5 pitfalls of brand marketing!

Recently, on some online trading platforms, the prices of some "limited edition" domestically produced sneakers have risen sharply. One model costs nearly 30,000 yuan, a 31-fold increase in value! For a time, the topic of "sky-high prices for sneakers" sparked heated discussion in the public opinion.

On the APP of a certain sneaker trading platform, you can see that the price of Li Ning's Way of Wade 4 All-Star series silver-white sneakers has risen to 48,889 yuan, while its launch price was 1,499 yuan, an increase of more than thirty times. Another domestic brand, Anta, launched its Doraemon co-branded sports shoes at a price of only 499 yuan, but the price on the trading platform actually rose to 4,599 yuan.

Ironically, the background of this incident was the H&M incident of refusing to use Xinjiang cotton some time ago. Chinese people boycotted H&M and Nike to express their support for domestic products. Domestic brands such as Li Ning and Anta also joined netizens across the country in calling for support for Xinjiang cotton, winning a lot of favor.

However, this time the merchants took advantage of the patriotic sentiment in the Xinjiang cotton incident and hyped up sky-high-priced sneakers beyond the bottom line, which is really suspected of excessive marketing. Amid public doubts, although the platform has removed some accounts suspected of shoe speculation, the controversy over "shoe speculation" caused by this is still ongoing.

It is unknown whether the brands involved in this incident have contributed to the situation, but if these brands do not intervene to correct the phenomenon and allow public opinion to ferment on its own, it may cause irreparable damage to the brands.

In the last issue, the author discussed the topic of "Five major pitfalls to avoid when building a brand", and I felt that it was not enough. Recently, I saw the above-mentioned "shoe speculation" incident, which made me feel a lot. Combined with what I have seen and thought in brand consulting over the years, I have summarized the following rules for building a brand for your reference.

01. Over-marketing: Too much is as bad as too little, and it can easily backfire

Marketing is a double-edged sword. It can make a brand famous overnight, or it can ruin its reputation overnight. It takes awe to leverage justice and morality for marketing. If you lack sincerity or go too far, you will inevitably suffer backlash.

Marketing also has a rhythm. The importance and speed need to be determined in combination with the ideas and rhythm of brand development. If the rhythm is disordered and the operations are too frequent, there is a risk of "too much is as bad as too little". You see, many celebrities and internet celebrities who become popular overnight become out of fashion surprisingly quickly. On the contrary, many celebrities who have risen to the top steadily tend to be popular for longer and have more staying power.

Excessive brand marketing is mainly manifested in the following aspects:

First, the survival and development of the brand relies too much on marketing, while neglecting products and reputation.

In the past, some health products that relied on marketing to succeed, as well as many of today's Internet celebrity brands, all have this problem. They rely too much on advertising, live broadcasts and product recommendations by internet celebrities, but do not improve the quality of their products and services or manage their product reputation. Once the traffic subsides and product quality issues surface, these brands will be reduced to their original form.

Second, when regional brands have not yet established channels across the country, they launch a nationwide advertising bombardment too quickly, resulting in the brand having voice and traffic but being unable to follow up, production capacity not keeping up, and consumers having no place to buy, which will waste a lot of advertising fees.

This is how Qin Chigu Wine, the CCTV "bid winner" at that time, ruined itself.

The correct approach is to combine advertising with regional market building. When entering a new market, we will invest intensively in that area to explode the market and boost sales, with only a small amount of national advertising being used. When the channel coverage is wide enough, we will launch high-density national advertising to build a national brand.

Third, inappropriate and excessive leveraging of information .

Just like the example of shoe speculation above, for those hot issues concerning morality and humanity, if the brand does not support them based on positive morals, but just indulges in the emotion of consumption, it will not only not be supported by the public, but may also disgust and cause resistance, which will not be worth the loss.

02. Treat brand planning as a decoration - a brand is never a vase

In order to be so-called "pragmatic", many client brands treat brand planning as a kind of "packaging", and use it on websites and printed materials for decoration and promotion - see, our brand has these positioning, slogans and so on, isn't this very standardized and complete?

As for the brand execution level, these plans are completely thrown aside. Some brands even equate "brand planning" with copywriting. These words need to be routinely placed on the official website and product brochures, leaving the copywriter to simply come up with a few slogans. This is the so-called "brand planning", and its status is not as good as a few sentences of product copywriting.

In fact, brand planning has never been used for decoration or promotion, but is the constitution and compass of the brand. It requires in-depth insights into the industry, consumption, competitive environment, and one's own strengths and weaknesses before it can be formulated and guide the brand's various actions, ultimately forming a mindset in the minds of consumers.

Brands have scientific planning, so that they can form a synergy, highlight the differences of the brands, and avoid detours:

With positioning and core values, you will know where to focus your efforts and how to combine the 4Ps.

