If we go back to 2000, facing the backward economic situation, Chinese companies need to clarify their future development direction. There are two routes: marketing and technological research and development . Which route do you think will make it easier to catch up with European and American countries?

I think most people would think that marketing is easier because it does not require too much financial and human resources. As long as there is sufficient market research, product upgrades and iterations, and consumer demand and social culture are integrated into product design and brand building, excellent companies can be born.

Technological research and development not only requires a large amount of capital, but also has to go through a long process of technological development, productization, mass production and commercialization, and each stage is full of uncertainty. It is very likely that you will fail due to lack of funds before your technology can be transformed into market results.

But back to today, this expectation is completely opposite to the facts. China's high-tech industry is booming, and its technologies such as aircraft, satellites, rockets, aircraft carriers, semiconductors, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence are leading the world. However, no global leading brands have been born in the marketing-oriented consumer goods industry. China's food, beverage, clothing, and beauty markets have long been led by European and American brands.

There are 129 Chinese companies on the 2019 Fortune Global 500 list, but only Huawei is on the 2019 Interbrand Top 100 Global Brands list.

Why are the results of the two lists so different? Fortune's selection criteria only consider operating income, while Interbrand's selection criteria are comprehensive, with particular emphasis on brand influence. In other words, the Fortune 500 selects large companies, while Interbrand selects strong companies.

Being big but not strong is a long-standing problem in China's business community. The reason is not that China's economic conditions are backward, but that Chinese companies generally have a narrow and distorted understanding of marketing science.

01 Where does Chinese marketing come from?

The "Ranking of 100 Shortage Occupations in National Recruitment and Job Seeking in the Second Quarter of 2020" recently released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security shows that marketers, like couriers and restaurant waiters, have become the most in-demand occupations in the country.

But does marketer refer to Marketer or Seller? Anyone with some business common sense will understand that marketing and sales are not the same thing.

The reason why marketing is regarded as sales is actually a translation problem. The English word for marketing is Marketing, which originally means the process of dynamic market changes, that is, Marketing=Market+Ing.

Marketing is essentially the science of studying the ever-changing factors in the market. These market elements include 3C+4P, namely, company, customer, competitor, product, price, channel and promotion.

However, when Marketing is translated into marketing, it is easily misunderstood as "operation + sales".

In fact, China’s first marketing textbook was “Principles of Marketing” compiled by Professor Ding Xinbo of Fudan University and published by World Bookstore in 1934. This edition of the textbook is based on "Principles of Marketing" by Harold H. Maynard, Walter C. Weidler, and Theodre N. Beckman.

At that time, modern marketing had not yet taken shape, and Philip Kotler, the "father of modern marketing", was only 3 years old. Therefore, we might as well call Ding Xinbo the "Father of Chinese Classical Marketing".

At that time, "Principles of Marketing" was still written in classical Chinese, and mature theoretical models such as STP and 4P had not yet been born. However, the book already contains the rudiments of modern marketing, including many terms such as products, media, channels, consumer motivations, and population.

Later, China gave birth to the two largest marketing academic organizations, namely the China University Marketing Teaching and Research Association (established in 1984) and the China Marketing Society (established in 1991). At this time, "marketing" still occupies a dominant position as the name of Marketing.

Why did "marketing" replace "marketing" and become a more mainstream name?

In fact, the term "marketing" originated from Taiwanese scholars and was later gradually introduced to the mainland by experts. Of course, this is closely related to "Marketing Management", the founding work of modern marketing.

In 1984, when Shanghai Mayor Wang Daohan visited Northwestern University in the United States, he was deeply shocked by Philip Kotler's "Marketing Management" and decided to introduce this book to China.

Subsequently, Mr. Mei Ruhe set up a special working group to carry out the translation work, named the book "Marketing Management", and published it by Shanghai People's Publishing House in 1990.

From then on, modern marketing officially entered China. However, the term marketing is gradually disappearing from the historical stage. However, as the introducer of modern marketing, Mayor Wang Daohan can be called the "Bo Le of modern marketing."

02 The first misconception of marketing: Marketing is sales

In the eyes of most people, business is about two things: making goods and selling goods. Making goods is the responsibility of the technology, product, and production departments, while selling goods is the responsibility of the marketing department. People who make goods are seen as high-end technical talents, while people who sell goods are seen as disgusting salesmen, on the same level as those who sell insurance and engage in pyramid schemes.

It is said that in a certain year, Fudan University only enrolled four students in the marketing major. Those top students couldn't stand the fact that they were so outstanding, so they chose to major in "selling goods".

These prejudices cannot be said to be completely wrong, but this kind of statement is like regarding human eating behavior as stuffing food into a hole in the head called a mouth. Such a simplistic and crude understanding of logic can neither clearly define the overall picture of things nor guide practice.

Chinese companies are extremely pragmatic. They consider whether they can make a living whenever they do something, and they call it "goal-oriented". In fact, there is only a thin line between goal orientation and short-sightedness.

