Explain the strategic concepts in detail from the three aspects of marketing, branding and communication

Strategy is a term often heard in the advertising industry, but few people can clarify its specific concept. The author of this article explains the basic concepts of strategy and explains its specific application in marketing , branding and communication.

The core work of planning is to help companies formulate strategies and form executable plans .

Strategy is a word that has been overused and flooded in the advertising and marketing circles.

Product strategy, pricing strategy, channel strategy, promotion strategy, marketing strategy, brand strategy, market strategy, communication strategy, interactive strategy, media strategy... it seems that everything is a strategy.

So, what exactly is strategy? What are the fundamental differences between the above strategies?

This is a question that may not be explained very clearly even after many years of planning.

If you want to enter the planning industry, it is very important to clarify some basic concepts related to strategy and the theoretical logic behind the concepts.

I think this is the basis for good planning.

Otherwise, if you write countless strategic plans but cannot even distinguish the basic concepts and logic, it will be difficult to improve further.

Next, I will break them down for you one by one.

1. What is strategy?

Enterprises formulate strategies with clear business intentions and strategic goals.

However, companies will always encounter various problems and obstacles on the road to achieving their goals.

So how do we overcome obstacles and achieve our goals? This is what strategy is designed to answer.

In a nutshell, strategy is problem solving.

To be more specific, strategy is to provide problem-solving solutions for enterprises to achieve their business goals.

See, the strategy is actually that simple.

But the simpler the truth, the more complicated it is to understand thoroughly.

Since strategy is to solve problems, how do we solve them?

To solve a problem, you must first identify the problem.

Knowing where the problem lies is actually half the solution.

For example, if you are the marketing director of a fast-moving consumer goods company, you find that the company’s products are too expensive and are not popular in the market.

——The problem arises.

So, what should you do?

If price is the core problem we face, then the solution should be to lower prices? Or a promotion? Buy one get one free? 50% off on all items?

But wait,

Price may just be a superficial phenomenon, not the root of the problem.

We need to analyze why the price is too high, or in other words, why consumers think we are too expensive?

First, the product may not be valuable enough, but the cost cannot be reduced, resulting in a price surge. What you should do at this time is to improve management level and reduce costs. Or the product itself is good, but the packaging is too poor and does not reflect the grade and value of the product, then the product should be redesigned.

Secondly, it could be that the product is so great that it’s worth the higher price tag. However, consumers do not truly perceive the value of the product. At this time, perhaps you should promote and advertise, educate consumers about the product, and enhance the product image and premium.

Finally, it may be that our competitors are all very cheap, and consumers have an inherent price perception of this category, so we cannot afford to sell at a high price. Then maybe we should reposition our products to target high-end users rather than the mass market.

The result of such positioning may not be a price reduction, but a price increase. Moreover, the channels may also change accordingly. Instead of selling the products in roadside grocery stores, they may be placed in star-rated hotels, boutique supermarkets, or in specialty stores.

So we can see that on the surface it is a price issue, but after careful analysis, you will find that it may be a product issue, a user issue, or a competition issue.

There are numerous problems that a company may encounter in the market, and the problems faced by different companies are also different. But in the final analysis, problems only exist at three levels: either product problems, user problems, or competition problems.

Why do I say so?

Because these three are the three main entities involved in commercial activities in the market.

In the market, there are only three roles: ourselves (with products as the core), our users, and our competitors. All our business behaviors and answers to all questions must start from these three levels:

• Product level - whether the product's differentiated features are prominent, whether the value-price ratio can exceed user expectations, and whether the quality is trustworthy, these are the most basic issues facing companies.
• User level - whether the brand is recognizable enough in the minds of users, how users perceive the brand, what is the relationship between users and the brand, and what emotions and values ​​users share with the brand.
• Competition level - who are our competitors, who are our potential competitors, what competitive advantages do we have compared to our competitors, and how can we ensure our sustainable competitiveness.

Products, users, and competition: this is the golden triangle for thinking about corporate business issues.

No matter what strategy we help the company formulate or how complex the business situation is, as long as we grasp the three basic levels of product, user, and competition and conduct in-depth analysis, find out the key to the problem, and clarify at which level the company has problems, we can definitely come up with an effective solution.

This is the strategy.

2. Marketing strategy - solving competitiveness issues

Marketing strategies are mainly oriented towards the competition level, with the goal of achieving optimal allocation of resources. The core is to help companies create competitive advantages.

When many people talk about marketing, they divide it into two levels: marketing and sales. If the marketing is done well, sales will naturally increase.

So what is a camp? Marketing is to create competitiveness for enterprises.

Only by creating good competitiveness can sales be successful and lasting.

If a company is not competitive in the market, then even the best sales will be ineffective.

In What is Marketing? In the article, I also talked about:

Whether or not a company can create competitive advantages is the first prerequisite for its survival.

Competition is the first thing that all living things, including humans, must face when they come to Earth.

All the species we can see today have competitive advantages at some level, otherwise they would be ruthlessly eliminated by nature.

