The essence and underlying logic of brand marketing

The essence of brand marketing is to create and convey unique brand value. A deep understanding of the essence and underlying logic of brand marketing can enable brands to better grasp market opportunities and provide strategic guidance for the successful development of brands. This article makes an in-depth analysis of these two aspects of brand marketing. Let's take a look.

There have been three leaps in the history of brand thinking.

The first was the publication of the classic paper “Products and Brands” in 1955, which theoretically distinguished brands from products. Brands originated from products but were higher than products. Since then, the concept of brand has begun to flourish.

The second time was in the 1990s, when the concepts of brand assets and strategic brand management were proposed, and brands rose from tactical tools to the level of corporate strategy.

The third time was around the new century, when theories such as brand relationship and brand community were proposed, which reshaped the concept of brand and relationship became a new marketing theory paradigm.

Defining a brand based on the brand-consumer relationship rather than the brand itself can help us better understand the underlying logic of how a brand works on consumers and make the goal of brand building clearer. Only by building relationships with consumers can sales be sustained; only by building relationships with consumers can brand power be established. The strength of the relationship determines the strength of the brand.

With the development of the Internet and social media, brands and consumers can establish more direct connections. Concepts such as private domains, communities, fans, growth hackers, personal settings, and IP have become popular. I believe everyone has further realized the importance of "relationships."

But for a long time we have had two misunderstandings about how to understand and build brand relationships.

First, believe that brand relationship is an emotional connection.

Over the past few decades, various brand concepts have emphasized the use of emotional marketing, appealing to consumers' image and personality, as well as specific forms such as value-based advertising, heartfelt copywriting, and attitude videos, so that consumers can identify with and resonate with the brand, and then fall in love with the brand and be loyal to the brand.

However, it is extremely unrealistic and difficult to make consumers have a strong liking and love for a brand and only buy that brand. That will only happen to a very small number of consumers, and most people do not project personal emotions on brands.

For example, Professor Byron Sharp, the originator of the HBG theory, believes that emotions are of no help to marketing at all, that consumers are fickle and have no loyalty at all.

In the industry, the former CEO of Yum! Brands also pointed out that although consumers may occasionally buy a brand because they like it, if a company builds its marketing information based on this, it is doomed to fail because the end result will inevitably be vague, overly pretentious nonsense.

In order to build a relationship with consumers, the most important thing is to play with them and let them participate in brand marketing. Participation makes consumers feel close and creates a sense of belonging and responsibility to the brand.

Secondly, cultural relevance creates relationships. If a brand can integrate into or create a social issue that consumers care about and speak out the voice of consumers, then consumers will think that your brand is related to them and identify with it.

Second, it is believed that brand relationship is a one-to-one relationship between the brand and the consumer.

Humans are social animals. Everyone lives in a social network and is influenced by others and social culture.

In order to leverage consumer relationships, on the one hand, we need to use social culture to strengthen the brand’s social public relations.

Through the resonance between brand and culture, the brand vitality is maintained, popularity and activity are guaranteed, and consumers feel familiar with the brand. At the same time, with the help of the power of culture, the brand's authority and public influence are enhanced, and the respect of consumers is won.

On the other hand, it leverages user circles to leverage user-user relationships.

Brands need to get a small number of consumers deeply involved in the brand, build close relationships with them, and leverage the power of this group of users to radiate to other consumer groups and complete the diffusion of the brand.

Through social networks and relationship operations, we leverage relationships between people to influence relationships between brands, stimulate brand sharing and diffusion among user groups, activate and repurchase old customers, and acquire and diffuse new customers.

This actually means that brand building requires two things: socialization and socialization . These are the fundamental factors for brands to influence consumers and the two most important fulcrums for brand marketing. Enterprises need to do these two things well when building their brands.

1. The Power of Socialization

1. Socialization creates purchases

Not long ago, I shared a case of drinking boiled water from the packaged water brand Master Kong in the fan group. The poster copy was called "Drink boiled water in meetings." Several classmates expressed their incomprehension and disagreement with this, saying, "Why drink boiled water in meetings? What's the selling point? This doesn't give a reason to buy it."

