How commercial banks deal with homogenization competition through brand building

"Brand homogenization" is really a marketing disease that is popular all over the country. Whether we walk into Shang Chao or turn on our mobile phones, we are faced with a group of brands with the same face. For example:

Microfinance pays attention to "low threshold" and "quick loan";

Diapers are shouting "easy to absorb, not allergic, prevent side leakage";

Milk brands are playing with "milk source" and "protein content".

Ironically, the industry with the highest degree of brand homogeneity in China is advertising. Advertising companies sell the same resources, quote the same price and provide the same service, but teach advertisers how to break the homogenization of brands every day. This is really the biggest black humor in this industry.

Breaking the Four Wrong Theories of Brand Homogeneity

When making differentiation strategy, brands often regard four things as differentiation value, namely: treat product categories as differentiation value; Treat the user category as a difference value; Take technical strength as differential value; Take the market size as differential value.

I want to say that these four methods are all wrong and outrageous:

1. treat product categories as variance values.

Many enterprises have written such words when positioning their brands: "Focus on the # # field".

Enterprises describe themselves in this way, obviously influenced by the positioning theory, and want to occupy the first position in the eyes of users in a certain field. But when we look back at those classic positioning cases, none of them say "focus on the # # field":

Jiaduobao, afraid of getting angry and drinking Jiaduobao.

Used car with melon seeds, there is no middleman to make the difference.

Flying cranes are more suitable for China's baby's physique.

Why is this happening? Because most enterprises do not use the "positioning" theory. The "positioning" theory is to occupy the category first, but this occupation is the occupation of the user's mind.

In other words, positioning is aimed at users, not at industries. Users don't care whether you are "focusing on the blockchain field" or "focusing on the preschool education field". What they care about is what kind of differentiated value you can provide.

Secondly, if the products are differentiated, it is easy to be "really fragrant".

Because any growing enterprise rarely does not expand its categories. For example, Xiaomi started as a mobile phone and later expanded to the entire electronic product; I like selling tea, but now I also buy ice cream and bread.

If a sub-category is regarded as the differentiated value of the brand from the beginning, once it meets the ceiling of the market and needs category expansion, it will be forced to reposition the brand.

2. Treat the user category as a difference value.

Many companies like to position themselves as high-end brands, such as these brands:

But at the same time, truly high-end brands never talk about the word "high-end". Have you ever seen Ferrari call itself high-end? Have you ever heard LV and Hermes call themselves high-end?

Just like Bill Gates, "the richest man in the world" can't be printed on his business card. The more truly high-end brands, the more they like to keep their distance from the public. The more high-end brands are advertised, they are not really high-end brands, but hope to become high-end brands.

When "high-end" is regarded as brand differentiation, the biggest problem is unclear, that is, consumers simply don't know how high-end your "high-end" is.

This is a "high-end women's dress" of Taobao, which is psychologically high-end for some merchants and users, but for others, Prada is a high-end women's dress, right?

Let's take a look at the advertising copy of Liangpin Shop and Zhuyeqing:

What is a "high-end snack"? Cleaner? Tastes better? More expensive?

What is the "high-end sales market"? What is the division of this market? What is the market price of tea?

The words "high-end" and "low-end" are relative concepts, not absolute concepts. "High-end", like "category", should be the brand positioning within the enterprise, not the value expression of the enterprise facing consumers.

3. Take technical strength as differential value.

Taking technical strength as the differentiated value, the most common words are "intelligence", "black technology" and "redefining # #".

Now, more and more enterprises begin to use "intelligence" as their differentiated labels, such as Midea Smart Rice Cooker, 360 smart cameras, Travelmate Artificial Intelligence suitcase. ...

What is the problem of using technology as a differentiated selling point? Let's take smart speakers as an example to illustrate this problem. Combining AI with speakers not only liberates consumers' eyes and hands, but also makes it easier to search for songs. Smart speakers have also become the entrance of human-computer interaction in the future living room, which can be said to be of great significance.