There is usually a rough path between the current position and the target, with many obstacles blocking the line of sight. If you only do things where you can see the end point at a glance, then you're probably just going around in circles.

People who regard marketing as sales particularly like to treat sales targets as strategies, hoping that by reciting the sales targets a hundred times every day, they can achieve the goals early. Little do you know that only when you understand the paths, methods, resources, capabilities and traps leading to your sales goals, that is, real marketing, will you be more likely to achieve your goals.

Philip Kotler, the "Father of Modern Marketing", wrote the preface to Drucker on Marketing: "If I am the father of marketing, then Drucker is the grandfather of marketing."

Because Peter Drucker was probably the first author to clarify the difference between marketing and sales. He pointed out clearly that "marketing is to make sales redundant."

In that era, many companies changed the name of their vice president of sales to vice president of marketing, just to keep up with the trend and it had no practical use.

Drucker explained grimly but humorously: “Calling funeral practitioners morticians does not change the nature of the industry, because the work of funeral practitioners is still just digging graves and burying the dead.”

In 2017, Coca-Cola abolished its Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and replaced it with a Chief Growth Officer (CGO) to unify the leadership of global market growth strategies. However, the 2017 annual report showed that Coca-Cola still could not resume growth, with net profit falling 81% year-on-year. By the end of 2019, Coca-Cola finally restored the position of CMO.

The so-called goal-oriented and marketing-driven sales are all blatant nonsense.

Of course, the goal of marketing is to increase sales, but just knowing that marketing is for sales will not make sales better. It's like you only know that eating is for living, but it won't make you live better.

Kotler defines marketing as the process of understanding, creating, communicating and delivering customer value, and sales is only a part of communicating and delivering customer value.

Only when you form a systematic understanding of marketing based on this definition can you get rid of the ignorance that "business is about making and selling goods" and improve the success rate of your business.

03 The second biggest misunderstanding of marketing: Marketing is communication

People are accustomed to calling those who are good at advertising creativity and good at taking advantage of situations as marketing gods. Now that the Internet is so developed, it has become easier and easier to copy other people’s ideas, so there are more and more screen-sweeping incidents on the Internet, as if there are so many marketing gurus flying around in the sky that there is no room for birds to fly.

This is how most people see marketing: marketing is big creativity, marketing is ingenious strategies, marketing is screen-sweeping events.

In fact, this is not marketing at all. It is just a section under marketing called communication.

It’s okay if the public has misunderstandings, after all, everyone has their own expertise. However, some internet celebrity-level experts also make common sense mistakes.

For example, there is a corporate energy model circulating on the Internet, which believes that corporate operations are divided into four sectors: products, prices, marketing, and channels.

In fact, the marketing here just means the promotion in 4P.

Recently, I received a strategic consulting project for a consumer brand. The customer focuses on nutrition products and has created a whole new category. In 2019, the client spent a large amount of money on advertising cooperation with the super popular variety show IP "Longing for Life", which eventually made the entire category popular. Unfortunately, competing brands’ products were sold out on Tmall, but the brand’s sales did not increase.

Later investigation found that the brand started with private domain distributors. Since private domain distributors are the core source of sales profits, in order to protect the interests of private domain distributors, the brand did not open direct e-commerce channels. Therefore, this blockbuster variety show advertisement can only serve as a wedding dress for competing brands.

In fact, the key growth issue for this brand is not advertising, but how to expand from private channels to mass channels without infringing on the interests of private dealers.

Marketing problems include more than just communication, but once a problem arises, people always think of communication first. Every entrepreneur seems to have an obsession: thinking that the alley is too deep and the aroma of the wine cannot reach there, as long as I do a good job of promoting it, the aroma of the wine will spread far and wide.

There are countless similar cases. For example, the cross-border collaborations that have been popular in recent years are like the surging river, endless and overwhelming, flooding the screens of mobile phones to the point of bursting.

In 2018, White Rabbit Toffees launched White Rabbit Lip Balm, which was sold out within half a second of its first release. Not only that, White Rabbit has also launched perfume, shower gel, hand cream and body lotion. Later, Ma Yinglong came to the market and launched a lipstick. I don’t know if colleagues in the marketing/brand department of Mayinglong use it.

Media experts are singing praises of similar marketing ideas, but has any expert looked at the financial reports of brands whose ideas have been popular in recent years?

Cross-border co-branded products are selling well, but the main products are performing mediocrely. The sharp contrast between creative activities and product performance can be a good way to entertain yourself, since the money spent belongs to the boss and shareholders anyway.

The reason is that these advertisements and product ideas are merely a type of communication activity, not the overall marketing picture. Failure to identify the key issues in marketing and blindly pursuing dissemination can easily lead to ineffective marketing investment.

To a certain extent, companies’ obsession with communication and their blindness to marketing come from the noisy media environment. In the eyes of many people, screen-sweeping advertisements and novel ideas can be seen in the media. In fact, the results of marketing are like an iceberg. What you see are only the communication activities on the surface of the water, but you cannot see the marketing system under the iceberg.

