Brand VS advertising?

Brands are not built by advertising. There must be something wrong with companies that only use advertisements to hit the market.

Let's look at an air-conditioning brand: From the advertising expense plan of CCTV from June 5438+ 10 to August 2008, we can see that the total advertising expense of this air-conditioning brand in several mainstream channels of CCTV is as high as 80 million. Therefore, some people say that the fundamental purpose of air-conditioning brands is to smash a market with advertisements.

Actually, the problem is not that simple.

In fact, the idea of advertising for enterprises is very simple, that is, to raise awareness anyway, and then add a push to the terminal to activate sales.

This is one of the most primitive primary concepts.

This kind of thinking is very useful when the market is in the growth stage, but it won't have much effect when the market is mature, because high cognition can't drive much sales, and consumers have reached the stage of demand and income of personality choice.

This is basically the case with the air-conditioning brands mentioned above. Although advertisements are being advertised every day, consumers still buy whatever they should, and simply ignore it!

Because a brand is composed of many elements, and advertising is just one of many elements. No brand will be out of control because of an advertising film and a slogan ... advertising is the external performance of the brand, and the internal performance of the brand is interpreted through vision and hearing. If your brand has no internal form, then no matter how good your advertisement is, it is undoubtedly "beyond the golden jade" and "among the failures".

In the brand creation at the advertising level, advertisements facing consumers mainly lie in the overall communication ability of advertisements and the combination of rationality and sensibility, that is, the combination of "brain attraction" and "soul attraction". Advertising can introduce emotional value in some way, which other marketing combination elements can't do. The versatility and flexibility of advertising means that it can attract the senses and affect the mood, and no other tool has this permanent feature. This is because we live in an era of visual culture, and the number of consumers dominated by advertisements is increasing.

After the product is determined, advertising is the best tool to provide lasting attention, breakthrough, emotion and differentiation. Without advertisements, even the best products may be "bred in the inner room, and no one knows her".

Of course, advertising has more functions. Advertising can bring pride and self-confidence to employees, shape self-image and highlight enterprise characteristics. This is the intuitive advantage of advertising for brand building compared with other modes of communication. But it will be more and more difficult to build a brand only by a single advertisement. Just as the leading position of television in the media industry has declined, so has the leading role of advertising in marketing. The expenditure of enterprises on telemarketing, direct mail advertising, e-mail, in-store display and other forms of non-media advertising is increasing.

More and more differentiated markets need one-to-one communication, rather than one-to-many communication like advertising.

The advertising investment of international brands is shifting from mass media communication to promotion activities, public relations activities, event sponsorship, database marketing and other forms. Some brands are implementing the strategy of obtaining advertising time of domestic TV stations by making and playing TV dramas, and even writing product information into scripts, thus influencing consumers' purchasing decisions more effectively and subtly.

These changes are closely related to the adaptation of enterprises to this consumer-centered market environment: consumers with increasing voice will no longer blindly follow advertisements as before, especially when people born after 1970 become dominant consumers, the situation will become more complicated. Their attention has been divided into many pieces by various information tools, and the influence of advertisements spread through CCTV and satellite TV is declining.

As a result, the traditional advertising agency mechanism was gradually disintegrated: not only the media agency fee was compressed, but more advertisers began to bypass the agency and deal directly with the media to save money; For their own benefit, the media is also willing to do it. The new forces are involved in the advertising industry, and artists and film directors directly cooperate with manufacturers to carry out communication activities without the arrangement of advertising agents. The expenditure of marketing expenses will also develop from mass media advertisements familiar to traditional advertising companies to non-traditional media projects (such as promotion, public relations, roadshows, etc. ). Advertising companies that live on media advertising will have a narrower and narrower road in the future.

Both global advertising companies and local small advertising companies are looking for good solutions. Many companies are trying to become an all-encompassing monster, infiltrating into public relations, online and offline interaction, exhibition organization, creative selling, media planning, and the result is nothing more than a four-unlike organization.

When solving new problems and meeting new demands, enterprises often become at a loss. They choose public relations companies, promotion planning companies and SMS service companies, but they find that too many divisions make these companies unable to provide completely effective solutions, only "pre-meal snacks".

What marketing needs is a "change of mentality"-how do we establish contact with today's consumers? From "telling stories to trigger sales" to establishing a strong relationship with consumers. This means that enterprises don't have to do marketing through media advertisements.

