"Communication Information Times" reporter interviewed "M-Zone" and China Telecom's brand marketing related issues.
Compere: What do you think the "M-Zone" brand uses to impress users' hearts, so that it has a large number of supporters? What is the uniqueness of its brand? How is it closely related to its audience?
Wang Yunqi: After repeated consideration, China Mobile finally made a strategic choice in early 2003: M-Zone is the third largest sub-brand alongside GSM and Shenzhou, with GSM as the profit brand, Shenzhou as the road brand, and M-Zone as the sniper and seed brand. The M-Zone has been online for only 15 months, and it has "reached" 20 million target people, which means that a new M-Zone user is born every 3 seconds on average.
Looking at the increasingly competitive telecom market, there are only a handful of telecom services that develop their performance like "M-Zone". Different from China Mobile's business brands such as "Global Connect" and "Shenzhouxing", "M-Zone" is not business-oriented, but customer-oriented, and its target audience is young fashion groups aged 65,438+05 to 25. It is our responsibility to build an "autonomous region for young people's exchanges" and strive to create a brand charm space of "fashion, fun and exploration". China Mobile's successful marketing of "M-Zone" is also regarded as a sign that the telecom industry has entered the era of brand competition. The success of "M-Zone" is the result of China Mobile's customer and market segmentation, and also the result of China Mobile's effective marketing for different customer groups.
The most striking thing about "M-Zone" is its flexible pricing measures. If you pay 20 yuan, you can send 300 messages a month, or 30 yuan, you can send 500 messages a month. Judging from the general tariff that domestic mobile phone users need to pay for sending short messages, there is basically no price lower than 0. 1 yuan per item. M-Zone, a new brand, focuses on short message packages, and the minimum tariff can reach 0.06 yuan per short message. This pricing method, like all other commodities under the market economy, follows the price of quantity, and truly realizes the humanization and marketization of pricing.
M-Zone invited Jay Chou to speak for it, which made the popularity of M-Zone soar. Joining the "M-Zone" is no longer simply making phone calls, texting and playing games. What I get is my own good feeling of "young people exchange autonomous region" and "my site, listen to me"
In terms of health, sunshine and personality, Jay Chou, who has great appeal among young people of 15 ~ 25, can be described as a veritable "energetic teenager". Its influence not only enhances the popularity of "M-Zone" among young people, but also makes the brand connotation of "M-Zone" more obvious. After M-Zone invited Jay Chou to speak for them, a series of activities proved that they have a unique side in the use of stars.
Advertising is unique. Jay Chou's performance in advertising really makes people in the M-Zone believe that he is also a thumb family. After that, whenever a new business is launched, Jay Chou will act as a pioneer. With the emergence of new services such as MMS and CRBT, all kinds of new advertisements appeared around the people in the M-Zone, and with the exaggerated performance of Jay Chou, these services immediately became popular.
"M-Zone" advertisements frequently appear in newspapers, magazines, television, radio and websites, vividly conveying the core value and positioning of the brand. Brand positioning that touches the inner world of target users and a series of activities centered on it have aroused the buzz of dynamic users and been recognized by more and more young people.
Moderator: What are the stages of brand marketing in M-Zone? What measures have been taken by "M-Zone" at all stages to cooperate with brand marketing? What impact do you think these measures will have on users?
Wang Yunqi: The brand of "M-Zone" has gone through several stages:
First, the stage of infrastructure construction and network superiority consolidation.
For mobile communication enterprises, a very important index to measure the competitiveness of enterprises is the network quality index. Undeniably, the network advantage is the natural advantage for China Mobile to compete with other operators in the market. According to the data provided by China Mobile, the average network coverage rate of China Mobile is 99.86% and the average network connection rate is 98.24% among 36 important cities in China. All provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have reached the basic requirements, among which 19 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have reached the excellent level. "Seamless coverage, finding blind spots with precious money" has become its main propaganda slogan reflecting the advantages of the network. Therefore, China Mobile's infrastructure strategy is to keep the network gap with its competitors.
Second, the M-Zone brand integration stage
Brand strategy is the product of fierce market competition and an effective marketing means for enterprises to avoid price wars. Since the successful launch of "M-Zone", the brand strategy of China Mobile has been upgraded from taking business as the positioning standard to taking users as the positioning standard. Starting with the six driving forces of communication business: image, product, price, channel, feedback and service, this paper conducts brand integration research, especially the brand research of "M-Zone". According to different audience groups, these driving forces will produce different effects, and then according to the analysis and understanding of the audience psychology, we will launch a "dynamic zone" customer brand that attracts young people.
