The difference between communication and marketing is a good story

What do most people do when they build a brand? The most common approach is to refine the advantages of your own product and then use a large number of media to spread it as widely as possible. Does this actually work? Regardless of whether it is right or wrong, let me share with you a little story called "Cat Eats Chili Peppers".

A father called his two sons together and asked them how to get a cat to eat chili peppers. The eldest son raised his hand first and said, "There are three steps to getting a cat to eat chili peppers. The first step is to open the cat's mouth, the second step is to put the chili peppers in, and the third step is to close the cat's mouth." At this time, my father shook his head in disappointment and said: "As a child from a poor family, you should know that where there is oppression there is resistance, so your trick won't work."

The second son said: "Why not feed the cat the chili peppers directly? Put the chili peppers in a meat bun and give it to the cat, and the cat will definitely eat it." The father also shook his head in disappointment and said, "As a child from a poor family, you should know that deception can only happen once. With this trick of yours, not only will the cat not eat chili peppers anymore, it won't even touch meat buns." At this time, the two sons looked at each other and asked their father what they should do?

Dad said, "Grind chili peppers into chili oil and apply it to a cat's butt, and the cat will eat it. Why will the cat eat it? Because it will feel pain, and when it feels pain, it will lick it. After licking it, you can apply it again and it will eat it again. Cats eat chili peppers automatically."

This story comes from the Buddhist "Hundred Parables Sutra". It is a small anecdote in it. This story explains the core essence of our management, marketing and communication.

The essence of management, marketing and communication is to make specific groups of people change their behavior and cognition to achieve your set goals.

When we manage, does that mean you tell your employees what work they should do? Then you let your employees complete the task and achieve your set goals. When it comes to marketing, if customers have no desire to buy, you need to develop market-guided marketing strategies to make them buy.

The same is true for communication. The audience may not have any knowledge of you originally, but through the introduction of information, you can give them a basic understanding of your brand, thus generating brand loyalty. In fact, it is an interpretation of the most authentic truth.

What methods do we usually use to change other people's behavior and cognition?

The first is called violence;

The second is called deception;

What is violence? If you don't do it you will lose something.

What is deception? Cheating is fooling people. If you think you will get something by doing something, it is actually just a pie in the sky.

But are these two methods actually useful? Most of the time it's useless. Do you see what’s so great about this father’s strategy? The biggest difference between him and his two sons is that the strategies of the first two are “I want you to do something”, while the father’s strategy is “make my business your business”, allowing you to do it voluntarily.

02

When the economy develops to a certain level, we will all enter a theater society, and the theater effect will happen around us all the time.

Where does this effect come from? The concept was first proposed by a French sociologist named Rousseau. He predicted that when our civilization evolves to a certain level, human beings will enter a theatrical society, in which everyone is both a performer and an audience. You are both a performer and an appreciator of the performance. At this time, a theatrical symbol is needed to connect the actors and the audience. Let me give you a simple example.

Many people buy luxury goods, drive luxury cars, and wear gold watches. But let’s think about the luxury Hermès bags you buy and the Rolex watches you wear. Are they really beautiful? Does it really have a fashionable feel? Is it really tasteful? The more classic the style, the less it changes and the less beautiful it is, so why do we buy it?

The reason for buying is that you want to tell others that you can afford it. All the things you buy form theatrical symbols, which are a kind of proof and recognition you give to others. In other words, we have entered a show society. If you want to build a brand, you must establish theatrical symbols.

Let me tell you a little secret from the industry. I write business cases and brand stories. In addition to giving lectures, I spend a lot of time writing. For example, if we want to package an entrepreneur or an expert or professor, the most common practice in China is to publish a book for him. If we want to create a character to package him, we usually divide it into three steps.

The first step is to deconstruct it, look at his materials, values, and knowledge system, and organize them clearly.

The second step is to go abroad and find out what new books have been published in the West and the United States in the past two years that are in line with this value system and new theoretical system, especially books that are not available in China.

The third step is to integrate foreign theoretical systems with our entrepreneurial materials, and create a new term that has never appeared in China. Make the symbol concrete and exaggerated, and then render it vigorously. Here we call it "occupy the mountain and become the king". It's like you occupy a mountain and immediately put up a flag and shout that this mountain is yours. Next time you see this symbol, it means me, and seeing me also represents this symbol.

The core of symbol establishment is to form a new category and be the first in the category. Create a unique perception of you in the minds of users. In this way, your brand communication will be truly effective. The easiest way to create a new product category is to divide the user's application scenarios.

For example, the general perception of razors in major shopping malls in Beijing is that male users account for the majority of purchases, but the reality is that 60% of buyers are female. Because the most common gift that women give to men is a razor. Ties and belts symbolize special meanings, watches are too expensive, but razors are particularly suitable.

If we quantify this scenario, a considerable share of the razor market has become the women's gift market. At this time, a new category of couple gifts can be formed, and innovations can be made in packaging and experience. One of the biggest reasons why many companies fail to quantify scenarios is that they treat users as customers.

