How to create a popular brand?

Back in 1911, if you had a typewriter company, how would you define the nature of your business? Making office equipment?

At this time, your North American competitor IBM is positioned as: International Business Machines Corporation, so when office equipment is upgraded to computers, it becomes a personal computer equipment manufacturer. However, keeping up with product updates did not make it money, and its market share was quickly halved.

Because IBM missed the real change. It only saw the tool level, but turned a blind eye to the changes in human affairs caused by the tools. What it really provides to the market is not business machines, but information processing, which first turns ideas into text and then into electronic information, thereby participating in the establishment of a new information society.

Only by providing solutions around "change" can we participate in interest negotiations. However, in the field of personal computers, IBM gave up the CPU and OS, which are highly relevant to the new information society, and only played the role of an assembler, unable to occupy an advantageous position.

Looking back at the retail market, when a series of technology companies such as Google and Tencent became the world's largest media, the way consumers received information changed. What this change brings to the retail market is not just a change in marketing channels or brand content; the real change is: improved product distribution efficiency.

The value of Startup in the retail market lies in providing a new and efficient distribution solution.

"In the past, you didn't know whether the duck necks sold on the street were good or not, nor did you know where they came from. Now, with the use of directly-operated stores and central factories, and with brand operations, when you compare the two, you will definitely buy the one with greater assurance."

As a result, IDG partner Lianmeng invested in Zhou Hei Ya and Hey Tea .

In my opinion, the central factory was already used by traditional convenience stores such as 7-11 decades ago. Only after the popularity of the brand increased rapidly, the service system designed for various needs was designed like software, "developed once and universally applicable." So the answer to “how to provide an efficient distribution solution” is: create a popular brand first.

I crawled nearly 100,000 reviews of Heytea, and combined with Jonah Berger of Wharton Business School’s six principles of virality, I suggest starting with the following five things:

1. Passive sharing: visualization

Consider this question from a product manager ’s perspective: What is the purpose of the Apple laptop logo?

Imagine a scenario where you go to a cafe, take out your laptop from your bag, subconsciously point the bitten apple towards you, flip the cover... and so on! Jobs designed a "trap" here, and you have to readjust the orientation of the computer. Otherwise, potential buyers in the cafe would see an upside-down logo after the lid was flipped open.

Yes, to prevent you from sharing a brand with imperfect details, Jobs chose to sacrifice user experience .

Heytea’s purchasing efficiency is often criticized, after all, there are many ways to avoid queuing. However, at Apple, branding is the top priority, let alone small and new startups. In my opinion, turning hidden consumer preferences into visible queues is Heytea’s most effective marketing method.

because:

1. The thoughts are hidden and cannot influence the onlookers;
2. Online comments respond to searches by “those who know” and therefore are unlikely to go viral;
3. New brands need to be promoted to the “unknowns” in a visible way. Only when purchases are seen and imitations are inspired can they become popular.

Heytea, which was called Royal Tea back then, immediately became popular as soon as it entered first-tier cities and had customers lining up at Coast City, Shenzhen’s busiest shopping mall.

The phenomenon of queues outside the store and many customers inside the store conveyed the message that Heytea is delicious to the "unknown" in a simple and direct way. 31% of buyers became curious about the "exaggerated" long queues and wanted to "taste" Heytea.

Of course, queuing is something that hurts the user experience. At least 8% of Heytea consumers have given negative reviews because of this. Conventional brand exposure would be a safe option, but it has limited effectiveness for new brands that want to stand out.

Should we maximize user experience or marketing?

To be honest, there is no fixed pattern. I increasingly feel that good operators often have their own switching rhythm and set different goals in different brand stages.

2. Actively share yourself: emotions & stories

Today, the average annual advertising expenditure per capita in China has reached 435 yuan. If you invest 10 million, the average per person is less than 1 cent, while they are still exposed to other advertising bombardments worth more than 400 yuan. How to break through the siege?

Bad slogans all have their flaws, but good slogans only do one thing: mobilize my emotions.

• Nike : Just Do It (1988)
• Apple: Think Different (1997)
• Keep : Self-discipline gives me freedom (2016)

"I" want to be free and unattached, Just Do It; "I" am not willing to be mediocre, Think Different; "I" yearn for the burden in my heart to gradually lighten, self-discipline will give me freedom.

Jonah Berger's research shows that most positive emotions and a few negative emotions have the ability to be physiologically aroused. For example, when people are excited, their pulse speeds up, their blood pressure rises, and they will be more proactive in sharing their emotions with others.

Heytea also has a slogan, "A cup of good tea, a piece of inspiration". You can feel its efforts to bring individual consumers into the brand, but this attempt is not reflected in the nearly 100,000 comments. Although it is indeed not easy to look within oneself and for novel ideas in a crowded environment, the lack of emotion in "inspiration" is a problem.

In fact, the emotions aroused by Heytea are mainly borne by the continuous release of new products. 8% of consumers completed the sharing behavior after being stimulated by the sense of "surprise" of new products.

In addition to emotions, stories can also promote sharing. Of course, the premise is that there is an "I".

The operation of Answer Tea is comparable to that of a textbook. "I" participates in it, the way the cream "answers" is novel, and the answers are cute. All these designs allow the stories containing the brand to be spread smoothly.

Although Heytea also has the entrepreneurial story of its founder Nie Yunchen, this is not the same as the other and it is not a good topic to start a conversation. Therefore, on TikTok , which is known for "recording beautiful life", the difference in the amount of dissemination between the two confirms this point.

3. Actively share a better self: social currency

If broadband speed was the same as it was 20 years ago, Heytea wouldn’t be as popular as it is now.

