Tips for creating a brand from 0 to 1!

If new consumer brands want to complete high-quality brand creation from 0 to 1, where should they look for innovation, accurately identify their own positioning, and build a brand marketing logic that suits their own positioning? In this article, the author summarizes and sorts out the logic of creating new consumer brands based on relevant cases. You may want to take a look at it.

Some people continue to advocate that positioning is omnipotent, and that positioning must be applied to any brand at any stage, and that positioning can be used to break through any population and any market; others say that positioning is dead, that the basic marketing environment on which positioning theory is based has collapsed, and that positioning has long been ineffective. In the digital age, marketing thinking needs to be completely replaced.

Some people continue to regard category innovation as the bible, constantly differentiating and creating new categories to capture the minds of users; others say that it is no longer effective and that it is necessary to communicate with users with brand attitudes and "define the brand together with a group of like-minded users."

Of course, there are still many brands that continue to use a slogan or a super symbol to seize the first place in the category, occupy the minds of consumers in a brainwashing way, and achieve certain success, such as the one selling mops.

In fact, both are wrong, and neither is wrong.

Positioning is not dead, it has just evolved, developed, and alienated in order to "survive" and adapt to the times.

The past understanding of "seizing mental resources through differentiation" has only changed into different forms: some have become a focus strategy for explosive product strategies, some have grown into a point, line, and surface ecological niche, some have become brand personality, some have become a lifestyle, some have focused on a certain circle or scene, and some have broken the circle with membership fission...

China is simply too big, and the market is too complex and diverse. In various multi-level markets and sinking markets, many consumers' consumption behaviors still follow the first and second principles of positioning, and product categories determine brand choices.

So, positioning is not dead, you just need to upgrade your cognition.

However, it must be made clear that in the new digital marketing environment, when mobility and fragmentation have become the lifestyle of a new generation and the basis of business of an era, positioning is merely a marketing method or a way to break through. It is not even a marketing strategy (interactive marketing, entertainment marketing, destination marketing, etc.). If it is regarded as a brand strategy or a corporate strategy, it is not only a problem of cognitive rigidity, but also an aging mindset.

So, when positioning theory cannot play its full role and degenerates into a marketing method, how should the brand managers of a new consumer brand, a cutting-edge brand, or a younger brand upgrade their understanding of positioning theory?

In other words, in order to adapt to the times and people, what should be the basic thinking of brand marketing? What kind of brand logic will make it easier to leverage the future market?

In other words, when a new consumer brand completes high-quality brand creation from 0 to 1, where should innovation occur?

1. From positioning to creating new value

Let me give you an example first.

The key to Yuanqi Forest's rapid breakthrough can be said to be its " sugar-free " positioning , the core selling point of " 0 sugar and 0 calories " and the super symbol "気".

If you dig deeper, you will find the core that truly drives its success - continuously "creating new value" for users:

• Insight into the opportunity for innovation that is changing at 10 times the speed: demand (new consumers’ demand for healthy beverages) x connection (planting grass, interaction).
• It has created new value for a specific group of people - label lovers/ingredient lovers who pursue health but have little self-control - they can satisfy their appetite without affecting their health (physical and psychological) .
• The products have created a new taste experience: 6 flavors: lactic acid bacteria flavored sparkling water, lime and ginger sparkling water, white peach sparkling water, cucumber sparkling water, kumquat sparkling water, and sour plum juice sparkling water. No sparkling water before it has come in so many flavors.
• Connection creates new value for internet celebrities. With the "Qi Forest", Xiaohongshu seeding and interactive marketing, it has been labeled as "Japanese". This new way of connecting with users has blazed a new trail from the traditional beverage marketing method that relies on hard advertising and omni-channel marketing.
• New retail has created new channel value. In terms of e-commerce membership, Coca-Cola has more than 700,000 fans on Tmall, Nongfu Spring has 1 million, and Yuanqi Forest has more than 5 million fans. In addition, Yuanqi Forest focuses on convenience store channels, avoiding direct competition with the supermarket channels of traditional beverage giants, which has become one of the factors for its success.

