Brand marketing and promotion, how to maintain brand vitality?

When Tencent was founded in 1998, it was actually called OICQ, an Internet wireless pager. "If you have anything to say, leave a message on QQ" is the most common phrase used in daily interpersonal communication. The concept that QQ adheres to is "facilitating communication." WeChat was launched in 2011, transforming “convenient communication” into “instant messaging”, and adding the three powerful tools of “friend circle, message in a bottle, and public account”, making the previous “call machine” suddenly become a “social platform”. Since then, Penguin Empire's position in the social field has remained unshakable until today.

Tencent’s first brand was QQ, which was popular for more than a decade. However, WeChat dominated the market for the next seven or eight years, and QQ became weak. But no matter what, QQ and WeChat both belong to Tencent, and the market and traffic belong to the Penguin Empire. This is a typical brand relevance strategy system.

The so-called brand continuation emphasizes entering a market with few competitors for as long as possible by creating new categories or sub-brands, and becoming the only brand that customers can choose in this category or sub-category. Redefine the market structure and rules of the game and create a new competitive field in order to maintain brand competitiveness.

Brand continuation must meet two conditions: be perceived by customers and pass customers' screening test. Therefore, in the process of occupying the market, brands must be careful not to lose relevance. Most brands will face the crisis of "customers no longer considering choosing them", that is, the risk of being replaced. It is mainly due to three aspects: 1. Decline or change of sub-brand; 2. Customers have a reason to say "no"; 3. Brand loses vitality.

Below, we will explain the logic and coping methods of these three reasons in detail.

Rivals and environment lead to brand decline and change

The market is constantly evolving and nothing remains static. Due to consumer concepts, development of the times, competitors' innovations and other factors, while stimulating the development of new product categories, it will also stimulate crises for old products in the same category.

For example: the rise of the concept of healthy eating will cause restaurant brands that consume too much salt and oil to fall into crisis. This crisis does not occur at a certain moment, but enters the market silently. Brand relevance will also be lost slowly and inadvertently, making it difficult for business managers to detect and realize it later. At this time, even if restaurant managers come to their senses and immediately create new healthy food brands, they will still not be able to compete with existing healthy foods.

Customers will completely split the association between the two: "If I want to eat spicy food, I will choose you, but today I want to eat healthy food, I will only choose him. Even if you have healthy dishes, I will not choose you because you are a brand that makes heavy-tasting dishes."

Even if the brand value completely crushes the competitors, the competitiveness in new segments and new battlefields will be far inferior to that of the competitors, and the brand value will be useless at this moment. The most ironic thing is that the advantages the brand once had have now all become reasons why it is inferior to its competitors. For example: A magazine has remarkable popularity and has the best authors, editors, and artists, but when it meets a reader who only wants to read the WeChat public account, the higher the popularity, the more reason it becomes for the reader not to read it, “This is a magazine, not a public account.”

The past few years have been filled with crises in which consumers have fundamentally changed their consumption goals, causing brands to lose relevance in a certain sub-category. This is not simply a matter of product innovation, but a change in the track.

In other words, the decline of a sub-brand is often not due to its own factors, but rather to competitors or environmental factors, which is full of uncontrollability for the sub-brand itself. At this time, taking the following five steps will help to save the situation:

1. Become a "substitute" for competitors. For example, McDonald’s can “replace” KFC’s hamburgers in the hamburger sub-category, and it can also “replace” Starbucks’ coffee in terms of expertise in coffee. Compared with McDonald's, KFC does not focus on coffee, and Starbucks is also a layman when it comes to hamburgers. In fact, it can be understood that a brand should have a sub-brand or category as a flanking maintenance to protect the relevance of the brand.

2. Repositioning or leapfrog innovation. This has to be mentioned with Apple. Apple has redefined the mobile phone through leapfrog technological innovation, eliminated feature phones, and ushered in the era of smart phones. It can be said that so far, no one in the world can shake Apple's position in the field of smartphones. When Apple was first founded in 1976, it focused on the computer industry, but now Apple is almost synonymous with mobile phones, which has greatly strengthened its brand. Of course, this approach is extremely dependent on the strategic vision of brand leaders and the technological strength of the company.

