In the past marketers used a lot of advertising to influence consumers

Marketers used to use a lot of advertising to influence consumers, but now people don't watch TV, newspapers, magazine ads, just mobile phones, social networks. People in social media, more willing to believe a big V or their friends, the influence of traditional brands is rapidly weakening. The brand's primary role is to make it easier for consumers to choose products, and if consumers can easily access user comments, expert advice and other information to help make decisions, then the value of the brand will decline. Some people even think that the brand will become history as the internet grows. Is that really the case?

Is the brand really ineffective in the internet age?

In the Internet age, brands have not failed. In fact, because our world is dominated by a variety of digital products, the brand is more important.

Before the digital age, customers can compare physical products, decide which is better and reach a purchase. In the digital age, such comparisons become difficult. Take two laptops for example, Lenovo and HP, which is better? It is difficult for ordinary consumers to give a conclusion. So, everyone on the Internet to find the answer. What did they find? If most users recommend Lenovo, the brand may dominate the category of personal computers. But that is not the case. Last year, for example, Lenovo's global market share accounted for 16.9%, and HP's global market share accounted for 16.2%.

Some consumers prefer Lenovo, and some consumers prefer HP. This phenomenon is prevalent in many digital products category. Assuming that another computer company has launched a better personal laptop, how should the enterprise attract consumers to buy it? Is it through advertising or PR activities?

Consumers automatically ignore ads that claim to be better products. "All advertisements say that"-this is the typical reaction of consumers. It is equally difficult to use PR skills to initiate PR activities. Media coverage focuses on "new" rather than "better".

If only a handful of consumers buy "better" products, how can it generate a lot of positive referrals on the Internet? How do consumers decide which brand to buy? For example, if a Chinese consumer wants to buy a luxury car, it is likely that he will opt to buy Audi, the leading brand in China's luxury car market. But Audi is not the leading brand in the US market, and Audi is the sixth-largest brand in the United States after Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Lexus, Cadillac and Acura. Audi's car products are no different in the two-nation market, and the difference is in the mind. Audi is the first luxury car brand to build strong perceptions in the consumer mind of the Chinese auto market, but in the US market, the first luxury car brand to enter the mind is Mercedes and BMW.

Most consumers will not assess each brand in the category until they decide which brand to buy, and they usually think that the leading brand must be a better brand, after all, most consumers are buying the leading brands. From a marketing point of view, the most important feature of a brand is the leadership position. If a brand has a strong leadership position like Audi, it is very difficult for other brands to replace the leading brand in the same category.

When the traditional brand tools, such as advertising, PR, CIS and so on, how to shape the brand?

In the industrial age, it usually takes decades to build a brand. The advent of the digital age accelerated the process. Today, a new brand can be successful in a short time.

So, how to build a new brand in the digital age? You first have to enter a new category in your mind. The best way to get into the consumer's mind is to replace advertising with PR. PR has no credibility in advertising, and many marketers say social media is essentially a PR that uses digital technology.

What if your brand is not a leader? Your best strategy, then, is to be the antithesis of a leading brand. For example, in the smartphone category, Samsung has gained a lot of market share by introducing handsets that are much larger than the Apple iphone's screen. The "big screen" strategy helps Samsung brand become a strong brand in the smartphone category.

In the long run, almost every category will be dominated by two major brands. Coca-Cola and Pepsi, for example, dominate the COLA category. So is there no hope for a small brand? Of course not.

If your brand is not one of the dominant brands, then your best strategy is to focus. Early in the development of personal computers, almost every brand entered both the commercial and consumer markets, with Dell focusing on the commercial market. Moreover, Dell does not sell its personal computer products in retail outlets like other brands, but through direct access to the commercial market. Focus strategy makes Dell the global market leader in personal computers. Unfortunately, Dell has lost its lead by trying to expand its brand into the consumer market. Today, Dell is the world's third-largest personal computer brand.

In the internet age, the three cornerstones of marketing (media, channels, users) have all changed, whether it means that the effectiveness of positioning theory has met the challenge? How to adapt to these changes?

Positioning theory is never about the media and the channel, and the positioning theory is all about building brands by filling the gaps (or categories) of the mind. And if a vacancy in your mind is already occupied by another brand, you need to "reposition the competition".

Today, the same technology is still needed to build a new brand, and that is to fill the gap in the minds of consumers. Strategy has not changed, the change is the media and channels. Nowadays, digital network is the most important media, and as a channel, it becomes more and more important.

So positioning remains important. However, there is a significant change in the process of establishing a position in the mind, the traditional positioning theory is to discuss the language of words, but now the best way to enter the mind is no longer rely on language, in the digital age, to enter the mind, the best way is to use the vision.

The digital age greatly simplifies the visual output, especially the video generation. It is also changing the way companies build their brands in the minds of consumers. The best way to build a brand is to hammer the language nail into the customer's mind with what we call a "visual Hammer". The language nail, is the brand localization elaboration. For example, Coca-Cola is the original cola, is authentic goods, the positioning of the hammer into the consumer mind of the visual hammer is the Coca-Cola curve bottle.

In the digital age, the generation and dissemination of visual images has become simpler and less costly. As more and more brands are using visual hammers, we think PR on the Internet platform will become more and more visual.

The advent of the Internet or the mobile internet era does have a huge impact on the way information is produced and disseminated, and the buying behavior of channels and consumers has changed a lot, but it has never changed the mindset of consumers. Therefore, the "First law" in the mental model continues to work, looking at the information on the Internet today, using the title of "the Strongest ..." in history. 40 years ago, the mind could not remember the second highest peak in the world, and today, in the face of exploding information, it is even more impossible to remember.

However, the tradition of advertising bombing has been compromised by the way in which the minds of potential customers are established. As early as more than 10 years ago, we have in the "decline in advertising, the rise of public Relations," the book pointed out this trend, the development of the Internet, especially the development of social media, greatly promote the rise of public relations. But this does not mean that the effectiveness of positioning theory, but we need to understand and learn the latest development of positioning theory, the use of the latest results of positioning theory, such as focus, category innovation, PR and visual hammers.