This is the greatness of Kotler's "Marketing Management" system. It will not give you a specific implementation plan, but will give you a holistic thinking, allowing you to open the eyes of God and examine the overall picture of marketing.

However, it is precisely because Kotler's "Marketing Management" system is not very prominent that the science of marketing has been misunderstood for a long time.

04 The third biggest misunderstanding of marketing: focusing on marketing rather than products

In China, it is politically correct to focus on products and technology, even if you are a marketing-oriented company.

For example, Gree, which started out as a marketing channel manager, after becoming the leader in the industry, Ms. Dong publicly stated many times that she won by relying on technology and that she hated marketing the most. Little did people know that this statement is precisely the brilliance of Miss Dong’s marketing strategy.

For a long time, marketing in China has been misunderstood as sales and communication, and it is very low-level sales and communication, so that consumers think marketing is just a scam. Marketers can describe rotten apples as biological fermentation and sell combs to monks.

In other words, if you dare to say that you are a marketing-oriented business, consumers will regard you as a liar and drive you and your products back to your hometown in the countryside like a rat crossing the street.

Many people call the phenomenon of products with poor quality but huge sales and promotion "over-marketing."

In fact, if you have ever browsed the table of contents of "Marketing Management", you will know that this is not "over-marketing" but "anti-marketing".

The first chapter of "Marketing Management" states clearly that "Marketing is to make profits by satisfying customer needs." The second chapter is to research customer market demand, and the fifth chapter is to create product and service value. I really don’t know which marketing textbook wrote such a scam as “marketing is selling combs to monks”?

There are two channels through which modern marketing influences China. One is the words and deeds of European and American multinational companies in China, and the other is the academic channel represented by "Marketing Management".

Foreign companies such as Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, and Pfizer have trained a large number of talents in the field of marketing in China. There is a lot of marketing science worth learning that is overlooked by the public.

Wyeth has a dedicated product marketing department. This department is not responsible for sales and communication in the public eye, but is responsible for investigating customer needs, analyzing product positioning and feasibility, and ensuring that products meet customer needs and cognition in terms of quality, packaging and usage, to prevent the problem of having technical achievements but not being suitable for customer use.

In other words, successful products on the market are not only the work of technicians, but also the work of marketers. Technical personnel are responsible for making products from the perspective of the enterprise, while marketing personnel are responsible for improving products from the perspective of customers.

Not only that, some marketers in European and American companies also need to understand knowledge about product technology, supply chain, finance, etc. in order to guide marketing activities in a more systematic and scientific manner.

The 4Ps in Kotler's "Marketing Management" include Product, and there is also a classic book "Horizontal Marketing", which talks about how to use horizontal cross-border thinking to develop products.

You see, whether in the field of corporate practice or in the field of expert academia, products have long been regarded as an important part of marketing.

Therefore, there is no such thing as “light on products and heavy on marketing”. If a company really focuses on marketing, then its products must be not bad.

05 What exactly is marketing?

In recent years, new theories about marketing have emerged one after another, and it is difficult to distinguish the true from the false. Various internet celebrity experts threatened to preach, and acted as if they were going to punch Porter and kick Kotler. Even Drucker would be beaten to death on the beach by these new waves.

It’s a pity that the right to speak on the Internet is not dominated by experts, but by Internet celebrities. An expert is not necessarily an internet celebrity, but an internet celebrity may make us mistakenly believe that he is an expert.

In September 1998, at the invitation of Sun Jiazheng, Minister of Culture of China, Dr. Milton Kotler, world master of marketing practice and president of the American Kotler Consulting Group (Philip Kotler's younger brother and the uncle of modern marketing), visited China for the first time, laying the foundation for consulting business and academic communication in China.

After more than 20 years, Kotler's "Marketing Management" system has taken root in China. Many people know that "Marketing Management" is good, but still can't continue reading it. Because the language habits of English are different from those of Chinese, you will find it difficult to understand even with a translation.

This has, to a certain extent, encouraged unhealthy trends in the marketing industry, resulting in the three types of marketing distortions mentioned above becoming rampant.

As the only corporate strategy consultant of Kotler Consulting Group who has gone off the track and gotten involved in the media circle, Grant further refined the Marketing Management system and shared it below. Although it is entry-level knowledge, it can at least help you clarify the panoramic picture of marketing management. I hope you will be inspired:

Marketing concept:

• All activities of an enterprise to plan, organize, lead and control various elements in a continuously changing market. (Classical Marketing, summarized by Grant)
• Businesses profitably meet market demands. (Modern Marketing, Simplified Edition)
• The entire process of an enterprise understanding, creating, communicating and delivering customer value. (Modern Marketing, Complete Edition)

Marketing framework:

3C-R-STP-4P-IC

• 3C：Company、Customer、Competitor
• R: Research
• STP: Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning
• 4P: Product, Price, Place, Promotion
• I: Implement
• C: Control

Marketing functions:

• Market research
• Strategic market positioning
• Product Service Marketing
• Brand asset management
• Integrated Marketing Communications
• Channel network management

Author: Grant Zheng

Source: Zheng Guangtao Grant