Why is it that the bigger the brand, the harder it is to gain influence?

Why does a brand become disliked by users once it becomes a big brand?

In the process of "breaking the circle", Bilibili was frequently complained by old users for "changing its taste"; after Xiaomi became a national mobile phone brand, Mi fans began to question whether it had abandoned the spirit of enthusiasts.

Just when big brands were being "disdained", some niche brands began to be sought after by the media and users.

Yuanqi Forest, Wonderlab, Huaxizi, Wang Baobao... Although the market share of these emerging brands is only a fraction of that of industry giants, they frequently steal the limelight from big brands.

What's the problem? Why are the new small brands gaining popularity instead of the big brands?

Let’s take Internet brands as an example and first look at what the brands did in the process of growing bigger.

• Tmall, from "Go to Tmall, and you're done" to "Go to Tmall for your ideal life"
• Zhihu, from "Discover a bigger world" to "If you have any questions, go to Zhihu"
• Tik Tok, from "Let worship start from here" to "Record a beautiful life"
• Ele.me, from "When you are hungry, don't call mom, call Ele.me" to "Good food, inexpensive, and delicious"

Once China’s “Internet brand” becomes big, it becomes a “lifestyle brand”. All big brands unanimously focus on the word "life", because life is the closest to the public, and the daily necessities are the main theme of the world.

But the main theme is often the most difficult to spread.

What is the main theme? Everyone should be patriotic, environmental protection is everyone's responsibility, dreams are everyone's right... These universal values ​​are the main theme of our public opinion.

But we are too familiar with the main themes, so they have become the BGM in our lives, the background boards that we ignore.

As the saying goes, when a dog bites a man it is not news, but when a man bites a dog it is news. It is no longer news that a third party intervenes; it is news that three people live in harmony.

Brand marketing is essentially a form of competitive communication, competing for the user's "attention"! The disadvantage of big brands is that their brand concept is not rare at all. The attention that a small brand can buy with 1 yuan may require a big brand to spend 10 yuan.

But there are also some "alternative" big brands. These brands are already global companies. Their brand philosophy is "politically correct", but still makes users feel cool.

For example, Coca-Cola, a century-old brand that advocates happiness, is still considered trendy by us; for example, Nike, which advocates the spirit of sports, can still make young people scream with every marketing campaign.

How can big brands break the curse of the mainstream theme and continue to win the screams and shouts of young people?

Big brands have no shortage of people, money, or even creativity, but they often lack a "marketing perspective."

1. Marketing perspective: ways to activate mainstream public opinion

What is the “marketing perspective”? It’s a brand, a perspective on looking at and discussing things. Different angles give different feelings.

For example, in the picture above, the left side is a sad face and the right side is a smiling face, but in fact they are the same shape. It's just that we switched our perspective, so we got completely opposite feelings.

Finding a marketing perspective mainly depends on how to find the right entry point for marketing. I think there are three key operating points:

• Hitting the turning point of social sentiment
• The bigger the subject, the smaller the cut
• Posture first, facts second

2. Hitting the turning point of social sentiment

We have said that the reason why big brands find it difficult to gain popularity is that they promote the mainstream theme, which is the most difficult to spread.

So, when does the main theme become active?

The most common one is: when there are major changes in society or new cultural trends emerge, the mainstream values ​​will become extremely active. Smart big brands are very good at seizing this opportunity and turning the "social sentiment" of the time into a marketing lever to rally consumers.

In 2018, Kenichi Ohmae, a famous Japanese management scientist, published a book called "Low Desire Society". The title of this book has become the best portrayal of Japan's social economy over the past few decades.

If you want to understand the low-desire Japanese society, MUJI is the best research sample.

Many experts say that MUJI caters to the Japanese mentality of wanting both quality and low prices, which is a misinterpretation. If the Japanese just want to buy "good quality and low price" products, they can just buy products made in China.

