What is a "sense of co-creation" brand? Be in awe of great thinkers and explorers (1)

We should start with the definition of brand to explore the beginning of co-creation, rather than from trends and digitalization, and limiting users and user needs. This article will start from the two questions of "what is a brand" and "how to brand" in different eras to answer its theoretical evolution, and is recommended for friends in the brand industry to read.

Change and innovation require passion, imagination and an adventure manual, and the "Sense of Co-creation" series may be it!

When exploring the beginning of the "sense of co-creation", we do not start from trends and digitalization, do not limit ourselves to users and user needs, do not think about challenges and anxieties, do not cite new consumption and classic cases, but start with the definition of "brand".

If we can eliminate some of the traditional perceptions of the brand, perhaps we can make more room for a sense of co-creation.

The structure of this article follows the evolution of theories in different eras to answer the questions “What is a brand?” and “How to brand?”:

1. 1. What is not a brand?
2. 2. What is a brand? ——1.0@Industrial and Commercial Era: Identity + Image + Commitment
3. 3. What is a brand? ——2.0@PC Internet: Experience + Participation
4. 4. What is a brand? ——3.0@Digital Era: Co-creation and Sharing

Now, enter our grand yet exquisite brand journey!

Chapter 1: Be in awe of the great brand thinkers!

We start with a detailed question of "what a brand is not and what a brand is" :

1. What is not a brand?

What is not a brand? — A brand is not a logo, an identification system, a product, a founder, and most importantly, it is not a company.

1. A brand is not a logo

The word LOGO is an abbreviation of business logotype, which is a visual expression from the personalized logo vocabulary [logos means words in Greek].

Whether it is the letters of IBM, the check mark of Nike, or the Aquaman of Starbucks, they are trademarks and identification symbols, but they are definitely not brands. They are just "symbols" of a certain brand.

2. Brand is not a corporate image or identification system

Corporate identity CIS was formed in the 20th century, controlling corporate identity and brand trademarks, their standardized application in various scenarios, and maintaining consistent image output.

Although Brand Identity (BI) is the first and foremost thing in building a brand, it can never be said that brand is brand identity, because brand CIS (BI&VI&MI) and consistency alone can never build a brand.

Note: BI later evolved into brand identity prism and brand image.

3. Brand is not a product

1985 was a watershed in marketing history and one of the most important symbolic events in brand history.

Previously, all brand awareness was centered around “products” and was not separated from or equivalent to products.

In 1985, Coca-Cola launched New Coke, which triggered an unexpected user boycott and fundamentally impacted the traditional brand concept. Since then, both brand theorists and entrepreneurs have opened up an independent living space for brands.

In fact, as early as 1960, Steve King expressed in What is a Brand:

Products are produced by factories, and brands are purchased by customers.

Products can be copied by competitors, but brands are unique.

Products can quickly become outdated, but successful brands can last forever.

--Steve King

4. The brand is not the founder

In 1896, Armand Peugeot inherited his parents' ironworks, making springs, saws and bicycles, but he decided to enter the automotive industry.

So he set up a limited company. Although the company's name is the same as his last name, the company is not equal to him.

If one of the company's cars got into an accident, the buyer could sue Peugeot, but not Armand Peugeot himself.

If the company borrowed millions and went bankrupt, Armand Peugeot himself would not have to pay a penny to the company's creditors.

After all, the loan was given to Peugeot, not to Armand Peugeot himself.

Because of this, although Armand Peugeot died in 1915, the Peugeot company is still thriving today.

——Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Mr. Buffett once said, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and only 5 minutes to destroy it." Always remember this and you will make different choices.

Another equally wise quote: "It takes thousands of people to build a reputation, but one or a few can destroy it." Think about this, and you will still make a different choice."

5. A brand is not a company

Finally, let’s read the case of Peugeot in “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”:

Peugeot started out as a small family business in France, but is now a massive automaker with 200,000 employees worldwide, most of whom are completely strangers to each other.

By what criteria can we say that Peugeot SA actually exists?