However, the seemingly high-tech smart speaker market immediately changed from the blue ocean to the red sea market. Xiaomi, Huawei, Baidu and Ali have all joined the competition in the smart speaker market. Joining giants will give full play to their "price butcher" nature and shuffle small and medium-sized players. For example, Xiaomi's "Little Love Classmate Mini Edition" in official website only costs 299 yuan.

Therefore, the biggest problem of taking technology as a differentiated selling point is that technology is something that develops at a high speed but is also eliminated at a high speed.

If your technical strength is not ridiculously strong, then your biggest difference will become your biggest weakness. You will be easily copied quickly by powerful opponents and then quickly eliminated.

4. Regard market size as differential value.

This method is quite common among domestic industry giants, and the commonly used brand words are "leadership" and "sales leadership".

Talking about "leader" is based on the herd mentality of users. When more people choose something, it generally means that its quality and service are more reliable.

But did you find out? Foreign leaders seldom flaunt themselves as leaders. Let's recall, Procter & Gamble, Nike, KFC, Coca-Cola … Did they emphasize their sales in their advertisements? Why don't big foreign brands do this?

Because for anything, the more people choose it, the worse its personality perception. And personality, in a sense, is synonymous with the minority.

Many companies that do this may misunderstand the user's reaction to the concepts of "big sales volume" and "popularity".

Large sales = many people choose, so this product is very safe.

Fashion = This thing is very popular, and I want to catch up with fashion.

Therefore, strengthening "sales volume" and "leading" is more suitable for some categories with weak "spiritual consumption" attributes. Imagine if we changed Nike's advertisement to "one in ten people in the world wears niki", would niki fans go crazy? Therefore, melon seeds used cars may be more suitable for emphasizing "sales volume", but Wang Laoji is not suitable.

Once a brand becomes a leader, its biggest crisis is that consumers think it is not cool and it is rotten. For example, when WeChat became an active application with 65.438 billion yuan a month, we began to escape from our circle of friends and look for social and private social interaction. In the past two years, everyone felt that the entrepreneurial opportunities of social apps reappeared, which led to the rise of apps such as Flash and Soul.

Therefore, mature foreign brands are striving to get rid of the position of "leader", constantly create differentiated cognition, develop more personalized products and do more groundbreaking cultural promotion.

Many times, the more big brands flaunt themselves as "leaders" and "sales champions", the more they deviate from brand differentiation. On the psychological level of users, the more you create opportunities for new brands.

03

Four correct postures to break "brand homogeneity"

The four wrong demonstrations I listed in the last section actually made the same mistake: only from the perspective of enterprises, not from the perspective of users. We must always understand that brand equity only exists in users' minds, so brand differentiation must be based on users' perspective.

Next, we will create the differentiated value of the brand from the perspective of users:

1. stands for product value point.

George is the marketing director of a blender company in America. The selling points of his company's products are "durability" and "strong mixing". If we only look at these two core selling points, it is basically no different from other brands on the market, but George has thought of a way to completely enlarge the selling point of the blender.

He bought a bunch of marbles, and then put them in the blender to stir. The glass ball is beating violently in the blender. 15 seconds later, George opened the lid of the blender, and the marbles had turned into a mass of white dust. George recorded all this with his camera and posted it on YouTube, which was very popular.

Later, George tried to smash lighters, game consoles and even the iPhone. This series of videos is called "Will it merge?" , the number of hits exceeded 300 million. In two years, the business of mixers has increased sixfold.

What George did was to visualize and even dramatize the abstract selling point of the product.

In fact, many products have differentiated selling points, but the problem is that your selling points are not clearly perceived by users. Please note that I have used the word "perception". The selling point of brand value is not to let users "think" or "judge", but to perceive.

