NIE2024 | Focus Media Jiangnan Chun: Crossing Cycles, Resilient Growth to Build a High-Quality Chinese Strong Brand

The following are the key points of Jiangnan Spring's speech:

Jiangnan Spring pointed out that what enterprises are currently doing is actually 'traffic leasing', which means that they obtain market attention by renting out the traffic of KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders), anchors, and major platforms. However, do enterprises own their own traffic? This is the key to branding.

In Jiangnan Chun's view, a brand is a symbol of its own traffic. When consumers think about a certain category at all, they can immediately associate it with your brand and have reason to choose you over others among many options. He further emphasizes that if a company does not invest enough effort in building its brand, it can only rely on renting external traffic every day, and the cost of this traffic is increasing day by day. Moreover, all marketing methods that rely on external traffic are usually accompanied by promotions and discounts, ultimately putting double pressure on the company.

Jiangnan Spring emphasizes the profound significance of brand building: 'You must not only 'plant grass', but also 'plant trees'.' He believes that companies have learned over the past decade how to conduct advertising through personalized and precise targeting techniques. However, a truly powerful brand does not rely on one-on-one precision targeting, but rather achieves re-centralization of the brand through scaled precision advertising. The dissemination of a brand is not a decentralized process, but rather a social consensus that forms in consumers' minds. Jiangnan Spring further elaborates that once a brand loses its core, ideological center, and values, it is like a garden without trees, losing the reason why consumers choose it. In this case, although 'planting grass' can attract short-term attention, if there is a lack of a strong brand foundation, such efforts are easily overwhelmed by similar actions from many competitors, especially in today's market environment where both large and small enterprises are conducting similar marketing activities. Therefore, relying solely on 'planting grass' is difficult to ensure long-term brand success.

Jiangnan Chun emphasized in his speech that successful brand building is not just about reaching consumers, but more importantly, about truly touching their hearts. In today's market, facing the disappearance of demographic growth dividends and insufficient consumer expectations and confidence, many enterprises are trapped in a dilemma where online and offline traffic is difficult to grow and profits are meager and unprofitable. Jiangnan Chun believes that the core of true algorithms lies in understanding the 'algorithm of the human heart.' Adapting to platform algorithms is the 'mark,' but the essence of consumer products is more importantly about understanding consumers' inner needs, because it is by conforming to consumers' 'human heart' that all business actions are fundamentally based.

Jiangnan Spring quotes the 'Five-Character Classic' from The Art of War to explain the importance of business strategy. He explains that 'Heaven' symbolizes the general trend, 'Earth' represents channel layout, 'General' refers to the team, and 'Method' is the efficiency and incentive mechanism of operational management. 'Tao' refers to the human heart; those who win the hearts of people win the world. This is the key for a company to succeed in market competition.

Then, he discussed the importance of brand advertising, which is about implanting a reason for consumers to choose the brand over time. Although promotions and traffic can bring short-term effects, these flows lack durability. However, the power of a brand allows it to maintain stable growth even when dividends peak. In a market where everything is blooming, only top brands can make a profit, and unprofitable enterprises will gradually be eliminated by the market. Therefore, the core of brand building lies in determining one's preferred position within categories, functional characteristics, target audience, and scenarios.

Among China's top 10 brands, there have been no new entries in the past five years. The competitiveness of leading brands on the market is becoming stronger due to consumers' increasing loyalty to them. The rise of new brands is becoming increasingly difficult, so companies need to pay more attention to consolidating and enhancing their brand position in consumers' minds rather than solely pursuing short-term sales growth. Jiangnan Chun emphasizes that brand building needs to focus on consumers' rational needs and brand value, which is also the key for companies to establish themselves in the market.

Although the rapid development of digitization and the internet over the past decade has brought many opportunities, it has also trapped many businesses into the trap of traffic supremacy. As the traffic dividend gradually disappears, businesses must re-examine the power of branding. Future brand building needs to return to human nature, meet consumers' inner needs, and thus touch their hearts. Jiangnan Chun believes that only by winning consumers' hearts through the power of branding can businesses transcend market cycles and achieve resilient growth in the market.

Jiangnan Spring has summarized the three major paths of brand communication:

Integrate into or create social hot topics: Brands can increase exposure and brand awareness by participating in or initiating social hot events. For example, sponsoring popular variety shows or major sports events can significantly boost brand recognition and reputation in a short period.

Integrate into social hotspots and entertainment events: By participating in popular entertainment programs and events, brands can quickly attract a large amount of attention. Although the success rate is not high, once achieved, the brand's influence will be greatly enhanced.

Integrate into the core living spaces and scenarios of consumers: The success of the first two approaches is often 'hard to come by'. If one wants to find some certainty in an uncertain environment, they should integrate the brand into the daily life scenarios that consumers must pass through, such as elevator advertisements, to achieve high-frequency exposure of the brand and strengthen its position in consumers' minds.

Jiangnan Chun emphasized at the end of his speech that the dividend of population growth has ended, but the dividend of brand rise is unfolding. Every market turmoil and crisis is an opportunity for increased brand concentration. Only those enterprises that dare to make the right choices in crises and continue to invest in brand building can dominate the future market.

He quoted Ogilvy's famous quote: 'If money is not spent on brand building, it will be spent on promotion and discounts. Spending on the latter only drives down prices further; spending on the former makes the brand a part of people's lives.' Through persistent brand building, enterprises can not only achieve short-term performance growth but also win consumer loyalty in the long run, becoming market leaders.

Jiangnan Spring's speech provided profound insights and practical operational guidelines for entrepreneurs and investors present, helping them find opportunities in an uncertain market environment, achieve resilient brand growth, and sustainable development.