• There are many Peugeot-made vehicles on the road, but these cars are obviously not the company. Even if all Peugeot cars in the world were recycled and turned into scrap metal at the same time, Peugeot would not disappear. Peugeot would still be able to continue to manufacture new cars and write new annual reports.
• In addition, the company has factories, machines, showrooms, and employs technicians, accountants, and secretaries, but even if all these are added together, they do not equal Peugeot.
• Even if a disaster struck, killing all Peugeot employees and destroying all assembly lines and offices, the company could still borrow money, rehire employees, rebuild factories, and buy new machines.
• Although Peugeot also has a management team and shareholders, these people are not equal to the company. Even if the management team is dissolved and the shareholders sell all their shares, the company itself still exists.
• However, it is not to say that Peugeot is indestructible and impossible to destroy. As long as a judge orders the company to be dissolved, although the company's factories still exist, employees, accountants, managers and shareholders continue to live, but Peugeot will disappear just like that?

Even if Peugeot is dissolved, the brand still exists.

• It can be acquired and used by other companies, and then continue to use the logo and technology in its usual style to produce and manufacture it and sell it all over the world.
• In short, Peugeot has no physical connection with the world. Does it really exist?

The Peugeot brand is just our "collective imagination".

So, brands, like countries, ethnicities, and religions, are really our “collective imagination” ?

2. What is a brand? ——1.0@Industry and Commerce Era

The discussion on "What is a brand?" will be even more brain-burning.

In different eras, brand founders, advertisers, marketers, and scholars have given different answers. There is no high or low, no right or wrong answer, but they inspire each other, merge with each other, and evolve comprehensively in each other's achievements.

The following content is condensed from Professor Lu Taihong's "A Brief History of Brand Thought".

As we all know, the development of commerce is a long process. Just talking about the phenomenon of branding, it appeared in China as early as the Shang and Zhou Dynasties and in Europe in the Middle Ages. The white skull and bone fork may be the world's first global brand recognition.

Brands in the modern sense came into being in the late 19th century with the marketing efforts of such century-old companies as Budweiser (1795), Morgan (1799), DuPont (1802), Procter & Gamble (1852), Burberry (1856), Louis Vuitton (1854), Levi’s (1873), General Motors (1876), Coca-Cola (1887), Kodak (1888), Shell (1891), Geely (1901), Ford (1903), Harley-Davidson (1903), and Disney (1923).

The word "brand" first appeared in 1922 and was merely a tool in marketing practice; later it became one of the strategic goals of an enterprise (one of the indicators of corporate strategy (Porter) is to build a brand image); and the specialization of brand research was not formally proposed until 1950, when David Ogilvy published "Products and Brands" in the "Harvard Business Review".

Since Philip Kotler, the father of modern marketing, published "Marketing Management" in 1967 and systematically expounded on marketing, brand and marketing have always been inseparable.

Therefore, in the past 100 years, in the questioning and exploration of "what is a brand?" and "how to brand?", concepts and theories have continued to be enriched and the boundaries have been continuously expanded. Unfortunately, brands are often confused with purpose, brand and method, brand and marketing.

1. What is a brand?

• The most original meaning of brand includes - imprint, mark and label (brandr=brand) .
• The meaning of modern brands has gradually been enriched to include logo recognition, trademark protection, promotional tools, commitment, added value and intangible assets.
• The definitions of brands by the American Marketing Association and Wikipedia are far behind - a brand is a name, term, design symbol, etc., and the core is differentiation.
• Advertising Pope David Ogilvy believes that a brand is the sum of the intangibles (a brand is the intangible sum of various attributes of a product, including name, packaging, history, price, reputation, and its advertising performance).
• Advertising godfather Leo Burnett declared that a brand is a symbol, that is, a certain psychological image created by the brand identity.
• In 1955, SJ Levy, a brand thinker and PhD in psychology, proposed that a brand is an image in the minds of consumers (and extended it to forward-looking theories such as symbol-symbol and brand meaning).
• In 1986, CW Parker, the founder of brand rationality, proposed that a brand is a symbol. (A brand can symbolize quality and price, commitment, emotion, personality, relationship, or ideas, values, and culture).
• In 1991, David A Aaker, the originator of brand assets, believed that a brand is a collection of customer associations, the purpose of which is differentiation, and that a brand is an asset (see later for later cognition) .
• In 1998, Keller (K.L. Keller), the leader of modern brand academics, said that brand = added value (the brand itself has value) (Brand is capitalized Brand, including differentiation, cognition, commitment and respect; it is particularly pointed out that brand is the added value beyond the product)
• Philip Kotler, the father of modern marketing - Brand is identification and differentiation/1994; Brand is a commitment and perception/1997; Brand is name + symbol + association/2016 (constantly updating the brand concept) .
• Jack Trout and Al Ries, the founders of positioning theory, believe that brand = category + brand name. (Al Ries once said, "Brand is a unique idea and concept implanted in the minds of potential customers")
• …….