Third, the "M-Zone" embodies the stage of differentiated services.
Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of customer service, but the index to measure the quality of customer service does not depend on the customer service itself to a great extent, but on the degree of market recognition and subsequent improvement of the products launched, and the "M-Zone" has adopted such differentiated services.
As a service, users in M-Zone can not only use all voice services except roaming abroad, but also use a series of data value-added services such as mobile QQ, wireless games, mobile pets, entertainment news and weather forecast. As a price, "M-Zone" not only exempts users from the basic monthly fee, but also provides a "premium discount package" for 300 short messages in 20 yuan.
The customer service strategy, commercial brand strategy and advertising strategy of "M-Zone" are closely linked and complement each other. Brand is the foundation, advertising highlights the brand, and customer service embodies the brand, which coincides with advertising. The product content has been recognized by the market, and then the customer service content that reflects the most important needs of customers is established on this basis, rather than simply smiling service and door-to-door visits to reflect customer service strategies.
Fourth, focus on the operation of marketing channels.
"M-Zone" channel is a channel for products to be delivered to users, which is characterized by the unity of brand, planning, management, norms, processes, standards and evaluation. As far as the current domestic mobile channel construction is concerned, there are mainly three modes: one is its own channel; Second, social cooperative management channels; Third, the general channels of society.
In economically developed areas with high business penetration, self-built physical channels are the main positions for the company's customer service, brand building, new business promotion and business acceptance, so that its own channels can effectively shoulder the heavy responsibility of service, brand promotion and business promotion; Vigorously develop social cooperation channel agents in the form of "cooperative business halls" in township areas, and operate, manage and control them in strict accordance with the construction standards of their own business halls, making them the main foothold for China Mobile's local development, service, promotion and implementation. The role of general social agency channels is mainly to compete with competitors for potential customer resources.
Fifth, widen the gap with competitors.
Under the situation that the competition of enterprises in the same industry tends to be homogeneous, it is a useful means for enterprises to expand their living space by forming cross-industry alliances with complementary advantages and resource sharing on the basis of reaching certain understanding with enterprises in other industries, and combining their respective influence and brand appeal to attract consumers and enhance their competitiveness. The initial success of the alliance with McDonald's made China Mobile invest more confidence in this marketing cooperation mode. As long as young people like it, the "m-zone" will provide more "privileges" for the dynamic people and divide more fields into "my site".
According to the data, China will surpass the United States to become the largest wireless market in the world. In terms of the absolute number of users, by 2005, the number of wireless telephone users in China had reached1.5-250 million, among which 40-50 million users used wireless Internet services. "M-Zone" also opened its own brand stores to provide chain stores, targeting students and white-collar workers aged 65,438+05-25, creating a new value-added market. As customers of their new brand, this consumer group is one of the keys to the great influence of "M-Zone".
Six, through publicity and activity strategies to shape the "dynamic" professional brand stage
"M-Zone" has three functions of informing, reminding and distinguishing users' minds through advertisements and their specific needs.
1. Three-dimensional bombing: choose newspapers, television, internet, outdoor, magazines, activities, etc. What the target group is concerned about, and quickly convey the brand image, brand proposition and tariff package of "M-Zone" to the target consumer group.
2. Activities from point to point: from the press conference, Xiao Tianwang's solo concert to the "street dance" interaction of 6 million college students, McDonald's alliance and title sponsorship of the "Tenth Global Chinese Music List" selection activities, forming the interaction of the national market and forming a good marketing atmosphere for the "contagion" of the market.
3. High-altitude ground integration: While China Mobile carried out advertising high-altitude bombing and large-scale activities, various markets also carried out related promotion activities into the campus and established campus alliances; In terms of business form, mobile QQ, ringtone download, tariff package and other activities are opened to provide real service content for consumer groups, so as to combine high altitude with the ground;
4. Emotional experience: In all marketing communication activities, the target consumer groups participate in it, resulting in emotional buzz, especially the national "street dance" challenge, which subtly implants the brand into consumers' minds and plays a good marketing effect;
Moderator: What measures have been taken to impress the "M-Zone" in terms of brand maintenance and customer loyalty after the establishment of the "M-Zone" brand?