With brand personality and brand archetype, you will know what style your design and external publicity should have.

With brand portraits, you will know what kind of people your typical consumers are, and then adopt precise strategies...

(Figure: Brand image model: 12 brand archetypes)

Otherwise, if you think brand planning is too abstract, then in your actions you will either be groping in the dark, seemingly building a brand but actually just doing things; or your ideas will be confused, doing this today and that tomorrow, and in the end you won’t even know what you are doing. All you will waste is money, energy, and the most precious time.

03. Over-segmentation - Don’t be “determined” by segmentation and positioning

Some people confuse "brand positioning" with "market segmentation", and think that to do positioning, they must find a very niche market. As a result, the market scale cannot be increased and the brand is in dire straits. This is why some people say "positioning determines the brand", and the blame really cannot be put on Trout and Reese.

"Positioning" is to find a position in the minds of customers and then achieve differentiation, for example: Yuanqi Forest's "sugar-free expert" and Wenheyou's "Disney of the food world".

"Market segmentation" focuses on a specific market. It is just one method of positioning. In addition, there are many other methods such as functional point positioning, population positioning, analogy positioning, opposition positioning, ranking positioning, cultural positioning, and lifestyle positioning.

A brand is a basket that contains the common differences among brands, but this basket does not necessarily mean the boundaries of the market.

For example, Yuanqi Forest is not limited to soda water, as long as it is a sugar-free healthy drink, it can strengthen its positioning; Three Squirrels is not limited to the nut category where it started, but now extends to braised meat, tea and even film and television dramas. Because they all belong to the story of "Squirrel World", its brand positioning remains clear.

So, when is it appropriate to use market segmentation for brand positioning, and when is it not recommended?

If a market is still in the early stages of industry development and in the cultivation stage, and competition within the industry is not fierce, such as plant-based meat products; or if the market is already small, such as yoga products, then it is not suitable to use the "market segmentation" approach to position it, and to further segment the categories that are already limited in size. That will only be self-defeating and "determined" to yourself.

For new categories like plant-based meat that are in the promotion stage, you don’t have to worry about being sniped by your peers if you don’t segment your products, because at this time, industry competition is more likely to be in the substitute market rather than among companies within the category. On the contrary, it is a good thing to develop together with peers at this time. Together we can expand the new product category and carry out cognitive education on new products.

(Photo: New plant-based meat brand "Xingqi Ling")

On the contrary, if the industry is already very mature and the competition is very fierce, such as liquor and beverages; or the industry itself is large enough, such as beauty, food, and clothing, you can enter any market segment and there will be a lot of room to support yourself. Then, entering from a certain market segment at this time will help focus resources and make it easier to become differentiated, so that the market can be opened in the sharpest way, and then extended to related categories after the market is opened.

For example, Kongke started with pasta, Haoli focused on oat bran solid beverages, and Wang Xiaolu focused on tiger claws. Because the market for instant noodles and cereal beverages is large enough and the competition is fierce, it is easier to form characteristics and improve the investment-output ratio by deeply cultivating niche markets.

In short, even if you want to segment the market, it is not for the sake of segmentation, but for a purpose - to focus and to achieve differentiation.

04. Lack of value support - don't let the brand become a castle in the air

The benefit of branding, in a nutshell, is that it allows products to sell faster, in greater quantities, at a higher price, and for longer periods of time. However, the “more expensive” here does not come out of thin air.

Many domestic brands are eager for quick success and instant benefits. They even think that for high-order products such as air purifiers and high-end tea, they can sell them out within a few months by simply doing some brand packaging, writing a few WeChat articles, doing some live broadcasts and promotions. Moreover, the prices are set very high. This is simply wishful thinking. After all, in an age of highly transparent information, there are only a limited number of people who can make money, and it is not so easy to collect the IQ tax.

In order for a product to be sold at a high price and yet people feel at ease buying it, there must be a reason why it is sold at a high price and yet people feel at ease buying it. It is not something that can be achieved by simply writing "high-end, high-quality" in the copy. Otherwise, why would big brands spend huge amounts of money, find endorsements, and decorate their stores?

In order to attract people to buy high-end products, they must be supported by real value - and this value is not just at the product level.

For example, if you have an expensive bottle of red wine, do your packaging, materials, and store decoration have the style that a high-end product should have? (Experience value) Is this bottle of wine unique in terms of taste, origin, craftsmanship, etc., and can people perceive it? (Functional value) Is there any well-known wine taster or authoritative organization to testify that this is a good bottle of wine? (Endorsement) Are there high-end people such as stars, celebrities, entrepreneurs, etc. who check in, creating a high-end lifestyle that makes people feel proud when treating others to drinks or giving gifts? (Identity represents value)?