The uniqueness of MUJI lies in its brand concept. It advocates a "brandless" lifestyle consumption concept: I buy cheap goods not because I am poor, but because I don’t have excessive desires. This brand concept allows consumers to wear cheap goods with a clear conscience without feeling inferior.

Let’s turn our attention back to China. The social sentiment in China in recent years can also be expressed in a few words: “national pride.”

China is leading the world in politics, economy, culture, science and technology, and commerce. Under such social sentiment, "new domestic products" are born and old domestic products are on the rise. Changing the name of "Li Ning" to "China Li Ning" is the smartest business move of this era.

Back to the present moment. The most recent real-life change to us is the global pandemic. The epidemic is a market crisis for super brands, but it is also an opportunity for super brands to gain public opinion.

How to grasp social emotions during the epidemic? This should be a topic of research for all big brands. Let’s take China Insurance Group as an example to see how big brands can tap into the pulse of social sentiment.

What is our social sentiment during the epidemic? disturbed? panic? anxiety? wrong! When people are in distress, the greatest social emotion is actually "hope."

Anxiety will only paralyze social emotions, and only hope can lift social emotions.

Throughout the epidemic, what ignited social emotions was not the daily increase in confirmed cases, but the Vulcan Mountain Hospital that was completed in 10 days, the speech of Academician Zhong Nanshan, and the medical workers with red marks under their gas masks...

Therefore, if big brands want to grasp the current social sentiment, they must do more than just make charitable donations, but also return the luxury of "hope" to the people. PICC has found the source of hope, which is the Beijing Winter Olympics. As the official partner of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics, China Insurance’s strategic slogan in the new era is “The people have expectations and insurance has warmth.”

During the Winter Olympics, is the only thing people look forward to is the gold medal? No! During the epidemic, what people hope for is: our nation will not fall, and mankind can overcome all challenges!

Does insurance during the Winter Olympics only guarantee personal safety? Not really! China Insurance Group provides not only personal accident insurance and engineering insurance to the Winter Olympics, but also peace of mind.

It can be imagined that this Winter Olympics is different from any other one because it carries the hopes of the people of every country affected by the epidemic.

In a sense, China Insurance Group’s collaboration with the Winter Olympics is to create an emotional outlet for the public.

I believe that grasping social sentiment means grasping the wave of social consumption. Conversely, every wave of social consumption involves social emotions.

In 2020, online consumption of JK clothing, Hanfu, and Lolita clothing has skyrocketed; Pop Mart has gone public with a market value of hundreds of billions; Panini, a company that specializes in producing star cards, charges more than US$100,000 for a single card.

Behind these consumption waves is the rise of various virtual world cultures such as animation, games, ancient style, and IP figures, which is the colonization of the real world by the digital world.

I call the social sentiment under this culture "escape from reality."

Escape from reality: refers to the psychological state of wanting to escape to the virtual world occasionally because the real world is too cruel.

Under the common social sentiment of "escaping from reality", new consumer categories will emerge and old consumption concepts will be rewritten.

But no matter whether it is a "low-desire society", "national pride", the occasional "Buddhism", "sorrow", or my fantasy of "escape from reality", the helmsmen of big brands must be sensitive to social sentiment.

But by simply grasping social sentiment, big brands are only hitting the marketing theme, and they also need to convert the grand theme into a language that users can understand.

3. The bigger the theme, the smaller the incision should be

Let’s do a thought experiment first.

Suppose you are a weak girl and you are suddenly beaten by a perverted man on a subway in the United States. You shouted loudly in the subway: "Everyone, come and help me!" But everyone in the subway silently lowered their heads, and no one stepped forward...

Q: What is the most reasonable thing to do at this time?

• A Remember the face of the perpetrator and call the police as soon as he leaves.
• B grabbed a stranger on the subway and asked him for help again.
• C later sued the subway management and demanded compensation.

The correct answer is B.