(Photo taken at the entrance of a convenience store in Shanghai Hongqiao)

But the question is, do you really need a reason to buy water for meetings? Do consumers really think about why they buy this bottle instead of that one before buying water? In fact, even Nongfu Spring, Baishuishan, and Yibibao can't give their own reasons for buying water for meetings.

The key to the problem is which brand consumers think of first when buying water. As long as consumers can think of drinking boiled water first, they will consider buying it. What we need to do for drinking boiled water is not to promote its function or educate and persuade users, but to establish the correlation between drinking boiled water and meetings, so that consumers can remember that drinking boiled water is an option (preferred option) for meeting water.

This was a massive communication campaign launched by Drinking Water on Weibo in April this year. The theme of the entire campaign was "Drinking water no matter what you drink." Around this theme, Drinking Water designed a series of scenarios such as meetings, work, school, and ball games, in an effort to make consumers think of drinking water first in all drinking water scenarios.

More importantly, through Weibo topics and Blue V linkage of hundreds of brands, "Drink boiled water no matter what you boil", has successfully turned "Drink boiled water no matter what you boil" into a meme, a hot search topic, and a social issue that consumers pay close attention to.

It not only triggered the spread of brainwashing social communication, making the trend of drinking boiled water unstoppable, but also made the brand a social trend, noticed by more consumers, remembered and prioritized in many drinking scenarios, and successfully moved the purchase pointer.

Influenced by the Internet in recent years, marketers always like to talk about the word " just need ". But if you think about it, most of the products in our lives are not just needed, such as nuts, chewing gum, probiotics, etc. Consumers know that nuts and probiotics are healthy, and they also know the representative brands of these products, but do you eat them every day?

Consumers don't eat them, not because they don't understand the product's efficacy, but because they don't remember to eat them and haven't formed a habit. For example, sometimes I suddenly pay attention to my health and buy some nuts and probiotics on a whim, but I forget about them after eating them for two days, and when I remember them again, they are already expired.

This is also true for packaged water. Drinking water is a rigid demand, but is drinking Nongfu Spring or boiled water a rigid demand? The reason why consumers do not buy is not because the product function is not promoted enough, but because the brand lacks a fixed consumption scenario in consumers' lives, lacks significance in their minds, and lacks popularity at the social and cultural level. Consumers are not aware of the existence of the brand, so they will naturally not choose to buy it.

American psychologist William James said that 99% of human activities do not involve conscious attitudes and motivations, but are purely spontaneous activities stimulated by inertia, impulse and external environment .

The importance of socialization is to help brands continue to create popularity and topics, constantly remind consumers of the brand's existence, and establish connections between the brand and consumers' life scenarios, thereby prompting consumers to buy.

In order to establish a relationship with consumers, it is very important to have a sense of presence, relevance, and prominence in the minds of consumers. This is the prerequisite for achieving sales and the basis for the brand to play a role.

2. Socialization enhances brand power

Recently, many domestic brands have encountered controversy and crisis, especially because of the price issue, which is regarded by consumers as "IQ tax", "cutting leeks" and "not worth the price". Fundamentally speaking, this is because most domestic brands have a short history and insufficient foundation, and cannot compete with those mature international brands in terms of brand power.

To enhance brand power, in addition to continuously strengthening quality and technical content at the product level, another very important point is socialization, allowing the brand to resonate with culture and thus win the resonance of target users and the public.

This is like Huawei and BYD, which have won the respect and love of the Chinese people. In addition to their technological achievements, they have also incorporated more traditional culture and national spirit into their brand marketing and established a very solid public brand relationship.

In July this year, when the rainy season arrived, De Rucci created a topic on Weibo #No matter the rain or shine, I can sleep well# and filmed an attitude short film "Sleeping in the Rain". It tells consumers that the best way to spend a rainy day is to enjoy a good sleep. De Rucci accompanies millions of families through the sunny and rainy days of life with a good mattress.

On the one hand, this approach of Delicious has strengthened the association between the brand and keywords such as summer, rainy days, wind and rain, sleep, and good sleep (with consumption scenarios behind them).

