How to explain brand marketing with strategic thinking?

Written at the beginning: Recently, we interviewed Mr. Zhu, the author of Winning the Brand War. Teacher Zhu has devoted himself to the research and practice of enterprise strategy and brand marketing for many years. This paper selects the core viewpoints from the interview content and shares them with you from three dimensions: enterprise strategy, brand strategy and communication. Zhu, the author of Winning the Brand War, is the co-founder and chief consultant of Shanghai Zhenglan Planning Consulting Co., Ltd. (Zhu Studio). I used to work in Shanghai Huahua, with solid theoretical foundation and rich practical experience. He has a good insight into the nature of things. Over the years, he has devoted himself to the research and practice of corporate strategy and brand marketing, and provided strategic planning, brand consultation and training services for corporate brand manufacturers and related businesses, associations, professional parks and other public welfare organizations in China. He has served clients such as Zhujiang Recreation and Sports, Sun Yat-sen University, Shaoneng Group, xi Hebeidou, Zhongan Hi-Tech, Huasheng Aquatic Products, Wo Jia Farm, Fuqing Group, Taichang Health, and Duquan Guansen Precision. Q: As a senior brand consultant in the industry, how do you understand "brand"? A: Brand can be said to be a big category. In practical application, we can find that strategy, organization, finance and so on may be linked to the brand. But in the west, brand belongs to management science, and management science is a practical knowledge. At present, many of our views on the brand are "the words of one family". The so-called right and wrong are based on the "benefits" created by the brand in the practice of serving customers. Compared with the past, today's brand theory has only brought us short-term benefits. When we talk about brands, the first concern is the industry attributes of customers, which is the survival market. Take China and China as examples. China School's understanding of art is that artistic creation should serve the brand itself. Most designers of Huada and Huada come from 4A advertising system and have certain artistic accomplishment. But for different industry attributes, such as fast-moving consumer goods industry, the visual effect is more eye-catching, which brings fast and direct sales transformation to customers; Based on this understanding, Huahua pays attention to practicality on the basis of service. The purpose is to help customers achieve sales transformation and let customers surpass their peers in the terminal market and even the Red Sea market. This is the most efficient communication language in the survival market. Similarly, there are owl signs. No one in the knowledge payment industry has ever used an owl, which symbolizes wisdom. Many people have questioned this sign, but in retrospect, the design of the owl sign was inspired by the ancient Athens coin symbol, with Athena on the front and owl on the back! This is a classic aesthetics, so in the face of doubt, I can only say that different levels have different views. Huahehua has also produced exquisite cases of visual design, such as a beauty salon customer who once served. They give full play to their artistic skills and can perfectly undertake the brand concept of truth, goodness and beauty. Therefore, at present, my understanding of "brand" is consistent with that of China and China. It is a reason designed to help customers promote transformation and persuade consumers to buy according to their industry attributes and actual sales scenarios. Q: You have done strategic consulting in China and China before. What are the influences of China and China on you? A: For China and me, the most influential person is Mr. Wang Zhigang, the originator of China's local strategic consulting field. He developed a set of local strategic methodology, integrating western consulting tools and ancient planning theories in the East. In fact, as early as the Warring States period, there was a plan for core resources. Compared with today, ancient planning has a very high status, which can overthrow a regime and guide the direction of a country. In teacher Wang Zhigang's thought, we have learned a very valuable essence of planning: the truth obeys the little truth. Hua and Hua applied this to the extreme. Even though the outside world may complain that their art, propaganda and rhetoric are quite rude and tasteless, they have always adhered to the business principle of returning to the brand. Their purpose is not to build a striking brand, but to follow the industry attributes of this brand and help promote the success of brand marketing. This is a blow to the dimensionality reduction of China and China, and it also has a profound impact on me. Q: What is the core difference between this book and other brands on the market? A: At least 1/3 of my first book Winning the Brand War overlaps with Super Symbol. Some people comment on the rumor that "winning the brand war" can be understood as "super symbol" I think this understanding is very correct. Most of the ideological and theoretical basis of this book comes from the example of Huashan and the ideological influence of Wang Zhigang, which is a tribute to them. Subsequently, I will publish two books, Brand Willpower and Brand Ecosphere, in order to win the brand war and form a gradual brand strategy pattern. None of these three books mentioned strategy, but strategy is the main line I buried myself. Telling strategy through brand is also the core difference between the whole set of books and brand books on the market. Q: In the book, you mentioned that people's five