2. How to brand?

"Branding" has followed the upgrading of cognition and practical exploration, and has also undergone countless evolutions: from identification-centered → sales-centered → communication-centered → customer relationship-centered.

The methodology has developed into: unique selling proposition (USP) → positioning category proposition (PSP) → self-selling proposition (MSP) → integrated marketing communications (IMC) → brand sales (BSP) → experience marketing (ESP) → value innovation of "Blue Ocean Strategy" → brand prototype.

Of course, there are also many management models: Brand Concept Management (BCM) - Brand Equity Five-Star Model (BE) - Strategic Brand Management (SBM) - Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) - Brand Resonance Model (BRP).

Different times have different starting points (enterprise-based, market-based, or customer-based), different angles (business genes or cultural genes), and different logic (rationality-dominated or emotion-dominated). Of course, brand concepts, goals, values, methodologies, content, etc. are different.

Special note: Why do we still need to study and be familiar with these old-generation brand ideas in the digital age? Because these basic forces are still being applied and interpreted in daily brand creation. These basic principles represent the top ideas in brand thinking. They are highly superimposed forces, interdependent and mutually reinforcing.

3. What is a brand? ——2.0@Internet era

In 2000, “bringing the distance closer” brought the PC Internet era of “The World Is Flat” to the fore.

The series of changes brought about by Internet technology are like a bulldozer array, flattening the world. No matter where you are, whether you are a large enterprise or a small enterprise, as long as you can catch the train of globalization, you can show your style on the world stage. ——"The World Is Flat" 2006

Then a new melody of brand and marketing emerged - "brand relationship/relationship marketing" became the new ideological commanding heights.

Different from previous perspectives such as brand identity, image, positioning and assets, "brand relationship" includes three major changes and shifts:

• Marketing has shifted from being centered on “transactions” to being centered on “relationships” (i.e., sales or deals are no longer the most important thing, building relationships is the top priority);
• From focusing on "corporate development" to focusing on "customer experience" . (Good sales can only represent the present, not the future);
• From "things" to "people" , from focusing on "satisfaction" to focusing on "experience" . (The question in the past was: How can I make you more satisfied? The question now is: What is your experience like and how to activate a better experience.)

1. So, "what is a brand" and "how to brand"?

This new story begins with Fournier (1998), the founder of the "consumer-brand relationship theory", Moniz (2001), the founder of the "brand community theory", Schmidt, the founder of the "brand experience theory", and MacLean and Park, the core scholars of the "brand attachment theory".

They believe that brand refers to the relationship between the brand and the user , which includes the following three lines:

• Consumer self;
• Brand meaning;
• There is a connection, fit, and interaction between the two, in which emotion plays an important role.

To put it in Chinese, "Birds of a feather flock together" - what brands users like depends on themselves, but also on the personality and meaning of the brand.

Professor Lu Taihong put the evolution of the "customer-brand" relationship over time on a graph and found that users are gradually being placed in the main position and are becoming more and more important.

• Brand feeling (1955): warmth, fun, excitement, security, identity, self-esteem.
• Customer satisfaction (1965-1980): customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, etc.
• Brand Experience (1999): "Experience Marketing" (1999), etc.
• User participation (2003/2005): "Brand Community" (2001), Xiaomi's "Sense of Participation".
• User Immersion (2011): This is exactly the focus of this article, "sense of co-creation" and brand community (detailed later).