Using Weibo's progressive hot topic matrix, De Rucci set up multiple topics. In addition to the main topic #Sleep well regardless of rain or shine#, there are also #Sleeping is a basic respect for rainy days# and #De Rucci understands healing#, helping the brand communication to continue to heat up and help the brand dominate the hot searches.

During the marketing period, the total reading volume of De Rucci topics reached over 300 million, especially the social media popularity increased by over 200%. Among the social media hot words, the concentration of the atmosphere word "good sleep on rainy days" reached over 35%, making consumers think of De Rucci when they mention or encounter rainy days, and everyone can immerse themselves in falling asleep listening to the rain.

This approach can effectively attract interested users to circulate and settle, helping Delicious's interested users to expand by 35.3% month-on-month.

On the other hand, more importantly, De Rucci has enhanced its brand power and won the favor and recognition of consumers by injecting social issues and cultural values.

The above-mentioned wave of communication helped increase the brand voice of De Rucci by 240%+, and the brand TVC playback volume also reached more than 17 million, effectively strengthening the brand imprint and powerfully penetrating into the minds of users.

#Sleep well regardless of rain or shine# not only relates to actual rainy days, but also means to calmly deal with the ups and downs in life. It also represents an attitude towards life, embodies the Chinese cultural outlook and lifestyle, and is full of poetry and beauty.

Looking at this case, we can find that it does not talk about product functions at all, nor does it reflect the differentiated selling point of De Rucci. Consumers who want to sleep well on rainy days can buy any mattress brand. However, De Rucci's approach fully reflects the charm and connotation of a Chinese mattress brand, creates a differentiated advantage for De Rucci at the brand level, and enhances its brand image and reputation.

Moreover, when consumers want to buy mattresses, especially in the rainy summer, they are more likely to think of De Rucci and have a better impression and recognition of De Rucci, so the chances of buying De Rucci are naturally the greatest. This social value will eventually be reflected in sales.

At the age of 91, Sidney Levy, the founder of brand thinking, looked back to explore the source of branding. He believed that the word "brand" originated from "fire" and "burning". Branding is to inject burning passion into products, give them inner spirit, and ignite people's hearts.

Therefore, brand building is not about planting grass, promotion, or live streaming, but about injecting culture and values ​​into the brand through socialization, making the brand a part of social culture, forming a ritual and tradition shared by the group, and becoming a social consensus. Socialization is the process of building group consensus for the brand.

If brands want to leverage this social power, they need to think more about and study social hot spots and hot search topics, analyze social and cultural trends and national consumer psychology. Then, Weibo is an undisputed platform, which is the public opinion field of the entire society.

There are sophisticated hotspot marketing methods on Weibo, from national festival hotspots, event hotspots, family and country hotspots, mass entertainment TV and Internet hotspots, to various niche vertical hotspots and solar term hotspots. Doing a good job of hotspot marketing can maximize public domain traffic and social attention.

For example, during the Spring Festival last year, Lancôme 196 took advantage of the Spring Festival and the Spring Festival Gala to create topics such as #國pacific民安妆# and #耐著CCTV的摄像#, which captured the national sentiment and brought about efficient conversion of product sales with the support of CCTV's aesthetics and the same styles as celebrities.

There is also the emerging maternal and infant brand Babycare White Shell, which took advantage of the social topic #Only 30% of mothers in my country use painless childbirth# derived from the niche holiday "World Pain Relief Day" on October 11 last year, and created a wave of hot marketing #Mother's love does not require pain proof#, speaking for pregnant mothers and encouraging women to have painless childbirth.

This wave of Babycare publicity also captured the social psychology, sparked heated discussions and resonance among the public, and achieved great results with a small budget. This topic has been ranked first in the hot search list for a long time.

Moreover, it successfully output the brand concept and values, greatly improved user favorability, and effectively enhanced brand power. In addition, due to the success of this wave of topics, it has also become a part of Babycare's long-term brand management. It continues to speak out and invest resources in related activities, accumulating social assets for the brand.

