If you want to stand out in the competition in 2020, what should brand marketing do?

introduction

In an era when traffic dividends are gradually disappearing, where is the breakthrough for marketing growth?

The sky and earth are dark and the world is wonderful. Learn from each other's experience. The new consumption environment and marketing trend dividends are the biggest leverage.

Next, the author will analyze in detail the benefits of promotion in 2020.

For video platforms, the resource leak of "Joy of Life" is a "Chernobyl"-level resource leak.

Marketers need to live in the present while also having a long-term vision.

Only by standing higher can you see farther, make accurate analysis and judgment about the future, and prepare for a rainy day.

In the movie Alice in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts said: "You can only stay where you are if you run hard."

The process of development of the times is a process of sifting through the sand. It will eliminate those who stand still and reward those who catch up. The survival of the fittest due to competition is normal. If you don’t work hard, you will be “beaten to death” on the beach.

What are the marketing trends in the new era in 2020?

1. Digital marketing: In the 21st century, the Internet storm swept the world, and traditional enterprises sought to integrate with Internet enterprises to achieve the dual-wheel drive of "traditional + network".

Brands that once "dominated the market" have to find ways to combine the consumption needs of young people, create a unique brand image with their own personality, accurately position their brand, and not lose their own brand characteristics, so that consumers can become fans of the brand, rather than being hyped up by cross-border marketing and hunger marketing.

2. Personalized consumption: One of the major functions of the Internet is aggregation. The network has turned the earth into a village. From then on, distance and national boundaries are no longer a problem. Even highly dispersed individual consumers can form a certain scale through network aggregation. For the first time, the niche market has "come to the fore" and become logically reasonable.

The Internet has ushered in the era of big data, where people use information as a starting point to look for correlations between people. The brand takes Erjing as its entry point and chooses a "hot commodity" field.

"2018 China Internet Consumption Ecosystem Big Data Report" shows that the trends in Internet economic consumption, which is dominated by young consumer power, are mainly the following: popularization of original consumption, explosion of fan circle economy, iteration of fan economy, upgrading of pet consumption, prevalence of rental economy, and comprehensive development of lazy economy.

The rising young consumer power is developing rapidly and will become the main force of future middle-class consumption. Millennials (those born between 1980 and 1994) and Generation Z (those born after 1995 and 2000) like to live a free-spirited life, have advanced consumption concepts and cultural pursuits, advocate traveling on a whim, and pursue living the way they like. Data from Damai.com shows that the favorite type of performance for those born in the 1990s is concerts. Among the ticket buyers for the Strawberry Music Festival, those born in the 1990s and 2000s account for more than 90%.

"Slash youth", "literary youth" and "subculture" are the main labels of contemporary young people. One of their characteristics is that they have a strong desire to learn, are willing to learn knowledge in different fields to improve themselves, and are more willing to pay for valuable content than those born in the 1980s.

In 2017, a show called “The Rap of China” gave hip-hop music, which had long been underground, an outlet for its explosive growth. After tasting the sweetness of subculture, the show’s organizer, iQiyi, has repeatedly stated that it will focus on youth culture and launch a series of subculture content products. The sudden popularity of “The Rap of China” represents a new development combining capital and subculture.

The seemingly niche subculture satisfies young people's self-positioning and their desire to break free from constraints on the spiritual level and gain identity recognition. This is because the domestic cultural market has long been dominated by mainstream culture.

By using subculture content as material, clarifying niche spiritual and cultural consumption, and combining music festivals with Internet traffic, they become the entry point for subculture.

The millennials have completely different consumption and world views from the previous generation. The enthusiasm of the "Reform and Opening-up Generation" who grew up in the context of the reform and opening-up era for luxury goods has certain similarities with the Japanese before the bubble economy, but the enthusiasm of the new generation for luxury goods has come to an abrupt end.

Understanding the consumption needs of the new generation, compared to their parents, they pay more attention to the sense of ritual and happiness of the goods, rather than the cost-effectiveness. The most important factor is that a marketing campaign or a product can become the "bragging capital" of consumers on social networks, which is often the true inner need of consumers.

Generation Z will have a stronger ability to accept new things and a stronger desire to try them. After young consumers have received beauty education from online culture, they have become an emerging consumer force and are actively paying for the beauty education they have received.

Young people are more receptive to new things and are quicker to abandon them. The cycle of getting tired of the old and liking the new is gradually shortening. The topic that was discussed by many netizens and occupied the top of the traffic yesterday will be replaced by something more "hot" today.

3. Industry concentration : The era of land grabbing has passed, and the structure of most industries has been initially formed, gradually entering the mature stage from the growth stage, and market competition has changed from competing for incremental growth to competing for existing stocks.

If a brand wants to maintain sustained growth, it must seize its competitors’ market share, which means more intense market competition and many brands will “die” on the beach.

4. Trading partnerships: In the era of global competition, the main players in market competition are no longer brands but value chains, which is a competition between one value chain and another.

This requires both parties to build a win-win partnership, stimulate collective collaborative creativity, and create the future together with partners and even consumers.

