A brief discussion of today’s brand advertising!

Hu Xiangyun, Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy Taiwan, once said: "If a brand is only successful in sales, then its ambition is not big enough. I think sales are necessary for a brand to be successful, but if a company or a brand does not have influence, it is not successful."

This sentence seems quite ironic in today's world where people are eager for quick success and instant benefits. Because for most brands, "brand-effect integration" or "sales volume" is, to some extent, both the goal of communication and the criterion for successful communication.

More importantly, this set of standards is implemented in every communication of the brand, big or small. As a marketer, you must be very clear about what the brand wants.

But the tight budget, the tight execution cycle, the creativity that has been cut and modified countless times, and the case packaging that is boasted and sold afterward... after this whole set of combined punches, is it really widely known?

In fact, the core contradiction here is that "quality" is a cumulative process, and "effect" is the measurable effect of a single communication. From this dimension, it is impossible for quality and effect to be unified, unless you are extremely lucky to step on a detonation point, and it happens that the huge volume + word of mouth brings about huge conversion.

But even so, in the current communication environment, brands’ pursuit of “effectiveness” is still stronger than “quality”. After all, “effectiveness” is a real and visible conversion, and it is not like the “quality” that traditional media once claimed was equal to “effectiveness”. So the question is, in an era where results are king, is brand advertising still useful?

01. Why are there fewer and fewer memorable cases?

Before discussing this issue, let us all recall some particularly popular cases in recent years. How many do you still remember? Anyway, apart from Tik Tok and Kuaishou which sponsored the Spring Festival Gala, I only remember "Houlang".

Think about a few years ago, we were still discussing Durex, “Every Step Counts”, and Tmall’s national trend. But now there are so many updates on major case websites every day. Even if we invest in more media, it is difficult to achieve a real breakthrough.

If you think about it carefully, you will find that among those advertisements that are truly popular and memorable, the proportion of brand-oriented ones is far greater than the proportion of effect-oriented ones.

The reason for this, in addition to the larger advertising budget, is that it hits the mark of the times and the public's mood. For example, "The Next Wave" discusses values ​​from the perspective of the times, while Newbalance provides in-depth insights from the perspective of life. There is no doubt that things that resonate are more memorable and meaningful.

So from this perspective, brand advertising is real and effective. It can withstand the impact of other content and the test of time. Once a certain topic is mentioned, people can savor it for a long time. Even today, it is still a masterpiece. But why don’t today’s brands buy into this?

This is because the high level of information impact and the overall improvement of public cognition have made the media of communication fragmented. Apart from the resonance at the national level or common human values, it is difficult to reach a public consensus at a certain level. Therefore, if you want to achieve national communication, you can only make it into an event. The core of the event is to attract attention, but not in-depth communication.

Just like we check the hot searches on Weibo every day, we know about this matter, but we only have a superficial understanding of it. Once tomorrow comes, there will be new hot searches, and yesterday’s hot searches will naturally be forgotten.

And as mentioned before, brands nowadays are more focused on ROI. Brand advertising requires such a large investment in advertising production costs + media fees, so naturally someone has to bear the risk. If it succeeds, everyone is happy, but what if it fails?

02. Is it wrong to focus only on business and ignore brand building?

Excluding the big Internet companies in first- and second-tier cities, if you focus on some small factories in fourth- and fifth-tier cities, you will find that they will use part of their budget to place information flow ads on social media, and occasionally they will look for some consulting companies to help with positioning, but they never pay attention to building their own brand system. Of course, they may not be too aware of it or have no systematic theoretical framework to support it.

They have only one criterion for measuring marketing effectiveness - selling goods.

Those who believe in brand-only may wonder, when such enterprises grow large enough, don’t they also need to build a brand?

It is difficult to judge the facts in the future, but from the current perspective, their goal seems to be to become the Foxconn of the manufacturing industry, to develop more regions, more agents, open up more channels, and sell more goods. This is a very simple demand.

Moreover, such enterprises account for the vast majority in our country. After all, at this stage, China is still a manufacturing powerhouse with far more products than brands.

If you look closely at this phenomenon, you will find that there is a core contradiction here, that is, sales problems do not necessarily have to be solved by advertising or creativity, because their model well verifies the saying "product is content, function is marketing, and user is channel".

If they must be linked to marketing, what they may need more are improved advertising products, such as technical-based delivery based on big data and algorithms, and experiential delivery that pays more attention to user experience.

But no matter how they place their advertising, their core is sales, and brand advertising can be done or not. I think this is one of the reasons why many advertising companies are located in first- and second-tier cities.

03. Is brand-effect integration a false proposition?

I saw someone comment online before that “brand and effect integration” is actually a false proposition.

Regarding the answer to this question, I also saw a more satisfactory statement on the Internet, called "brand-effect synergy." Regarding communication, I think brand-effect synergy may be a more suitable communication goal. While pursuing the effect of a single communication, each communication can also shape brand reputation and enhance user favorability.

But there is another question here. Does the so-called "effectiveness" really refer to the actual ROI or sales volume?

We can classify brand communication into several types: strong resource model (such as using celebrity spokespersons), celebrity boss model (such as Lei Jun and Dong Mingzhu), technology geek model (such as DJI), functional experience model (such as home furnishing brands), product communication model (most brands), rich people treating guests model (such as Didi), small-scale selling model (such as Internet celebrity brands), etc.

After listing these types, you will find that each type of communication model has different standards for the so-called "effectiveness". Some focus on data, some focus on conversion and customer acquisition, some focus on brand awareness, and some focus on sales. Different models correspond to different "effectiveness", so sometimes it is important to synchronize conceptual standards, rather than measuring communication effectiveness with cognitive bias.

For Party B, brand advertising is actually a challenge as well as an opportunity, because traditional media is currently weakening, performance companies are encroaching on it, and the threshold for creation has been lowered. The creativity of major KOLs on Douyin and Kuaishou is no less than that of advertising companies. Information symmetry is also gradually changing. What’s more important is that Party A’s capabilities have also greatly improved, and some joke groups are eyeing the business, so for Party B to make its own breakthrough, the road is long and difficult.

The so-called opportunities, on the one hand, come from the professionalism of the so-called Party B. This does not refer only to professional art, directing, copywriting, and strategy, but to the sum of these. Although the core competitiveness in one aspect is almost the same as that of the outside world, the overall professional advertising business services will be difficult for the outside world to surpass or replace in a short time.

On the other hand, after the decentralization and deindustrialization of information, brands are obviously not enough, so the new consumption trend is in full swing, but where is the breakthrough point for the communication of new consumer brands, where are their core bottlenecks and demands, and whether communication companies can discover and give perfect answers, everything is unknown, but everything is full of possibilities.

Finally, I would like to share a few words from a big boss for individuals in a fast-paced and complex world:

No matter how bad the times are, no matter how depressing life is, no matter how the economy collapses, no matter how weak the culture is, no matter how powerless the industry is, we have to live our lives well and live healthy and sound. Unfortunately, we are in a quicksand society and there is no stronger cohesion. Even so, we must work hard to live out our glory, pride, joy and pride!

Author: Community Marketing Research Institute

Source: Community Marketing Research Institute