Gong Wenxiang: Douyin, is it for fools?

Positioning theory fails

Today I will talk to you about the positioning theory, why marketing in China has failed?

At least in the Internet circle, it is completely ineffective, and even a wrong theory.

10 million positioning

The concept of positioning was proposed by Trout in 1972 and introduced to China by Deng Delong in the 90s, which is one of the most important core ideas of modern marketing.

Their so-called positioning consulting fees are 10 million for one customer.

And every customer, they are through a lot of research and analysis, and finally come up with a sentence positioning.

Positioning ideas, in the early days in China, did achieve many traditional brands such as Wang Laoji.

If you don't get angry, drink Wang Laoji, which is worth 100 billion.

There is also Vipshop, my former colleague of Catwalk.com, Mr. Ma, went to Vipshop as vice president of marketing.

He told me that Vipshop also found Deng Delong's company a few years ago, and spent 10 million yuan to buy a positioning, in a word: Vipshop, a website that does discounts.

For example, we have passed away, and there is a famous case of Ye Maozhong, the godfather of Chinese advertising.

Many years ago, Sany Heavy Industry was only one of the top ten excavator websites in China, and it was not the first at all, so they found Ye Maozhong and said: their excavator is very good, but it just can't surpass its opponents.

Ye Maozhong, who took 5 million planning fees, only wrote one sentence on the PPT: "Sany excavator, the first in sales in the country."

He explained that to engage in marketing is to be straightforward, never tire of deceit, and shout out first: I am the number one in China.

Then, Sany excavator really achieved the first sales volume in the country. Moreover, in 2020, it will be the first in the world.

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Internet age

This trick has been effective in the past, and traditional marketing masters can collect millions and tens of millions with a positioning theory.

But now because it is the Internet era, it is an era of concentrated traffic.

Therefore, it is almost impossible for you to engage in a vertical positioning and let consumers engage in a super symbol in your mind, which is almost impossible to achieve in the Internet world.

You think, if you are positioned as a clothing website, then Ali's traffic is bigger than yours, Pinduoduo's traffic is bigger than yours, and they sell clothing, which must be stronger than you.

In the era of mobile Internet, the traditional positioning idea has long been outdated, because the market environment has long changed.

Now, the marketing theory of the United States has long been more than 10 years behind China, such as the emergence of advanced methods such as live streaming in China, Europe and the United States have not yet started.

If you use the American positioning theory of 50 years ago to guide China's latest marketing practice, you will definitely die.

E-commerce is not positioned

First of all, let's start with the early case of JD.com.

It turns out that Jingdong is positioned as an e-commerce website called 3C Digital.

Deng Delong, known as the first person in China's positioning, wrote a book called the New Positioning Era.

I remember that 10 years ago, he once published an article with suggestions for the positioning of e-commerce such as JD.com, and he suggested:

Jingdong should adhere to the 3C positioning, in order to be able to get bigger and bigger, should not do comprehensive e-commerce positioning, do everything in the whole category, does not conform to the positioning theory.

Fortunately, Liu Qiangdong did not believe in Western marketing theories and did not listen to them.

Ten years have passed, and the facts have slapped those who advocate positioning theory in the face in China and even around the world.

Positioning is completely inappropriate, especially China's Internet, where there is positioning, basically can't survive.

I was originally the so-called No. 1 e-commerce self-media in China, and at that time, I experienced that there were tens of thousands of b ToC e-commerce in China.

Anyone who vertically positions their e-commerce website in a certain field can be said to be 100% bankrupt.

For example, McConenene, the largest clothing website in China, was positioned in clothing, and now it has gone out of business.

And a few years ago, Secoo, which is positioned as China's No. 1 luxury website, also went out of business.

The website, including China's No. 1 cosmetics, also disappeared and went out of business.

The situation in the market has changed.

Because the characteristic of the Internet is that the traffic is concentrated in two or three websites.

You see, now China's top three e-commerce companies, Alibaba, JD.com, and Pinduoduo, what they can survive are all without positioning, they are all comprehensive categories, and they sell everything.

Dynamic targeting

Therefore, in the era of mobile Internet, I exclusively put forward a new positioning idea: dynamic positioning.

The positioning of the new era must change dynamically with the development of the situation.

For example, I saw a post earlier about the positioning of Douyin by a professor at Harvard University.

He was Zhang Yiming's consultant to Douyin in the early days, and he wrote a post where they took their business plan, and then Byte's original words said:

Douyin's original positioning was a funny short video for stupid and brainless youth.

Now Douyin, because of its large traffic, has become an e-commerce company and a local life, and now it is omnipotent.

With 800 million daily active users, Douyin's sense of social responsibility is also strong.

Don't stick to the original intention

Therefore, the positioning is also constantly adjusted, and the positioning is dynamic.

We can't stick to the original intention, we have to look at the situation and make dynamic adjustments.

I think back to 30 years ago, when I graduated from Wuhan University, my first job was as an advertising planner.

My undergraduate dissertation was on the positioning of advertising.

Because of the advertising science he wrote, he was favored by several senior executives who came out of the business with the background of the president of the Asia-Pacific region of the 4A advertising company.

Then I joined the company and was responsible for advertising copywriting and planning.

For example, our original early customer, Golden Emperor Chocolate, we positioned him as only for the people we love the most.

This advertising slogan was still very popular before, basically at that time, everyone knew it.

But now, I don't know if the brand of Golden Emperor Chocolate is still there.

At last

In my opinion, many people still spend millions, tens of millions, looking for what Hua and Hua, Deng Delong, to position the company and the brand.

I don't think it's valuable.

The so-called positioning, it was a means in the early days, so that you have a positioning in people's minds, which can indeed save advertising costs, but don't see it so magical.

Now because all the traffic is concentrated on the Internet, 80% is concentrated in short videos, all positioning will fail, because the Internet is a winner-takes-all.

If you think what I said makes sense, praise me.