As we all know, "sugar-free" drinks have long been in the product library of giants. Coke Zero, Diet Coke, and Sprite Zero have all appeared at one time or another, causing a temporary surge, but none of them could develop for a long time.

One explanation for the failure is that health needs were not effectively amplified at that time and the timing was not right.

Another way of understanding it is that even in a red ocean (traditional products, traditional markets), as long as you are good at discovering and creating new value, you can create a new market (blue ocean) and break through.

The "new value" created includes both the traditional product and service value and the constantly evolving new experience value: new appearance, new functions, new scenes, new fashion, new services, new prices, new experiences, new trust, new efficiency, new pleasure, new values, new lifestyles, new cultures...

In this case, the "sugar-free" positioning is not important. The core of success is to continue to "create new value" for users.

In other words, if new consumer brands apply the logic of "creating new value", their chances of success will double; however, it will be difficult to stand out by positioning themselves as "sugar-free" to capture the minds of users, even for a brand as strong as Coke Zero.

Therefore, to create a new consumer brand from 0-1 with high quality, the first step is to break away from the positioning starting method and instead take "creating new value" as the "guideline".

There are three points that must be noted.

1. The key to "new value" lies in cognitive upgrade

• The selling points/functions/benefits conveyed by the slogan are not new values. The new value lies in the new identity labels that the slogan brings to users when it is converted into practical actions at every step. For example, Xuehua’s “Dare to Travel to the End of the World” and Keep’s “Self-discipline Makes Me Free”.
• Low price, cost reduction, and cost-effectiveness are no longer the only value that brands provide to consumers. Whether they can create new value for users has become the core. For example, the new value provided by Costco is “no need to choose, always the lowest price”.
• From online to offline, physical stores are no longer a cost. The key lies in whether they can bring more and better experiences to users. For example, Xiaomi Experience Store.
• Interacting with users and encouraging sharing is no longer just about attracting traffic and creating hot spots through promotions. What is more important is to drive continuous improvement of products and services through these feedback data. For example, Heytea and Chayanyuese.

After the dimensionality of cognition has been upgraded, the so-called new products, the so-called storytelling, the so-called digital marketing, the so-called traffic/social dividends, the so-called public domain and private domain, and the so-called new retail that connects online and offline are all "creating new value" for users.

2. "New value" is not "satisfaction" and "catering", but "creation" and "innovation"

It’s the same old saying: there is no “rational economic man” (that is, someone who buys products based on his or her own rational analysis) in real life; consumers often “do not practice what they preach” and they themselves cannot describe the products they want in their hearts; most consumers do not know their own needs and can only become aware of their own potential needs when they see the concrete products with their own eyes.

Consumers don’t know what they need until we come up with our products, and then they realize that this is what they want.

—Steve Jobs

The POS system provides data about "customers yesterday" and cannot automatically summarize data about "customers tomorrow".

——Toshifumi Suzuki

Therefore, it is difficult to create new value that truly surprises and satisfies users by "satisfying" and "catering to" user needs.

3. Creating “new value” is an action, not a mind-stealing one; it is continuous, not a one-time thing.

Most people understand positioning as "deciding" to seize the opportunity and "deciding" to stay the same. For example, decide on the first place, decide on the profession, decide on a certain function, and use notification and advertising to seize the opportunity, and there will be no changes for one, two, or even three to five years.

Creating "new value" requires that once you have made up your mind, you must take action, continue to work hard, constantly improve, and actively change.

• This is the great legendary Apple and today's iPhone 13.
• This has also created a unique convenience store in the world: "Life Solution" 7-Eleven, which continues to deepen the depth and breadth of "convenience". Even within a delivery format, there are strict classifications: exclusive delivery for vulnerable groups (elderly, etc.), secure delivery for mobile retail, and easy delivery for traditional express delivery.
• This is Heytea. A small milk tea shop launches a new product every 1.2 weeks on average; thousands of stores with thousands of faces, unlimited inspiration; "Everything can be HEYTEA", cross-border collaboration with 74 different brands in 5 years...