In the entire chain of product sales, we can easily fall into the misunderstanding of "only seeing sales but not marketing". We only see the order purchase results achieved through the back-end sales links (recommendation, promotion, performance advertising, customer service), but fail to see that the reason why the product sells well also depends on many links of front-end marketing (cognitive education, demand arousal, value shaping, atmosphere creation, etc.).

(Figure: Complete consumer shopping path)

If you have this kind of thinking in mind, you will think that "sales is everything" and that you can sell the brand at a good price just by doing anything. It is also easy to lose yourself in the one-sided pursuit of traffic and "performance advertising."

This may be able to achieve short-term results for fast-moving consumer goods where decisions are made randomly and purchases are made on impulse, but for high-end products with long decision cycles, high levels of cognitive involvement, and high average order values, it will definitely lead to a dead end, and there is a possibility that no product will be sold at all!

05. Value Misalignment—Are You Providing What Consumers Want?

A brand not only needs to create value, but also ensure that this value is what consumers need and are willing to pay for . However, in reality, there are too many cases where brand value and demand are misaligned.

One manifestation is excess value.

For example, some home appliances are designed with many fancy functions, as if to maximize "multi-functions", but is this what the target consumers need? If it is not necessary, not only will consumers feel that the use is complicated, but they will also have to pay for the cost of these unnecessary functions, which will be counterproductive.

There are also some APP homepages that are densely packed with various menu icons, some products vow to use the best in the industry for every component, some non-gift products are over-packaged for show, and some hotel services and prices are infinitely upgraded... If these practices are not based on real needs in the product usage scenarios, they may lead to excess value, making the products too expensive and consumers dare not approach them.

(Figure: Ideas for optimizing products or services based on demand)

In this situation, some brands such as Southwest Airlines, Hanting Hotels, IKEA, NetEase Yanxuan, and MUJI have achieved great success by subtracting the value of their products, removing unnecessary redundant functions, focusing on meeting consumers' core needs, reducing excessive product premiums, and helping consumers reduce costs.

Another manifestation is deviation from the core value that the brand brings to customers .

Every brand that wins over a certain number of consumers must be able to meet the specific needs of consumers in some aspects, which is the reason for its existence value. Taking mobile phones as an example, Apple phones are easy to use and prestigious, Xiaomi phones have good configuration and high cost performance, and Huawei phones have powerful camera functions and good workmanship.

Therefore, brands should always remember the core value they can bring to consumers, and not let marketing become a "pig teammate" that destroys this value.

If your product is high-end, high-quality, and prestigious, then if you offer discounts and sales every day, your value will be diluted because people will not buy a product that is discounted every day to show their status.

For example, if you are taking the low-cost route, but you are always worried that your brand image is not high-end enough and you want to decorate the store more upscale, or that your shopping guide service is not good enough and you want to increase the number of store clerks to more than your competitors, or you are thinking about customizing some exquisite gifts for promotion, then all the thought you put in may not help you reduce costs.

(Figure: Southwest Airlines' consistency from strategy to business details)

If you want to succeed in the low-cost route, you need to think more in this direction, including expanding scale, introducing new equipment to improve efficiency, optimizing processes, reducing procurement and operating costs, etc. (of course not cutting corners). This way, your values, strategies, and actions will be consistent, rather than "schizophrenia."

Another manifestation is that the value does not adapt to changes in consumer demand.

When we talk about brand aging, what it essentially means is that consumer demand has changed, but your brand or product has not kept up: for old customers, their demands have upgraded, but you have not kept up; for new groups of people, their demands are different from those of previous groups, and what you provide is not new enough, so you are not in tune with both ends.

Therefore, there are two ideas to deal with brand aging: one idea is to target the needs of old customers, upgrade the brand, and continue to meet their changing needs; the other idea is to target the new needs of new users, promote brand rejuvenation, and attract new consumer groups.

(Photo: Pechoin’s brand rejuvenation)

To solve the problem of misaligned brand value, we must return to the overused but most fundamental marketing axiom: come from consumers and be market-oriented, rather than just making decisions based on what companies think is good for consumers.

The target consumers need a certain level of service and the quality of the materials. This is the level and degree of service we provide. We can exceed expectations appropriately, but we should not overdo it.

We will focus on what the target consumers care about most and what they need most, and rank the value demand points. As for the areas that they don't care about or need, as long as they meet the quality requirements, there is no need to spend a lot of effort to increase the price, which will only increase costs for consumers.

The demands of target consumers have changed, generations have replaced, and new characteristics have emerged. We need to capture them in a timely manner so that the brand can always keep up with consumer needs, rather than sticking to the old ways and doing it once and for all.

Author: Brand Xin Viewpoint

Source: Brand Xin Viewpoint