The way out for the brand department

The role of the brand department in an enterprise has always been controversial. Although the value of the brand is generally recognized, the actual role and development direction of the brand department are often questioned in a rapidly changing market environment. This article deeply explores the positioning and role of the brand department in different enterprises, analyzes the challenges faced by the brand department, and proposes coping strategies for brand personnel, aiming to help brand personnel find their own value and position in the growth of the enterprise.

There is a very strange phenomenon: everyone thinks that brand is important, but they don’t pay attention to branding. Just like everyone thinks that protecting the environment is important, but when protecting the environment does not bring immediate benefits, or even brings a little inconvenience to life, such as not driving and taking the bus, or not using plastic bags or chopsticks when ordering takeout, it seems that the environment is not that important.

In fact, bosses don’t really like to build brands, they just like the growth that brands bring. Just like most advertisers don’t like to pursue works, they just like the fame and fortune that works bring. The process of building brands is as painful as the process of pursuing works, and no one likes it.

The news that Jiaoxia laid off its brand and marketing departments a few days ago made many people panic. The fact that a company's department adjustment has attracted such great industry attention shows that Jiaoxia's brand building is successful in the industry. Perhaps there are more marketing departments that have been quietly laid off and no one has paid attention to them.

But then again, in theory, the brand department should be the strategic center and operational brain of a company, but in reality, the brand department of most companies is just a small internal advertising company. To put it bluntly, it is responsible for advertising and making materials. When the company has no money to advertise, the brand department will either create new channels and traffic to sell goods, such as live streaming, private domains, etc.; or take over the work of the media department, event department, and public relations department, issue articles, and engage in resource exchanges, as long as it doesn't cost money.

Spending money is the original sin.

In the past, as long as you could avoid spending any money, you could get a suspended death sentence.

Now, if you don’t make money for the company, you will be executed immediately.

What should brand and market people do?

01 Don’t wait for death in a business that is not driven by brand

Many companies are not driven by brands. For example, Tesla is driven by technology and resources. It is the first brand to make electric cars. Its founder, Musk, is the king of topics. The top circles around him are all his users and KOLs. He almost never advertises. For example, ZARA is driven by design and operational efficiency. It only takes 15 days from design to launch a piece of clothing. If it advertises, the clothes will be sold out before the advertisement is launched.

Brand-driven companies, especially those whose advertising creativity can bring real business growth in the traditional sense, are the platforms for brand people to show their talents. For example, the nickname bottles and lyrics bottles of Coca-Cola brought 20% growth to the brand. For example, the joint venture between Luckin Coffee and Moutai sold 100 million yuan of sauce-flavored latte on the first day of its launch. The recently popular domestic game "Black Myth: Wukong" was released, and Luckin Coffee was the first to be co-branded, and it sold out again, which made people see the terrible consumption power of men.

The brand department of Jiaoxia has done a really good job. Several big campaigns have been very successful. They have planted several banana trees, but before they can grow thick shade to provide shade, the brand department has already gone cold. Jiaoxia has been promoting itself on Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and Weibo, but if you search for "Jiaoxia" on Xiaohongshu now, all you see are "weeds" about layoffs.

It can only be said that brand promotion is only a very small part of business operations. If the business operations cannot keep up, no matter how good the brand is, it will only be counterproductive.

For companies that do not rely on brand-driven business, or companies that cannot be driven by brand, the brand department will naturally become a marginal department that is neither important nor itchy. Don't wait there to die.

02 Brands are responsible for growth

In the past two years, almost all the brand briefs received by advertising companies have the demand for effectiveness, such as breaking the circle, attracting new customers, and directing traffic... In short, they want to promote brand growth.

In the future, there will be fewer and fewer ads that appeal to emotions, because they give people the intuition that they do not bring sales or growth. But a counterintuitive fact is that emotional ads are actually better at "selling goods."

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) in the UK has studied 1,400 advertising and marketing cases around the world over the past 30 years. From the actual results of advertising in terms of business growth, emotional advertising brought 31% growth, while rational advertising created an average growth of 16%. The effect of emotional marketing is almost twice that of rational marketing. And emotional advertising has a long-tail effect.

In an enterprise, making money is the boss, and spending money is the grandson. The only department that can make money is the sales department. The R&D and product departments can be reduced but cannot be eliminated. The brand department is even more "only aware of spending money". It costs money to make materials, and it costs N times more money to put the materials into circulation.

A brand department that only knows how to spend money but cannot drive growth will be laid off sooner or later.

The brand department should not only promote brand growth, but also promote brand growth immediately. It is best to do it in days. The boss and investors don’t want to wait for a month, let alone a year.

Whoever can bring immediate growth will have the say.

03 Find your place in the brand growth matrix

Igor Ansoff, the father of strategic management, proposed the "Ansoff Matrix", which is a strategic framework for corporate growth. It uses four quadrants composed of market, product, existing and new. Brand people can try to find their own position in this framework.

① Market penetration.

This is a strategy that brand people are familiar with. Use the existing market to increase the market share and penetration of existing products. Get more people to buy, or get people to buy more. For example, Extra Gum, originally you can chew one piece, but it tells you through advertising that "chewing two pieces together is best", such as creating holiday special editions, buy one get one free and other promotional means.

②New product development.

The strategy of launching new products into the existing market can be a completely new category, such as McDonald's selling coffee and Luckin selling milk tea; it can also be to improve existing products, such as when Shenzhou Special Car entered the business market, the core was the airport pick-up scene. There was a "pick-up" button on the APP, and with the promotional activities, it won the first place in the airport pick-up market share, and then the competitors followed suit. Its CMO Yang Fei said in "Traffic Pool" that this button is worth rewarding the product manager with 1 million.

A brand person can also be a product manager.

③ Development of new markets.

The strategy of promoting growth by entering new markets and developing new customers. For example, many traditional brands now operate on Xiaohongshu and Douyin to develop new customer groups. For example, Guanxia started with WeChat public accounts, and after gaining a firm foothold, it began to focus on e-commerce platforms. For example, brands that started online are exploring offline channels, and Yuanqi Forest is making great efforts to improve its offline courses.

④Diversification strategy.

The strategy of launching new products in new markets to increase sales. This strategy has certain risks, but as long as the core endowment of the enterprise is dominant, it will not be a problem. For example, Xiaomi’s car business is a completely new industry. For brand people, working in similar companies is a huge opportunity because you will witness or personally participate in the creation of a brand new brand system.

Marketing is the root of all evil, and marketing is the first of all virtues. The growth of an enterprise does not necessarily require advertising, and brand people must find their place in the growth matrix.