03

The four elements of storytelling

The most important point about a role is that it must be focused and personalized.

The first step in storytelling creation is to have personalization. The extraction of this core point comes from stand-up comedy and storytelling. The general expression of the commentary is:

"From the south came an old general with golden armor and a golden helmet, and from the north came a young general with silver armor and a silver helmet. The old general glared at the young general and rode forward, fighting with the young general until the sky was dark. After 300 rounds, the young general was defeated and fled, and the old general took advantage of the victory to pursue him."

This is a common storytelling segment, but in real human wars, there has never been a scene where two generals are fighting each other in front of a battlefield while soldiers on both sides stand behind with their guns pointing at them and watching the fun. But if the story is told as it really is, this scene would become:

"Five thousand people came from the south, and 5 thousand people came from the north. The 5,000 people here and the 5,000 people over there were fighting together..."

The whole story will become dry. We have to write about five thousand people as if they were one person. This way there will be room to display wonderful details and the whole story will be attractive. Therefore, the story must be fully focused, so that the story will be three-dimensional and interesting to read.

The emphasis on details is the result of a high focus on the characters. We create details with a core concept in mind: we must write about a familiar thing from an unfamiliar perspective.

The Internet is so developed and information transmission is limitless. Nothing is strange, everything is familiar, and you must write about a familiar thing from a strange perspective.

Let me give you an example. We travel around Beijing every day and we use a photo to remember Beijing. We usually pick up our mobile phones and take a photo using a normal perspective. What does good advertising usually do? It must be an aerial view of the city. Why use an aerial view? Because we don't often use this angle, it's all Beijing, but if you change the angle you'll have a completely different feeling. Grasping the details is to embed your unique and practical viewpoints into your story.

I got the suspense from watching Korean dramas. I found that after watching the first few episodes, I kept wanting to see the ending, so it was a waste of time. Later, I wondered why Korean drama stories are so attractive and how are Korean dramas usually performed?

Either the hero gets sick, or the heroine gets into a car accident, or the brother falls in love with the sister, and you're particularly tempted to see the ending, whether the brother and sister end up together, or whether the hero survives. You have a strong sense of suspense and are very involved in the story.

Let me tell you a truth. When creating suspense, you must be careful. When the suspense ends, that is when your story ends. This is a very important point.

So when you look at a very well-written soft article, the embedded advertisement must be at the very last moment, at the end. It cannot be in the middle, because once it appears in the middle, it will be impossible to continue reading the story. The most common thing we use is clickbait. I have seen a similar title like "Beauty taking a bath", but when I clicked on it, I saw a one-year-old beauty taking a bath. It’s the element of suspense, so the suspense must be placed at the end.

Emotions . A good story must resonate with people and bring out emotions.

We watch good guys and bad guys fighting in a movie in the cinema. When the good guy is beaten badly by the bad guy, if we pay attention to the audience in front, behind, and around us, many of them will subconsciously lie back. At this time, the audience regards themselves as the good guy in the movie. This is the emotional resonance caused by immersion.

04

Characters, details, suspense, and emotions are the four elements of creating a story. With these four elements, it is also necessary to follow the "three-act" narrative structure most commonly used in Hollywood scripts.

The first step is to encounter a problem;

The second step is to solve the problem;

The third step is moral sublimation.

In the last US presidential election, Hillary Clinton ran a campaign advertisement with the simple sentence "When the phone rings at the White House at 3 a.m., who do you want to answer the phone?" The White House bell rings at three o'clock in the morning. Who will answer the phone? It must be the president.

This poster cleverly tells you that if the phone in the White House rings at 3 a.m., I, Hillary, would be the most suitable person to be president. Why?

When the White House phone rings at three o'clock in the morning, it must be a very urgent national event involving life and death. At this time, you have to run from your bedroom to a place where you can answer the phone in the shortest time possible. Before the phone stops ringing, the first thing you have to do is: become very familiar with the White House. Who is familiar?

Hillary is familiar with it. The first lady has been in the White House for 8 years, and she is the only one who is familiar with it. But Obama was in the White House at three in the morning, it was pitch dark, and as a black man, you could imagine he would trip and fall on the road. This is a very metaphorical way of highlighting oneself and stifling others.

This is what world-class storytellers do: not only establish themselves as number one in a category, but also be the only one. This is the coolest part.

There are many roots involved, including business iterations and social changes. Due to time constraints, I can only share this today.

Finally, I would like to share with you a sentence from a director I like very much, Andy Warhol. He said:

“In the future, everyone can be famous for 15 minutes”

We are now entering the Internet age, and opportunities will favor everyone, but the question is, when your 15 minutes are up, do you really have the ability to show your best side to everyone?

I give this sentence to everyone, and hope that everyone can show their most beautiful moment when they have their own 15 minutes.

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