2. At the same time, those masters who keep pace with the times and look forward to the future began to upgrade the concept of "what is a brand".

In 2014, David Aaker, the originator of brand equity, gave another exquisite answer to the definition of brand based on his 30 years of academic and practical training:

A brand is more than just a name or a logo, it is a company's promise to consumers, it delivers not only functional benefits to consumers, but also emotional, self-expressive and social benefits. But a brand is more than just the fulfillment of a promise, it is more like an experience of a journey, a consumer relationship that evolves in the perception and experience of each contact with the brand.

To put it simply: brand = identification + commitment + multiple values ​​+ experience + relationship.

Philip Kotler also updated the definition of "brand" in the 16th edition of "Principles of Marketing" in 2016:

A brand is more than just a name or a symbol. It is a key element in the relationship between a company and its consumers. It reflects how consumers perceive, feel and what it means to them about a product or service.

What’s more, Kotler believed in 2017 that today’s companies have lost the right to shape their brands, and brands are increasingly shaped by customers who can communicate with each other online.

4. What is a brand? ——3.0@Digital Era

Once digitized, any technology will break free from the constraints of Moore's Law and begin to develop exponentially.

——《The Future is Roaring》

From PC Internet to mobile Internet, it has only been 10 years. What has happened?

In 2010, Apple launched the iPhone 4 with a high-resolution display and front-facing camera, sounding the clarion call for the rapid development of smartphones;

In 2010, Facebook's visits surpassed Google for the first time;

In 2010, Youtube underwent a major revision, and the number of daily video views reached 2 billion;

2010 was the first year of China’s microblogging;

In 2010, Instagram was launched;

In 2011, Snapchat was launched;

In 2012, WeChat public accounts were born.

▲Time Magazine cover "YOU" in 2006 + Facebook's 500 million users in 2010

The exponential technology integration that beats Moore's Law has begun, including immersive experience and digital marketing, cloud computing and the metaverse, drones and new energy vehicles, low carbon and sustainability... Countless imaginations that were once out of reach are slowly unfolding before us.

Through mobile Internet and intelligent algorithms, "digital" is aggregated into stronger creativity, and is added to every corner of life in a stumbling and passionate way, and of course it also empowers every brand.

Former business giants and brands have either left the stage or lost their glory, including Kodak, Nokia, Sears, GE, and JWT; while Apple, Amazon, Google, Airbnb, Facebook, Uber, Tesla, TikTok, WeChat, Alipay, Meituan, Xiaomi, Huawei, etc. have emerged.

The boundaries between brands and innovation have become blurred. They no longer belong to or are limited to an industry, a company, a product or a category. These companies/brands are more like a large platform, an ecosystem, or a large tribe.

In addition, there is a type of brand called "DTC" in Europe and the United States, which is called "new consumption" in China. They are establishing themselves, rising up, growing in the wind, and leading the way.

Warby Parker, Dollar Shave Club, Allbilds, Casper, Harry's, Everlane, Glossier, SHEIN, Manner, Sandonban, Perfect Diary, Huaxizi, Pop Mart, etc.

▲The picture is compiled from Internet data

Take Dollar Shave Club razors, for example.

In 2012, the company launched a viral video advertisement that cost only $4,500 and was shot in one day. The founder Michael starred in the advertisement and it was posted on YouTube for three hours, which received 12,000 orders. The total number of views of the video has reached 24 million.

Four years later (2016), the brand was acquired by Unilever for $1 billion.

They often achieve the same revenue and influence that those brands achieved in decades in just a few years.

What did they discover, what did they value, and what did they do? In other words, in the digital age of navigation, what is the certainty of the uncertainty of "brands and branding"?

1. The logic of brand creation has changed again in digital marketing.

The first is the prevalence of digital marketing, which includes three aspects:

• Digital communication: word-of-mouth marketing + digital community.
• New paths to brand creation: building connections; creating a fan platform; self-media; content marketing.
• Brand digital strategy: innovation (innovation of user value), connection (connection and relationship innovation), and cross-border (cross-industry).