Both of these cases are effective uses of Weibo hot topics, and are strong proof of how socialization can enhance brand power, expand communication capabilities, and strengthen sales capabilities.

3. Socialization is more important than precise traffic

There used to be a famous saying in the advertising industry: "I know that half of my advertising budget is wasted, but the problem is that I don't know which half." It refers to the generalization of the audience of traditional media, and advertisements are often delivered to a large number of non-target consumers.

Therefore, the first change brought to the advertising industry since the rise of the Internet is " precision ". With the support of data technology, we can accurately deliver advertisements to the target audience we want to reach.

In March 2011, China Business Network published a special article titled "Internet companies are destroying the traditional advertising industry." The article emphasized that "precision technology and big data are subverting the value of traditional advertising," which is exactly what it means.

In today's world dominated by traffic, corporate marketing often places too much emphasis on conversion figures, and is concerned about every click and touch of the target object, the resulting performance contribution and the resulting costs.

But the question is, if you push your ads to consumers, will they definitely watch them? It is more likely that consumers will not notice your ads at all, or will turn a blind eye to them and remain indifferent.

You know, for an advertisement to be effective, there are two steps: one is that consumers notice the existence of the advertisement, and the other is that consumers can remember/recall what brand the advertisement is.

Professor Sharp conducted a study, and the data showed that among all the people reached by an advertisement, 60% of them were not interested in your advertisement and did not pay attention to it at all. Secondly, among the remaining 40%, another 60% of them saw the advertisement but could not remember whose advertisement it was, and might even remember your advertisement as a competitor's. This means that an advertisement can only truly influence 16% of the total number of people reached.

Only when a brand is in an atmosphere of public attention and discussion, can the advertising effect be good. If a brand lacks social popularity, only conducts precise delivery and effective advertising, and only reaches its own target, then the final result will be greatly reduced. The so-called "precision" is actually not precise, but further pushes up advertising costs and causes a waste of advertising expenses.

The book "Attention Merchants" emphasizes that the battle for attention is the underlying logic of all business activities and the opening at the top of the sales conversion funnel. How much attention a brand can get determines the magnitude and efficiency of the final conversion.

There is nothing wrong with focusing on results when doing marketing, but don’t forget that the source of effect conversion is brand and socialization. In today’s social environment, if a brand wants to gain widespread and lasting attention, then a very good way is to use the Weibo platform to implement social communication through hot topics and topics. Socialization is an amplifier and a larger flow, and its significance far exceeds the simple effect delivery.

At the end of 2021, Jiang Xiaobai posted 100 statements on Weibo. These 100 statement posters were designed vividly and interestingly, not only cleverly popularizing the product quality, but also winning the favor of consumers in a humorous and self-deprecating way.

Although not everyone has the patience to look at all 100 posters, the topic #Jiang Xiaobai issues 100 statements in a row# became a hot topic, formed public opinion, and involved more consumers.

This round of communication has enhanced the reputation of Jiang Xiaobai brand at the public level, won the public's favor and improved the brand image. This is actually a very important thing for Jiang Xiaobai at present, which is much more important than simply communicating to its target audience that Jiang Xiaobai has "launched new products with better quality".

Brand building is not just about influencing the target audience. Non-target audiences are sometimes equally important. Earlier this year, FENDI and Moutai collaborated with Heytea and Luckin Coffee. For high-end and luxury brands like FENDI and Moutai, if they only pursued reaching target users accurately, there would be no need to do these collaborations.

However, Porsche has a good saying: "Most people know, few people understand". The so-called high-end means that most people look up to it, and few people own it. If the majority of people don't look up to it, then the minority will not want to own it. Therefore, the marketing of high-end brands cannot only be done for high-end people, but also for the general public, to form an influence at the social level.

In the collaboration between Moutai and Luckin Coffee’s sauce-flavored latte, there is unsurprisingly a view online that Luckin Coffee made a fortune while Moutai suffered a huge loss, and that a cup of coffee at 19 yuan seriously lowered Moutai’s status as a famous liquor and its high-end grade.

