Brand Promotion and Marketing丨How to make users remember your brand?

You may remember two things:

• Because Fan Xiaoqin looks like Jack Ma, he became famous despite living in a remote area and received funding from all walks of life, even though he did nothing.
• Ma Rong became an "Internet celebrity" overnight because of her divorce from Wang Baoqiang, although we don't know anything special about her.

Such examples cannot be studied as marketing cases because it is impossible for us to have Jack Ma's appearance or Ma Rong's husband.

But these two unrelated events have a similar principle: when you are associated with a big node, you will be more likely to get attention.

This is consistent with neuroscience. When a neuron responsible for memory in the human brain is activated, other neurons associated with this neuron will also be activated due to receiving electric current.

I thought you might think of leverage marketing because it, like the above events, is in line with neuroscience.

But if you follow this logic directly, you will most likely be disappointed.

1. You may have learned the wrong way to leverage marketing

On the eve of the 2018 college entrance examination, Mercedes-Benz, Jeep, Audi, Volkswagen and other car companies have successively participated in the arms race to take advantage of the college entrance examination hot spots, such as Beijing Hyundai Motor:

You may have the same idea as I do. This marketing content seems to be thoughtful, but it always feels strange: What does the college entrance examination have to do with buying a car? I don’t understand what you want to do.

This kind of marketing leveraging momentum is merely to increase presence. Of course, increasing presence also has certain marketing value. Just replace the College Entrance Examination with Teachers' Day or Mother's Day, or change the logo to Safeguard, and we won't feel any different.

Our memory is selective. If something in the outside world has no relevance to ourselves, we will quickly forget it, even though we did see it.

Just like the handsome men and beautiful women you pass by on the subway, even if your heart trembles a little when you meet them, you will forget what they look like after you walk out of the subway.

So leveraging a trend can gain consumers’ attention, but it may not necessarily create memories.

But I clearly mentioned before that leveraging marketing is in line with memory neuroscience, so why doesn’t it work here?

We need to first face up to a problem: scientific laws exist objectively, but our subjective understanding is often wrong. We tend to learn from the results of others' success rather than the process of success.

Let’s look at an example:

In 2018, Huawei's R&D expenses reached US$15.3 billion, making it the leader in the global ICT industry. Therefore, some people say that if a company wants to succeed, it must do R&D like Huawei.

But Huawei did not have huge funds in the early days to compete with the powerful American Cisco in research and development, so why did it eventually surpass Cisco? Huawei's success process seems to be more worthy of attention.

The reason why the above-mentioned leveraging marketing makes consumers feel confused and forget it in a blink of an eye is that such marketing only imitates the results of others' successful marketing without exploring the process of successful marketing.

In simple terms, the first company to successfully leverage marketing opportunities will often gain a lot of media exposure and become a benchmark for later companies.

After seeing the results of leveraging the trend, latecomers began to imitate it, taking hot events as a starting point, forcibly finding connections, and highlighting their own brands.

So his marketing logic is this:

(1) Major node: Discovering a major event - the college entrance examination;

(2) Association: Determine the association method - make a poster + slogan;

(3) Small node: Highlight the brand identity - add a logo.

However, the first company to successfully leverage marketing is likely to do so in this way. Take the 2017 college entrance examination leverage marketing by M&G Stationery as an example:

(1) Small nodes: determine brand characteristics - high-quality stationery, related to learning, and high-frequency consumption; (2) Associations: discover potential associations - exams, homework, student gifts;

(3) Major nodes: lock in the target of leveraging momentum - graduation season, college entrance examination.

On the surface, both of these types of marketing leverage the college entrance examination to attract attention, but their logical order is completely opposite, so the marketing results will also be different.

When you see M&G's marketing poster, you may think of the time when you used M&G's pen to take the college entrance examination, or write graduation messages to your classmates. You may also want to buy a new business pen from M&G. But when you see the poster of Beijing Hyundai, you won’t think of buying a Hyundai car. Even if you might buy a car in the future, you won’t think that Beijing Hyundai is really sentimental and you should buy Beijing Hyundai. Instead, you will spend a lot of energy repeatedly comparing several mainstream brands.

