2019, the year marketers “swim naked”

Everyone knows that my writing is usually very dry, the kind that is so dry that I can’t swallow it.

But actually, I am a person who likes to complain, so at the end of the year, I don’t want to write about knowledge points in this article. I want to complain to you - what we marketers have experienced in the past few years, and how to live in the future?

In this world, there is a group of people called marketers. They have always been like magicians to enterprises.

Both the companies and themselves believe that as long as their marketers drink some coffee, they can come up with a big idea, make a beautiful advertisement, and the company's sales will suddenly increase significantly.

This romantic and profitable existence continued for many years. Until the advent of the Internet age, everything changed.

In the Internet age, marketers are the first to experience a magical career - from 2015 to 2017, during the Internet bubble period, they were always required to swipe the screen.

So marketers are engaging in an arms race, with exposure and interaction data counted in billions. If you shoot a TVC (television commercial), I will make an H5 (WeChat HTML5 advertisement).

In the blink of an eye, things changed. In 2018-2019, when the Internet tide receded, we found that everyone was swimming naked.

This year, marketers have entered the darkest period in the workplace. The bubble has burst, and marketers have a new KPI: nothing else matters, as long as the goods can be sold.

So in the blink of an eye, the romantic poet of that year turned into a gangster who raped people's brains - e-commerce live broadcasts, elevator advertisements, brainwashing advertisements, all of them. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. The advertising is perfect only when it is effective.

Back then, the budget for H5 was tens of millions, but today's advertisements look like idiots. This year, many marketers began to feel confused and self-doubting - is the glory of my former magician no longer there?

In a blink of an eye, they switched careers and became micro-businessmen... Since they are all selling goods, they might as well sell them for me.

Coincidentally, it is said that the product manager group has also become a distribution group this year (I am a comment off topic)

In 2019, marketers, ahead of their peers during the Internet bubble period, fell from the Peak of Ignorance to the Valley of Despair.

▲ From the Dunning-Kruger Psychological Effect

According to this curve, you reach the peak of stupidity when you are ignorant and feel that you can do anything. Then one falls into the valley of despair, collapses into despair, and gradually climbs back up the slope of enlightenment, returning to full realization.

(Marketing people say: We are waiting for you in the valley~~~)

There are clear shouts coming from the valley bottom, but you don’t know that there is a slope of enlightenment behind it.

1. Mount Foolhood: It’s all Bubble

When talking about 2019, we first have to review the happy times of 2015-2017.

Talking about the growth period of the Internet at that time, it was truly a golden age... The economic situation was good at that time, and everyone had money in their hands (regardless of whether it was their own money or not). The vast number of users are like uncultivated fertile soil, planted with all kinds of newly developed APP seedlings, and investors are pouring money into it following the trend.

Investor (middle): “Look, these are the seeds I sowed.”

Marketing person (first from left): “Look, these are all the fertilizers I applied.”

Growth officer (first from right): "I am standing by to record the amount of water sprinkled each time"

Horizontal banner: Let’s harvest together!

Seeing unicorns being born one after another, companies, after getting financing, immediately wave the money to marketers - hurry up, go buy me volume, let’s go! !

For a while, everyone thought that it was a good idea to invest money to harvest traffic, achieve growth and attract new customers. Various types of advertisements have sprung up, including targeted advertisements, cinema advertisements, circle of friends advertisements, H5 advertisements, and public account advertisements, which are filling our eyes.

Marketers and advertisers are very busy. Cases come out one after another, and salaries increase one after another when changing jobs.

There are cases of screen-sweeping news every day. Yesterday, Michael Wang was late for the plane, and today Jiang Cha Cha drank laundry water. The day before yesterday, a long picture of Pechoin went viral, and the day after tomorrow, ofo held a concert. At least these have been all over the screen, but there are countless others whose shadows haven’t even been seen.

During this period, many marketers actually tried their best to improve their cases and creativity, but they were "driven out by bad money" by a group of bubble parties.