What you share is as much a part of who you are as your clothes and purses, so you choose things that make you look smart and interesting, not the other way around. You can think of these shares as social currency; they help you gain recognition and connection from others. When a startup wants to achieve widespread dissemination, its mission is to help you mint high-value social currency.

HEYTEA’s entry point is design. From the Black Gold store, PINK store, LAB concept store… to the cartoon logo, Emoji, and little yellow duck, a series of high-value visual elements are filled in the photos in your circle of friends to make you look better.

"Come on, take a selfie."

In an early interview, Nie Yunchen revealed a piece of information: Heytea once briefly accepted online orders, but Nie thought that takeout ruined the Heytea experience, so he gave up.

What exactly was destroyed?

In fact, it is the pictures that Heytea contributes to your circle of friends and the social currency it implies. Of course, Heytea now offers takeout services. After the brand has become popular, Nie has obviously chosen to switch its operational goals.

In addition to Heytea, many new brands have also chosen to use "appearance" to provide social currency, such as Xiaomi and NetEase Yanxuan . Perhaps in China in 2018, creating social currency from a visual perspective is indeed an option with a very high return on investment.

• On the one hand, there is a huge demand for pictures on WeChat Moments and Weibo, and our life awareness is gradually maturing.
• On the other hand, there are few good design competitors in China.

It is only in the last decade that the Chinese people’s aesthetic taste has been largely influenced by modernist design styles. Ten years ago, Ye Guofu was still using "Aiyaya" to fill the streets.

Even better, there is already a set of proven and effective creation guidelines for good entry-level design. The similarity between MUJI and NetEase Yanxuan may not be due to the latter copying the former, but the powerful vitality of modernist design. It can be said that the popular products in the world today, such as IKEA, are more or less the embodiment of the concept of "Form follows functions".

4. Altruistic Sharing: Practicality

"10 Dangers of Drinking Cold Water"

Have you ever been bothered by articles like this forwarded by your elders?

Don’t complain yet, this is actually a way to strengthen the connection between each other. Jonah Berger statistics: The most shared emails from The New York Times are health and education articles, because your forwarders believe it is helpful to you and share it because they care.

According to his statistics, recipes and reviews of high-quality restaurants are also practical and highly shared information. With an 85% rating for being "delicious", Heytea is indeed a favorite on social media and in daily conversations, but it has never reached the level of popularity of Haidilao .

The problem lies in the way the information is packaged. For example: users are used to collecting text-based useful information, so making a list of "a topic + number" will increase the sharing rate.

Here’s a look at the popular headlines from Medium editors:

minimaxir.com

When WeChat public accounts cross over to Douyin, just like newspapers cross over to television, the communication characteristics of the new media must be considered. The video should be entertaining and must be novel and interesting, such as Haidilao's shaking gluten balls with DIY elements.

In short, while people share useful information, useful information alone is not enough to achieve virality.

5. Give people plenty of opportunities to think of you

Last week, I happened to see the financial report of a beverage shop in Shenzhen. The shop was small and unattractive, and only produced and sold simple freshly squeezed juices. The raw materials, rent, and labor costs were not low, but it had the same profit margin as Haidilao.

How could consumers possibly remember it and complete the purchase?

My curiosity was aroused, and I investigated and found several characteristics:

• There are a lot of fresh fruits on the counter, using highly saturated colors to attract attention; there is only one fresh juice shop within 2 kilometers, and the degree of differentiation in the area is high.
• Located at the junction of the subway station and the shopping mall;
• It has been open for three or four years.

In other words, it achieves brand recognition through long-term and high-frequency appearance.

Remembering is the prerequisite for completing the purchase. The reason why major brands compete for voice-over ads in the variety shows you watch is because the frequency of a product’s appearance is a very powerful memory trigger. If a brand is lucky enough to drive sharing, the next thing it needs to do is to have a long-term, high-frequency trigger to avoid short-term flashes.

HEYTEA’s store location selection principle can be summed up in five words: commercial complex. The hidden incentives are also related to these five words, and it is more effective when the consumer group consists of a large number of young people.

• One reason is that the product appears frequently. There are more and more long-term rental apartments in first-tier cities, which has squeezed the living room space of young people. You may not log in to Taobao once a week, but you will definitely go to the commercial complex, which is the city’s living room.
• The second reason is that "man is an active container for receiving sensory stimulation." Commercial complexes are also a medium that can transmit materials and information. As the growth rate of Internet users slows down and the cost of guiding sales online increases, the advantages of offline delivery of complex information such as color, taste and touch begin to emerge.

In addition to commercial complexes, Luckin also contributed some new connection methods. For example: bind the polka dot blue as a trigger so that you will think of it when you see blue polka dot clothes. "Bumping" Starbucks will make you think of it in the most frequently appearing coffee shop.

51% copy guide

After excluding the comments about taste in the data, I made this frequency chart of the word "share" in Heytea. Based on the proportion of text that is devoted to product reviews such as taste, a 51% copy guideline may be an inaccurate but appropriate number.

It’s not that products are not important, but only emphasizing products is a trap that entrepreneurs can easily fall into. Even if Nixon's policies were mature, he could not resist the migration of voters to television or Kennedy's momentary charm on television.

How to capture real change?

IBM kept up with product iterations and failed. If Heytea follows the trend and starts delivering food before its brand becomes popular, the probability of failure will increase significantly.

Because: what is important is not the tools, what we really need to follow is the changes in speed and pattern of human affairs caused by the tools. McLuhan said: "The medium is the message." Any medium or technology is a tool, but it is also transforming our interaction with the world. It's just that we often ignore the "message" of the tool because of its content.