The appearance of success is well known to everyone, but the logic of success is extremely profound. We need to focus most of our energy on the underlying logic rather than the appearance of success.

But if you think you understand this marketing logic and can use leveraged marketing to make consumers remember your brand, you may still be disappointed.

2. New method: memory-related marketing

The hot spots that are leveraged will cool down, and it is difficult for you to be associated with hot events every time. And now there are too many latecomers who are frantically imitating the marketing of the trend. These people and activities that leverage marketing trends emerge and disappear like the tide.

Consumers are increasingly inclined to activate psychological defense mechanisms to resist the control of leveraged marketing over their own consumption behavior. Even if a company happens to be in the middle of a hot topic and has no intention of taking advantage of the trend, it may still be labeled by consumers as "sensational."

So what other ways are there to make consumers remember your brand?

In fact, the method I am going to talk about next is still based on the above logic, but we need to give up going with the flow and try to upgrade this thinking.

The major nodes used in leveraged marketing are current hot events. We need to abandon this narrow vision and not limit the dissemination nodes to current hot events, but expand them to the wider world.

So apart from hot events, what other nodes have a strong influence on consumers' cognition?

I think there are many things that have a strong influence, for example:

The Internet, a revolutionary technological invention

Emerging car companies such as NIO and Xpeng Motors have overshadowed BBA (Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi) by relying on the banner of "Internet-based car manufacturing."

But in essence, Internet car manufacturing is just adding the "plug-in" of smart interconnection to traditional car manufacturing. Moreover, most core technologies are still "monopolized" by traditional big-name car companies in the United States, Japan, Germany and other countries.

These emerging car companies have tied themselves to the highly influential node of "Internet". Some industry lists even classify them as part of the Internet industry rather than the automotive industry.

In this way, they successfully grabbed a share of the media attention on BAT.

If using hot events to attract consumers' attention is considered as leverage marketing, then this method of binding one's own brand with highly influential nodes to form memory associations is called "memory association marketing."

Note: Low consumer involvement means that consumers spend little energy thinking about the product and are easily tempted to switch to other brands due to external stimuli.

Since memory association marketing has so many advantages, what are some specific methods to establish memory associations?

3. What are the types of memory associations?

Through a large number of case analyses, I have summarized 5 types.

Most people have seen or heard of these types of cases, but few would think that their underlying logic is consistent with memory neuroscience.

1. Similarity association

In ancient times, when people saw a beautiful woman, they would say "as beautiful as Xi Shi", and when they saw a handsome man, they would say "as handsome as Pan An".

This is actually a kind of similarity association, which binds a person's appearance with another big node, that is, the classic image of handsome men and beautiful women, so as to deepen people's impression of this person.

What is the effect of similarity association?

For example, Fan Xiaoqin looks very similar to Jack Ma, so we call him "Little Jack Ma". Although most people don’t know who "Fan Xiaoqin" is, when people mention "Little Jack Ma", they will definitely think of that little boy.

Of course, the similarity in appearance does not only refer to people’s looks, but also includes product forms and combinations.

For example, when I was in college, I worked on a home decoration startup project, and I wanted to achieve large-scale personalized customization.

But anyone with common sense in economics knows that personalized customization and mass production are contradictory.

So I thought of splitting the product into several components, mass-producing the components, and customizing the assembled combinations, so that I could have the best of both worlds.

But how can I express my product model so that consumers can understand and like it more easily?

I thought of Lego bricks. Although Lego bricks only have a few modules, different combinations and splicing can create various shapes.

So the big node I identified is Lego bricks, and the connection is that the two have the same product model.

The next memory-associated copy also came naturally: "XX personalized home decoration, change as you like like Lego bricks."

If this memory-related marketing is carried out to the extreme, the phenomenon of "Little Jack Ma" may appear:

Passerby A: How do I get to "LEGO Home Decoration"? Passerby B: Is it “XX Home Decoration”?

Passerby A: Yes, that’s it.