Wang Yunqi: 1. Judging from the current market situation, it is an important part of current prepaid users to seize new mainstream consumer groups: 15-25-year-old target group, and prepaid users are increasingly becoming the mainstream of new users of China Mobile. The monthly prepaid card users of China Mobile are about 10 times that of newly signed users. Caught this part of young customers, also caught the mobile now.
2. From the long-term market strategy, we should cultivate high-end customers tomorrow: young users, mainly college students and white-collar workers, have great potential demand for mobile data services, and their purchasing power will continue to grow. Effectively lock in these consumer groups, and will gradually change from low-end customers to high-end customers within three to five years, so enterprises will lay the foundation for gaining advantages in future competition and gradually cultivate the market.
3. From the perspective of mobile brand strategy, it will form a comprehensive market coverage: Global Connect will locate the high-end market and provide targeted mobile office and business service functions for business and successful people; Shenzhouxing meets the call needs of ordinary customers in the low-end market; "M-Zone" effectively locks in fashion users, mainly college students and white-collar workers, launches voice and data packet services, comprehensively attacks the mobile communication market, contains competitors, and forms a preset threat.
4. Carry out a series of dynamic innovation activities to expand the influence of the two brands in the younger generation. Previously, "M-Zone" has cooperated closely and extensively with the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain in the promotion of various places, such as the large-scale roadshow of "M-Zone Tour" jointly launched with SP, Tencent giving QQ numbers to new M-Zone customers and other promotional activities, and cooperated with Samsung, Shouxin and other terminal manufacturers to launch customized mobile phones for M-Zone users. In April, 2005, in Beijing, NBA, American Professional Basketball Association and China Mobile Communications Corporation jointly announced that they had reached a long-term marketing cooperation agreement. There is also the fiery "M-Zone" street dance competition.
Moderator: At present, telecom is facing transformation and trying some marketing methods different from the past. Brand marketing is also the direction of telecom efforts. Any suggestions? What aspects should telecom pay attention to in brand marketing?
Wang Yunqi: Brand marketing refers to: on the basis of dynamic understanding of the marketing environment, with the help of specific business and service functions, specific telecom enterprises and commercial images, influencing and cultivating specific customer psychology, thus forming a brand with independent intellectual property rights of telecom enterprises, obvious market attraction and competitive advantage.
In this sense, brand marketing is a systematic project with the core of cultivating and managing brands. In this process, there must be a chain of value transmission, which we call "brand value chain" here. To implement the brand marketing scheme of telecom value-added services, we must first recast new brand marketing concepts. Implementing brand marketing is conducive to improving the quality and efficiency of telecom enterprises' economic operation, building a new round of development strategic advantages of telecom industry economy and accelerating the adjustment and optimization of business structure, which is an inevitable means of market competition.
For the brand marketing of telecom industry and industry, my suggestions are:
1. Whether a brand operates well is related to the positioning of the brand itself and the management style of the operator. Therefore, with the increasing competition in the telecommunications market, the telecommunications industry should also clearly see the future development trend. There is no ever-victorious general in the war, and the market can never exist only for one product or one enterprise. The telecom market should firmly grasp the participation and enthusiasm of consumers and find a good starting point. This feature brings perceptual consumption, but for brands, customers may only have temporary loyalty. If the telecom industry wants to cultivate customers' brand loyalty for a long time, it must make the brand stronger and bigger, just like China Mobile's "M-Zone" continuous brand promotion for three consecutive years is an example. In this telecom market, customers are very loyal to their own brands.
2. In the process of branding, the telecom market should pay attention to technological innovation and reduce telecom operating costs. Whether the services, brands and services launched by the telecommunications industry can provide personalized things for a long time, whether they can constantly renovate such personalized things and whether they can provide technical support is one of the difficulties that need to be faced.
At present, the cost of operators mainly includes communication expenses, such as ADSL and telephone. There are wireless charges, such as value-added services, data voice; There are convenient costs, such as information service provider cost, content cost, software cost and media cost; In addition, there are security costs, transaction costs, physical costs, learning costs and so on. So what telecom operators have to do is how to create high value at low cost, meet more needs of users at lower tariffs, and enhance the overall value of the business itself and enterprises.