You may not believe it, but I had already shouted "Everyone come and help me!", but no one helped me. Why would someone help me if I hold him?

Because the way you asked for help before was wrong. What you are shouting is: "Everyone come and help me!" You should point to someone and shout: "Please help me!"

Why did we call on “everyone” to help, but no one came forward to help? Because the word "everyone" is a vague term, it does not represent any specific person. In addition, it takes some courage to stand up for what is right, and those who are hesitant will give this right to "everyone".

This is not just my guess, it is a real experiment abroad.

This experiment reveals a truth: people only care about things that are related to themselves. The more it concerns the whole of humanity, the less it feels like it has anything to do with me.

This experiment also gives big brands an important revelation: when big brands are conveying grand values, they must map universal experience from individual experience.

Let’s take China Insurance Group as an example. PICC has always taken "meeting people's expectations and shouldering national responsibilities" as its own action requirement. I think no brand's values ​​are more grand and more difficult to spread than PICC.

But when PICC conveys its brand concept, it often starts with a small incision.

PICC’s 2021 New Year’s Eve advertising film is called "Temperature". The short film is adapted from the real stories of five employees of PICC.

It is difficult to express the five characters’ stories clearly in a few minutes, so the short film condenses each character’s story into a memory symbol - temperature.

For example, the secretary who helped a poor county get out of poverty: "-10°C is the temperature he gradually got used to";

For example, the girl who built the Hope Project Library and helped poor and mentally retarded children: "18°C is the temperature at which seedlings sprout";

Temperature is an abstract metaphor. If we want the audience behind the screen to feel the temperature, we need details of the temperature. For example, Xiao Deng, who is supporting Wuhan, is wearing a protective suit with handwritten words "PICC Xiao Deng, come on!"

The story may be ordinary, but the details can be moving.

Similar to PICC’s marketing, Nike’s “Live Greatness” series, which took advantage of the London Olympics, is also similar.

The cleverness of this marketing campaign is not only that Nike is good at "playing the edge ball", but that Nike focuses its marketing perspective on the "losers".

Compared to the champions who win the gold medal, losers who miss the medal are more common individuals. Compared to the champions, most of us are "losers", which resonates more.

Smaller individuals, smaller moments, smaller actions…the bigger the subject, the smaller the incision should be.

In fact, the masters of promoting mainstream values ​​are politicians, and the master of propaganda among politicians is Prime Minister Churchill. Churchill was very good at transforming a grand national narrative into vivid details of life.

Let's look at Churchill's most famous speech, "We Will Fight to the End", in which he said:

Although we lost this battle, we will never surrender or give in. We will fight to the end!

We will fight in France! We will fight on the ocean! We will fight in the air with confidence! We will defend our homeland at any cost! We will fight on the beaches! Fight at the enemy landing site! Fight in the fields and streets! Fight in the mountains!

We will never surrender! — Churchill

Churchill placed the "fighting spirit" in France, on the sea, in the air, on the beaches, at the landing sites, in the fields and in the mountains, allowing the unyielding fighting belief to infect every citizen.

If we want to express the beauty of the mountains, we can describe the clouds on the top of the mountains; if we want to express the vastness of the universe, we can describe the expectation in children's eyes.

Seeing the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a flower, this is the highest level of self-expression for big brands. Starting from individual experiences and reflecting universal experiences is the golden rule for spreading mainstream opinions. But using an individual perspective does not necessarily lead to good things. We also have to pay attention to the attitude towards doing things.

4. Posture first, facts second

Let’s do another thought experiment.

If you are an employee of an insurance company, your main business is medical insurance. You want to figure out which doctors in a hospital are more likely to be complained by patients. Which method should you choose?

• A Check the doctor's education, research results, work experience, job promotion and other information.
• B monitors several conversations between doctors and patients.

I guess you have guessed that I would say the answer is B, but you may not know why.