In addition to physical similarities, there are many other types of similarities that can be exploited:

• Similar features: What was the first iPhone? Jobs said "a big-screen iPod + a mobile phone + an Internet device" (borrowing three major nodes at the same time);
• Similar model: the commercial traffic used to be in real estate developers, but now it is on the Internet, so the Internet is the "network real estate developer" (this memory association has been monopolized by BAT);
• Similar products: We often hear about BOE, what does it do? It is China’s “LG” (South Korea’s LG is the world’s largest LCD screen manufacturer, and BOE has not yet used this memory association);
• Similar spirit: I support Luo Yonghao and the Hammer phone because he has the spirit of Steve Jobs. Even if the Hammer is sold, Luo still remains true to his original intention (bound by the spirit of the great idol).

Similar associations are the easiest way to use memory association marketing. The next few types to be introduced are relatively difficult and have certain thresholds.

2. Dependent association

The ancients loved to introduce themselves when they met each other, using subordinate relationships to make memory associations, highlighting their own status and making the other party remember them.

The most successful example of this kind of memory-related marketing is Emperor Liu Bei’s uncle. Although Liu Bei wove mats and sold shoes, he made full use of the major node of the Han royal family and carried out long-term and strong memory binding.

The sentence "I am a descendant of Liu Sheng, King Jing of Zhongshan, a relative of the Han Dynasty" positioned Liu Bei as the only person with royal justice in the Three Kingdoms, and Guan, Zhang, Zhao, Ma and Huang all came to him.

Subordinate associations are still applicable today. For example, if I say “I am Grant”, you may not remember it.

But if I say, " I'm Trainee from HP, the world's top IT company, and my name is Grant ," you will be more likely to remember it.

Similar memory-associated marketing is also common in the business circle, such as Procter & Gamble, Alibaba, and Baidu.

The most famous example in the Internet circle is Cheng Wei and Didi. Cheng Wei worked in Alibaba in his early years and was responsible for the Alipay business. He is an exemplary entrepreneur in the Alibaba system.

This affiliation with Alibaba has become a very good brand endorsement for Cheng Wei and Didi, and is also a brand story that is very easy to remember. Even VCs (venture capital) will consider whether to invest based on the background of the entrepreneurial team.

China's largest digital reading and literary IP platform company, China Literature, was spun off from Tencent in 2017. It naturally has this subordinate relationship, and almost every report about China Literature involves Tencent.

In addition, being taught by a famous teacher, coming from a scholarly family, studying abroad, getting into a prestigious university, and working for a large company all essentially carry this kind of marketing motivation.

Affiliate associations have certain resource characteristics and are not available to all individuals and companies. But once you have the chance to use it, it will be a "catalyst" (but not a panacea) for success.

3. Homologous association

Homologous association corresponds to subordinate association, which refers to two people or brands coming out of the same place. If you have the opportunity to make good use of large nodes of the same origin, it will produce the same marketing effect as affiliate association.

Liu Run, a well-known Chinese business consultant and the host of "Five Minute Business School", has repeatedly mentioned in his courses on WeChat and the Get APP his experience with Microsoft President Tang Jun when he was working at Microsoft, including how Tang Jun interviewed him.

This invisibly formed a memory association between his brand and the "working emperor" Tang Jun. Even if you don't know who Liu Run is, as long as you remember Tang Jun, it will be easier to remember Liu Run.

A more classic example of homologous association is XX Company (I won’t tell you for now).

Let’s look at some brands first:

• Top Brand: SK-II
• Second-tier brand: Olay
• Men's brand: Boss Skin
• Asia's No. 1 cosmetics brand: ANNA SUI
• Cleansing brands: Rejoice, Head & Shoulders, Pantene, Safeguard

There are so many brands that you won’t be able to remember them all. It doesn’t matter, as long as you remember one or two of them (such as Safeguard and Rejoice), the other brands will be relatively easy to remember.

Because all the above brands come from one company - the world-renowned fast-moving consumer goods company Procter & Gamble (P&G).

This is P&G's classic multi-brand strategy. When you see a brand you have never used, such as SK-II, you don't have to worry. As long as you have used Safeguard and know that both Safeguard and SK-II belong to P&G, you will be more likely to accept this unfamiliar brand SK-II.

There are many similar examples, such as brand extension, extending the original well-known brand to other types of products: Wahaha is not only drinking water, but also eight-treasure porridge and milk.

Trout, the godfather of marketing, proposed the positioning theory, which strongly opposed brand extension and cited counterexamples such as Xerox and General Motors.

