Discover the hidden cards and give your brand new planning power!

This article mainly explains that planners should be good at discovering hidden cards and promoting product progress. The ability of planning plays a key role in the late growth or mature stage of a brand. Planning needs to rethink the logic of how products meet user needs, so that products can go from spontaneous to conscious and achieve brand value-added. Recommended reading for people who want to understand brand planning.

Discover the hidden cards and rethink the logic of how the product meets user needs.

The power of planning is not only to solve marketing problems, but sometimes it can even play a role in revitalizing a brand. I don’t know if you feel that in this era when a large number of similar brands are emerging, only brands that “do not do their job properly” can break out of the red ocean and find a differentiated way of survival that others cannot learn. How to say it? Bookstores sell books, restaurants are for eating, and biscuits are for temporary hunger... All of this is natural and understandable, but it also means that your brand is fifty steps or a hundred steps away from others.

Musk once said that in life we ​​always tend to compare. If we do what others have done, we can only achieve small achievements. The same is true for brands. If other people's products meet a certain demand and your product also meets this demand, then the brand will unconsciously fall into the same dimension competition, which is a war of attrition. Unless your brand can occupy the category without any competition, it will be difficult to stand out. Exercising the power of planning and rethinking the logic of how products meet user needs can often prevent brands from falling into competition traps.

1. Planners should be good at discovering hidden cards

If competition is a battlefield, then transaction matching is a bet between supply and demand. In mature industries, people often bet with open cards, so the game is like purgatory. Therefore, when facing some common problems or seemingly unsolvable problems, planners should be good at discovering hidden cards and help brands find new ways out.

I think that when a brand is in the late growth or mature stage, your product needs to change from being spontaneous to conscious, and rethink the logic of how the product meets user needs. A typical industry is bookstores. At present, physical operations are extremely difficult because the operating costs of physical stores are high, and the repurchase rate of books is very low. Coupled with the convenience of online bookstores and the formation of people's habit of reading e-books, physical bookstores are almost dragged down.

Think about how long it has been since you last visited a bookstore. You will see that more and more bookstores that make a living by selling books are gradually disappearing, and the ones you occasionally see are empty. On the contrary, some bookstores with innovative business models are booming and have even become check-in spots. For example, Yuanwu Bookstore, which has become popular in China from abroad, is known as "one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world" and continues to attract people to check in. It is also a bookstore, but what is the magic of Yuanwu?

Its founder, Masuda Muneaki, believed that the problem with bookstores is that they sell books! Because for customers, what is valuable is not the book as an object, but the content in the book. Therefore, Tobiya Bookstore proposed the concept of "proposer of a better life", reclassifying the books according to their content, and as long as the content is related, whether it is magazines, books or even audio-visual products, they can be placed together.

In this way, if you are interested in a certain piece of knowledge, you will see more related content, and even be able to buy the things mentioned in the book on the spot. Through the reconstruction of the space, Yuanwu Bookstore changed from the spontaneous function of the bookstore - selling books, to the conscious function - selling the content of the books, rethinking the logic of the bookstore to meet the needs of customers and opening up a new way out for the brand.

2. How does a brand go from being spontaneous to being conscious?

Product spontaneity is the natural and consistent function of the product, while product awareness is a rethinking of the product's ability to meet user needs, an exploration of product value, and a redefinition of the product. From product spontaneity to awareness, it is actually a first-principle thinking method, that is, peeling off the surface phenomena of consumption layer by layer to see the essence of the product's ability to meet user needs, or rethinking the deep inner needs of users beneath the surface needs, thereby upgrading the brand value.

Take eating, a common thing, for example. The most basic purpose of eating is to fill the stomach. Sometimes it also serves a social function, sometimes it serves a political task, and of course it also serves the function of relaxing and satisfying oneself. So, how does Wenheyou view eating? Wenheyou's goal is to "become the Disney of Chinese cuisine." We know that Disney brings happiness to people. Wenheyou is not just an honest super restaurant, but is thinking about grabbing the rice bowl of the theme park. This is product awareness, combining culture and food, rethinking the logic of dining needs, hoping to bring people spiritual and physical satisfaction and create happiness.

Otherwise, do you think that the people who lined up for 40,000 people and waited for 20,000 people were just there to eat crayfish? From product initiative to self-consciousness, the founder developed Changsha Fried Club, which once only wanted to make good food, into a super Wenheyou commercial complex that integrates catering culture, regional culture, and market culture, opening up another possibility for catering brands.

Oreo is also more than just a cookie. You can see it in Western food and milk tea. Oreo music boxes and DJ booths constantly refresh your cognition. Oreo cookies can also be used to restore the Forbidden City and the opening credits of Game of Thrones. It has become a restless super toy! This is the power of planning. By discovering the hidden cards, the brand can fight for another 500 years!

We know that the basic value of a brand is differentiation. When there is insufficient cognitive difference in the same-dimensional competition, we need to rethink the logic of how products meet user needs, so that products can move from spontaneous to conscious, and discover hidden cards to elevate brand value. Rather than saying that such a brand is not doing its job properly, it is better to say that it has truly found its proper business!

Author: Little Monk Kunkun

Source: WeChat public account "Marketing Zen Institute (ID: mandcx)"