it correctly, and even less how to understand it accurately. This design does not conform to the users' cognitive habits. Only "insiders" can understand it. Therefore, if it is pushed reluctantly, it will lead to a waste of communication resources.

B. When designing strategies, if you can directly use the method of "delivering value" to build cognition, you should try to use the method of "disseminating value" as little as possible . What does it mean to build cognition by “delivering value”? Let us first explain people’s first-hand experience and second-hand experience. For instance, taking “delicious bread” as an example, the value of “delicious” targets the sense of taste among the user’s five senses. Therefore, if people can eat the bread directly and realize that a certain bread is delicious, this is a cognition built through first-hand experience, by directly conveying value. If an advertisement is shot to tell people that “XX bread is delicious”, this is a cognition built through second-hand experience, by “communicating value”.

Since first-hand experience is always stronger than second-hand experience , it will make users more likely to "feel" that the value is high. Therefore, for the value you define, try to choose a perceptual channel that can directly match this value to design strategies.

For example, Yuanmai Mountain made a good innovation in product category: it developed a series of "soft European bread" that is softer in texture than traditional European bread and more suitable for Chinese eating habits; they did not advertise, but instead carried out a large number of tasting and cross-border experience activities, and the effect was very good.

C. Increase brand premium through content . Just now we talked about first-hand and second-hand experiences. Although brands cannot convey first-hand experience of related functions through content (no matter how you describe a piece of bread as delicious, users cannot get the experience itself), content can directly convey emotions, attitudes and concepts. Therefore, in the content, emotions and concepts become direct experiences that can be created based on the users' ideological needs.

Strategists can focus on four types of elements: one is knowledge, which allows users to acquire more skills; two is entertainment, which makes users laugh; three is emotion, which resonates with users; and four is insight, which deeply inspires users. Through these four elements, content can strengthen the relevance between the brand and users. By delivering ideologically related value to them, people who originally had no interest in the brand may become interested.

Finally, in order to make users feel that the brand is valuable, don’t forget that there is a more essential point, that is, to sincerely and continuously optimize your products and services, so that people can truly feel the value and warmth of the brand through products and experiences. From the concept of "delivery", what could be more fundamental than this?