10 common marketing mistakes made by young people today

Why do young people today often make these 10 common mistakes in advertising? This article will help you find out what these 10 common mistakes are. Of course, this article also provides suggestions and methods for those working in marketing.

I happened to see Cheng Qian’s circle of friends and saw a meeting video between Zhang Jingkang, the founder of Zulijian senior shoes, and his daughter Zhang Yali. I discovered that Zhang Yali’s team had some biases in their perception of the brand.

for example:

• They are overly superstitious about content, thinking that good content means good advertising, and that good advertising means a good brand, which are actually two completely different things;
• They are overly obsessed with new words. For example, the term "emotional marketing" is very popular, but it is not new at all, and it is not the underlying logic of marketing.
• Their specious arguments about "breaking the circle" are not only difficult, but it is even more difficult to achieve a great result with just a little effort. It is extremely unrealistic to try to break the circle through content.

Zulijian is the leader in the category of senior citizen shoes. It was the first to propose the category concept of "senior citizen shoes" and thus became a pioneer in this field.

In the past, the main product was "Professional shoes for the elderly, look for Zulijian" , and the target customers were the elderly, so the media of communication was TV ads on major satellite TV stations, and consumers were informed of the functional selling points of the products. This time, the brand was upgraded to "Give gifts to the elders, Zulijian", which is a change of scene. According to Zhang Jingkang's explanation, it is the concept of "elderly gift", which intercepts the scene of giving gifts to the elderly.

In fact, for the current brand communication of Zulijian, focusing on "gift-giving scenarios" and creating "gift-giving topics" is the target strategy; but Zulijian Princess Zhang Yali focuses on travel scenarios and promotes the concept of "comfort", which is completely a deviation and runs counter to the brand strategy.

This kind of mistake reminded me of the various "self-entertainment" I had fallen into when I was young, and it also reminded me of the misunderstandings of many young people about brands and marketing. I have summarized some of the more prominent problems for your reference:

1. Not understanding the basic principles of advertising

Times have changed, becoming faster and more chaotic, which is a point of view that everyone agrees with. But has human nature changed? Human nature seems to have not changed, and it still seeks profit and avoids harm, loves novelty and dislikes old things, and loves leisure and hates work.

So should the way of communication change? Should all the communication costs be invested in Douyin? Should they all be invested based on content logic? This can easily lead to path dependence, and make you a channel operator of a certain platform rather than a brand.

In the past, when the media was dominated by one company, Melatonin used brainwashing ads. Now, with the media diversification and information fragmentation, shouldn’t brainwashing ads be more popular? Because brainwashing ads are more efficient and effective.

So why do young people still dislike brainwashing ads? In my opinion, young people who dislike brainwashing ads still don’t understand the communication mechanism, at least they don’t know what the “Pavlov experiment” is.

2. Lack of corporate development perspective

Young people like to use big brands as examples to infer their own businesses, but they always ignore the most significant problem: different corporate histories. Today’s big brands have passed the start-up phase, such as Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola, etc. They have established their own kingdoms and are now in the stage of maintaining their business or even monopolizing it, so there is nothing wrong with doing some emotional marketing - the brand has become a big tree, and talking about values ​​is more popular.

However, most Chinese companies have only a few years or decades of history, and in my opinion, they are still in their infancy. Therefore, it is obviously inappropriate for young people to use the "case of the day" of big brands as an excuse. Nike's logo now only has a check mark, but the previous generations of logos all had a big "NIKE" symbol.

The correct approach is to look at the corporate history of big brands and learn their "key actions". For example, Coca-Cola grew up by selling functionality and health products, which is the same routine as Huiren Shenbao. Later, it became "World War II military supplies" and also went the toG path.

So, can we understand the so-called "low-brow" marketing methods of some developing companies? Because they haven't reached that stage yet.

3. Easily fooled by new marketing words

In the past two years, the new terms "emotional marketing" and "sense of relaxation" have become popular in the marketing circle. Young people are impressed by them and think, "Yes, emotional marketing is the main theme of contemporary brands." But in fact, "You are totally wrong."

The essence of advertising is repetition, which means walking around the streets hawking to attract your attention; it means saying the same thing every day for decades, so that you will trust it. True consumer trust does not come from "change" but from "unchanging". Only with an unchanging formula can you buy with confidence. This is the logic of Coco Tree Coconut Juice and the essential reason why it survives.

The "change" advocated by most companies is all opportunism. "Emotional marketing" is not the essence, because marketing can be successful without emotions. Marketing is about building a path for long-term customers, that is, thinking about the question of "where customers come from", rather than brand stories, product promotional videos, copywriting emotions, etc. These are just details, details only.

The key to marketing is to solve the problem of "where do customers come from" . First, it depends on channels and the ability to expand sales; second, it depends on brands and the law of brand attraction; third, it depends on advertising and continuous and repeated delivery. These are the essence of marketing.

4. No practical experience

The biggest problem of the brand department now is that they sit in the office to think about ideas, and they can't go to the sales site or production site once a year. This leads to the fact that brand personnel have no deep understanding of the products, and don't know who the consumer groups are and how to impress them.