It should be noted that what is "determined" here is not the "position" but the mission, vision, values ​​and something else.

Brand Ape believes that if we change our mindset, there will always be a new value that can be created or brought to users, which can be discovered, excavated and created.

With this sharp weapon of "creating new value", there is no group of people that cannot be conquered and no market that cannot be opened. This is the real beginning of building a new consumer brand from 0-1.

2. From category innovation to innovation based on "scenario experience"

Take a familiar example of sleep: a comfortable pillow, a friendly light, a health management app, and some soothing music; this is the solution for the sleep scene. Each individual product does not bring about category innovation, but when taken together they create a new scene experience and open up a new sleep market for 300 million people.

1. There is a big bug in category innovation

The essence of positioning is to find differentiated value points. When you cannot find them in traditional categories, you need to create a new category and a new value to get a differentiated point. In this way, you can seize the minds of users in this field, become an innovator and disruptor of the category, and eventually become a leader.

Therefore, there is a core method for positioning - category innovation.

Category innovation is divided into "creation" and "differentiation".

• The so-called "creation" means starting from 0 to 1. In other words, a whole new category was created from scratch. Milk, oat milk, sparkling water, carbonated drinks, tea drinks, plant protein drinks, etc.
• The so-called "differentiation" is 1-N. In other words, this major category already exists, but this category can be differentiated into various sub-categories through combination innovation or focus. For example, in bottled tea drinks, the combination/focus is differentiated into real tea, original tea, juice tea, milk tea, bubble tea, etc.

Positioning theory has been practiced in China for nearly 20 years, and most of the time, category innovation is carried out through price differentiation, function differentiation, and experience differentiation , in order to seize the first place or express focus.

It must be noted that there is a big bug in traditional category innovation, and that is the underlying logic - starting from the product perspective and innovating from the brand's own perspective.

——What products and functions do you have? Find a blank in the users’ minds, then give it a new term, seize the first place, focus on a function, and concentrate on an industry.

For example, Melatonin for gifts, Xiangpiaopiao, the pioneer of cup milk tea, Jindian organic milk, Jiannanchun, a model of liquor value, Xiaoguancha, a business tea, and David, a professional mop manufacturer...

This innovation logic is effective when targeting traditional markets, single media, and homogeneous mass consumers; however, it is ineffective when facing new consumer groups, individual needs and consumer sovereignty, mobile fragmentation, and diversified media.

The new consumer group does not focus on your firstness, your expertise, or your functions, but cares more about what problem it can solve for me in what scenario? In what scenarios do other people use it and what are their reviews? Where does the claimed first and advertised function come from? Can your values ​​​​be in sync with his...

To correctly start today’s category innovation (effective differentiation), we must first study the problems that users need to solve when using products/services in different scenarios , that is: needs first, scenario experience in the middle, and products in the end.

This is because no matter how high the technological content of a product or service is, or how good the business model is, it must ultimately be user-oriented, or in other words, it must promote user "progress."

At this point, the new logic of category innovation has emerged - understanding scenarios, innovating experiences, and focusing on user progress rather than products.

2. What is “Scene Experience”?

"Scene experience" emerges along with the user's voice, the accelerated formation of a "liquid society", the new integration of the Internet of Things, and the reshaping of social psychological foundations and commercial foundations.

"Scenes are everywhere and at all times" breaks the various binary oppositions in the past between users and enterprises, time and space, industry and aesthetics, fragmentation and collaboration, and forms the core of today's user needs - "scenario".

"Experience" is the user's externalized perceptible value of the scene. From the five senses to the heart, through aesthetic perception, meaning empowerment, interactive co-construction, etc., it continuously creates new value that exceeds expectations.

Putting the two together, the difference between "scenario experience" thinking and traditional product thinking is:

"Railway" and "Transportation", "New Energy Vehicles" and "Smart Travel", "Data Search" and "Content Subscription", "Bookstore Space" and "Lifestyle", "Shopping Center" and "Art Curation", "Smart Home" and "Good Life", "Advertising Communication" and "Scene Distribution", "One-person Food Taste" to "Lonely Warmth", "Screen Reading" and "Knowledge Sharing", "Headphone Noise Reduction" and "Social Distance", from "Surprise Blind Box" to "Individual Pleasure"...