What effect will it have? We don't care. What is the ROI of the investment? We don't look at this short-term effect.

At that time, advertising companies were busy with pitches every day, and pitches were flying all over the place. An installation art today, a pop-up store tomorrow.

When the long picture of Pechoin went viral, people in the circle discussed it for a long time, but when people outside the circle asked about it, they found out that no one knew

Ofo also held a large-scale concert at its peak, 666, the king of throwing money

Later, there were too many competitions and the advertising companies were often deceived into giving their manuscripts to the clients for their own use without paying. So advertising companies formed an alliance to protest - before deceiving the clients into using the manuscripts, they had to pay a competition fee of 100,000 yuan! However, I don’t know what happened afterwards. All I knew was that the advertising company was badly criticized.

There were some chaos during the bubble period, where Party A, Party B and the traffic party worked together to put on a show.

Some marketers have already figured out a way to satisfy both investors and brands:

• First, work with a creative company to come up with an awesome idea, report it to the boss, and get a creative production budget of tens of millions.
• Secondly, buy a large number of bloggers and targeted advertisements on the market. If you want to buy, buy the buildings where the bosses and investors live and the accounts that the bosses and investors use, and then spend tens of millions or even hundreds of millions.

If you want to be more direct, you can also buy the friend circles of your boss and investors’ friends to create the illusion that the entire network is flooding the screen with messages. In this way, we can have good-looking data. If we don’t have good-looking data, we can “create” good-looking data. The bolder people are, the more productive the land will be.

The boss was satisfied and the marketer was also very happy. Marketers also have their own professional ethics, and coming up with creative ideas that satisfy consumers is still their wish. Coincidentally, the boss thought so too. Let’s go ahead and give you a budget so we can be creative and build a good brand.

Do you think investors don’t know? In fact, investors also know this, and they will then work with companies and marketers to show it to the next round of investors. Just like that, in those years when capital was hot and everyone was rushing to sell, not only big companies were spending money, but small startups were also spending money, bringing the bubble era to its climax.

The marketing industry has basically reached the peak of ignorance. Sometimes they can be picky when changing jobs. That company doesn't have enough budget, this company doesn't have enough financing, so they'll have to take a look.

In the bubble era, all the fireworks and promises were too fragile and could break at the slightest touch, and the destruction came faster than one could imagine.

Users have seen through everything in the past few years, and they are ruthless...

2. Valley of Despair: Swimming Naked Together

By 2019, the economic environment was bad and the landlords had no surplus food.

The client's budget is tight and investors are more on the sidelines. There is not enough money for fancy marketing, and suddenly, all the fancy things on the market disappeared.

When the tide receded, we found that everyone was swimming naked. The marketing industry has completely shifted from the bubble era to the naked swimming era (note, not the Luo Yonghao era).

Many false commercial demands have gradually revealed their true colors. Companies realize that the source of burning money has been cut off, and everyone starts tightening their belts, cutting marketing budgets, and suddenly turning around and saying "Survival is more important!" (If we continue to do marketing, others will find out that we are really fake needs!)

Marketing is not a fig leaf, and demands that can be replaced by a poster have been cut off one after another.

The proud brand and marketing departments of the past are usually the first scapegoats and the first to be cut off - "The company is not doing well because you have no cost awareness!"

Well, then let’s do micro-business.

Companies have become more concerned about results and want to see results for every penny they spend. The term "brand-effect integration" has immediately become popular.

Not to mention start-ups, even the luxury goods industry has begun to try every possible way to cash in in the past two years. They have learned from Chanel and started to launch cash cow businesses to sell lipsticks. Gucci sells lipsticks, Hermes also sells lipsticks, and Valentino also sells lipsticks.

Otherwise, product quality and effect cannot be unified!

Even one of the largest B-side companies in China, the automotive industry, has suffered.

