Take stock of the brand marketing strategies spawned by anxiety!

• Introduction•

The tiny cracks in human nature are where wealth crashes in.

Anxious people are more willing to spend money on related products, as if spending a certain amount of money can relieve their anxiety. It is thought-provoking why this anxiety-selling business can succeed again and again.

l "Anxiety" accurately targets users

In order to successfully capture users with anxiety disorders, capitalists have conducted precise analysis.

The age distribution of users who pay for knowledge is between 21 and 40 years old, accounting for 80%; the monthly income is 5,000-8,000 yuan, accounting for 35%; and the first-tier cities account for 47%.

in the country, people suffering from insomnia are mainly concentrated in first- and second-tier cities, and the new middle class has become the main force suffering from insomnia. According to the "2018 Internet User Sleep White Paper", the sleep quality of 70% of Internet users is affected by work pressure.

It can be found that users with anxiety disorders almost all come from the same group - young people in first- and second-tier cities.

Unlike the young people in the "downward-moving" small towns who are full of fighting spirit, the anxiety of young people in first- and second-tier cities is increasing at an exponential rate under the pressure of rapid economic development. It is precisely because of the anxiety that their desire for good sleep, vitality, quick acquisition of information and knowledge, desire to become masters of love, and desire for health are stronger, and their need to improve themselves is stronger than other groups.

Data shows that more than 95% of people have felt anxious. When we further analyze the causes of this situation, we can see that this phenomenon exists regardless of the class. This means that whether you have money or not, you are full of worries.

Dissatisfaction with the present, uncertainty about the future, and uneasiness about the vanity of time lead to anxiety for most people.

The tiny cracks in human nature are where wealth crashes in. This group has become the focus of "care" by capitalists.

Create anxiety, sell anxiety, and finally reap the benefits of topics and traffic.

Countless popular cases have proved that anxiety is the most profitable traffic business in our time.

As the self-media accounts run out of ink, articles like "Mobike founder cashes out 1.5 billion: your peers are abandoning you" appear every once in a while. However, these articles hit the anxieties of countless young people, such as falling behind, being eliminated by the times, not yet achieving financial freedom, not yet achieving success, etc.

"What's Peppa Pig?" analyzes the contradictions and conflicts of modern people in the "urbanization process" and sells "filial piety anxiety"; "Fear of Going Home" tells the psychological changes of every person working hard in the city when returning home for the Spring Festival, reflecting the anxiety of society and selling "Spring Festival anxiety";

Han Han said: "Different people in different eras have different divisions of labor and destinies, and also different happiness."

Jia Zhangke said: "Just because the whole country is running forward, we can't ignore those who are knocked down."

1. Sleep Anxiety

Statistics show that the average Chinese person sleeps less than 7 hours a day, and the incidence of insomnia among adults is as high as 40%. The "2018 China Sleep Index" stated that among the 174 million post-90s people in the country, at least 60% have sleep problems. Insomnia is gradually becoming younger, and those born in the 1990s between the ages of 20 and 29 have become the main group of insomniacs.

It is reported that the commercial scale of the global sleep economy has reached over one trillion US dollars, and it is estimated that by 2020, there will be a market of 400 billion US dollars in China alone. According to the Double Eleven consumption report released by Suning, sales of sleep aids products surged 790% year-on-year during this year's Double Eleven period. According to CCTV Finance, the number of people born after 2000 who purchased imported sleep aids during Double Eleven increased by 434% year-on-year.

The "2018-2023 China Sleep Medical Market Analysis and Investment Prospects Research Report" pointed out that in 2017, the market size of my country's sleep improvement industry was about 279.7 billion yuan. Among them, sleep equipment and supplies ranked first with 250 billion yuan; followed by sleep medicines with 13.4 billion yuan; sleep health products with 12.8 billion yuan; in comparison, sleep services accounted for only 3.5 billion yuan.

Taking Taobao, the "e-commerce giant", as an example, if you enter the keyword "sleep aid" in the search box, a wide variety of products will be searched out, making it difficult for insomnia patients to make a decision. Among them, melatonin and aromatherapy spray are the most common, followed by eye masks and pillows. Even the sales of some smart sleep aids, sleep bracelets and sleep speakers have remained steadily.

