Brand No. 1: Business, not creativity

In an era of fierce commercial competition, brand status has become the key to commercial success. This article will explore a thought-provoking concept: in the process of pursuing business, "creativity" is not the only way, and what can bring a more stable commercial position to an enterprise.

1. Work is about finding the obvious

Believe in the power of simplicity, because simplicity itself is power. How to find simplicity is to look for obvious things. Because it is obvious to you, and it is also obvious to consumers without any thought. Because it is obvious, it is simple; because it is simple, it is powerful and has a sense of power.

It doesn't need to be explained, and it doesn't need to be explained, because it's simple enough. But it's not that we don't know how to be simple, but we don't dare to be simple. Because it's too obvious - I gave you so much money, and you gave me a sentence that everyone knows?! It doesn't sound very interesting.

Therefore, we have to pretend to be complicated, or even make something simple complicated. The problem is still with ourselves. We don’t start from the work and think for the sake of the matter, but to satisfy the client or even to please the client. In the final analysis, we are still not confident and only focus on the other party’s money, not the other party’s business. This is a taboo, not only in work, but also in life.

In addition, discovering the obvious is not about being smarter than others, but about emptiness, clarity, and nature. If you can let go of your own opinions (small self), you will be able to see the obvious. Once you find this feeling in work and practice, you will be like a god, forget yourself, and focus on one thing, and its meaning will be revealed.

2. Dramatization

What is drama? In fact, not far from us, famous rivers and mountains, thousand-year-old temples, Taoist temples and monasteries are performing "drama" every day.

It consists of dojo, props, rituals, stories, roles, taboos, talismans (words) and spells (language). ZJ has done this the best. Thousands of years of practice and repetition have made the "dramatic" things pure and passionate, everlasting, day after day, and endless.

You see, they both sell services and products, the forms are different, but the content is actually the same.

If a brand can achieve one or two of its essences, it will be a great merit and boundless power. Dojo (sales venue), props (arrangement, posting, placement), ritual (entering the store, service, leaving the store), story (brand story), role (community, membership), taboo (brand culture), talisman (brand logo) and spell (positioning slogan). Think about whether we have done these aspects, how much we have done, and whether we have done enough? It is far from enough. We are still far from understanding the dramatization.

Consumption behavior itself has a certain theatrical effect. Behind every consumer's consumption behavior, there are more or less emotional factors, and these factors need to be developed and stimulated. What do they rely on? Dojo, props, rituals, stories, roles, taboos, talismans (words) and spells (language).

3. External Thinking

It is still difficult to see yourself from an external perspective.

What you are is not what you think you are, but what you are in the perception of consumers. It is what consumers think and believe. Taking perception as fact is the process of removing one's own mind and desires. Don't try to change consumers' existing perceptions. It is difficult to change consumers' perceptions. Creating a new concept depends on money.

Taking consumers' perception as fact, and using the power of perception to promote and "make the market". This is easy to say but hard to believe. As time goes by, it becomes "I think", "I want", "I want", without any words about what consumers think, what consumers want, and what consumers want.

4. Understanding the Mind

One is that the mind is hard to change, and the other is that the mind is easily out of focus. Because the mind is hard to change, if someone (brand) has already occupied a certain position, don't try to do useless work.

What is a wise choice? A wise choice should avoid the real and attack the weak. For example, when Nyquil competed with Contac and Dristan, it avoided direct confrontation. It let the two brands compete with each other for the daily cold medicine market, while Nyquil occupied the position of "nighttime cold medicine".

Don't fight back in places where the other side is heavily guarded and heavily invested, unless you have prepared more ammunition. The method of using troops is to surround them if there are ten of them, and attack them if there are five of them. In the final analysis, strength and investment are everything. Where the other side is strong, you have to be false, and you have to give up actively. The use of false and real is to avoid the strong and attack (attack, invest) in the false. You (Contac, Dristan) fight yours, and I (nyquil) fight mine.

People want too much, and the positioning they want to occupy is too broad. Such positioning is difficult to establish in the mind. Because the mind is easily out of focus, the more concepts you occupy, the more you dissipate and consume in the consumer's cognition. In addition, the more you want to occupy, the more you have to invest, and the more opponents you have. If you attack everywhere, you will be enemies and opponents everywhere. If you invest more in this battlefield, you will inevitably invest less in that battlefield. If you make it real here, there must be something that is virtual, and there must be something that cannot be done in reality. Because money is always limited, and energy is always limited.