3. The telecom market in China has changed from a seller's market to a buyer's market, and the industry competition is becoming more and more fierce. For telecom operators accustomed to their monopoly position, their commercial operation means have fallen far behind the world level. The lack of marketing means and weak market awareness restrict the development of telecom enterprises. Therefore, it is necessary to build a new marketing model similar to "M-Zone" on a large scale and combine more products and services. Users need a learning process to learn the services launched by telecom. To understand the service, they need to carry out large-scale popularization and publicity in order to make their popularity last. At the same time, the telecommunications industry has entered the era of full-service operation. The goal of operators is to ensure profitability, increase market share and reduce the rate of customers leaving the network. It is not easy to establish a brand. Only by continuously integrating business and enhancing customer value can we attract customers and create value for them. At the same time, we should also attach importance to cost management in order to improve profits in both ways.
4. It is also a trend for telecom operators to take the road of joint brand. At present, telecom communication functions mainly include services such as ringing, games, lottery tickets, video or audio on demand; There are financial and commercial aspects, such as mobile wallets, stock trading, ticket booking, shopping malls; There are communication aspects, such as SMS, chat, conference call, email, etc. These are not enough to meet the strong demand of many users. The market and industry require operators to explore business opportunities in multimedia messages, multimedia content, voice, multimedia browsing and other directions. If a telecom enterprise has difficulty in completing it, or in order to make up for each other's shortcomings in technology, capital or marketing, it is also very necessary to take the brand road of joint marketing alliance.
Telecom enterprises should pay attention to the following issues when using brand marketing strategy:
(1) To cultivate every new brand, telecom enterprises need to pay a lot of long-term investment. Avoid excessive and long-term investment in advertising expenses, so as not to make enterprises feel unbearable financial risks.
(2) The market capacity of each independent brand (sub-market in the market segment) should be large enough, so that the sales revenue can support the promotion expenses of its brand and achieve profitability.
(3) The business represented by each brand should be different, even if there is no difference in the nature of the business, at least let customers feel that there is a clear difference. The purpose of implementing brand marketing and diversification strategy for telecom enterprises is to occupy different sub-markets with different brands and maximize the total market share. There must be obvious differences in the business of each brand, and the boundaries of each sub-market can be obvious, which will not lead to the overlap of each sub-market.
(4) To create a brand, we must consider whether the business itself is suitable for the demand function of the market. When your enterprise enters the market, you should first see if you want to change it. The business will respond in a certain market and make targeted changes according to different points in the market. It is impossible to do this only by advertising or marketing packaging. The foundation of brand is to ensure the high quality and reliability of business. Only when the business is adjusted and changed in time can it meet the needs of the market and compete successfully in the market.
(5) The customer's "tasting" marketing information processing method requires that the information about business or service disseminated by telecom enterprises must be clear and easy to understand. Three consistences must be maintained: all kinds of information must be consistent; The use standard of business must be consistent with the value judgment of target customers; The actual value of business is consistent with the experience value of customers. It is necessary to integrate and coordinate the communication information driven by customer value and centered on customer interests, so as to ensure that every contact point between the brand and customers conveys consistent and effective information, thus cultivating the brand's integrity; Win the trust and closeness of customers.
(6) Continuity of after-sales service. This requires telecom enterprises to answer customers' inquiries more thoughtfully and fully, introduce the structure and functions of services more professionally, and explain, use and maintain knowledge in detail and accurately. Intensify efforts on service advantages, thereby increasing brand influence, promoting brand sales and promoting brand development.
(7) The purpose of brand marketing of telecom enterprises is to influence customer value through business creation, through its activities, such as logistics system, ordering system, sales system, telecom enterprise culture, and even through its behavior and style. Therefore, brand marketing is not only the promotion, extension and transformation of brands, but also the connection and transmission of various activities of telecom enterprises, which needs the dynamic continuation of value-added service value chain. That is to ensure the dynamic continuity of the chain and make it a continuous circulating system.
About the author: Wang Yunqi, whose real name is Wang Yunqi, is praised by the industry as "the first poet of marketing in China". For many years, I have devoted myself to the thinking and research of enterprise management and product marketing, and have a keen insight into the marketing situation; Through careful thinking, I propagate my opinions in my personality. Columnists and contributing writers of many well-known online media and mainstream newspapers in China. His works include poetry anthology Traveler in Western Regions, Youth Sign Language, marketing poetry anthology Deep Thinking Storm in China, and philosophy of fading marketing. Has experienced marketing, planning, magazine editing, human resource management and other occupations.
Areas of concern: brand strategy, marketing breakthrough, cultural development, management improvement, etc.