These three points have made many of the DTC brands and new consumer brands mentioned above successful.

Based on the change in the brand creation path, the logic of brand creation has also undergone tremendous changes:

• From resonance model to fan model (1000 fans theory).
• From rationality to emotion (visual marketing/sensory branding/storytelling branding).
• "Continuously creating new value for users" has become the mainstream perception.

Furthermore, the innovation of brand thinking occurred again, and a new theory called "co-creation and sharing" and "brand community" emerged.

2. The origin and evolution of the idea and theory of “co-creation and sharing”

It took about 50 years for the brand concept of "co-creation and sharing" to be conceived and shine brightly.

1) Four great founders of the “co-creation and sharing” philosophy

The digital age is filled with a galaxy of innovative figures, and there is a group of scholars who have gained insights and innovated new perspectives on branding and marketing from multiple dimensions including philosophy, evolution, business, and innovation.

Peter Drucker - "The only purpose of business is to create customers."

The idea of ​​"creating innovative value for users" can be traced back to the insight of Peter Drucker, a pragmatic and visionary management guru, in his book "The Practice of Management" published in 1973 - "The only purpose of any business activity is to create customers."

Drucker was ahead of his time. He probably didn’t know that fifty years later, people would bring together the principles he focused on - innovation, marketing and user-first - and with the support of Starbucks’ Howard Schultz and Amazon’s Bezos, form today’s “User Thinking 4.0”.

James Carse - "There is only one infinite game."

In his 1987 book Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse tells a new story about the world of competition from a philosophical perspective.

How amazing:

• Kevin Kelly believes that it changed my view on life, the universe, and everything else.
• Meituan's Wang Xing said, "There is a book that has had a great influence on me - finite games are played within boundaries, but infinite games are played with boundaries, that is, with "rules", "exploring and changing the boundaries themselves."
• Let’s take a look at what Jobs, Bezos, Musk, and Zhang Yiming thought, did, and did about “breaking boundaries” and “long-termism.”

Kevin Kelly - "1,000 True Fans"

Then in 1994, futurist Kevin Kelly discussed in "Out of Control" the concepts that are emerging or popular today: mass wisdom, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, virtual reality, agile development, collaboration, win-win, symbiosis, co-evolution, online communities, network economy, etc.

In 2008, Kevin Kelly proposed the "1,000 True Fans" theory: To be a successful creator, you don't need millions of fans. As a craftsman, photographer, musician, designer, writer, app maker, entrepreneur or inventor, you only need 1,000 true fans. True fans are defined as fans who buy any of your products.

Clayton Christensen - "Innovation is about user progress, not products."

Innovation guru and Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen made a startling claim in his 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma - the failure of leading companies has nothing to do with innovative technology, but rather is due to taking customer needs as the absolute standard and being too customer-oriented.

In 2018's "Competing with Luck", he proposed the core of innovation - not satisfying users, nor products and focusing on competitors, but user progress, with the focus on progress.

Perhaps, these are the certainties we have been searching for in the uncertainty of "brand and branding" in the digital age of navigation: innovation, co-evolution, infinite games, and user progress.

2) Four explorers and creators of the “co-creation and sharing” brand theory

The exploration of brand and marketing masters is pragmatic and smooth.

In 1966, Adler proposed the concept of "symbiotic marketing".

The so-called "symbiotic marketing" means that two or more companies jointly develop marketing opportunities (perhaps the earliest cross-border theoretical research).

Unfortunately, this theory never gained attention until 20 years later, when Kotler developed "symbiotic marketing" into value network marketing, which gained more attention.

In 1996, Moore's "Business Ecosystem" theory

In 1996, American professor JF Moore proposed "creating a business ecosystem" in his book "The Decline and Fall of Competition".

Based on the theory of evolution, Moore proposed the unique insight that "interdependent species 'co-evolve' in an infinite cycle of interaction, playing an important role in the evolution of an ecosystem": in business strategy, "we cannot act alone, we must co-evolve."