People with insomnia are more willing to spend money on sleeping aids, as if spending a certain amount of money can alleviate their "insomnia anxiety".

People with insomnia say: "Insomnia that can be solved with money is not a problem at all. The biggest fear is that money cannot solve it!"

According to a survey, more than 40% of people with insomnia are willing to spend more than 200 yuan to buy sleep-aid products. The "2016 Chinese Internet Company Employee Sleep Report" released by iResearch Consulting shows that Internet employees invest as much as 2,436 yuan in sleep.

2. Vitality Anxiety

Sleep anxiety directly causes vitality anxiety among Chinese people.

There has been a hot search related to sleep problems on Weibo recently. Recently, the famous host He Jiong said on a variety show that three hours of sleep a day is enough for him, which sparked heated discussions among netizens. Netizen comment: "Sometimes I find that the difference between me and some awesome people is not really in IQ, but in mental and physical strength."

For a time, "vitality anxiety" filled Weibo. There is such an excellent person around us. He rarely sleeps but is full of energy and spirit every day. He is efficient in work and study, as if he is a winner in life. In an instant, I understood why I, who couldn't even sleep seven or eight hours a day, had not yet made anything of myself.

At the same time, the "butterfly effect" of insomnia is not conducive to the improvement of the overall economic scale. The "2019 National Health Insight Report" released by Dingxiang Doctor shows that sleep disorders can easily cause daytime fatigue, inattention, low work efficiency, emotional instability and other conditions.

The "China Sleep Index Report" clearly shows that among Chinese office workers, 38% of white-collar workers will affect their work efficiency due to insomnia, and the economic losses caused by insomnia can reach 3,212 yuan per person per month.

Statistics from Time magazine show that 1.2 million working days are lost each year due to office workers being absent from work or having their work status affected by lack of sleep.

A European research survey by the RAND Corporation found that lack of sleep can reduce productivity and have a significant impact on a country's economy. Due to its huge economic size, the United States suffers the highest economic losses, reaching more than 400 billion US dollars each year, accounting for 2% of GDP. Assuming that people who sleep less than 6 hours a day start sleeping 6 to 7 hours, it is estimated that the US economy could increase by $226.4 billion and the Japanese economy by $75.7 billion.

On the one hand, the army of insomniacs supports a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars, but on the other hand, the negative impact caused by sleep quality is also counteracting the market economy. Among them, the coffee economy is "leading the way".

The "drowsiness" of young Chinese people is supporting a hundreds-billion-dollar coffee market. "Full of energy in the morning, but sleepy as a dog in the afternoon" is a true portrayal of most people in the workplace.

in the country, people suffering from insomnia are mainly concentrated in first- and second-tier cities, and the new middle class has become the main force suffering from insomnia. According to the "2018 Internet User Sleep White Paper", the sleep quality of 70% of Internet users is affected by work pressure.

Data from the China Business Industry Research Institute shows that the scale of China's coffee consumption market was 56.9 billion yuan in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 30%. It is estimated that by 2020, the coffee market size will exceed 100 billion.

Luckin Coffee, which has been constantly "burning money" and has been constantly questioned about whether it would be game over, has not only survived one loss-making quarter after another, but has also successfully gone public. The money-burning business model behind it is worth learning for every company with the "Internet + New Retail" model.

The environment in which Luckin Coffee grew up is one in which Internet people feel “trapped”. The "dilemma" faced by Internet users is supporting a coffee market worth hundreds of billions of yuan.

Data from the China Business Industry Research Institute shows that the scale of China's coffee consumption market was 56.9 billion yuan in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 30%. It is estimated that by 2022, my country's coffee market will exceed 100 billion yuan.

According to Sina Finance, among the coffee-consuming population, mainly white-collar workers, 83% of them focus on functional needs of refreshing the mind and eliminating fatigue.

Data from the Chenye Research Institute shows that the market size of freshly ground coffee has grown from 5.7 billion yuan in 2013 to 39 billion yuan in 2018.

Luckin Coffee’s latest third-quarter report shows that its operating revenue in the third quarter was US$1.542 billion, a year-on-year increase of 540%.

Financial report data shows that in the third quarter, Luckin Coffee had a total of 30.7 million customers participating in transactions, an increase of more than 4 times year-on-year. Among them, 7.9 million new customers were added in the third quarter alone, and the average monthly active customers reached 9.3 million. Compared with the second quarter data, the data has achieved significant growth.