But in fact, Moutai has also benefited a lot from this cross-border collaboration, because time and time again, the hot spots have increasingly enhanced the halo effect of Moutai that has attracted nationwide attention and heated discussions, and has instead consolidated Moutai's status as the "national liquor". When people mention liquor, they immediately think of Moutai, and it has further expanded the penetration rate and influence of sauce-flavored liquor in the liquor market.

This is true for high-end brands, and even more so for mass brands. Because one of the main psychological factors driving consumer purchases is herd consumption and authority worship. I will only buy products that everyone else buys. Therefore, in a socialized atmosphere, the effect of traffic will be maximized and sales barriers will be removed.

Socialization is the source of traffic and popularity. With this endless stream of living water, brands will have power, vitality, and sales will be motivated. From the perspective of brand building, helping brands achieve socialization is the most important value of Weibo. It allows brands to fully integrate into users' life scenes and win user recognition through cultural resonance.

2. The power of socialization

1. Socializing leads to participation, and participation leads to relationships

In 2022, Ele.me launched a free-of-charge event on Weibo. This event was not a direct coupon or cashback event, but a game-based quiz event.

Ele.me posted an interactive question about free meals on its official Weibo account, and netizens guessed the free meal time based on the clues in the question. With this gameplay, consumers responded enthusiastically and had a lot of fun. Various wonderful jokes and hot topics were frequently posted, and #hungryfreemefreeme# frequently appeared on the hot search (about 20 times in total).

This activity not only successfully broke the circle, but also had a very good sustainability, which was well received and became a major marketing hit last summer. Therefore, the second season of the free meal activity of Ele.me started again this year, and the overall cumulative exposure has exceeded 8 billion so far.

Many brands will do promotions to attract consumers and stimulate sales through discounts, benefits, free gifts, discounts for purchases above a certain amount, and free items. However, these conventional practices often attract a group of people who will disappear without a trace after taking advantage of the situation, leaving the brand with nothing.

Ele.me made full use of Weibo's social ecology and hot spots to attract a group of users and achieve retention and activation. This has multiplied the effect of simply doing a promotional activity and has also gained huge influence at the brand level.

Consumers participate in Ele.me's activities not only to get free meals, but also to be willing to play with the brand. In this social process, consumers will feel close to and have a good impression of the brand, and only with this kind of relationship can there be long-term retention.

We used to think that attitude determines behavior, but social psychology has long proven that it is not attitude that determines behavior, but behavior that influences attitude . What we do will change our attitude. If consumers frequently participate in the brand's marketing activities and interact with the brand, their attitude will naturally "keep up" with their behavior, and they will have a corresponding good impression, sense of identity, and sense of belonging to the brand.

It's just like between good friends. It's hard to tell whether it's because of the deep friendship that they play together so often, or it's because they play together so often that their friendship becomes deeper and deeper.

The Little Prince says: " It is the time I spend with my rose that makes my rose so important ."

Because the little prince had watered his rose, covered her with a canopy, shielded her from wind and rain, removed caterpillars for her, listened to her complaints and self-praise, and often looked at her silently. So she was the little prince's rose, and this one alone was much more important than all the roses in the world.

2. Social media creates fans, and fans spread

There is a famous 1990 rule in marketing. It means that a brand should influence 9% of the relevant population through 1% of the core population, and then radiate the remaining 90% of the general population through these 9% of people, thereby achieving the diffusion of the brand among the groups and the transformation of different circles.

For any brand, most of its consumers are the "silent majority". They are indifferent to the brand, have no feelings, and do not actively participate in the brand's marketing activities. If a brand wants to leverage the mass consumer group, the best way is to make good use of the power of core fans.

Lululemon, for example, has become the world's second largest sports brand in just a few years. The key to its success is to use fitness coaches and yoga teachers as brand ambassadors, using their personal social influence to drive the core consumer group of fitness and yoga enthusiasts, and then use the word-of-mouth and recommendations of this group of people to radiate to the general public.

Another example is Patagonia, which has become very popular in recent years. It has also captured the attention of the IT elites in Silicon Valley and the financial elites on Wall Street. Through their demonstration effect, it has triggered the enthusiasm and imitation of Patagonia in the whole society.