In the past, car advertisements were more concerned with high-end images, but now advertisers want more customer leads, that is, the contact information of potential customers, did you know?

The effectiveness of the advertisements that were so popular at the time and dominated the screen began to be questioned, and the identities of the marketers themselves were suddenly doubted to the extreme.

Even if a marketer submits a good topic idea, the boss will start to doubt:

"Can we create a screen-sweeping ad? Will it really work? Is there something fishy about it? Is it just for its own good? But I don't understand it either. So what should we do? No one else is doing it anymore, so forget it, we'll just cut it off first..."

After finally getting a plan approved, the boss always feels that there is something fishy going on and wants to cut corners, thinking, "We must not let the middlemen take any advantage of us! We must let the investors see how much we save! We are a good kid!"

As a result, suppliers are exploited in various ways. Suppliers who do not have much gross profit margin are already suffering a lot of grievances, and now they are being squeezed out of their own money. So they simply stand up and go against Party A.

As a result, the resentment and hatred between Party A and Party B intensified.

CMO is still a CMO. There is no food in the house at all. I thought my boss was an idiot, but when I asked my colleagues, I found that every company was the same.

The glory of the past is no longer there, and people are all black as crows after jumping to other companies. Well, we still have to endure it. With a wave of his hand, he changed his name to CGO and continued to live.

In such an era of naked swimming, companies and marketers are all very anxious, fearing that their marketing efforts will have no effect, and want to grasp every life-saving straw around them. But often the choices people make when they are anxious are not the best choices.

Therefore, the "hunger and food" of the naked swimming era began to appear.

3. Five major marketing chaos in 2019

What should we do if consumers no longer like to watch advertisements? Marketers were also confused.

I call this year's marketing tactic Mind Fxxx.

What is mind fxxx? It's just to rape your brain. To make it more elegant, I wrote it in English.

To put it bluntly, since you won't love me either, okay, I'll force you to do it.

——It truly proves what our advertising predecessors said: "Advertising is a disturbing industry."

One of the chaos in 2019: the common brainwashing advertisements

Brainwashing advertisements have existed since ancient times, such as Melatonin and Yang Yang Yang. They were regarded as laughing stock in the past, but are now regarded as magic weapons for the mind. This is truly a Renaissance in the advertising industry.

Mafengwo, Zhihu, Boss Direct Hire, Platinum Travel Photography, Yiersan, SoYoung... have all started to play the Renaissance.

▲BOSS Direct’s advertisement during the World Cup

The Sheep Sheep of CCTV back then has returned.

I thought that by 2020, the spirit of advertising civilization had made a qualitative leap, but I didn't expect that it would go back to the time before liberation. Why are these ads so rampant? Is it really because they are effective? Nope.

The production company behind the scenes, "H Production", saw this opportunity and portrayed the advertisers who spent money during the bubble period as villains.

He came to a summit attended by all the big bosses, played a sad love song, and put forward a set of "advertising companies are all cheating you of your money, only we care about your results." He looked very much like Trump, who is surrounding the city with the countryside.

I thought no one would believe it, but bosses started crying one after another, and companies closed down one after another. Many people have a misunderstanding that if a phenomenon is popular, there must be an effective reason behind it. Otherwise, why is everyone going there?

I can only say that everyone doesn’t know another saying: Anxious bosses are the easiest to harvest. But no one knows that playing with fire too much will only get you burned. Besides, if the effect is really not good, no one will know. Anyway, no one will mention the fact that their growth data is ugly.

This trick is always a black box, you are awesome.

Chaos in 2019 Part 2: Endless confusion in cross-border transactions

When the creative cross-border ideas first came out, everyone was surprised, such as: toilet water cocktail.

▲The appearance of the six gods and the taste of the cocktails

There is a kind of local national trend that has attracted many praises.

The crossover between Mary Kay and KFC is really good.

▲Marie Dalgar and KFC worked together to launch a new pink cone and a Marie Dalgar lipstick color

But when the crayfish-flavored pan-fried buns mask and hemorrhoid cream-flavored lip balm appeared, I said:? ? ?

