Discover the conflict the first step in a brand marketing strategy
——Interview with Ye Maozhong, a well-known marketing planner and brand management expert
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Ye Maozhong is a well-known Chinese marketing planning expert and brand management expert, the founder of conflict theory, and a graduate tutor at Peking University.
In the past 30 years, Ye Maozhong has helped more than 200 enterprises to discover conflicts, resolve conflicts, formulate brand marketing strategies, rapidly enhance corporate brands and sales, and achieve exponential growth. Through combing, researching, analyzing and updating a large number of domestic and foreign cases, Ye Maozhong finally completed the original brand marketing communication theory monograph - the book "Conflict". By explaining clearly and thoroughly "where the demand is found", the book provides new ideas and new methods for enterprises to formulate brand marketing strategies.
In accordance with the spirit of the Notice of the National Development and Reform Commission on Organizing and Carrying Out the 2019 China Brand Day Activities, with the consent of the provincial government, on May 10 this year, the Provincial Development and Reform Commission, together with the Propaganda Department of the Provincial Party Committee, the Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, the Provincial Department of Finance, the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Provincial Department of Commerce, the Provincial Market Supervision Bureau, and the Gansu Daily, will hold the "Gansu Province 2019 China Brand Day" series of activities in Lanzhou. At that time, Ye Maozhong will be a guest to attend the "2019 Gansu Provincial Brand Building Promotion Conference" and deliver a speech.
As the event is in full swing, this edition features an interview with Mr. Ye Maozhong on the issues related to brand marketing explained in the book "Conflict".
Q: After the book "Conflict" was published in 2017, it became one of the best-selling brand marketing books of the year, and conflict theory, as a new set of marketing systems, was also favored by many companies. Please start by talking briefly about what a "conflict" is.
Ye Maozhong: The essence of brand marketing is to gain insight into demand, and demand is precisely found in conflict.
Conflicts arise because of the complexity and diversity of human nature. Just like many fashion women today, if you just buy a bag to hold things, you can buy a bag of tens or hundreds of yuan, but why buy thousands of bags or even more expensive? This is actually their psychological need. In this life, people do not need much, they want too much; there is a conflict between need and want, and conflict will produce needs.
Tracing back to the human brain, scientists have found that human needs are also emotional and rational: the left brain pursues price, the right brain pursues value; the left brain pursues health, and the right brain pursues refreshment; the left brain pursues practicality, and the right brain pursues art. The rational thinking of the left brain tends to bring more restriction and analysis; the perceptual thinking of the right brain tends to bring more desires and impulses. There is a conflict between restrained rational needs and impulsive sensual needs, between limited needs and infinite desires.
Just like before the birth of Mandarin duck hot pot, people went to eat hot pot, some can eat spicy, some can not eat spicy, this is the conflict, and Mandarin duck hot pot perfectly solves this conflict.
Q: Conflict theory is a strategic approach based on more than 200 successful brand projects you have planned over the past 30 years, as well as a large number of domestic and foreign case studies. Please share a few classic cases with readers for your reference.
Ye Maozhong: At the beginning of 2018, we started cooperation with Zhihu. The strategy of knowing the past is to find people who resonate deeply with knowledge and let them slowly drive the growth of the number of users as opinion leaders. But when Zhihu chooses to embark on the fast track of large-scale development, the demand will inevitably change. From the niche to the public, the core is no longer a more professional and refined knowledge solution, but a huge conflict between Internet users ' need to obtain valuable information and the information of most platforms" is uneven. Therefore, through the "do you know, do you really know, are you sure you know, are you really sure you know" form of four consecutive questions, we have formulated a new strategy of "there is a problem, know it" for Zhihu, and promoted it to become synonymous with the Internet's high-quality information content platform.
This ad was chosen to be launched during the World Cup in June of that year, causing unimaginable market repercussions and generating a huge boost to Zhihu's brand marketing. Zhihu immediately completed a new round of $270 million financing on August 8 of that year, and the valuation rose from $1 billion before the ad launch to $2.5 billion later.
In 2014, a cosmetics company asked us to do brand marketing planning for "silicone-free" shampoos. I think that from the perspective of the law, it is very difficult to open up a new market segment in the Red Sea market, which is already very mature in the category. "Silicone-free" is just a subdivision of the product appeal, at best can only occupy a small share of the competitive saturated market. For a new brand, if it wants to break through and achieve large-scale victory, it must create conflict.
By changing the shampoo to shampoo, through the question of "washed hair for a lifetime, have you ever washed your scalp", we have successfully shifted consumers from hair attention to scalp focus, creating a new market demand.
At the end of 2016, after only 30 months of listing, the overall sales of Ziyuan Shampoo exceeded the mark of 7.3 billion yuan, becoming the flagship brand of local high-end washing. According to the data of relevant market research institutions, in 2017, according to retail sales, Ziyuan's share in the local washing market has reached 31%, becoming a phenomenon-level brand in China's washing market in the past 5 years.
Q: The essence of the popularity of "Conflict" is that today, when the traditional brand marketing theory is more and more away from the actual needs of the market, many entrepreneurs and marketers are eager to find solutions for enterprises, products, and brands that can "win in one move". Specific to the practical operation, how to take the first step of brand marketing?
Ye Maozhong: Conflict theory is the first theory to explain clearly and thoroughly "where needs are found". Before brand marketing, it's important to ask yourself: What conflicts have I found, what conflicts have I created, and what conflicts have I resolved?
Therefore, the discovery of conflicts is the first step in a brand's marketing strategy.
For brand marketing to succeed, it must gain insight into and resolve consumer conflicts – the greater the conflict, the greater the opportunity; the greater the conflict, the greater the demand; the greater the conflict, the stronger the selling point. If brand marketing can't find conflicts, can't resolve conflicts, it's getting harder and harder. Especially at present, the Internet has redefined brand marketing, and it is difficult to obtain exponential growth only by relying on positioning market segments. If you want to break through the bottleneck of development, open up a new way to communicate with consumers, and achieve exponential growth, you must use conflict for brand marketing. Its essence is that instead of fighting with the opponent on a track, it is better to create demand and reconstruct the market by changing the track.
I believe that after reading the book "Conflict", the majority of readers will have a new thinking and understanding of brand marketing.