Moore's "Brand Ecosystem Strategy" includes the following keywords:

• "Symbiosis" - is not based on competition analysis, but emphasizes co-evolution.
• "Cross-border" - the business has no boundaries and is no longer limited to a certain industry, nor does it belong to a certain industry.
• 「Enterprise Ecosystem Network」
• "Corporate/brand vision" - thereby creating attraction and leadership in the ecosystem and playing a leading role.

In 2000, Moniz and his "Brand Community"

From 1995 to 2001, Moniz spent six years to complete and perfect his proud book "Brand Community", and became the originator of brand community.

His definition of brand community is "a special social group formed based on the admiration of a certain brand, not restricted by geographical location"; and he advocates that customers and companies work together to create value.

Brand Ape prefers the definition in "Tribe": a group of people who are connected to each other, led by a leader, and gathered together with the same ideas become a tribe, or a community.

There are no customers, no management, no worship, but leaders, connections and common values.

The three most successful cases are: Harley, which is centered on offline communities, Wikipedia, which is a co-creation collaboration model, and Airbnb, an online community innovator.

In 2004, Prahalad’s “co-marketing” + “creating value with customers”

The scholar who made the greatest contribution to the theory of "sharing and co-creation" is CK Prahalad (1941-2010).

In 2004, he first proposed the concepts of "colaborative marketing" and "co-creating value with customers" (CCv) in his book "Competitive Future".

He believes that future marketing should include:

• Value point: co-creation experience
• Market role: co-creating a value platform through dialogue
• User role: Actively participate in value co-creation before consumption
• Corporate role: Involve customers in the value definition and co-creation process.
• Nature of interaction with users: Active dialogue with users and the community.

Later, Porter, the father of competition theory, adopted a new academic perspective and proposed the important theory of "creating shared value" in 2011, moving from "competition" to "sharing".

Later, the marketing godfather Kotler redefined marketing in the 16th edition (2016) - the process of establishing valuable and sustainable customer relationships by creating value for customers and " obtaining value from customers ."

From 2005 to 2018, "Customer Immersion" supported by many great people

In 2005, a new term "customer engagement CE" emerged. (Professor Lu Taihong translated it as customer engagement, while Brand Ape prefers to use "user engagement")

As Professor Lu Taihong said, "user immersion and integration". "Immersion" means penetration and "integration" means cooperation and co-creation. This concept is the new coordinate for the huge changes in marketing and branding in the digital age.

Because "user immersion" is different from "user experience", "user participation", "user attachment", and it is not CRM or membership marketing. It means that users and brands have become one.

From 2005 to 2018, this concept has been supported by many marketing masters and has become a new brand concept:

• Since 2005, interactive marketing and service marketing have merged into a new marketing concept "user immersion" under digitalization, and various discussions and papers have emerged one after another.
• Then, in 2010, the American Studies Institute listed "immersion" as a key research area to be prioritized for 2010-2012.
• Then, in 2013, brand academic leader Keller added "user immersion" in many places in "Strategic Brand Management" 4.0, and it became an independent chapter in the new version.
• Finally, in 2018, marketing godfather Philip Kotler incorporated the definition of "engagement" in the 17th edition of "Principles of Marketing", and once again updated the definition of "marketing" : the process of engaging customers and establishing sustainable customer relationships by creating value for customers and "obtaining value from customers".

From "symbiosis" to "ecology", from "co-creation" to "sharing", from "community" to "immersion", these ideas and theories have not only been successfully verified in the DTC brands and new consumer brands mentioned above, but have also gained new energy in the innovations of countless giants.

• In the early days, there were Apple’s APP store, Google’s developer conference, Wikipedia’s co-creation model, and Costco’s paid membership;
• Later, I became an Amazon Prime member, a Xiaomi member, a Lego player community, a Weilai super member, and a UP master on Bilibili, Tik Tok, and Xiaohongshu.
• In recent years, there have been the leading Lululemon, Nike's DTC strategy, Starbucks Odyssey plan, and the current DAO community...