When Xiao Yang Sheng Jian and Zhi You Quan jointly launched the Sheng Jian mask, I was completely petrified. I could only complain but not order anything.

Nowadays, cross-border cooperation is becoming more and more frequent. To put it bluntly, it is still to attract attention. Since I can't swipe your screen, I'll find a way to make you come to see me by causing chaos.

Cross-border cooperation is actually leveraging potential energy and playing the card of brand association. Do you really want to be associated with the greasy steamed buns when you apply your facial mask?

Not to mention that the hemorrhoid medicine Ma Yinglong has also crossed over to export red.

Sorry, lipstick and fart cannot cross the line...

Also, you shouldn’t use lipstick with 999 Pi Yan Ping.

When something becomes popular, a bunch of people will follow suit for no apparent reason. Human beings are not only repeaters, but also followers.

2019 Chaos 3: Boring as Fun

There is another trick that is even more speechless, which is to mistake boredom for fun, thinking that as long as there is voice and discussion, it is good.

For example, some time ago, Audi’s WeChat Moments advertisement used the wrong material for Infiniti, and everyone actually shouted, “Wow, this is a great move.”

…………

On November 13, Audi released a video advertisement for the Audi Q8 on WeChat Moments, but the content played was a promotional video for the Infiniti model. This incident was finally confirmed by Tencent to be a platform operation error, and in the end only 200 yuan in advertising fees was spent. This incident was called by many self-media as a textbook example of how something could become a hot topic with just 200 yuan.

I am really impressed. How much do people crave for popularity that even this can be considered a marketing event?

Therefore, anxious bosses are regarded as the easiest targets.

The fourth chaos in the Valley of Despair in 2019: Many people have become anxious believers of "effectiveness-onlyism".

From screen-filling advertisements, we go straight to the other extreme: focusing on studying how to find traffic and sell goods.

Everything is fake, but the money is real, so many people are crazy about live streaming e-commerce this year.

Taobao Live is a platform that has been certified and has great results this year. Whoever can sell goods will be the boss, and Li Jiaqi has become popular in the entire industry. Many of us marketers believe that we have chosen the wrong industry and should have practiced our eloquence since childhood and become a salesgirl to become famous overnight.

MCNs want to enter the live streaming e-commerce market, and brands are starting to work hard on self-broadcasting (finding their own anchors to broadcast every day). But reaping the benefits of live streaming is like promoting your products in a hypermarket and letting shopping guides lead consumers in their selections.

It can generate cash quickly, but hypermarkets can never build a brand. Everyone has forgotten that the current victory of Taobao Live is actually more of a "concentrated harvest" for brands.

More effort is spent on the front! !

2019 Chaos 5: New Concept Word Creation Contest

In order to tap into new dividends, people in the industry began to create words desperately, which was also a major chaos in 2019. Growth hackers, which were popular in the past two years, have disappeared in the past two years. They have been replaced by KOL, KOC, private domain traffic, and so on.

This new word has also given birth to a new industry. Some organizations sell anxiety, and every article has to be packaged with a new concept. I think its new concept essay will definitely win the first prize.

Why are there so many concepts? Because people in the industry are anxious. If you create a new word, others will think you are being unreasonable.

This even prompted Cadillac to use advertising to leverage its influence.

▲Cadillac's funny advertisement of the year

The more concepts there are, the fewer people will look at the essence. The more you keep talking about concepts, the less you know what you are talking about.

There are too many non-professionals in the marketing industry who are messing around, trying to get traffic wherever it is available, making the situation a mess. For example: Some institutions, wanting to make some money in the market, promote everywhere "how to generate traffic", but in fact they lower their ethics and use illegal means to make money without any ethics.

Eventually I discovered that these new words are only used by the most anxious people in our industry, and the real industry leaders don’t care at all.