In the end, if you prepare for the front, you will have fewer troops at the back; if you prepare for the rear, you will have fewer troops at the front; if you prepare for the left, you will have fewer troops at the right; if you prepare for the right, you will have fewer troops at the left; if you prepare for everything, you will have fewer troops at everything. Where you have fewer troops, you will have fewer troops at the weakest points; where you have fewer troops, the enemy will attack you with their strength. You must know the use of attack and defense, and the use of military force. The key is to know the use of the weak and the strong.

5. Big and comprehensive, small and specialized

A large and broad concept is both difficult to attack and difficult to defend. Because you want too much, so it is inevitable that you will lose sight of one thing while focusing on another. The key is to establish a position and a "vocabulary" that belongs to you in the minds of consumers. If you occupy the anti-dandruff (shampoo), you cannot occupy the nourishment (shampoo); if you occupy the whitening (toothpaste), you cannot occupy the anti-caries (toothpaste). Narrow and precise continuous communication is an effective way to occupy the minds of consumers.

This is true for brands, and it is also true for personal careers. Focus on your expertise and make yourself an expert first. Once, a friend asked me if I could talk about Huawei's management. I said: I don't understand. I am not an expert, so I can't talk about it. What is professionalism? It means knowing that you are good for nothing else; allowing yourself to be good for nothing else. Knowing which job you have and holding your job well is more important than anything else. If you want to sit at every table, there will be no place for you at any table in the end. You should know that some tables are not prepared for you, so don't go looking for excitement.

6. Know who you are.

It is important to know who you are. This is called knowing yourself. Challenges are reserved for the second place. In addition, choosing a mental position that is not fully occupied is more important than defeating your opponent. The object of competition is to establish superior cognition, not to defeat your opponent. As Bezos said: If we can make our competitors focus on us, while we focus on our customers, then we will always maintain a relatively comfortable position. Knowing the battle site, you can fight thousands of miles away.

The first is to know yourself, which is to know your net worth. The second is to know yourself, which is to know your relative value, which is to consider your situation from the perspective of your competitors. The third is to find the weaknesses in the strengths of your competitors, which is the real knowledge of yourself and your enemy. Don't be afraid of godlike opponents, just be afraid of deifying yourself.

7. Business, not creativity

Don't think of positioning as a clever trick. People often say that if you give me a certain slogan like Wang Laoji, I will be successful. I say: this is only a sufficient condition for success, but not a necessary condition. What is a necessary condition? You have money and you dare to invest. Therefore, I often tell my friends who do consulting: choosing customers is a necessary condition for doing a good job of positioning consulting.

In other words: it is the customers who make us successful. What we need to do is actually very simple, that is, to choose customers. No matter how good your work is, if they don't use it, don't believe in it, and don't invest in it, your efforts will be in vain. So, it's still the same sentence: we should thank our customers, because it is the customers who made us successful in the first place. Whether you can meet good customers depends on your personal cultivation, your personal determination, and even more on your personal endurance. As for professionalism, that is the last thing that matters, and it's better not to mention the day-to-day things.

8. Day by day

What is accumulation? First of all, we need to get rid of the idea of ​​one-day success. If we always expect to see results in one day, or to see results in one day, or to see results tomorrow after advertising today, we are unwilling to continue to work, keep working, and keep investing.

How many years has the image of the Marlboro cowboy been around? How many years has Crest been promoting anti-moths? How many years has Head & Shoulders been promoting anti-dandruff? If you look around, which brand that comes into your mind is not the result of continuous investment? People, sometimes it's like this. What you see is what you want to see and what you are willing to see. It's wrong to always see the clever moves. You should see the clumsy moves, stupid moves, real skills, real investment, and real efforts behind the clever moves.

One is that the more fragmented the information is, the easier it is for the mind to lose focus. How to deal with it? It depends on the continuous occupation of the word, that is, adhering to the basic positioning strategy, adhering to continuous advertising investment, and adhering to the occupation of the word. Only by doing these three things can we guarantee it year after year.

Drucker said: The results of business operations are external, not internal. What is this external business result? In essence, it is the consumer's recognition of the brand. Your (brand) existence in my mind is the company's biggest return on investment and the company's biggest business result.

The guarantee or premise of this operating result is continuous persistence year after year, and even more so continuous investment year after year. Enterprises have only two things to do: improve management and production efficiency internally, and improve the social transaction and exchange efficiency of the organization externally. Continuous "positioning" investment solves the social transaction and exchange efficiency of the organization. This is also the basic value of advertising as a business, and it is the highest and core interest of enterprises in advertising.

Author: Houshan Keju, Source: WeChat public account “Lao Gao Business and Brand”.