1. Online and offline interaction

The advertising revenue of CCTV more than doubled from 2000 to 2005, from 5.29 billion yuan to 124 billion yuan. However, many consumers in China are indifferent to the indiscriminate bombing of advertisements, even more resistant than consumers in western markets. For example, a statistic in 2004 is very telling. During 72% of TV commercials, viewers in China will leave their rooms or change channels, which is much higher than that in other countries. Of course, enterprises should advertise in the mass media, but they should consider more effective methods. Many consumers in China are used to making decisions before paying, so enterprises can also persuade them to change their decisions at the last minute. Although there are many differences between product categories, in general, companies should consider balanced marketing methods, that is, more emphasis on unconventional methods than developed markets, that is, so-called offline marketing, such as price promotion and terminal display.

When Coca-Cola Company wanted to attract a new generation of teenagers to become target consumers, it did not take the form of inserting TV advertisements in Grammy Awards or Super Bowl, but attracted the target audience to the "Coca-Cola Red Pavilion". This red lounge is located in a super shopping center in the northern suburb of Los Angeles, which is dedicated to the gathering and entertainment of shoplifters. The hall is equipped with acoustic dome and multimedia wall with plasma display screen, so people can enjoy their unique music, movies and videos. The Red Pavilion will soon become a gathering place for young people in the afternoon or evening. Then coca-cola will naturally achieve its goal.

2. Flexible use of reports and word of mouth, sponsorship

Reporting is a low-cost way to raise awareness. As long as the differences are obvious and topical, there are many opportunities to be adopted by the media. At the same time, by establishing close relationships with specific customers, the possibility of relying on word of mouth to ensure loyal customer groups will also expand. Although the cost of large-scale sponsorship is high, if you focus on the goal, you can effectively approach customers.

3. Flexible use of websites

On the website, even individuals can send information to the whole world, which can become a powerful marketing tool for small and medium-sized enterprises. However, in order to improve the click-through rate, it is best to provide rich information for specific fans, with very concentrated goals and obvious characteristics.

Huiyuan, the leading fruit juice beverage brand in China, launched its "True" series in 2002. At first, Huiyuan chose Gianna Jun, the star of My Barbarian Girlfriend, as the image spokesperson, and made a big TV advertisement, but it did not widen the gap with competing brands, and the market effect was not ideal. Finally, after a detailed comparison with competing products, Huiyuan found that the competitive advantage of "Zhen" series lies in the quality of the products themselves, because aseptic cold canning is produced by low-temperature sterilization, which better retains the nutrition of fruits and tastes more pure than the high-temperature sterilization used by competing products. So, how to convey the distinctive quality of Huiyuan products to consumers? After repeated analysis, Huiyuan finally adopted the experiential promotion method and launched a terminal tasting promotion activity called "Fresh and Delicious" in major supermarkets across the country. In the tasting activities, Huiyuan "Zhen" series products and competitive products were unpacked, so that consumers could personally feel the difference in product quality. Through this interactive tasting activity, consumers deeply remembered the product characteristics of Huiyuan "Zhen" series. Through this experiential promotion, Huiyuan's "True" series was quickly accepted by consumers, and the sales in that year exceeded 1 100 million yuan, becoming the winner of the juice and beverage market in 2003.

4. Balance between extension and persistence

With the disintegration of the old business division of labor, a strong brand of an industry can provide credibility protection for its entry into other fields.

After Yunnan Baiyao entered the toothpaste market, its sales increased rapidly from 80 million in 2005 to 220 million in 2006 and then to 580 million in 2007. In the China toothpaste market with increasingly subdivided functions, fierce price wars and high brand loyalty, it is self-evident that Yunnan Baiyao's century-old brand can achieve such achievements.

This shows the strategic value of brand extension. However, coins always have two sides. Brands are like rubber bands. Although it has enough elastic stretch, there is always a limit.

Although many enterprises use diversification and expansion to fully tap the brand value, it also blurs consumers' impression of the original products. For example, Levi's, an old brand of jeans, once expanded its brand and added production lines such as casual pants and office pants, so that Levi's logo appeared on all pants-related products. Such expansion has blurred consumers' impression of Levi's, and it is not clear what positioning Levi's is. After discovering this problem, Levi's decided to reposition, concentrate on the jeans market and create a new brand for the newly developed casual pants. Now, Levi's has not only become an international enterprise with an output value of billions of dollars, but also the newly developed casual pants have become the first best-selling brand in the United States.