5. Media fragmentation: In the Internet age, new media portals are wide open, and ordinary people have obtained a "license" to the Internet world. Everyone is a "web surfer", everyone has the right to speak, everyone is a self-contained media, and everyone is their own reporter.

For businesses, the impact of media fragmentation is that for the first time, their own consumers have the right to speak. Not only are they hard to fool, but they are even harder to serve. Users' "verbal criticism and brickbats" are a double-edged sword for brands. It can make an unknown brand "rise to prominence", but it can also turn it into a disaster for a business.

The high speed of information in the online world makes everything transmitted quickly and efficiently. "Internet surfers" can put Durex on the throne of copywriting gods, and can also single-handedly boycott supermodels who insult China from walking in the Chinese Victoria's Secret show.

These six trends have triggered a marketing crisis. Ordinary marketing has been unable to bring additional profits to companies. The wild growth of Internet culture has been accompanied by the maturity of consumers and the upgrading of consumption concepts. This also means that consumers have become desensitized to popular marketing methods and are no longer willing to pay for brand premiums.

How to compete and stand out in 2020?

In the Internet age, experience economy is prevalent. Consumption is constantly upgrading, and the personalized consumption desires of young users are difficult to be fully satisfied.

The competition in the entire marketing market has entered the stage of system competitiveness, and it is difficult to stand out by relying on a superficial advantage.

There is no doubt that the entire industry is undergoing profound changes, and its competition has quietly transitioned from the past "visible and tangible" competition such as competing in products, investment, and experiments to "invisible" competition such as competing in brand, reputation, culture, core competitiveness, innovation, and internal management.

How to stand out in the competition in 2020 is actually very simple - promotion should return to the basics of creating value for customers.

The market is a carrier that carries consumers. Brands need to shift their focus from competitors to consumers, not to control consumers, or to use the homogenized culture of internet celebrities to attract consumers, but to truly understand consumers and adapt to them.

How can brands change consumers’ attitudes? The first is to respect customers, the second is to return to the fundamentals of "product", and the third is to reshape an ecological system of harmonious coexistence.

1. The first rule to solve the marketing problem: return to the origin of marketing

Marketing is moving towards its opposite: over-packaging and pseudo-marketing.

Excessive marketing and pseudo-marketing have distorted the meaning of "marketing", making its original positive connotation take on a negative meaning.

Why are more and more well-known brands becoming restless, deviating from their main business and engaging in cross-border promotion? Behind the noise are the anxiety and continuous evolution of these brands.

The "unprofessional" cross-border players are like "Da Vinci" who spans multiple fields. They reappear in front of the public as an uneasy teenager, striving to pursue their own value in various cross-border activities, constantly breaking the original stereotypes, trying to awaken the retro feelings of contemporary consumers, capture the special psychology of the millennials, and touch the retro complex of the millennials.

The leaders of old brands are well aware of the truth that "winning the world of young people" and hope to establish the image of "senior cross-border players" in the minds of young people. However, this kind of promotion method may sometimes appear to be short-sighted and sometimes backfire.

The "national auntie" Lao Gan Ma's "cool and rustic" promotion road is "unstoppable": first launched a "spicy" sweatshirt, then participated in the New York Fashion Week, and even launched a customized gift box with "Men's Health"; Weilong, which went abroad with a bag of spicy strips, has long been unwilling to sell only spicy strips, and after "careful design", launched an exclusive version of Weilong brand woven bags; the "king" of white wine Luzhou Laojiao launched perfume

Judging from the data, the brand impact of cross-border cooperation and hunger marketing products is short-term. Although it can satisfy young people's curiosity, it cannot become the norm.

If traditional brands want to achieve brand premium based on sentiment, they must find ways to combine the consumption needs of young people, create a unique and personalized brand image, accurately position their brand, and not lose their brand characteristics. They must eventually become homogeneous brands in the era of Internet celebrities, allowing consumers to become fans of the brand rather than being hyped up by cross-border marketing and hunger marketing.

Marketing is gradually moving in the opposite direction of its original intention - marketing alienation. It is doing anti-marketing in the name of marketing.

This is over-marketing and also the alienation of marketing. What can satisfy consumers' desires better than products is brands, but brands are leading the promotion methods to deviate step by step from their original track and are becoming increasingly alienated. From the initial protection and traceability functions, it has evolved into the so-called added value.

In the past, brand was a recognition of marketing success, but now, brand is evolving into a “protective umbrella” for marketing. A world-renowned brand, even if the quality of its products is not as good as its reputation, it is precisely because of the brand's "umbrella" to endorse its products that when there is information asymmetry, consumers still have to pay for the brand's reputation.

In an age of material abundance and information explosion, consumers who feel overwhelmed by all kinds of promotional methods will not consume because of unfounded sentiments, unless the product can really stand out, keep up with social trends, successfully "go viral", and become a topic worthy of being listed on social platforms. Otherwise, no matter how many forms of nostalgia there are, they can only be one-off nostalgia marketing, which only treats the symptoms and not the root cause.