In short, from the peak of the bubble era to the trough of the naked swimming era, there are always anxious marketers who want to return to their original intentions, return to the brand, and return to the experience. They continue to make things happen and persuade their bosses.

Some of them ended up in a state of helplessness, while others decided to return to business and start their own businesses. They understood that although learning new routines was important, maintaining the essence of marketing and the core of the brand was what was most important in the long run.

If we look at the longer timeline, we will see that this is just a small curve in the bigger cycle.

All these points can begin to merge into a plain. After the bubble fades and the naked swimming ends, the ecology will definitely be rebuilt.

4. Prophet, please open your eyes: The Plains Era

Will this world still be better? meeting.

Whenever I get frustrated by these chaos, I look at what the situation is like overseas.

Recently, the momentum of brand advertising has picked up again overseas. For example: Adidas realized that in the past few years, Adidas had over-invested in digital and performance, with 77% of its budget being spent on performance-based advertising at the expense of brand building.

Two years after Coca-Cola replaced its CMO (marketing officer) with a CGO (growth officer), it has reappointed its global CMO.

The return of big brands to long-term branding made me realize that brand and growth are not contradictory, but can move forward in synergy.

There has been a surge in performance-based advertising in China over the past two years, but many clients have separated performance from branding. Brand-effect integration is only a temporary stage, while brand-effect synergy is the long-term solution.

People don’t realize that performance advertising also requires the use of high-quality materials, and that performance advertising is a tool that can use data to monitor the effects of materials on users, optimize after testing, and feed back into the brand’s creativity.

The desire to break the circle and dominate the screen, and to use the effects to sell products to more people, behind this is the trillion-dollar business ambition during the booming period of mobile Internet, but the reality in the future is that consumers are becoming more and more picky, users are becoming more and more circle-based, and demands are becoming more and more segmented. The possibility of creating another big national product is very low. You can create Le Pure, but it is difficult to create Amul.

Marketers need to calm down and return to the essential core of marketing - the original intention of marketing is actually two things: finding users and needs, and effectively conveying the value of the product to them.

Find your target consumers in different marketing positions, are they the exquisite and wealthy young ladies on Xiaohongshu? Or is it the young people from small towns who love to show off on TikTok? Then present the brand appropriately in the right scenario.

If you want to become a trend icon, hang out with young people.

For example: There is a functional sports drink called Monster. It saw the growth of e-sports and the love of young people, so it cooperated deeply with PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Honor of Kings, directly implanted itself in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, and launched themed skins in Honor of Kings. It is said that the final implementation of the creativity went through many ups and downs, but it finally broke into the channel of communication with young Chinese people.

▲ Monster is deeply embedded in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

Old brands should not be too anxious and think about cross-border news all day long. It would be better to expand the brand's potential.

For example, Fotile itself is an old brand of kitchen appliances. In recent years, it has been making subtle progress in marketing, writing poems on the Mid-Autumn Festival, asking Zhang Yu and Huang Xiaohu to shoot MVs, caring about the food problems of overworkers... gradually opening up people's mental cognition. I think when the next generation decorates their kitchens, they will think of Fotile.

Marketers should not be depressed. Look at the "top students" such as Yuanqi Forest, Santonban, and Pop Mart. Everyone knows that brand power is returning. Find your own value positioning in the chaos. Every brand can also find its own circle stage. In the fragmented and circle-based society of the future, circle marketing will be the destination.

▲Pop Mart was initially popular only in the niche toy circle, and then gradually broke through the circle

The screen-sweeping copying in the bubble era and the unexpected success in the naked swimming era, the unchanging thing behind them is the desire to come up with big ideas and to become famous.

However, in the next consumer era, perhaps a small idea will be enough. Tear off the big-character posters and give every user some small happiness. Speaking of this, one can't help but think of the Beatles' classic slogan: Think Small.

Author: Daojie Doris,

Official account: Daojie doris (ID: doriskerundong)