The same is true for McDonald's. Ever since KFC's Crazy Thursday sparked a nationwide carnival, many people have been joking about when McDonald's will come up with a big move to deal with KFC. Now the big move has come, and that is "McGate."

"Maimen" was originally a spontaneous meme created by consumers online. At the end of 2022, McDonald's officially "claimed" Maimen, and began to frequently mention Maimen in daily Weibo operations, and released Maimen emoticons, Maimen literary memes, etc. around its creative content; on the other hand, McDonald's also began to repeatedly use Maimen to interact with Weibo netizens.

This official way of playing with memes has led more and more consumers to consider themselves "McMen believers" and spontaneously create a large amount of content for McMen, helping McMen to become completely popular and become McDonald's iconic marketing event, which has involved more people.

For brand marketing, it is important to be good at using social networks to influence mass consumers through loyal fans and interpersonal relationships. There is a saying that the best advertising is still word of mouth. Consumers are more willing to believe in recommendations from real users than official brand marketing information. Specifically, it is to establish close relationships with a small number of consumers through brand socialization, turn them into fans, and then influence the public through their sharing, recommendations, and voices.

Especially at a time when traffic dividends are reaching their bottom and consumers are becoming more and more segmented, only by strengthening interaction and co-creation with fans can we achieve real breakthrough communication. Brand social networking can achieve greater and more lasting brand influence than buying traffic to prolong its life.

To do this well, brands must fully understand consumers and social and cultural psychology. At the same time, they must make better use of the ecosystem of Weibo, find good hot spots and ways to enter, strengthen connections with consumers, and thus leverage the power of hundreds of millions of users.

3. Social is more important than private

In recent years, there is a very popular marketing concept in China, called "private domain". Although the essence of private domain is also to manage customer relationships, strengthen connections with customers, and allow customers to retain, activate and monetize in the brand's own channels and marketing positions. However, in actual operations, the essence of private domain is to create groups and issue coupons.

In fact, many brands are not suitable for private domains, which is determined by the product attributes. Only those products with good customer unit price and high repurchase frequency are suitable for private domains. A typical example is Luckin Coffee, which is very successful in private domains because coffee can be drunk every day.

But there are still a lot of products, not to mention durable goods such as cars, home appliances, home furnishings, consumer electronics, etc., such as laundry detergent, shampoo, condiments and other fast-moving consumer goods that I have served in the past, which are difficult to do private domain, because these products can be used for about half a year after purchase. So how do you operate the private domain in these six months?

For these categories, the goal of user management is obviously not to add WeChat groups or even to encourage repeat purchases. Instead, it is to establish closer user relationships through socialization, share and recommend brands through word of mouth from fans, and in times of crisis, they are willing to speak up for and support the brand.

Looking at the most outstanding entrepreneurs at home and abroad today, they all make good use of this power, such as Lei Jun and Li Xiang on Weibo in China, and Musk on X abroad.

Once brands and consumers have established social connections, subsequent private domain operations and group sales will be a natural progression. Before a relationship is established, as soon as a brand meets a consumer, it is necessary to add the consumer on WeChat and pull him into a private domain group to sell goods. Such group chats will soon be folded or blocked by consumers, and the account will be unfollowed or blocked. Socialization is greater than private domain.

From a brand perspective, socialization strengthens the connection between brand and culture, and gains public opinion and word-of-mouth support at the social level, which enables the brand to gain authority and respect.

Socialization strengthens user relationships, gaining a group of fans in normal times and gaining support from fans at critical moments. At the same time, both can make the brand more intimate and familiar to consumers. These indicators and dimensions are the basis of brand power.

From the perspective of marketing growth, socialization can expand brand exposure and attract more traffic and users through hot searches and topics; socialization can increase the stickiness of existing users and attract more users through users' interpersonal relationships and social networks.

Socialization is responsible for "push" and socialization is responsible for "pull", and the two form a closed loop. Grasping these two means grasping the essence of brand marketing and the underlying logic of how brands function.

Author: Empty-handed

WeChat public account: Empty Hands (ID: firesteal13)