For another example, Nike once thought that jeans could be put on the market as accessories for sportswear, and even signed agreements with sports stars to promote sales. Fortunately, Nike woke up fast enough to stop in time.

When the business community talks about this issue, it always talks about Virgin, the most successful cross-border brand, which started from the music field and has done quite well in aviation, vodka, financial services and other fields.

However, Virgin is a special case, and its founder richard branson is a "rare animal" among entrepreneurs. And Virgin can do this, which has a lot to do with the inherent tension of this brand.

The experience, environment, resources, channels and manpower preparation of China enterprises in brand building do not fully support the rapid extension of brands.

We all know that Wahaha children's drinks are far ahead in the domestic market, but the influence of this brand in the children's wear market is obviously very different.

Seven wolves is a leader in the domestic clothing industry, but after extending its brand to skin care products, its performance is flat.

Some enterprises have just entered the market and started to roll over in expressway, just because they, like the old fisherman in the fairy tale "Fisherman and Goldfish" written by Russian poet Pushkin, try to "have more, the better" and try to kill all industries with a brand that has just had a little market influence.

In the early 1980s, Xerox, the leader of the copier industry, decided to expand its business scope to the field of financial services. Its subsidiaries include two insurance companies, an investment bank and a mutual fund. However, when the "financier" closed down on 1992, the company's after-tax income was offset by 778 million dollars, and it was announced that it had completely withdrawn from the financial field. The Wall Street Journal said: "The decision to quit came too late because Xerox didn't want to admit defeat. At its peak, Xerox expanded its business into the financial sector. As a result, I saw that this investment was not good for the company, but it caused harm. " Sometimes it seems that brand extension with high industrial relevance is the most natural. Because of the different resource requirements, there is often an insurmountable invisible trench in the middle.

1965 None of the top ten vacuum tube manufacturers in the world is the top ten semiconductor manufacturers in 1975. In just ten years, many large companies have given up halfway because their technology cannot be upgraded. Theoretically speaking, from the motor industry to the electronics industry, we only need to take a step forward in science and technology. But in fact, it may be much worse.

Bertelsmann, the most influential publishing group, has far less influence on the Internet than Amazon, and Wal-Mart and Carrefour, the traditional retail giants, have far less influence on the Internet than Yi Bei and Taobao.

This reflects the universal principle of society-no one can have everything.

Winners are never greedy, and all kinds of temptations are the tests that brands often face when ensuring that they are not short of money, especially those companies with small achievements.

Never forget that despite unlimited desires, enterprises have limited resources, limited capabilities and limited knowledge.

From the distribution of consumers' psychological resources, consumers like simplicity, hate complexity, can only accept limited information, and too many ideas are easy to lose focus. IBM is unwilling to give up any computer field, so it has become the target of personal computer franchisees (Compaq, Packaging, Portal, Dell, etc.). ), server franchisees (Shengyang, Hewlett-Packard, etc. ) and software franchisees (Microsoft, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Lotus, etc. It is not the government that has curbed the monopoly of enterprises, but the psychology of customers.

All this is doomed that no brand can completely occupy the market.

In fact, in the face of desire, proper moderation seems to give up too much in the market, but eventually get more.

At some point in the 20th century, Reader's Digest magazine in the United States once conducted such a reader survey, "Please rank the geography departments of the best universities in the United States". About 60% of the respondents think it is the geography department of Harvard University, but Harvard University does not have a geography department. From this example, it can be seen that for readers or the public, the professional advantages created by Harvard University in some aspects can be effectively radiated to other fields-provided that this advantage effect is not infinitely diluted. This is the magic of social laws.

Smart brand managers can recognize the inherent limitations of their own brands, just as they recognize a lot of opportunities under their control.

When an enterprise tries to expand its business scope to make full use of the brand effect, it will lose its center of gravity and eventually lose its original market share without exception. This situation will not happen overnight, but a gradual process.

Instead of investing in several brands on average, we should concentrate our business resources on specific brands, which is the basic strategy that domestic small and medium-sized enterprises should adhere to. In this regard, it can be said that the business strategy of a single brand is not the most effective, and it is best to effectively and flexibly use the brand extension of the main brand and sub-brand. Today, Sony is already a giant enterprise. However, when the company was very young, it focused on its own AV field and established a good brand image in this field until today.

For brand operators, especially China enterprises that have just started to succeed, it is necessary to remember this: Don't be a victim of "dilution method", because when you are overwhelmed by new business, you could have made the original brand at hand create double profits for you and make its market competitiveness rise to a higher level.