Therefore, the core of marketing strategy is to solve the competitiveness problem and achieve the optimal configuration of the marketing 4P combination.

• Product strategy - what kind of product or product line combination to design to create differentiated value.
• Pricing strategy - how to form price barriers and design a competitive pricing system.
• Channel strategy - Traditional business places great emphasis on channels being king, which is actually about how to seize place resources to reach consumers. For example, WeChat cannot jump to Taobao stores, which is a channel resource monopoly.
• Promotion strategy - how to conduct advertising, public relations, and sales promotion to capture the minds and wallets of consumers.

It can be seen that the so-called product strategy, pricing strategy, channel strategy, and promotion strategy are all subordinate to marketing strategy to solve the problem of corporate competitiveness.

But we must know that the market is not static, and the competitiveness of enterprises will not last forever.

Market conditions will change, and there will always be new competitors emerging and rising in the market.

Consumer demands and consumption trends are also constantly changing. Just because consumers like your product today doesn’t mean they will like it tomorrow.

However, when competitors and user demands change, companies are likely to gradually lose their competitive advantages, such as Nokia and Kodak, which were once at their peak.

Therefore, the company's marketing strategy should be a dynamic process. We constantly make adjustments based on market conditions and re-examine our 4Ps to maintain our competitiveness.

The market strategy is just a variation of the marketing strategy. Any changes in the market will eventually be fed back into the reconstruction of 4P.

The entity responsible for formulating marketing strategies is the marketing department within the enterprise.

It is one of the most critical departments of a business.

• On the one hand, it is necessary to provide weapons for the sales department, including price design, sales policy, channel plan, promotion content and materials;
• On the other hand, it is necessary to provide direction for the product and R&D departments, track changes in market demand in a timely manner, understand what kind of products consumers want based on market feedback, and guide subsequent product development.

3. Brand strategy - solving the problem of influence

The brand strategy is mainly oriented towards the user level, with the core being to build the influence of the product in the minds of users, thereby influencing users' purchasing decisions.

There are three purposes for enterprises to build brands: enhance recognition, create premium, and provide credit endorsement.

• Enhanced recognition is designed to help companies achieve differentiation, allowing consumers to recognize and remember them at a glance, and thus think of them first when making a purchase. For example, when you see a golden M, you know it is McDonald's . Look at the red ribbon font, this is Coca-Cola , it is completely different from Pepsi .
• Creating a premium is to help companies create emotional value and spiritual value in addition to physical value and functional value, so that consumers feel that buying this brand is more "worthwhile". For example, if there are two identical bottles of mineral water, one of them can be sold for a few dollars more if it is labeled Evian . This is the halo effect and premium ability of the brand.
• Credit endorsement is intended to reduce consumers' decision-making risks when purchasing and consuming. When we are faced with unfamiliar products, we always have doubts and dare not try them easily. The role of a brand is to provide credit endorsement and enhance users' consumption confidence and quality confidence.

"This is a big brand, the quality is good, don't worry about buying the wrong one."

“This is a brand that everyone uses and everyone likes, so it’s okay for you to use it.”

These three functions of brands all work on the level of consumers' minds.

Therefore, the significance of building a brand is to exert influence on the minds of users, and creating influence is the core of brand strategy.

To influence consumer decisions, brand strategy has several major parts to do:

3.1 Brand Positioning

A brand needs to occupy a position in the minds of users. Because the market competition is too fierce and there are too many competitors, we need consumers to remember who we are with just one word or one sentence. This is to enhance brand recognition.

Head & Shoulders is positioned as an anti-dandruff product, so Clear has to be positioned as a men’s anti-dandruff product.

Tmall is positioned as the leading e-commerce platform and has a wide range of products (for example, Taobao’s slogan is “Taobao is the almighty” and Tmall’s “Go to Tmall and buy” means this).

So, in order to differentiate itself from Tmall, JD.com positioned itself as genuine and fast, with authentic products and fast delivery. Therefore, all of JD.com’s business activities should strengthen this positioning.

Positioning is positioning, which means finding your own place in the minds of users and giving the brand an identification label.

As for market positioning, crowd positioning, and product positioning, these concepts are being misused without clarifying the meaning of positioning, which has caused unnecessary confusion to many people.

In fact, the so-called "positioning" of market positioning, crowd positioning and product positioning is an abuse of the term "definition".

• Market positioning is actually market definition, which is to define the market boundaries that the brand wants to enter. For example, the market definition of a certain salad brand is the middle class in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. This is a definition of the brand's market segment.
• Population positioning is actually population definition, which is to confirm the target population for the brand. For example, the target audience of a certain mobile phone brand is defined as young people, and the target audience of a certain wolfberry brand is defined as middle-aged people.
• Product positioning is actually product definition, which is to clarify the main features and core attributes of the product. For example, Buick Verano has a line of words under the brand name: new generation sports sedan, which is the product definition of Verano. Buick LaCrosse: A mid-to-large luxury sedan, this is the product definition of LaCrosse.

