The three-level logic of brand slogans

As a marketing communication tool, brand slogan plays a very important role. How can we write advertising slogans that can reach consumers’ hearts and achieve marketing goals?

1. Who is the advertisement for? Six consumer roles

The consumer role has multiple attributes. Simply defining the consumer role as a buyer is essentially not a marketing mindset but a sales mindset. Only in the single dimension of sales is the consumer role a simple buyer. This brings many misunderstandings to our marketing work. How you define the problem determines how you solve it, and epistemology determines methodology.

According to the purchasing process, consumer roles are divided into six types: information collector, decision maker, buyer, user, evaluator, and disposer. Sometimes consumers are multiple roles in one (6 in 1).

It is one person who performs all the tasks from information gathering to final product disposal, but sometimes these roles are fulfilled by different personas, who even intervene in the purchasing process and play a key role in the purchase. (Consider the purchasing behavior as a task that consumers need to solve, and each role is involved in the achievement of the task)

For example: I will not accept any gifts during the Chinese New Year this year, and the only gift I will accept is the advertisement for Melatonin. This advertisement is not directed at the users (the elderly), but at the buyers (the young people). Similar examples include: when a distinguished person comes, give him a small pot of tea; when visiting a patient, give him Chu Yuan as a gift.

To this end, we need to develop a target population portrait from the six consumer roles, and not just consider a single consumer role such as the buyer. The core of breaking the circle is the coverage and penetration of consumer roles in multiple dimensions, which makes it possible to achieve the effect of swiping the screen.

For example: In Mixue Bingcheng’s “You love me, I love you”, most of the communication behaviors are not the two roles of buyers and users, but information collectors and evaluators are playing the role of hyperlinks. If the advertisement is only shown to a single buyer, it is at most a traffic advertisement and cannot bring any brand effect.

For example: Rolls-Royce only sells a few hundred cars a year. If you only look at it from the perspective of buyers, it would be enough to just run information flow ads. But the reality is that Rolls-Royce wants to be seen by more non-target users. Only in this way can the Grand Lorry have its social positioning and driving the Grand Lorry have a higher cognitive value (social cognitive value beyond the car).

2. Four types of purchase and decision-making

According to the complexity of purchase decision and purchase complexity, it can be divided into four types: simple decision and simple purchase, simple decision and complex purchase, complex decision and complex purchase, and complex decision and simple purchase.

Simple decision-making and simple purchase: For example, if you are thirsty and buy a bottle of water, this is a simple decision-making and simple purchase. In this case, the consumer role tends to be a combination of multiple roles.

Simple decision-making, complex purchase: In this case, consumers usually seek help from experts and authorities during the purchase process. For example, studying abroad is a case of simple decision-making, complex purchase. At this time, the role of the consumer becomes more divided. Seeking medical advice is also a case of simple decision-making, complex purchase.

In such cases, consumer purchasing decisions are usually delegated to others, with experts and consultants providing decision-making assistance. For this type of purchase, the advertising should build up strong enough credentials, and the product should reflect certain expert and exclusive positioning characteristics.

Complex decision-making and complex purchases: This situation often occurs in B2B market purchasing behavior, that is, bulk purchases. In this case, the role of the consumer will be more process-oriented. The tasks from information collector, purchasing decision maker, buyer, user, evaluator to disposer are all performed by different people.

Decision-making is complex, but purchasing is simple: This type of situation often occurs in the consulting market. There are several groups bidding on a project, so how do they choose? Decision-making becomes the prerequisite for purchasing, but purchasing becomes simple.

Based on the above four-point division, the definition of consumer roles first requires an understanding and grasp of the difficulty of intervening in consumer purchases and decision-making. If we don’t understand this level, it will be difficult for us to understand the role change of consumers when making purchases. The premise for solving the problem correctly is to correctly define the problem.

Information collector, purchase decision maker, buyer, user, evaluator, and disposer are the classic definitions of consumer roles in consumer behavior. Adding decision-making and purchase variables makes it easier to understand the relationship between roles and purchases.

In addition, from the perspective of Internet platforms and traffic, the roles of consumers are divided into communication roles, traffic roles, and payment roles. When faced with a consumption decision, we are often eager to make a deal (traffic advertising), causing marketing to focus only on purchasing behavior and ignore the purchasing role. This method can indeed sell goods, but it can only go so far as selling goods (it reaches a single role and cannot form brand awareness).

For this reason, precisely because of the singleness of information (traffic) and the lack of consumer roles, it is impossible to cover a broad population, let alone the effect of screen-sweeping.

The study of consumer roles not only involves the logic of buying and selling, but also the logic of dissemination and detonation. Information collector, purchasing decision maker, buyer, user, evaluator, disposer, communication role, traffic role, and payment role. Reaching out to only one consumer role is a blind spot. The definition and analysis of consumer purchasing roles is the big issue that we need to spend some time thinking about.

3. Three-layer logic: what to buy, where to buy, and which to buy

1. Category selection, what to buy?

When you go to a coffee shop, you often encounter questions like this: what to drink, tea or coffee? It is obvious that tea and coffee are two different categories (category: a collection of products in consumer perception). When buying mineral water, I think of Nongfu Spring, and when buying cola, I think of Coca-Cola. The brand that occupies the largest share in our minds and can be mentioned easily becomes the strong brand in the category.

When there are no strong brands in a category, consumers will use the category to directly express their needs. For example: buy some bananas, eat an apple. When there is a strong brand in the category, we might say: buy some Chu orange to try. Consumers think in terms of categories (what to buy) and express themselves in terms of brands (which one to buy).

Category is the entrance to demand. The meaning of this sentence is that you must learn to use category words to intercept demand, and then say brand = category.

2. Where to buy? Channel Brand

JD.com, 7-11, and Walmart are essentially different channel brands, representing different channel attributes and having different channel characteristics. Different channel attributes mean that the people who buy things on the channel are different, which in turn forms the unique characteristics of the channel - the channel is the people and the people are the channel. JD.com (e-commerce), 7-11 (convenience store), Walmart (supermarket). The choice of channel brand is to answer the questions of who the customers are and where they buy.

Of course, we can also look at it from the logic of people, goods, and places. For example: to buy home appliances, go to JD.com VS Tmall, that’s enough. We are more familiar with product brands and often overlook the value of channel brands. A strong channel brand will become the entrance for traffic, and then use the traffic to lead manufacturers. What channel you choose to enter is essentially because of the people behind the channel.

Four Channel Focuses

Cheap: Walmart

Convenience: 7-11

Features: Vipshop

Focus: Pagoda

3. Which one to buy? Product/Brand

We are more familiar with product brands, such as Nike VS Adidas, Mengniu VS Yili. If you understand what to buy and where to buy it above, you may know why product brands are not simple brand names (that are just trademarks) but either represent categories or occupy characteristics, and thus become the customer's first choice in the competition. For example: for cheese, choose Meiji Landau VS Meifei, 0 sugar cheese sticks.