3. Stick to your own ideas. Or it can be called "sticking to one path until the end" or "craftsman spirit". Decades or even hundreds of years of unwavering focus on one standard can also create a great brand. Founded in 1669, China Tong Ren Tang has focused on the ancient motto of "No matter how complicated the preparation is, we must not save on labor; no matter how expensive the product is, we must not reduce the material resources" for hundreds of years, becoming the undisputed number one time-honored brand in the field of traditional Chinese medicine.

Of course, there are risks in sticking to one's own ideas, especially for those sub-categories that have been abandoned by the times, such as pagers. No matter how hard you try, it will be in vain.

4. Reduce capital or withdraw. There is no need to give examples. When the final result is judged to be "quit the game", you should give up decisively, stop the loss in time, and protect the brand. What needs to be emphasized is that “cutting off one’s own arm” actually tests the vision and courage of brand leaders.

Negative news becomes the reason for customers to say "no"

The reasons for the loss of product activity are certainly not limited to negative news, but once negative news about a brand breaks out, it will definitely damage the brand's basic value, leading to widespread social aversion to the brand and becoming a reason to no longer choose a sub-brand or category. Especially when these negative news are due to quality issues of the product itself, or marketing planning methods that customers do not like, it will directly cause resistance from customers. To give two examples, melamine killed Sanlu and severely damaged the domestic dairy industry. This is a product quality issue.

Before the Double 11 Festival promotion at the end of 2017, Juewei Duck Neck was fined 600,000 yuan by the Industrial and Commercial Bureau for its vulgar marketing that insulted women, and it also caused a boycott by consumers. The year-end promotion was completely ruined. This was a problem with the marketing method. These two points directly hit the nerves of customers and will also directly attack the brand itself, giving consumers a reason to hate or reject the brand.

We commonly call this process "public opinion monitoring". When we discover a "public opinion outbreak", we immediately conduct "crisis public relations". No company or brand can ignore crisis public relations. We must know that gossip can melt metal and constant criticism can destroy a person. There are only two aspects of crisis public relations:

1. Combat negative news through positive publicity. Please don't misunderstand this point. Positive publicity does not mean blindly passing the buck or refusing to admit one's mistakes. Doing so will only make people hate you more and it cannot be considered positive publicity. The general crisis public relations trilogy of "admitting mistakes - self-examination - vowing not to make the same mistake again" requires compliance with the "golden 48-hour rule" and mainly depends on attitude. Compared with a company’s own public relations team, public relations companies in society appear to be much more professional.

It is not because of the difference in professional skills, but the position itself that determines the effect: the attitude of the third party is more fair, and only fairness can calm public anger. For example, in the recent "Mercedes-Benz oil leakage" incident, public opinion escalated to a large extent because of the operation methods of the public relations team. The basis of "positive" lies in the people, not in brands or companies, and this must not be mistaken.

2. Fundamentally change the content of public discussion. Diverting public attention and fundamentally eliminating public concern about public opinion events is undoubtedly a good way to nip the problem in the bud. On the Internet, the phrase "Help Wang Feng make the headlines" means this. Using another thing to divert the public's original attention, it's just that Wang Feng was seeking attention, but the attention was pushed aside, and the "new hot spot" replaced the "old hot spot".

For example, the recent hot topic of the 996 work system was initially intended to name companies that practice 996. However, as things have developed to the present, it has become a social discussion on whether 996 should be implemented. Even after the leaders of Internet companies spoke out one after another, the 996 issue has changed from a legal issue to an issue of values. The companies that were initially named have already escaped far away from this "place of right and wrong."

However, this method also has a drawback. If it fails to successfully divert public attention, the brand will further lose its credibility, or the person or company that diverts attention will be dragged in. Look at the Internet giants who have spoken out about the 996 work system, all of whom have "gotten into trouble." This method should predict the intensity of public concern and then decide whether to implement it, depending on whether people are "easily fooled."