Because "thinking" and "judging" are only rational decisions of the human brain, if they are rational decisions, the most common reaction of users is to compare prices, compare various parameters and make various evaluations. Except for high-consumption decision-making products such as automobiles and real estate, and general consumer goods, users simply don't bother to take the time to "identify" your value.

Therefore, the differentiated value of a brand must be perceived and touched by users. If your brand fails to arouse consumers' desire three seconds before users pay attention to you, then users will be lost.

Then, there are two practical techniques to amplify the user's perception. Let's take a few common ways to explain:

1) Create value perception with numbers.

The most typical case is OPPO's "charging for 5 minutes and talking for 2 hours". The figures of "5 minutes" and "2 hours" have formed a huge value impact.

2) Stimulate users' perception with vision.

We all know that tea is a big market now, but at the same time, the competition is quite fierce. The track is already quite crowded, such as Hi Tea, Naixue Tea, Lele Tea, Yin Wei Tea, Boiled Leaves, Lujiao Lane, 1 point.

There is a new brand called "Only Secret Model Tea". The color of the store draws lessons from the color system of Victoria's Secret Show, and blends dark and coquettish powder. The whole store creates a fashion sense of Victoria's Secret Show.

Another example is the letter Maojian, which magnifies the word "letter" infinitely, like a seal. This word "letter" is not only the brand's values, but also a visual symbol to attract consumers. This is the case with Huahua Company 20 18.

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Now there is a new term called "sensory brand", that is, your brand should give consumers enough stimulation in the five senses, so as to achieve enough brand imprint. In the eyes of today's dazzling brands, it is often only because of "looking at you more in the crowd" that consumers will want to have consumption behavior.

2. Strengthen one of the value points

We consume a product for many reasons. Quality, price, taste, service, packaging ... these may be the reasons for choosing. But no matter how complicated the reasons are, they can be divided into two categories:

1, intrinsic practical value: taste, quality and price. ...

2. External added value: service, packaging and experience. ...

When a market enters homogenization competition, it means that "the practical value of products" is no longer the decisive factor, and we often spell "the added value of products".

If you can enlarge the added value of a product beyond users' expectations and opponents' imagination, then you will be more competitive.

For example, many people like to visit IKEA, not only because IKEA furniture is easy to assemble and distribute, but also because IKEA restaurants are delicious! Many people even go to IKEA for dinner and buy some small furniture.

I want to tell you that IKEA restaurant is already the sixth largest catering enterprise in the world. The annual turnover of Swedish meatballs and ice cream alone exceeds 654.38 billion.

For another example, we all know Haidilao, the face dance of the delivery brother, the manicure service while waiting, and giving you a bear opposite the hot pot. This is the ultimate service value.

When the competition in China's home appliance market is fierce, what does Haier rely on to win? Relying on the intimate maintenance service in the later period. If you ask the older generation why they bought Haier, their reason is almost always "good maintenance and good service".

How to find the added value of products? We should carefully observe all aspects of users' consumption of products to see which points are "uncomfortable" for users and which ones you can solve with your own resources. That point may be the breakthrough.

For example, when people wear jeans, "curl" is popular. For how to curl hair, many people wear the strategy of "curling hair" taught by online celebrities. If I were the owner of a new jeans brand, I would do three things:

1) Training for all shopping guides. Everyone who comes to the store to try on jeans provides professional hemming guidance and shows different hemming methods on the spot;

2) Once the customer buys the jeans, they will get the hemming strategy. There is a paper strategy in the packaging bag, and there is also a QR code on it. After scanning the code to pay attention to the official account of the brand WeChat, you can go to the video tutorial;

3) Let the designer design several jeans with special patterns and patterns after the trouser legs are turned out, so that customers prefer "hemming". Once these styles sell well, they will position themselves as "the best-looking hemmed jeans".

3. Create new value points

Chen Guang stationery is a well-known brand in the domestic stationery industry, and its core product is writing pen. However, the writing tool pen is a product with high technical threshold and strong homogeneity. How does an ordinary writing tool pen become different?