senses were used as corporate strategy. Can you explain your thinking foundation and dimension with a case? A: At present, brand building is marketing first, focusing on making consumers happy and creating a "short, flat and fast" consumption pattern, but such brands will not live long. Based on the concept of "the truth obeys the little truth", I think brand building should pay more attention to the product itself, go to the consumer groups, feel their daily information reception methods, and then optimize the sensory experience and grasp the five senses of consumers from a strategic perspective. The most obvious case is the visual level, which is also the level closest to consumers' lives. The strategic significance of color lies in "focusing on one tone", and the choice of this main color tone must conform to the characteristics of the industry; It is also about "investing in a color number" and telling a good story for this exclusive color. If you want a brand to survive for a long time, you need to build a voice for this brand. Brands with low awareness or low volume are quite fragile. Therefore, from the perspective of enterprise strategy, to determine a visual style and go on firmly is actually to extend the brand life and accumulate brand assets. For a simple example, Ford is a century-old enterprise. In the past 100 years, Ford's logo has been changing, and the oval shape of the outer frame or the F shape inside has been changing. The only constant is that blue has been used as the background color since 1927, and I have always loved this color and it has been used ever since. Although the color brightness will change during the period, they all maintain the same color system, which is worth learning. Intel once paid a high price to ask Don Schultz, who is known as the "father of integrated marketing communication", to do brand marketing for them. Developed classic advertising audio: light ~ light ~ light ~. In the later brand upgrade, they still kept the music, but the audio at the end was repeated twice, and the rhythm became faster and faster. This change is also based on the development of CPU (CPU processing speed is getting faster and faster). The same music, with the blessing of different times and backgrounds, can produce a brand-new feeling, which is Intel's insistence. I think hearing has three meanings for brands: releasing signals to stimulate consumers to buy, improving consumer experience and accumulating brand assets. Many brands in China also have their own historical and cultural heritage. It is not difficult for us to find that those century-old brands that are more energetic have more or less their own persistence and are proud of it. No matter Ford or Intel, the reason why they stand for a hundred years is to maintain their own advantages, fine-tune and adjust on this basis, and constantly accumulate brand assets. From a strategic point of view, this also reflects the collective willpower of the elite team. It is not a story that one person insists on, but a story that a group of people insist on. This also proves that the management science I mentioned before can't be quantified, and it is a conclusion produced by practice. Only through practice can we know what a century-old enterprise should adhere to. Q: What is the difference and relationship between strategy and tactics? A: Small things are called strategies, and big things are called strategies. Strategy usually refers to the life and death issues of enterprises, such as business line planning, second curve expansion, group resource optimization and so on. The strategy is long-term but not complicated. On the contrary, it will be very simple, aim in one direction and keep moving forward. A good strategy must be far-sighted and based on the present. Compared with strategy, strategy will be short and complicated, such as annual communication, product development, user research and so on. It has no special guiding role for the development direction of the enterprise, and even if there is deviation, it will not have much impact. The strategy does not need to be highly unified with the strategy, but 70%-80% is consistent. Strategies need some space for them to grow freely in the corner. For example, Tencent, they are an ecology. For many years, Tencent's main business has been games, but Tencent's QQ and WeChat can take the initiative in social and communication, provide a more convenient entrance for the main game business, recycle its own ecology, and enhance user stickiness. Q: What's the difference between brand strategy and enterprise strategy? A: This is a completely two-dimensional matter. An enterprise may have several brands, all influenced by the same corporate culture. For example, Pilner Arnault, president of LV Group, is not the founder, but his enterprise and brand are acquisition relationships. The parent company of LV is Luwei Xuan Ming, which owns many brands, all of which are top luxury brands. This is the principle he learned. He asked a brand to have a certain historical background and story basis, such as a long history or exclusive to the royal family, so that he could continue to draw a brand-new blueprint on this brand. If you only rely on stories to build momentum, meaningful or implied brands are not within his acquisition scope. Just like Alibaba Group, they don't have social genes, so they will keep businesses related to money and consumption at critical moments, such as Alipay and Tmall. Tencent is doing social activities and games, so at the critical moment, it must be to protect its social links and game ecology. Founder culture is corporate culture, which is the foundation of an enterprise's development and will run through all its brands.