I read a book this week. Looking at the title of this book, you might mistakenly think that it is about creativity, but it is not limited to creativity. The Chubang soy sauce we are familiar with has been dried for 180 days, the small sunflower image of Sunflower Pharmaceuticals, and the "I? You" of Xibei Noodle Village are all produced by Hua and Hua. This article is a bit long, so you can choose a longer period of time to read without interruption. You will find that it is worth it.

First of all, let me introduce this wonderful company - Hua & Hua Marketing Consulting Company. They started out as an advertising company. Two reasons made them change their direction: On the one hand, they were dissatisfied that in the advertising industry, Party B was always kneeling to Party A. On the other hand, they felt that advertising should come before the product, and they should first think about how to sell the product before making the product. Use the author's words to summarize what their company does: Hua & Hua = strategic consulting company, product development company, advertising company. They entered through the advertising door, and at the same time achieved a series of top-level designs such as product development, product structure design and corporate strategy formulation.

The author's thinking framework in the book is based on ancient military wisdom, which is used to look at the problems of current enterprises in the market, such as: Clausaveitz, Sun Wu, Fuller, etc.; also quoted Some in linguistics and communication, such as: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Harold Innis, Walter Ong, Wang Fuzhi, Wang Guowei, etc. He also talked about Hua and Hua methods, but they were all based on the theories left by his predecessors.

Let’s officially share the content of this book with you:

When I saw the super symbol in the title, the first thing I could think of was to create a book that was different from other competitors. The identification system allows the audience to recognize you at a glance in the market. The definition given by the author is:

That is to say, we do not need to create new things, we only need to graft this "force" onto the brand, which can instantly awaken consumers' attention. Inner memory, builds brand preference, and inspires purchasing decisions. We have always talked about brands, so what is a brand? Originally, the word "brand" came from the marks people put on cattle to distinguish cattle from different families. What is this brand? It's just a symbol. So what we are talking about now is that companies need to build their own brands, which is essentially building their own "symbol system." Brands either start with symbols or become symbols, often both.

Let’s look at propaganda again. The book quotes the definition from Encyclopedia Britannica:

In this definition, we can see that propaganda is the use of a system of symbols. As far as national propaganda is concerned, this symbol system includes words, gestures, flags, monuments, music, clothing, emblems, hairstyles, banknote patterns, stamps, and so on. Brand is also a symbol system, which is not essentially different from the national symbol system. It’s just that the function of national symbols is to govern the country, and the function of brands is to sell.

People are symbolic animals. Symbols carry explicit or implicit meanings, which profoundly affect human behavior. In other words, symbols control human behavior and are the driving force for our consumption. We must learn to deeply understand the relationship between consumption and symbols. If you look at the consumer products around you, you will find that symbols are everywhere. Moreover, they profoundly influence your purchasing actions. Some symbols are born as symbols, and some symbols evolve, precipitate, and evolve into symbols in the process of consumption.

Let me emphasize that the definition of symbol is very broad. The symbols mentioned here do not only refer to trademarks, or corporate logos and UI systems. The symbols mentioned here refer to all visual images, auditory symbols, tactile symbols, taste symbols and olfactory symbols that carry meaning.

Two examples: Coca-Cola’s glass bottle, that classic shape, when it first appeared, it evolved from the symbol of a woman’s body. It borrowed that symbol to make people like the bottle. shape, but when it became the No. 1 brand everywhere in the world, the bottle evolved into a symbol. Wong Lo Kat’s red can has evolved into the symbol of herbal tea. Later, Jiaduobao was forced to switch to gold can which was a helpless move.

Since the super symbol is so powerful, how to find it and bind it to the brand? People have five senses: vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. These five senses are the five paths of brand symbolization.

①Visual first

Most of the symbols we usually talk about refer to visual symbols. Generally speaking, brand symbols are visual first. Most of the brands we remember have visual impressions first. And this can be paraphrased. For example, if you say three stripes, you will know it is Adidas. If you say a hook, you will know it is Nike. But how about you describe the logos of other domestic sports brands?

② Hearing is not necessarily second

Why should we say that "hearing is not necessarily second"? Because at present, enterprises do not pay enough attention to auditory signs, and the potential is still huge. ? Hearing can activate the audience's ears and mouth at the same time, and word of mouth spreads. Communication among consumers is the spread of communication. It's not the eyes that convey the wink, it's the mouth that conveys it to the ears. It is not transmitted through vision, but through hearing. Auditory thinking is the key to advertising creation.

