Three times of brand strategy-2-hour brand literacy by Deng DeLong

Three evolution of brand strategy (divided into three ERAs)

 I. Product age

We witnessed the golden age of scarcity in 1980s at the beginning of the reform and opening-up period. At that time, the Competition began in the factory, and whose production speed was fast and whose financial resources were surging, at Henry Ford, the United States invented the assembly line operating system. At that time, the American industrial age was approaching. At that time, consumer demand for products was high, and the country's productivity was limited. As long as there was goods, it was not afraid to sell it out.

In 1980s, our company also needed a brand strategy. The huge demand boosted the rapid growth of the company, and a considerable number of companies reached nearly 10 billion yuan without full competition. This success has led to subsequent problems. Enterprises are facing a huge surplus and fierce competition. enterprises are not adaptive, so they can only compete for weapons in the most traditional way, that is, low prices. After several baptism, enterprises and enterprises have requirements on brand strategy.

The same is true in the United States. After the Second World War, a large number of military enterprises were converted to civilian use, while the demand for post-war people increased dramatically, which led to a surge in the manufacturing industry. A considerable number of enterprises are increasing inventory, supply is increasing, and competition is intensifying. This time, a thing has been on the stage of history. He invented a way to make inventory products sell well.

This character is called Louth ruves. the method he found is very famous.USP theory is a unique sales proposition.

This theory has three principles:

1. Make the same claim to the customer through each advertisement

2. This claim must be not or never put forward by competitors.

3. This claim must have sufficient sales promotion power to impress customers.

If the brand can follow these three principles, it will sell better than its competitors.

There are many examples of brand success from new theories. For example, there was a kind of chocolate, M & M's chocolate. Now it is the first brand. There is also an advertisement made by oray, which also says a unique selling point: soap contains 1/4 body lotion. It is also very successful.

When looking for a unique sales claim for a product, enterprises may not necessarily insist that this claim is unique to you. As long as competitors have not put forward this claim, even if all products have this claim, you can also use it to build a brand.

There is a typical example in the book, that is, American beer with a brand named hiliz. This brand is not selling well and has inventory. They invited the AD master at that time, hopkind, to find a solution. The factory leaders first asked Hopkins' engineers to look at their settings and fermentation techniques and introduced many of their strengths, features, and technologies. Without looking at them, they felt no way. At that time, the manufacturer was very disappointed. It seems that there may be no such thing, but it cannot be saved. But just as everyone was about to leave the factory, he jumped up with surprise. What he saw was an empty bottle passing through a workshop and being disinfected with High Steam. At the beginning, the factory leaders thought they had discovered something. After understanding the excitement of the master, they immediately became disappointed. They told the master that this is a basic process that any beer brand must have. Dashuai told them that it is not important for any manufacturer to do so. What is important is that consumers do not know who is doing this. As a result, the USP, "Each beer bottle is disinfected by high-temperature steam", not only digested the inventory, but also gained the first brand position in the market.

In the initial stage of competition, we can all use USP to quickly achieve breakthrough results, but the USP strategy is problematic when the competition level is higher. The reason is that the technology is updated quickly, and competitors are quickly imitating it. Today you are talking about a unique point and I will be able to take it out tomorrow, gradually, consumers have been "educated" and do not care much about the product's functionality. At this time, the USP theory cannot solve the sales problem. In fact, by 1960s, the market environment in the United States was generally in this state. At this time, a new master emerged in the new era and created a set of theories suitable for the new era.

Ii. Image age

This is called David oray. He found that,When products tend to be homogeneous and consumer experience increases, people begin to pursue the emotional value beyond the functional needs rather than focusing on product differences. The company's strategy is to create a unique image for the brand. This is a well-known brand image theory.There are also three principles:

1. With the enhancement of product homogeneity, consumers' rational brand choices become weaker

2. People are pursuing both functional and emotional interests. Advertisements should focus on more brands.Perceptual benefits

3. Any advertisement is a long-term investment in the brand image.

Yinlu cigarette is the most successful security using the brand image theory. Lu used to be a female cigarette. Early advertisements were "as gentle as the May Wind. Later, Leo Benner, the advertisement company, attached the cowboy image to the yinlu brand before it began to take off. So far, it is already the world's first brand of cigarettes.

In our country, with the vigorous promotion of international 4A advertising companies, brand image theory is very popular. At the end of 1990s, especially in highly competitive industries, brand image theory gradually revealed its fundamental problems. Although the word "brand image" is hanging in the mouth of everyone, there is little success in the security of the brand that is operated by creating the brand image. On the contrary, the failure cases that try to use the brand image method to build a brand are all.

In the image era, Lux soap is successfully sold. Its brand strategy is to create a brand image of "Popular actress radiant. You can see that all of its advertisements in China clearly show this point. The main character of the advertisement is always the most popular female star. In the original Pan Hong era, Pan Hong was used. Now Shu Qi is invited to Shu Qi as he is. For a long time, Lux soap has always insisted on this. Therefore, it is very valuable to insist on preparing the brand strategy.

Iii. Positioning age

After March 1970s, the brand image won't work with USP. As many enterprises are building images, similar images and images make it difficult to differentiate consumption. With the advent of the information age, information is exploding. You are walking in the streets and advertisements can be seen everywhere. But one day, you may remember a few advertisements, but you may not even remember them. This is the communication effect and the reason for the current environment. Former UN Secretary-General Annan said that mankind is facing two major threats: terrorist attacks and AIDS. In fact, there is still the third major threat, and information is being attacked.

Jack troot, the pioneer in positioning theory, found that in the information age, people's minds started two functions to protect themselves: one is to reject information, and the other is to automatically simplify information classification. In this mental model, consumers no longer identify the brand image, but store the product into categories. At the same time, each category only records a few brands that are sufficient to cope.New information about the brand is accepted only when it complies with this category. All information that conflicts with existing information or concepts in the mind is excluded.

This is what psychologists call"Selective memory"Mechanism, from which troot discovered the famous" mental ladder "principle. For example, if you buy toothpaste, more than one brand will appear in your subconscious. You can list the brands such as Colgate, crest, black, and Zhonghua, which are listed from top to bottom. This ladder exists in our subconscious, and everyone has such a ladder hidden in every category. Although you did not find it, you do not think it is, but when you go shopping, you have subconsciously defined a shopping map to guide and regulate your purchase behavior, and decide whether you accept the new product information. For example, if you want to eat chocolate, you may think of dove, kingdi; if you want to buy a mobile phone, you may think of Nokia, iPhone, Motorola, and so on. You may think about it and find that there are many brands in your mind.

If we cannot establish a brand in the ranks of consumers, then as the market matures, enterprises will be very dangerous.

This "one of the two" market principle was later used by Jack Welch as a guiding principle for transforming General Electric and achieved great success. So far, GE has been operating for centuries, fortune 500 enterprises.

All these fulfill Marx's sentence: the people have made history. Liu Bei of Our Country said: the people who win the hearts of the people win the world. Therefore, in the brand strategy, we can say that customers create enterprises rather than relying on better teams, more investment, or even better products. Only when the customer's mental ladder has a place for us can we survive.