Abroad, a researcher named Wendy once counted hundreds of conversations between doctors and patients. Among these doctors, some have never been complained about, while others have been complained about at least twice.

Wendy discovered something interesting: the conversation time between doctors who had never been complained about and their patients was an average of 3 minutes longer than that between doctors who were always complained about.

Doctors who have never received complaints like to listen to patients' stories and like to say "please continue", while doctors who are always complained about seem very impatient.

The most important thing is: the quality of diagnosis provided by these two types of doctors to patients is similar. Some doctors who have not been complained about even made wrong diagnoses, but because the patients "like her very much", they have not received any complaints.

From this experiment, we understand one important thing: the attitude of doing things is more important than the doing itself.

Perhaps, this is why Haidilao is not particularly delicious, but there are always queues.

This is also a mistake that big brands often make. They always think highly of themselves and use a bird's eye view to instill their brand concepts into users, but in the end they are rejected by users.

For example, how should big brands conduct public welfare marketing during the epidemic? What most brands do is give money.

"Brand XX donated 100 million to Wuhan!", "Brand XX donated 50 million supplies". Then, the marketing department published a batch of PR articles in the news media, with a picture of the boss holding a big check to receive the award...

This is indeed doing charity, but this kind of charity attitude is more like alms, and the role played by big brands here is savior and rich man.

In public welfare marketing, IKEA has the most humble attitude.

In 2016, IKEA and advertising company POL built a special "model room" in its flagship store in Norway.

This is a replica of a Syrian war-torn residential house built by IKEA. Inside this cabin, there is a donation link on the price tag of every item.

In two weeks, the event attracted 80,000 visitors and raised 22 million euros to help the Syrian people.

Moreover, IKEA's marketing stance is not a "flash in the pan". As early as 2013, the IKEA Foundation teamed up with designer Johan Karlsson to work on the "Better Refugee Camps" project.

Ordinary refugee camps are small and damp. They usually collapse within a few months and are flooded when it rains. So IKEA and designer Johan Karlsson created this new refugee camp.

The living time in this "temporary home" is six times that of an ordinary refugee camp, and the space is twice as much as that of an ordinary refugee camp!

Why does IKEA’s charity make us feel so “warm”? Because IKEA is not only doing humanitarian aid, it is also giving dignity to Syrian refugees.

Super brands should not use the "hero perspective" and give speeches in suits and ties in front of the public. Instead, they should use the "mortal perspective", lower their posture and communicate with the public with empathy.

We mentioned above that PICC has joined hands with the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. In this marketing campaign, PICC also took the right approach.

In its cooperation with the Winter Olympics, PICC did not regard itself as a "sponsor" but as a "service provider."

PICC and the Winter Olympics Organizing Committee will not only carry out joint marketing, but also jointly develop joint products and jointly serve the Winter Olympics.

The transportation engineering project of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-Speed ​​Railway, the engineering project of the National Speed ​​Skating Oval "Ice Ribbon" competition venue, the venue operation project of the Yanqing Alpine Skiing Center... These projects all require PICC to provide insurance services. PICC is supporting the Winter Olympics with practical actions.

The doctors, IKEA and PICC who have not been complained about all know how to do things. In fact, what a brand reflects behind its attitude is whether it truly respects consumers.

Only by giving respect can you win respect, and only by giving benefits can you get benefits.

To summarize:

• Hitting the turning point of social sentiment
• The bigger the subject, the smaller the cut
• Posture first, facts second

V. Conclusion

The bigger a knife is, the more destructive power it has. But the bigger the knife, the less sharp the blade.

When big brands do communication, it is like wielding a huge blunt knife. We have to re-sharpen the blade to unleash the maximum power of this knife.

The resources that big brands control are the handle, and the marketing perspective that big brands possess is the blade.

Remember to sharpen the blade!

Author: General Liang

Source: Liang Jiangjun (ID-liangjiangjunisme)