Will the status of the brand fall?

This topic has in fact become a protracted debate.

15 years ago, Hal R. Varian (today's chief economist for Google) published his information rules-a strategic guide to the online world. In this book, Varian first predicted that the internet would break the central role of the brand in reducing the risk of buying, and consumers would regain control of the information and brand status would be reduced.

Since then, such views are frequent, but the traditional brand core theory remains as Taishanno, firmly occupy the university classroom and enterprise managers thinking space.

Traditional brand theory believes that brand is the most important enterprise assets, the importance of high technology and production control. This creed not only has Buffett's support (he never invests in technology companies), there is also the moat invented by Kevin Lane Keller: The pyramid Theory of brand Equity (pictured), which contains two lines of defence (the left side of the pyramid is more rational and the right is perceptual). Leine Keller , became today a controversy over the air defense two camps.

In the current brand many air attack and defense, advocated the importance of the brand will decline in the theory, mostly first from the brand's rational function ("Brand performance" and "Consumer evaluation"), its representative is a group of "Silicon Valley spokesperson", the Representative view is that the future of information access costs are getting lower, The role of brand-finding cost simplification and quality representation has been weakened:

1. One of the roles of traditional brands is as quality assurance, reduce the consumer's shopping risk, but with the popularization of the Internet, consumer search information cost reduction, the need for less time and energy, they can easily compare different commodity differences, so the brand is no longer the main basis for judging product quality.

2. With more and more transparent consumer comments and feedback, consumers can make more rational purchase decisions, do not need to rely solely on the brand to make decisions, and the uncertainty of purchase results is reduced.

There are a lot of consumer reviews on all types of electric and social media sites, and consumers tend to believe in the general public rather than the advertising of the business, and are more susceptible to the views of other people in the social circle, so the brand's authority is lowered.

and advocated the brand important as before the party, stressed the brand more sensitive side. In contrast, the brand representatives of many people do not have the influence of the upstart Silicon Valley, the representative of the people who are marketing education and brand consulting work practitioners.

Now many brands have abandoned the pyramid theory of another line of defense, instead of emphasizing the ultimate consumer pursuit of emotional experience, and brand is to maintain the bond of consumer sentiment. Marketing communication is essentially the emotional exchange between products and consumers. Brand contains a lot of symbolic meaning, excellent brand can bring consumers happy experience and satisfaction.

Traditional brand managers, most of them hope that "emotional experience" is the internet age solid moat, they may wish to start a protracted war with the brand, however, in the electronic business, social media and large data on the debut of the era, the objective data is making the brand central position helplessly decline.

In 2012, Ernst and Young published a survey that most brand managers were unwilling to accept: fewer than 40% of the world's 34 major markets consider brand loyalty when buying, less than 25% per cent in the mature U.S. market.

More and more car consumers, no longer consider those fancy ads, but more to query J. D. Power's car evaluation report. Such consumer Reports can even make it easier for consumers who buy toilet paper to inquire about the ratio of prices to water absorption targets. Consumer ratings on websites such as Amazon have become a far more important factor in brand slogans, even for luxury and tourist hotel services, and people can find TripAdvisor, the world's largest travel critic community.

Squeeze out the brand's bubble

The classic brand theory believes that consumers can not face the Hao smoke sea information, so have to the information background and emotional contact to simplify the brand, which provides the central marketing department planning brand Information.

And Itamar Simonson, a professor at Stanford University, Itama Simonson that the theory is an arrogant and biased approach to the democratization of branding and innovation, "Consumers are not that stupid." They have never invited the brand to play their God. In fact, today's consumers only need a little time to find out whether the goods have real value. ”

In the early years, Eric von Hippel, a professor at MIT, published his "Democratization of innovation", for the first time "user-centric innovation". Later, Schultz also began to revise his marketing theory, proposed "user participation in branding", this theory goes beyond the old pyramid model and produces a new business thinking paradigm.

At this point, the United States has basically completed the new marketing system from practice to the overall construction of the theory, to the middle, to the central system, to brand the movement in full swing, but also to consumers the real value, so that product-led innovation to become the core of the campaign.

When we are ready to invest in the future, should we invest in traditional brand equity, or should we invest in the process of branding that subverts traditional brand equity?

To answer such a question, we need to look at the nature of brand creation, especially those that dominate the "emotional resonance" of the brand experience creation process.

Yes, they have created unique values, but for the most part of today, mediocre brands and self-righteous brand advisers are playing more roles:

They do not have real values, they are defenders of the old class, vanity advocates, the list is not as a suitor;

They rely on so-called "market insights" to cater to the shallow consumers, relying on the value-added of the brand to naturally squeeze the production supply chain partners;

They invest their money in areas that are not innovative and allow consumers to pay the so-called "brand sentiment premium";

They represent more of the negative energy of the business world.

To stick to the value theory of such an old world, especially to help Chinese enterprises to devote limited resources to product-centric innovation, does not help us embrace a business world of innovation and democratization.

In the face of such a vanity, impetuous, product innovation is difficult to dominate the business world, remove the brand bubble should not only be our choice of the truth, more should become our choice of faith!