3. Knowledge Anxiety

In this fast-paced era, we are surrounded by a lot of fast-food knowledge. In the era of information explosion, people's minds have become impetuous, and fragmented information reception cannot enable people to understand a piece of knowledge comprehensively and systematically. With the partial knowledge accumulated on social networks, every "web surfer" is like a "living encyclopedia". However, while enjoying the knowledge brought by fragmented information, people often suffer from the blindness of lack of anxiety.

Data shows that in 2017, the base of people paying for knowledge in my country was 187 million, and the market size was 3.7 billion yuan. It is estimated that by 2020, the base of people paying for knowledge will reach 243 million, and the market size is conservatively estimated to be between 7.7 billion yuan and 29 billion yuan.

The prescription prescribed by "Luo Pang and others" fills users' time with fragmented knowledge, allowing users to quickly obtain positive feedback while beginning to have the illusion that I am working hard at the moment and that I am becoming a better person, and then I begin to look forward to the future involuntarily.

Users of paid knowledge yearn for a seemingly beautiful illusion. Many people overestimate their personal enthusiasm for acquiring knowledge, which also exposes the blindness of users' lack of anxiety. We hope that the scope of our knowledge is as broad as possible, but breadth does not mean depth, and it is impossible for users to absorb all of it.

Is paying for knowledge equivalent to "IQ tax"? For most people, the answer is yes. The essence of knowledge payment is the same as the "magical success theory" that was popular before. In this carefully planned scam, the missionaries of knowledge payment finally ushered in the climax of leeks harvesting when Luoji Siwei went public, and tens of millions of knowledge payment "patients" finally took the bait.

Anxiety at the knowledge level has also given rise to the "quantum wave speed reading" scam. A video of a large-scale "quantum wave speed reading" competition organized by an educational institution for children has gone viral on the Internet. In the video, a large group of children are wearing blindfolds, sitting in a large room, flipping through books quickly, pretending to have some kind of mysterious connection with the books. The sadness of Chinese-style education can be felt even through the screen.

It is reported that the training fee for "Quantum Wave Speed ​​Reading" ranges from RMB 10,000 to RMB 20,000, and up to RMB 50,000 to 60,000, but it is extremely popular among parents.

The phenomenon of "quantum fluctuation scam" is not only thought-provoking, but also makes us wonder why so many people are still trapped in the vortex of superstition when technology is changing with each passing day. Because this superstition is dressed in sheep's clothing, disguised as science, and swindled everywhere, parents who put on the "Emperor's New Clothes" are satisfied, as if as long as they take a quantum wave course, their children's path to a prestigious school is guaranteed. Before they know it, the scam makers are all making a lot of money and laughing secretly.

As a new product of this impetuous era, knowledge payment actually sells a kind of spiritual comfort to users.

It was born out of people's desire for a shortcut to "getting better".

Essentially, users of paid knowledge are no different from believers who burn incense and pray to Buddha. Both are essentially placebos and spiritual opium. What believers are looking for more is spiritual comfort.

4. Anxiety about love

How to solve the anxiety about paying for knowledge? Perhaps after reading the paid love course routines, you can get some answers.

Teachers and professors who are qualified as "national second-level psychological counselors" claim to provide one-on-one private teaching specifically for your problems, teach you unique skills to get out of being single and love secrets, and can also provide targeted emotional counseling for special needs such as breakup and reconciliation, winning back an ex, marital crisis, and eradicating mistresses.

However, can these seemingly “affordably priced” paid love courses really turn everyone into a so-called love expert?

Those "emotional gurus" on Weibo who have millions of fans can sell an offline get out of class for more than 10,000 yuan. One-on-one platinum members have excessive "emotional anxiety" and their "anxious" consumption desire is even more inflated than that of ordinary people. After spending millions, those people with an inflated "anxious consumption desire" still haven't found their other half, but still choose to renew their memberships.

"Pastoral Feminism" has even spawned a series of feminists, and the feminism of professional legal aid workers has "flooded" the market. Coupled with case analysis based on facts, the audiences all applaud and secretly rejoice that they have learned the so-called legal knowledge early on, and can stop themselves from suffering losses in love and marriage.