Consumers buy products and the functions they carry, which is the premise that consumers are willing to pay in advance. However, it is not enough for a product to simply meet consumers' functional needs, it should also meet consumers' desires.

The reason why today's brands must stimulate consumers through continuous external communication is because product consumption cannot accumulate brand energy, which can only be strengthened through communication.

When marketing alienation reaches its extreme, it means the end of a marketing era.

There are four important factors that determine the level of marketing:

First, the technical level determines the functional limits that the product can achieve;

Second, lifestyle determines consumer demand;

Third, the perception of consumers determines the form of marketing;

Fourth, the technical means of marketing determine the form of marketing.

Although marketing is moving in the opposite direction, its basic ideas and logic are undoubtedly correct. For marketing to return to its roots, it must reassess its environment and reassess its consumers.

2. The second rule to solve the marketing dilemma: welcome the era of personalization with "small and beautiful"

"Differentiate or die."

A disruptive revolution is taking place in the consumer community. "2018 China Internet Consumption Ecosystem Big Data Report" shows that the trends in Internet economic consumption, which is dominated by young consumer power, are mainly the following: popularization of original consumption, explosion of fan circle economy, iteration of fan economy, upgrading of pet consumption, prevalence of rental economy, and comprehensive development of lazy economy.

The rising young consumer power is developing rapidly and will become the main force of future middle-class consumption. Millennials (those born between 1980 and 1994) and Generation Z (those born after 1995 and 2000) like to live a free-spirited life, have advanced consumption concepts and cultural pursuits, advocate traveling on a whim, and pursue living the way they like. Data from Damai.com shows that the favorite type of performance for those born in the 1990s is concerts. Among the ticket buyers for the Strawberry Music Festival, those born in the 1990s and 2000s account for more than 90%.

"Slash youth", "literary youth" and "subculture" are the main labels of contemporary young people. Personal value propositions are recognized, and expressing oneself and expressing one's personality have become a trend among young people. As a result, the Chinese market has also experienced a "Great Leap Forward", that is, it has directly entered the era of personalization from the era of the masses.

3. The third rule to solve the marketing problem: more professional KOLs bring goods

2019 is the year of bonuses for live streaming. As the saying goes, "the more famous you are, the more trouble you will have." In the year when live streaming became popular, the controversy about live streaming kols has never stopped.

In order to promote a certain brand of non-stick pan, Li Jiaqi and his assistant fried an egg in the Taobao live broadcast room. Unexpectedly, the egg began to solidify as soon as it was put into the pan. Under the watchful eyes of everyone, the non-stick pan finally stuck perfectly.

Li Jiaqi's assistant was at a loss what to do on the spot and the live broadcast was awkward for a while. Seeing this, Li Jiaqi rushed in to try to save the situation, but the egg was still firmly stuck to the pan. Despite this, Li Jiaqi still "dedicatedly" promoted it hard: "It's not sticky, it won't stick. So it won't get burnt, so it's very good." Even though Li Jiaqi tried his best to save the situation, the sticking situation could not be reversed. Fans who witnessed the whole process commented in unison: "It's broken, it's broken."

Afterwards, Li Jiaqi explained that the reason why the non-stick pan stuck to the frying pan was because he and his assistant did not follow the "opening the pot" process required by the instructions, which required "put in water and boil it before use and then pour it out". "Not opening the pot" took the blame for the failure of the "number one live streaming e-commerce anchor".

In the "Tucao Conference" that was broadcast later, Li Jiaqi used the car rollover incident as a "point of complaint" to mock himself: "This pot is not the pot's pot, it is my pot, I let this pot take the blame, I'm sorry, big pot."

"Live streaming failure" will definitely first affect the kol itself, and then affect consumers' doubts about the entire live streaming sales model.

Although Li Jiaqi's "car rollover" accident did not cause him a deep negative impact, the incident has been listed as one of the top ten embarrassing marketing events in 2019. Even "Li Jiaqi's live streaming car rollover" triggered a round of discussion about the entire live streaming e-commerce "car rollover". Consumers will think that if even the top KOLs are like this, then is the entire industry like this, "taking money and speaking against their conscience?"

The existing drawbacks of live streaming sales will force the entire industry to grow, "forcing" brands to do more market research before choosing KOLs to determine the accurate communication of product value, rather than letting the overlord of the lipstick field promote non-stick pans, or letting the veteran host of "Happy Camp" sell minks live.

If you just do a hasty live broadcast, it is bound to fail.

Conclusion

Marketers need to live in the present while also having a long-term vision.

Only by standing higher can you see farther, make accurate analysis and judgment about the future, and prepare for a rainy day.

In the movie Alice in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts said: "You can only stay where you are if you run hard."

The process of development of the times is a process of sifting through the sand. It will eliminate those who stand still and reward those who catch up. The survival of the fittest due to competition is normal. If you don’t work hard, you will be “beaten to death” on the beach.

Author: Clockwork Brown

Source: PR Home