The first thing Chen Guang Stationery did was to define his pen as a "special pen for examination". In the paperless era, students are the main group who use pens, and the biggest scene for students to use pens is exams.

Which pen can't be used in the exam? All pens will do! However, it is such a product naming that seems to charge IQ tax, which directly increases the market sales by 30%.

But then, I also met with imitations from various opponents, and everyone handed out the test papers. In order to increase brand differentiation, Chen Guang Stationery has developed a product called "Confucius Temple Blessing Test Pen".

There is also a "Confucius Temple Blessing Sign" in this product package. If the "blessing sign" drawn by the candidates is a sign, there will be a certain reward. They held the "Blessing Ceremony of Confucius Temple" in Qufu, Shandong Province, Confucius' hometown, and were authorized by the Confucius Temple. Is this very similar to the popular IP crossover? But this was a case ten years ago.

At that time, this kind of "Confucius Temple Prayer Test Paper" was snapped up by national candidates before the college entrance examination, and many candidates wanted to take this luminous instrument to take the college entrance examination.

Is there any difference in physical properties between Chen Guangbi and other test pens? No, it just skillfully used the psychology of China people seeking good luck in doing things, and found a highly differentiated value point for an originally homogeneous product.

When we complain that our products have no characteristics, we might as well try to "take a step back" and find out whether it is possible to give our products a new sense of meaning, so as to stand out in the homogenization competition.

4. Redefine the whole value

Nowadays, the word "redefinition" has been played badly by major brands. It seems that a brand's products can redefine its industry as long as they make a slight breakthrough in technology or commerce. But it is undeniable that "redefining" your brand value is especially suitable for those brands with innovative business models.

Every time I turn on my LeTV, there is a sentence "I am not a TV, I am a big-screen Internet ecosystem …". Letv defines itself not as "TV" but as "big screen ecosystem". This "life-sustaining" orientation is to put oneself in the "future" and put opponents in the "ancient times", which can especially arouse people's desire for the future.

This marketing idea comes from Apple, because Apple in Joe's era has been "redefining" the technology industry, and Apple has redefined music players, mobile phones and personal computers. At present, companies with the same temperament as Apple include Tesla, Google, Boxma Xiansheng and Luckin Coffee.

KK, a famous futurist and author of Out of Control, once said to Larry Page, the founder of Google, "I am not optimistic about the future of search." Larry Page replied, "Oh, actually, we do artificial intelligence." Therefore, whether it is Google Maps, Google Glass or Alpha Dog, these are not expanding the search business, but the in-depth development of artificial intelligence.

The anxiety of being eliminated by the times, coupled with our imagination of the future, always makes people look forward to the emergence of new things and break the old traditional order. If your company has such a gene, then you can think about the differentiated value of the brand by "redefining".

But if your enterprise just takes a small step more than the last one and uses "redefinition" to establish a sense of brand value, it may become an industry joke. For example, Teacher Luo Yonghao used such a PPT when introducing "TNT Workstation" at the press conference.

Also smart TV, Hisense also "redefined" smart TV at the 20 17 new product launch conference. Hisense's "Bright" series of new products, "comprehensively upgrade the artificial intelligence experience, realize intelligent voice interaction, face recognition, video sharing, smart home, scene content service ..."

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These advantages sound like upgrading an intelligent system and cannot be called "redefinition". When enterprises try to package brands instead of seeking truth from facts, the brand value you describe is "the king's new clothes" in the eyes of consumers.

5. Change the perspective and create a real value fulcrum.

Let's start with a story in the Bible, which has been quoted by many business books, such as The tipping point and Good Strategy and Bad Strategy.

The Philistine army led the troops to attack the Israeli army. In the army of the Philistines, there was a general named Goliath, a giant with a height of 3 meters. He wore heavy armor and came to fight in front of the Israeli army with an iron gun.