At this point, the status of "co-creation and sharing" and "brand community" in future brand theory is beyond doubt.

3. The “roots” and development logic of the evolution of “co-creation and sharing”.

So, a new question arises: as a new force in branding, is “co-creation and sharing” a flash in the pan, or will it dominate for decades like “positioning”?

This requires exploring the roots of the "co-creation and sharing" idea and the logic of future development.

1) The “Roots” of Evolution — Digital Natives

Digitalization, like chaos, has given birth to a whole new kind of human being – digital natives.

Whether it is the Millennials (1984-1995) who have become the social elite, or the mainstream Generation Z (born after 1995), these two generations have unexpectedly merged into one whole - the "digital natives" who are always online .

Together, they have launched a "generational revolution" - integrating life into digitalization, rather than integrating digitalization into life.

They have three unprecedented features:

• "Sovereign Evolution" - the consumer subject has changed from "consumer in a narrow sense" to "active person".
• "New community" - breaking the point-to-point interactive network of time and space and the new community.
• "Creative Power" - Everyone is the creator of their future self and the future world.

Note: The characteristics of “digital natives” will be discussed in detail later.

2) Three “flips” in brand awareness

Digital natives, coupled with causally ambiguous technologies and media that inspire and merge with each other, and social forms that continue to be decentralized, new "brand" ideas and cognitive reversals naturally occur.

Flip 1: It is no longer the company that creates the brand, but the user.

Brand is no longer just identification, symbol and promise, but more of a user's intuition about a product, service or company. Obviously, a brand is not what you say it is, but what the people who come into contact with it say it is.

Flip 2: It’s no longer the company that owns the brand, but the users who derive meaning from the brand.

The new generation of users want to have the right to decide what to produce and how to produce, and are willing to roll up their sleeves to do something (share content and co-create products). The power of the brand is no longer concentrated in companies and leaders. In a very real sense, fans, super users and communities will become co-owners of the brand .

Flip 3: " Consumers " will be eliminated, and having members who make common progress is the future.

The new crowd is no longer "consuming" but "owning"; no longer focusing on products, but also "meaning", they build their identity by purchasing goods. This means that products are not innovative, but users are the innovation; in other words, helping or progressing with users to create a better life is easier to survive in the future than making money and increasing assets for yourself.

3) From “I” to “We” in the Community

When the above-mentioned "flip" happens, "we" come to the ecological trend and innovation community based on business and cultural construction.

• Change 1: Creating profits for shareholder companies and creating value for “us” and society
• Change 2: “My” marketing or “my” brand becomes “our” marketing or “our” brand
• Change 3: "I" create, becomes "we" create together.

The "I" here refers to the brand entity, including companies, organizations, and individuals; the "we" here refers to all participants who are connected by common ideas, including companies, employees, users, partners, and stakeholders.

4. In 2018, live towards the future.

If 2010 was the beginning of digital marketing and the exploration of "co-creation", then after 2018, it will be the inevitable opportunity and choice of "co-creation and sharing".

The confrontation between different ideologies intensified, the economic winter arrived, and the giants frequently called for "survival"; at the same time, the wind outlets tightened, the threshold for entrepreneurship increased, and the dividends disappeared. Although people still believe that every industry still has the opportunity to redo it with numbers, more brands have begun to use "long-termism" to interpret their understanding of uncertainty.

Brands realize that drastic changes will intensify, and fragmentation, deconstruction and flow are the norm; they also know that they can connect around any point and any scenario at any time, take action on their own, and form new contractual relationships; of course, they are more aware that people in real life are looking for more relationship bonding and symbiotic mechanisms.

More importantly, cognitive entrepreneurs become performers on the stage. With their self-awareness, global vision, and hybrid evolution, they personally verify the concept of "co-creation": empathy, co-conspiracy, co-construction, co-creation, symbiosis, and sharing of everything about the brand.

Reference books: "A Brief History of Brand Thought", "A Complete History of Business Strategy", "Brand Flip"

Author: Brand Yuan, WeChat public account: Brand Yuan (ID: brand-yuan)