It’s just that we usually talk about it casually and can’t distinguish between definition and positioning. As a result, the concept of positioning becomes generalized, and we end up unable to distinguish what real positioning is.

3.2 Brand Core Value

What value does a brand provide to consumers? It includes three levels: functional value, emotional value, and spiritual value. This is to create a brand premium.

For example, when you buy a pair of Nike shoes, in addition to getting the functional value of professional sports equipment, you also get the powerful sports spirit of "just do it", which is the spiritual value of the Nike brand.

As competition becomes increasingly fierce, products are becoming more and more homogeneous, with no functional differences. At this time, brands should explore their own emotional and spiritual values ​​to achieve value differentiation.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi are both sugary drinks, but when you drink Coca-Cola, you get refreshment and happiness. Drink Pepsi and you get youth and desire.

3.3 Brand image and personality

What do consumers think of when they mention the brand? What kind of people would use this brand? Are you a young person? Is it middle class? Or successful people and the wealthy class?

For example, with the upgrading of consumption, Tmall feels that its past values ​​of all-encompassing and doing its best seem very loser and ordinary, so now it begins to emphasize the ideal life on Tmall and cultivate a middle-class feeling.

Personality is the personification of the brand. If the brand is a person, what kind of personality traits should it have? Is it extroverted or introverted? Do you like to be sociable or be alone?

3.4 Brand Relationship

What kind of relationship does the brand establish with the user? What role and identity does the brand play in the user's life? Is it a friend who understands you? Or a caring family member? A life mentor? Or a dream lover?

For example, Xiaomi emphasizes not treating users as gods, but making friends with users. In the early years, various marketing behaviors such as being born for fever and always believing that good things are about to happen have created such a friend role, which is a civilian hero around you.

Brand positioning determines brand recognition.

The core value of a brand determines its recognition.

Brand image and personality determine the brand's association.

Brand relationships determine brand reputation and loyalty.

Together they constitute brand assets and are key elements of brand building.

The entity responsible for formulating brand strategies is the brand department within the enterprise.

However, many companies have this function assigned to the marketing department or entrusted to a brand agency.

This is a lack of attention to brand strategy.

Or even if a company has set up a brand department, its main job is just to take charge of advertising and media placement.

This is a belittling of brand strategy, equating brand strategy with communication strategy.

In fact, marketing strategy and brand strategy are both top-level designs of the enterprise, not just execution-level things.

The only difference is that they target different levels. Marketing is the management of internal resources of an enterprise to create competitiveness. Branding is the management of consumer minds to create influence.

The two work together to empower enterprises and help them achieve healthy and sustainable development.

4. Communication strategy - solving the problem of appeal

Communication strategy is mainly aimed at the user level. It focuses on "information" and studies how to maximize the delivery effect of brand information.

Whether a company is placing advertisements, doing public relations, organizing events, or doing event marketing , it is actually conveying information to consumers.

In order to achieve good communication effects, we must focus on the three elements of communication:

• The information itself – the content;
• The carrier of information – media;
• The receptor of information - people, and how people relate and interact with information.

4.1 Topicality and virality of the information itself

Today we are all paying attention to swiping the screen, following hot topics and making headlines. But in order to achieve such a communication effect, we must first consider whether the information being disseminated itself is contagious.

When designing and disseminating information, you need to know the social and cultural background, what people pay attention to, what people want to see, and whether what you disseminate can touch the sensitive nerves of the public.

So I say, people who don’t understand popular culture cannot spread it well.

4.2 Attention of Communication Carriers

As the Internet becomes increasingly developed, there are more and more information dissemination platforms.

When doing communication, you must consider which platform can gain higher attention and traffic .

• Should we shoot TVC and put it on traditional TV stations or video websites?
• Is it to produce a traditional outdoor flat projection, or to project a large image when the APP starts, DSP ?
• Is it WeChat public account , Moments , Weibo, Zhihu, or Toutiao ?
• Should we invite internet celebrities to do live broadcasts , or use short videos like Douyin or Kuaishou ?

Moreover, when choosing a platform, you should not only consider the platform’s own traffic and attention, but also whether the platform’s tone and population structure are consistent with the brand’s tone and population (of course, the existence of conflict itself is also a good topic).

4.3 Interactivity between Information and People

Communication in the traditional media era is mainly one-way. When the information reaches the consumer, the communication ends.

However, communication in the Internet age is a two-way process. After consumers receive information, whether they are willing to participate, forward, comment, and create new content largely determines whether the communication can achieve good results.

Therefore, when designing information dissemination, we should take the initiative to set the agenda and create topics and content that consumers are willing to participate in.

At the same time, communication should maintain an open structure and design interactive methods to allow consumers to participate.

The entity responsible for formulating the communication strategy can be handed over to a professional company. For example, advertising companies, media agencies, and interactive communication companies, but no matter which type of company it is, it should have the ability to coordinate information, media, and interaction.

Therefore, the communication strategy can basically cover advertising strategy, public relations strategy, event strategy, media strategy, and interactive strategy. It is something at the execution level.

The above are some basic concepts and common sense about strategies.