Even a bookstore that sells books can create different experiences: Tsutaya Bookstore creates a lifestyle that makes customers' hearts beat ; Eslite Bookstore explores life experiments ; Sisyphus participates in the local spiritual life ; Yan Jiyou is a place that connects people, culture, and life ; One-way Space provides a public space for intellectual, ideological and cultural life; Fan Deng Reading, reading illuminates life and helps people meet a better self.

The product will be fully integrated into the scene along with the experience.

Therefore, even though Disney, Starbucks, Tsutaya Bookstore and 7-11 did not have digital technology decades ago, they were able to stand out in Yulin with their "scene experience" and continue to make trends in the new era.

Under the "scenario experience" thinking, you need to think about whether your new scenario can truly solve a problem for users; whether you can define your own new scenario with a new business model; whether this new scenario can grow into its own new product category; and whether new value creation is defined in this new product category.

Scenario solutions will become the core capability of future product research and development. Whoever can better understand and provide the best scenario solutions will have a real competitive advantage.

3. Three steps to innovate "scene experience"

So how to innovate "scene experience"? There are three specific steps.

First, understand the scenario.

It must be clear that insight is not consumer survey data, not focus interviews, not user portraits and consumption characteristics, but observing consumer behavior, studying background content, exploring correlations, gaining insight into stable cause and effect after mutuality, and keenly grasping the progress and beauty that users want to achieve in special contexts.

Clayton Christensen proposed in "Competing with Luck" that insight needs to be understood, respected, amplified and undertaken for each individual's "life mission"."

We all encounter tasks that must be completed in our daily lives. Some tasks are trivial (such as "killing time while waiting in line"), while others are very important (such as "finding a more satisfying job"); sometimes, the arrival of certain tasks can be predicted. When we realize that we have a task to accomplish, we bring something into our lives from the outside world to help us accomplish that task.

Take the “milkshake dilemma” for example. When do people buy milkshakes at convenience stores and what do they wear? Are you alone? Do they buy other food besides milkshakes? Do they finish their milkshakes in the restaurant or take them to go?

Jobs always raises a problem, solves it, and repeats it. These consecutive steps led to the innovation of the iPhone:

1. At the time, smartphones were advanced, but they were also difficult to use because they always had a keyboard.
2. We need a big screen and a mouse, but we don't want to carry the mouse around, which would be troublesome.
3. The alternative is to use a stylus, but styluses are easy to lose. What to do?
4. Just use our fingers, and that's how the idea of ​​touch-screen phones came about.

Muneaki Masuda believes that the essence of Tsutaya Bookstore's continuous innovation in service is: I don't have any special talents, I just stand in the customer's perspective, try to understand the customer's feelings, find out what the customer wants, and then make it.

Taking opening a store as an example, it is about constantly thinking: What do customers expect from the new store? Which part can attract customers? Then think from the perspective of women, students, and the elderly... "Do you want to go to that store?" "Don't you want to go to that store?" "Which road should I take?" "What kind of scenery should I enjoy"...

Toshifumi Suzuki: "Think from the customer's perspective": Let your brain return to a blank slate, discard all fixed mindsets, and keep in mind the question of "what will customers pursue tomorrow" and the willingness to challenge "what new projects can be developed".

At this point, it doesn’t matter whether the product itself is innovative in the category. What’s important is how to stand from the user’s perspective, integrate our product into life, solve a problem, help users complete a task, and make their lives better.

Second, focus on the scenarios, refine the scenarios, and create "new experience value."

"New experience value" is based on insights and opinions about each user's life scenarios, providing them with solutions for continuous improvement and progress in their lives, and constantly creating new experiences that exceed expectations, from rationality to sensibility, from the senses to the heart.