Although marketers are behind-the-scenes salespeople, in order to understand the market, consumers, and products, they must be on the front line, truly listen, see, and feel, only then can they gain true knowledge.

Most brand marketers only look for connections by looking at other people’s cases and written theories. They cannot come up with good plans without understanding the market, and they cannot come up with good ideas without understanding business operations. This is because there is no basis and no support.

5. Not understanding the basic principles

Brand is the brand of a product, a symbol that distinguishes my product from yours. Brand contains the value of the product. When you think of a brand, you will unconsciously think of its product characteristics, which has identification value. But in the final analysis, brand is to make a distinction, a concentration of value, and a result.

Advertising is a means and a process. Advertising is to advertise to the public, convey brand value, product value, consumer awareness, etc. The purpose of advertising is to prompt consumption, release signals, and finally transfer sales. It is a process.

Because the main purpose of a brand is to differentiate, it must have symbols, images, and a series of brand activities in order to make the brand symbols valuable and easier for consumers to recognize.

Advertising is to inform and convey information to the public, so it requires efficiency and creativity. However, in today's era of fragmented information, if advertising wants to be efficient, it must be repeated over and over again to leave a mental impression on consumers, otherwise the advertising will be ineffective.

6. Excessive superstition about hot spots and hot spots

The hot spots are hard to come by, and there is no universal formula. Many hot-selling logics proposed by advertising companies on the market are actually unable to create hot-selling products. Because creating hot-selling products requires at least two elements: one is "start-up volume". If the launch budget is insufficient, no matter how good your creativity is, it will not go viral; the other is "public media". Public media with a large number of fans is an essential resource for hot-selling products.

Most of the so-called hot spots are cases packaged by advertising companies, which are soft advertisements to show their strength and finally get target customers. Many advertising companies have never advertised for their own companies and have no practical experience in advertising. They seem to be on the front line of advertising, but they are still a wall away from real marketing.

Therefore, young people should not blindly believe in hot spots, but should constantly hone their skills. For example, they should write a good soft article, make a prominent poster, and understand communication theory through a lot of practical operations to achieve unity of knowledge and action.

7. Very little research on human nature

Feeling is important, although I say that. Some people just have a good feel, and they can hit the needs of consumers right from the start and come up with great marketing ideas. At that time, there were also a large number of young people who only liked "I feel", only based on their own feelings, and only recognized their own consumption feelings, without paying deep attention to and understanding TA.

For example, we often mistakenly believe that people will not download a software for a few dollars. The rise of Pinduoduo and the popularity of Douyin Express, as well as many offline promotional activities for profit. You may not download an APP for a few dollars, but there are still a large number of people who will ask you to "buy a knife", "collect a like", or "help them", which shows that the general public will really be motivated and moved by small profits. Behind this is the in-depth research of consumers and the insight into human nature. It took me ten years to let go of my arrogance and really be willing to study TA.

8. Never Taking the Initiative to Learn More

I once interviewed a designer who said he had been designing Tmall's alcoholic beverage platform for many years. I asked him: What are the eight major spirits in the world? He looked confused, not expecting me to ask this. I gave him some hints, such as white wine and other different categories. He still looked confused.

He has done so many beverage designs, and must have come into contact with whiskey, gin, vodka, brandy, tequila, sake, rum, and liquor. But why can't he answer? Because he has never studied liquor in depth. It's a pity that he just works without the accumulation of deeper knowledge.

I know some people of my age or young people in the advertising industry who don’t study at all, don’t read books except when they are at work, and don’t even have the slightest knowledge of their profession. This is extremely sad.

9. The literary and artistic disease is too serious

Taking money from others and making money for others is my basic understanding of the professional ethics of advertisers. However, I found that there are a lot of literary scoundrels in advertising companies. Their logic is literary logic, storytelling logic, self-expression logic, artist logic, rather than business logic.

The advertisement is made into a movie, and it is called "content marketing", but few people like it. This kind of creativity is simply a crime of wealth and life! The poster design is artistic, and it flaunts its high-level aesthetics, but it cannot even directly express the basic information. This is even more a crime of wealth and life.

It’s not that art cannot be integrated with advertising (just look at the earliest Shanghai calendar advertisements, which are a perfect fusion of art and advertising), but it’s just that it’s too artistic and it’s easy to confuse the primary with the secondary.

It is very easy for young people in contemporary art schools to go astray and think that advertising creativity is about making works of art and that advertising videos are about making micro-movies. This concept is a blasphemy and misunderstanding of advertising.

10. Don’t believe in common sense, believe in miracles

The common sense of marketing is 4P, price determines life and death, product strengthens purchase, channel expands market, promotion promotes communication. 4P is based on the marketing strategy of the enterprise. Strategy is the business direction of the enterprise, and 4P is the specific execution system.

But now many new consumer brands are rapidly becoming popular, giving many young people a feeling that marketing is very simple. For example, the success of Yuanqi Forest, Bananain, and Lululemon is by no means a single product logic, and the 4Ps are indispensable.

But people always like to simplify complex problems, prefer myths and miracles, and ignore common sense. In fact, common sense is the best path to success.

Author: muguahao

Source: WeChat public account: Qu Tailang (ID: qutailang1991)