But to this day, many companies still adopt brand extension and even enjoy it. For example, Haier made computers and LeTV did ecological counterattack (both failed).

The reason is that although brand extension will cause the brand positioning to lose focus, because they are of the same origin, memory-related marketing will make it easier for consumers to remember and accept new products after brand extension.

4. Hostile Association

Hostile association, as the name suggests, is to regard competitors as major nodes and establish a hostile relationship with them in the minds of consumers, thereby drawing consumers' attention from competitors to their own brands.

The most successful example in this regard is JD.com.

Although JD.com has not surpassed Alibaba in e-commerce share for many years, it has continued to declare war on Alibaba through various marketing activities.

JD.com has established a perception in the minds of consumers that "JD.com is Alibaba's only rival."

So as long as you are dissatisfied with your purchases on Alibaba (Taobao or Tmall), such as slow logistics, many counterfeits, and poor customer service, your alternative must be JD.com.

Although it is currently difficult for JD.com to surpass Alibaba's market share, it is highly unlikely that any other e-commerce company will surpass JD.com.

Another example is the newcomer in elevator advertising - Xinchao Media.

Xinchao Media's revenue in 2017 was 200 million yuan, second only to Focus Media's 12 billion yuan, so it expressed the slogan "Because it is second, it is cheaper" in its elevator advertisements.

Although Xinchao Media is much smaller than the near-monopolistic giant Focus Media, the hostile association still made Xinchao Media hit the headlines and even attracted its rival Chinese Media to compete for the memory association of "second place".

However, hostile associations are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, forming memory associations with powerful rivals can gain industry visibility. On the other hand, you may also be counterattacked by your rivals and suffer setbacks.

So Zhang Jixue, the founder of Xinchao Media, said, "We just want to be the second-largest player now and sell advertisements quietly." But can this really help us hide the truth and avoid the iron hoof of Focus Media?

Hostile association requires strength as a foundation and is a memory-related marketing method with a threshold. It is more suitable for companies that have a certain business moat and occupy a certain position in the minds of consumers, such as JD.com.

5. Complementary association

Complementary relationship means that both can exist independently, but once they cooperate, it is possible to produce the effect of 1+1>2. You can highlight your complementary relationships in the industry in your marketing campaigns and leverage the visibility of your complementary partners to increase your profile.

For example, the logistics cooperation between Taobao and STO Express, and the Tencent-Baidu O2O e-commerce company established by Tencent, Baidu and Wanda.

This complementary relationship is like a network, which transmits the influence of each node to the network so that every node can benefit from it.

If you are a small or medium-sized company and do not have the resources to acquire such a strong network, you can also form complementary relationships.

For example, your company is the government's designated purchasing unit, the sole supplier of a product of a well-known company, or a partner in a certain business, or you have some high-quality customer resources. For example, Mr. Liu Run will introduce himself as having provided strategic consulting services to famous companies such as Baidu, COSCO, and Haier, thus forming associative memories.

Summarize

Although memory-related marketing has many advantages over leverage marketing, it still has very strict rules of the game, otherwise it will easily dissipate over time like leverage marketing.

1. You need to pay as much attention to memory association as to brand positioning

Memory association and brand positioning have similar functions, and can be said to complement each other:

• First, help consumers understand your products (such as my "Lego" home decoration) and classify them;
• The second is to reduce the cognitive burden on consumers, making it easier for them to remember your brand name and characteristics.

Therefore, once the memory association is determined, long-term marketing is required, just like Liu Bei promoted himself everywhere as the "descendant of Liu Sheng, King Jing of Zhongshan", Teacher Liu Run often mentioned his story at Microsoft, and JD.com constantly participated in e-commerce promotion competitions with Alibaba.

2. Memory-related marketing emphasizes strategic focus and tactical coordination

This means you need to select a unique brand characteristic, find an effective memory association, and use it as the central clue to launch consistent marketing actions.

If your brand says today that it is as fashionable as Apple and tomorrow that it is as powerful as Huawei, pays tribute to Steve Jobs today and emulates Lei Jun tomorrow, competes with Tencent today and challenges Baidu tomorrow, then we really can't figure out who you are and what you want to do.

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Author: Grant

Source: Grant