The brand has lost its vitality

The vitality of a brand itself is its visibility. It is whether it can appear in the minds of customers when the brand is associated. This is also the basic meaning of brand building. A brand that has lost its vitality will no longer be remembered by customers, and naturally will no longer be chosen. The brand will lose its relevance, which is a disaster for the brand. There are three reasons why brands lose their vitality:

1. Brand exposure is too low. Being seen by the public too rarely, the impression is too weak, and the visibility is too low. Brand visibility is a necessary condition for relevance. For an actor, no matter how popular he was before, if he doesn't appear in public for too long, he will become outdated. The same goes for a brand.

2. Considered boring and outdated by customers. The waves behind the Yangtze River push the waves in front of them, and the waves in front of them are smashed to death on the beach. In a sense, if it is outdated, it is boring. If it is interesting, it will not be outdated.

3. Brand value depreciates fundamentally. The old domestic brand Pechoin sounded the clarion call for the revival of domestic cosmetics. In the 1980s and 1990s, Pechoin's brand was the current Shiseido. But the clarion call for recovery has been sounded for so long, and young people still don't buy it. Compared with the 1980s and 1990s, Pechoin's brand value has depreciated.

How to make a brand vibrant? For the above reasons, we can use three methods:

1. Make marketing more dynamic. The brand exposure is too low, it must be because the marketing is not done well. Because creating an extremely influential new product is a low-probability event and requires more reliance on superb marketing methods, a disruptive marketing plan is easier to get than a disruptive new product.

We can shoot and run more and better advertisements, and sometimes brainwashing advertisements can also have miraculous effects. For example, in the advertisement of Melatonin, will the public always remember that “energetic” old cartoon couple? There are countless examples like this. In short, the strength of advertising is indeed directly proportional to the vitality of the brand, and even if the wine is delicious, it should be displayed on a busy street and sold by hawking.

2. Give new products vitality. If the old product has become obsolete due to being boring, create a new and interesting product. In today's society, whether a product is interesting depends largely on whether it allows customers to express their own personality. This is telling customers: "I am different and you deserve me."

After 2000, China Mobile built the sub-brand "M-Zone" during its marketing promotion and invited Jay Chou to be its image spokesperson. At that time, Jay Chou was very popular and was synonymous with "individuality" and "self". The slogan of M-Zone was "This is my territory, listen to me!" It almost dominated the mobile phones of all students and young people south of the Yangtze River, forming a monopoly position. Its market share once exceeded 70%. At that time, its competitors included China Unicom and China Telecom's Xiaolingtong. It’s never wrong to approach the relevance of your brand with a new attitude, and it’s never wrong to approach everything with a new attitude.

3. Use external tools to stimulate the brand’s inherent value. A common method is sponsorship and naming. Because of the "Xinwen Broadcast", we remember "Fiyta watches tell time for you." Because of "The Voice of China", Jiaduobao has become "authentic good herbal tea." Because of the Russia World Cup, Mafengwo and BOSS Direct went global. This is the direct driving effect of title sponsorship on brand value, and this method can also directly attract huge traffic.

What should I do if my own value shrinks? It's very simple. Finding a more valuable brand to prolong life can sometimes have a mutual impact and ultimately lead to a win-win situation. It should be noted that the target brand to be sought must itself possess strong vitality. "Strong alliance" is not "life extension" and will not have any effect. In addition, it is necessary to establish a solid connection between the main brand, sub-brand or category, and target brand, which should be natural and down-to-earth. For example, if Crest toothpaste sponsors a student aid activity in a poor mountainous area, it needs an activity theme to connect the event. The theme of "Healthy Smile" is very suitable, and it perfectly links all brand links.

It is best if the external tools can stimulate the emotional and psychological factors of customers, so that they will appear more natural.

We must know that brand continuation strategy is a comparative concept, which is a refresh and sublimation of the brand strategy system. Brand continuity discusses more about the impact of external factors on the brand. Even if some factors are rooted in the brand itself, their uncontrollable characteristics are very obvious, that is, discussing things "outside the brand". The main challenge facing brand managers is losing their sense of crisis, which causes the brand to become "sick." Brand building requires management talents with strong market insight and strategic sensitivity.

Author: Seven Princes

Source: PR Home