10 keywords for brand marketing

I have talked about some of these before, but never in a unified way. Today I will focus on the 10 key words I use in marketing.

Induction and Deduction

Since I started working in advertising and marketing, I have been fortunate to meet some industry leaders, including graduates from Peking University and Tsinghua University, and those from Ogilvy and McKinsey. I learned a lot of methodologies from them, but no leader or methodology could make me fearless when facing work, until I discovered the underlying methods of human social development: induction and deduction.

All scientific truths are the product of the dialectical unity of induction and deduction. Human cognitive activities always start with individual things, then generalize to the general, and then generalize to the individual, and so on in a cycle. Induction is from the particular to the general, and deduction is from the general to the particular.

An example of the inductive method: Since the existence of human beings on Earth, no immortal person has been found, so we can conclude that everyone will die.

An example of deductive reasoning: All humans are mortal, and Socrates is a human being, so it can be deduced that Socrates will die.

In fact, most of the knowledge we have learned from childhood to university is obtained through induction and deduction, and marketing methods can naturally be obtained in the same way. Ever since I learned about induction and deduction, I no longer pinned my hopes on meeting industry leaders. Instead, I began collecting cases every day, constantly summarizing methods, and practicing deduction, repeating this cycle and iterating through upgrades. The overall case model has gone from 1.0 to 4.0, and the creative model has gone from 1.0 to 4.0, which is proof of this. I am no longer afraid of facing difficult problems at work, because I believe that most of them can be solved through induction and deduction.

Methodology and Case Library

McKinsey's strength mainly comes from five aspects: "top talents, database, expert pool, methodology and case base". The first three are hard to come by, while methodology and case base are not that difficult.

Many methodologies are public and can be learned through various books, such as "McKinsey Method", "Pyramid Principle", "Ogilvy's View", "Basic Skills of Copywriting", "Marketing Management", "Positioning", etc. You can also learn from various marketing open classes of bigwigs, or summarize your own work experience, or collect a large number of cases and summarize methodologies.

Methodology alone is not enough, there must also be a corresponding case library. Just like when you report your work to your leader, he will definitely ask you to give examples. For example: You report to your leader on how to make a testimonial advertisement, and your leader asks you to give an example of how to do it? If you have a case library in advance, you can cite more than 10 types of testimony cases, such as consumer testimony, celebrity testimony, kol testimony, expert testimony, professional organization testimony, corporate testimony, founder testimony, employee testimony, media testimony, historical figure testimony, IP testimony, etc.

Only by having both methodology and case library can we carry out work efficiently, both are indispensable.

Strategy and creativity

The two words you come across most often in advertising and marketing are probably strategy and creativity. Writing plans also mainly involves these two parts. However, if you ask, what exactly are strategy and creativity? Everyone has different ideas, my personal opinion is:

Simply put: strategy and creativity are both aimed at solving problems. Strategy is about which path to choose, and creativity is about how to go about it.

To put it comprehensively: Strategy includes "macro analysis, industry analysis, competitor analysis, corporate analysis, consumer insights, and strategic planning"; Creativity includes "communication concepts, creative expression, media use, and communication rhythm."

Essentially: strategy is an overall plan. To sum it up in one sentence, strategy is what you achieve by doing. Creativity is a new combination of old elements. Brand is a fixed element, everything else is other elements, and creativity is the attempt to build a connection between the brand and everything. Such as brand x celebrity/pain point/problem/Olympics/Chinese Valentine's Day/values/lifestyle/contrast/exaggeration/metaphor/personification/art/universe/magic twist/abnormality/conflict/challenge/interaction/installation/music/skydiving/skiing/diving/running/fitness/travel/quotation/confidence/bravery/self-discipline/dream/self-improvement...

There is no strict order in which strategies and creativity come up, just like whether the chicken or the egg came first. Creativity can be derived from strategy, or strategy can be derived from creativity. Both are correct and are intended to solve problems.

Process and consensus

Process and consensus are the two most important methods I learned from McKinsey leaders. The reason why ordinary people are inefficient is because there is a lack of processes and consensus.

International companies generally have many easy-to-use process tools, and by following the process, you can complete your work more quickly. for example:

McKinsey's seven steps to a poem: state the problem; break down the problem; eliminate non-critical issues; develop a detailed work plan; conduct key analysis; synthesize the results and establish a structured conclusion; and organize a set of powerful documents.

IBM Business Leadership Model: market insight; strategic intent; innovation focus; business design; key tasks; organizational operations; talent team; cultural atmosphere.

Ogilvy's Nine Yin Scriptures: brand definition; the role of advertising; competitive scope; target market; where we are now; where we are going; buttons; support points; prerequisites.

First learn the advanced processes of international companies, and then design your own work processes based on your own work content to continuously improve efficiency. For example, I have been iterating the integrated marketing communication program process: briefing interpretation; macro analysis; industry analysis; competitor analysis; corporate analysis; consumer insight; strategy formulation; communication concept (theme); creative expression; media use; communication rhythm; budget allocation, etc.

Process alone is not enough, there must also be consensus. The reason why work often needs to be overturned and redone, wasting time, is because there is no timely consensus with the leadership. This is especially obvious for Party B, because there is no way to reach a consensus with Party A in a timely manner.

McKinsey leaders’ requirement for our team is to reach consensus with him on ideas in a timely manner, never write dozens of pages of PPT before reporting, try to reduce the black box time in between, and avoid duplication of work.

Process, process, and process; consensus, consensus, and consensus!

Structured thinking and divergent thinking

At first, I thought that structured thinking is to find structures and apply structures, such as McKinsey 7S model, Boston matrix, GE matrix, Ansoff matrix, Porter's five forces analysis, Porter's value chain analysis, PEST analysis, SWOT analysis, strategic 3C analysis, SCQA expression structure...

Later, I gradually discovered that structured thinking is not just like this. In addition to using ready-made structures, it is more about first expanding and exhausting the ideas and then summarizing the structures. For example: When talking about marketing, most people think of the 4P structure - product, price, channel, and promotion. However, if the team is allowed to diverge first and then summarize, the marketing structure will become 8 parts - market, brand, supply chain, product, service, price, channel, and promotion.

When you encounter a problem, it is good to have a ready-made structure, but allowing the team to think divergently first and then summarize the structure may help solve the problem better.

Structured thinking and divergent thinking complement each other and are indispensable!

To sum up

Induction and deduction, methodology and case library, strategy and creativity, process and consensus, structured thinking and divergent thinking, these are the 10 key words I use in marketing.

Author: Marketing Catcher

Source: Marketing Catcher