If the audience wants to learn more systematic legal knowledge, they have to pay for online courses. Their slogans are property freedom and children not taking the husband's surname, which is why Papi Jiang's pregnancy was criticized as "disappointing" by feminist netizens.

Public data shows that Guangzhou Huazhen Education Consulting Co., Ltd., in which emotional blogger Ayawawa holds shares, had a net profit of 23.6 billion in 2016.

The company has two major businesses, one is the "Huazhen Community" for women, and the other is the "Paoxue.com" for men. The former teaches women how to identify a rich man and how to get him, while the latter teaches men how to disguise themselves as a rich man and win his heart. Paoxue.com is the birthplace of Chinese Pick-up Culture and a gathering place for mainstream PUA (Pick-up Artist).

There is a more obvious characteristic of the love anxiety of contemporary young people: they don’t want to fall in love.

There are more and more single consumers. Contemporary young people hold the idea of ​​"better to be single than to settle for someone who is not their best". They would rather be single than to compromise. Demonstrating through personal experience that “there is no capital for love at first sight, and there is no condition for love to grow over time”

In "The Big Bang Theory", Howard held a wedding, and Sheldon's congratulatory speech was as follows: "I have never understood why people spend their entire lives searching for another human being to spend their lives with. Maybe I am too interesting and don't need the company of others. So, I wish you to get as much happiness from each other as I give to myself!"

Contemporary young people all pursue a "Buddhist" approach to love, believing that if they do not choose what to eat when they are hungry, they will regret it, and that being too picky too early will overdraw their luck in meeting true love.

5. Health Anxiety

The universal concept of health anxiety is: an anxiety disorder in which one believes that one has or is about to have a serious illness. This belief or fear usually manifests itself as worrying about having a physical or neurological illness, but there is insufficient evidence to show that organic diseases may cause some related symptoms.

However, in today's complex social environment, the concept of health anxiety has also changed. The rapidly developing society, the stressful environment, the booming food delivery business, and the lack of time for physical exercise can all cause health anxiety among Chinese people.

One way to alleviate this health anxiety is to spend a little money and eat organic food.

According to data, China's organic food consumption maintained a double-digit annual growth rate between 2012 and 2016.

Behind the trend of healthy raw food is the "chaotic" health science of the Chinese. Even if they don't know the relevant knowledge about "organic" and don't understand the complex concepts behind this word, they still believe that "organic" represents health and safety.

Skeptics believe that the whole organic thing is just a placebo effect, a psychological satisfaction, and that "organic" food is just as healthy and safe as conventional food.

Behind the vague concept of "chaotic" health science is the Chinese people's traditional ability to comfort themselves psychologically. If they get a gym membership, they think they have exercised, and if they eat "organic" food, they think they are really healthy.

l Why is the business of selling anxiety so successful?

The Internet age has brought about the liberation of productivity and unlimited possibilities, but the illusion of success in contemporary society created by some media has made every young person on the road even more lost.

It seems that there are hot spots everywhere, and everyone is only one step away from success. The stories of a few successful people have gained overwhelming popularity. In fact, anxiety exists not only in this era, but in every era. If you think back to the success theory and dream of attending prestigious schools that our parents’ generation boasted about, you will find that this kind of anxiety is more like a social inheritance.

I am afraid that I am not standing on the cusp of the trend, that I will not become the "pig" standing on the cusp of the trend, that I will miss the last train, and that I, a mediocre person, will not be able to survive in the economic winter. The failure to see signs of success becomes a powder keg of anxiety for them.

Those who are suffering from the backlash of anxiety can only get a certain degree of relief by paying for their anxiety with money.

This anxiety stems from the wrong views on success and values ​​promoted by society. Only by adjusting your relationship with anxiety, turning it into motivation, and accepting that you are an ordinary person can you get out of it.

• Conclusion•

The tiny cracks in human nature are where wealth crashes in.

Like all paid knowledge courses, what is important is not knowledge development but demand development.

As long as you focus on the demand, you can create a hit product even if it’s nonsense.

Human anxiety is eternal. No matter what era, humans need spiritual comfort. If anxious users can think more rationally before placing an order and form a shopping concept that is truly scientifically based, they will not be led by the marketing illusions of the capitalists who are trying to make money from them.

Author: Clockwork Brown

Source: PR Home