In fact, the positioning has already quietly changed to "scene experience".

• In the past, Mengniu breakfast milk and "Drink Wanglaoji if you don't want to get a sore throat" were the competitors for the hotpot scene.
• The second rise of Xiangpiaopiao is the result of its evolution from the positioning of "the pioneer of cup milk tea" and "circling the earth" to the scenario positioning of "drink Xiangpiaopiao when you are a little hungry or sleepy".
• Red Bull has evolved from “Drink Red Bull when you’re tired and sleepy” to “Your energy is beyond your imagination”, which is a big step forward in experience innovation.

Now, various successful new consumer brands are adept at determining the details of scene presentation and creating "new experience value" around scenes.

• The flower brand Huadianshijian advocates that flowers are not for pleasing others but gifts to reward oneself, and has launched monthly and annual packages to change users' intentions in buying flowers and their uses, transforming low-frequency flower gifts into high- and medium-frequency usage scenarios and situations.
• Plant-based beverage Cereal Planet: "We will think about a young person's daily life scenes, from morning to night, and re-divide them into main meals, breakfast, afternoon tea & drinks, snacks, and nightclubs. Drinking the most trendy plant-based drinks in nightclubs is what we want to pursue."
• Beast Life, upgraded from functional food to weight management. The business model has also been upgraded from the simple "content + product" model of the past to providing a complete solution of "product + tool + service".

The specific methods to create "new experience value" include: new aesthetics, new efficiency, new credit, new social interaction, new connection, new pleasure, and new meaning empowerment. (For details, please see Brand Ape’s article “Digital Brand Innovation Methods – Seven Weapons for Creating New Experiences”)

Third, "focus on user progress."

"Progress" represents movement toward a goal or dream.

——《Competing with Luck》

Because "user progress" is inherently diverse, changeable, and complex, the demand for "scene experience" changes with time and space, with individual personality, and with each person's emotional context. This requires that scene solutions (products and services) must also keep pace with user progress.

Huiyuan, once a leading Chinese juice brand, filed for bankruptcy in 2021. This was actually inevitable. The people, demands and scenarios for drinking juice, as well as the channels and media have undergone tremendous changes. Huiyuan has only adhered to high-quality products, never innovated product experience, maintained the same selling points, and kept the same packaging.

This can be completely applied to what Nokia and RT-Mart said, " We did nothing wrong, but we were defeated by the times."

Once you "focus on user progress", you don't have to worry about the future of the brand. Your products will grow into new products, your categories will give birth to new categories, and your business model will create a new business model.

From a milk tea shop, Heytea has grown into "Heytea" for the sinking market, handmade shops, bottled "real fruit tea" sparkling water, mini programs, e-commerce channels and convenience stores...

When you think that Heytea's competitors are still Nayuki Tea and Starbucks, its benchmark brands have become Coca-Cola, Yuanqi Forest, Forbidden City Cultural and Creative, Tsutaya Bookstore, or something else. Because Heytea is still running wildly on "focusing on user progress".

Under this brand creation logic, the future is limitless.

Now, let’s look back at TikTok, WeChat, Alipay, and Meituan. Do you think they won and grew rapidly through category innovation? In essence, they have the same logic as new consumer brands from 0 to 1, that is, to have insight into 10x changes (supply and demand connection), take value innovation as the guideline, use experience as the entry point, connect people and scenarios, and focus on user progress.

From now on, if you truly realize the changes in user consumption logic and understand the reasons behind their choices, then you will see through positioning, category innovation, change your thinking, and upgrade your cognition naturally.

From now on, with "value innovation" as the guideline, the success and profitability of building a brand from 0-1 to high quality can be greatly improved.

Starting now, take "scenario experience" as the guide and create products and services that you know in advance, which users are not aware of but desire, and the speed at which you are accepted by users will double.

Finally, let me remind you again, "Focus on user progress, not products."

References: Clayton Christensen, "Competing with Luck", Wu Sheng, "The Era of Scenes"

Author: Brand Ape

Source: Brand Yuanchuang (ID: brand-yuan)