This picture is somewhat similar to the duel between the two teams in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. One of the generals came out and shouted, "Who wants to fight with me?"

The soldiers of the Israeli army were very afraid of this giant armed to the teeth, and no one could fight for a while. Only one shepherd boy named David volunteered. The army general allowed David to leave the station and gave him a combat suit, but David didn't wear it. Instead, he went to the river to pick up five stone heads, picked up the slings and went to fight the giant Goliath.

Goliath, the giant, was very ironic when he saw a child fighting, but David was not affected at all. He stopped at a distance from Goliath and threw a stone with a string, hitting Goliath's unprotected forehead. Goliath fell to the ground, and David ran up and cut off his head.

I think this story is very suitable for every entrepreneur to study, because almost every entrepreneur has to face Goliath in the industry and try to beat him if he wants to win the final victory!

Different from the emphasis in the Bible. In the strategic field, the reason why David the shepherd boy can defeat Goliath the giant has nothing to do with God and courage, but David has a unique judgment on the competitive situation.

Let's see how the public views the competitive relationship between Goliath the giant and David the shepherd boy:

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Let's see how David, the shepherd boy, views the competitive relationship with Goliath, the giant:

As can be seen from the two tables, once we change the perspective of looking at the world, our strengths and weaknesses have undergone subversive changes, thus finding our own potential value points. This value point is somewhat different from the first four value points. It is a key value point, the fulcrum of lever and the winner in Go.

Let's look at it from the perspective of business. There are many articles that attribute Pinduoduo's victory to "the countryside surrounding the city", which is a shallow perspective. There are many enterprises in the countryside surrounding the cities. Why can Pinduoduo break through the blockade of JD.COM and Ali?

Let's go back to the fundamental problem of an APP application to study this matter. The core problem to be solved by all growing APP applications is the customer acquisition cost. There are two ways for traditional applications to acquire customers:

1) traffic shopping, the pursuit of immediate effect transformation.

JD.COM, for example, spends a lot of money on search advertising every year.

2) Establish brand reputation through external advertisements, and create users to search and download independently.

For example, Tmall, Suning.cn and Vipshop all have huge budgets for outdoor advertising, product placement and content marketing.

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With the introduction of "Growth Hacker" theory into China, domestic enterprises began to make efforts to create the third means of obtaining customers, that is, using technical means in products and user subsidies to obtain customers by advertising.

If a lot of goods get customers according to the traditional way of thinking, they will be banned by several giants, and no amount of financing can afford it. The reason why Pinduoduo can rise is that its core means of obtaining customers is: group-assembling technology+user subsidies.

This self-driven growth model has stimulated users' spontaneous innovation in products, thus eliminating competition in a sense and avoiding the suppression of giants. After that, it will assist traffic procurement and brand advertising, thus quickly becoming a new e-commerce upstart.

Re-examine the advantages and disadvantages of yourself and your opponent, and rediscover your value fulcrum from different angles. This is the idea that all enterprises should have in the face of homogenization competition. The difference caused by the value fulcrum is actually the biggest difference. If expressed by a formula, it is:

Value fulcrum of differentiation = your strength-your opponent's weakness

This method of changing perspective and finding the fulcrum of differentiated value has jumped out of brand theory and upgraded to strategic theory.

The highest significance of finding this "fulcrum of differentiated value" lies in turning passivity into initiative and establishing your own strategic advantage, thus dragging your opponent into your strategic track and keeping him busy.

In summary

Today, we have reconsidered the topic of "brand homogeneity", and the core content includes the following three levels:

0 1 Why do others "brand homogeneity" still live well?

02 Solving Four Wrong Theories of "Brand Homogenization"

Five correct postures for establishing "brand differentiation"

When you and your competitors' products are highly homogeneous, then consumers are not buying products at all, but brand information. How we encode this information determines how many copies and how many years the product can be sold.