③Smell symbols and taste symbols

A good example I can think of for this part is the bakery in the front store and the back factory. They will specially put the aroma of the bread in the back Take it to the store and distribute it to attract more customers. Some hotels and shopping malls also have special fragrances to arouse the audience's olfactory memory. Do you still remember that I mentioned in my previous "Brand Brainwashing" that marketers use smell, hearing and taste marketing for the unborn fetus? (Click to view)

④Tactile symbols

Some linguists believe that touch is the first language of human beings. As soon as a baby is born, he needs to be touched and can understand touch. . I think that in basketball, during free throws, teammates’ high-fives and body touches also play a role in physical communication and positive psychological cues.

In summary, the five senses of vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch can all build a brand's symbol system. Choose your most prominent features based on the characteristics of your product. At least, the sight and hearing should not be left behind. The criterion for choosing visual symbols is photographic memory. The criterion for selection of auditory symbols is familiarity. We always talk about dissemination, but Hua and Hua say it should be called "dissemination". There is dissemination only when there is dissemination. The key to "communication" is to spread. Vision can only spread, and hearing spreads again and again. The key to the success of visual design is to create audible vision, that is, a vision that can be described and spoken. Visual communication is to enable the visual elements you design to activate auditory communication.

The significance of symbols is to reduce the cost of the brand - the cost of being discovered and the cost of being remembered. The cost of being discovered is that you are more likely to be discovered if you go with everyone. The cost of being remembered. Generally speaking, the memory cost of concrete things is low. The secret to keeping memory costs low is to combine vision and hearing into one, and describe symbols that are easy to remember, such as the Adidas and Nike mentioned above.

A word that persuades consumers to buy is the super word of the brand. Test this with two questions: Can you explain your business clearly in one sentence? Can we use one sentence to convince consumers to buy our products and services?

Clarification is subjective, while persuasion is objective. Speaking clearly is relative, while speaking action is absolute. To clarify, you think you have made it clear, but in fact you may not have made it clear. You think you have made it clear, but your colleagues think it is not, so everyone is arguing and arguing in the conference room about how to make our company clear. Therefore, speaking clearly and hearing clearly are subjective and uncertain. And speaking of moving is objective and absolute. If it moves, it means it has moved. If it does not move, it means it has not moved. Moving is a heartbeat, which ultimately needs to be implemented into action. If a customer comes, he or she comes; if he doesn't, he or she doesn't come; if he buys, he just buys; if he doesn't buy, he doesn't buy.

Let’s expand a bit more on clarification and persuasion. Communication studies talk about three levels: clarity, persuasion, and persuasion, but these are not the three stages of explanation. To make a move, neither explanation nor persuasion is needed.

Persuasion is a more tangled pursuit. Don’t always try to convince consumers. The more you try to convince them, the less convinced they will be. Why should they convince you? Since our purpose is to persuade him to move, we will study the method of making him "move" rather than the method of making him "submit". Therefore, the super discourse method mentioned here is a persuasive method, focusing on the purpose of "persuading consumers" and exploring a one-sentence solution.

If we aim to explain clearly and persuade, it will be difficult for us to focus on the purpose of persuasion. Goals and objectives are two levels. To achieve the goal is to achieve the goal. The purpose is the key, and the goal is just a means. To achieve the goal, you do not necessarily need to go through the goal you set.

The Hua and Hua method uses a twelve-character guideline to describe the creation requirements of the brand's super discourse: "Clear at a glance, like old friends at first sight, and spread like wildfire." From the perspective of communication, "Clear at a glance, like old friends at first sight" is broadcast. Effect, the effect achieved. "Spreading like wildfire" is the effect of communication, the effect of communication - spreading quickly, widely and far without spending money. Therefore, like super symbols, super discourse also activates consumers' memory treasure trove through direct use of human cultural discourse, obtains instinctive reflection, and obtains "overnight, a new brand becomes an old friend of consumers, and instantly establishes brand preference” effect. We should also go on to talk about the "action" of "talking": the first action is to make consumers impulse and act after hearing it; the second action is that the sentence itself can move, and consumers can think of it at any time, use it, and are willing to tell others Listen and be our communicators. In addition to the two actions, there is also a third action. Your employees must be able to take action. Will your employees talk about it at any time?

So, what should super discourse look like? First it must be spoken, because communication is a spoken phenomenon. In terms of communication, we can say that written language is useless because people cannot communicate. If there is only broadcast but no dissemination, it is useless. Many copywriting we usually see make this mistake, being obscure and pretending to be profound. It’s hard for such copywriting to arouse buzz, let alone spread it. When I was traveling in Taiwan, I discovered that not only can they design beautiful posters, but their copywriting is also very cute and colloquial, and they can really impress you.

In an oral culture, acquired knowledge must be repeated frequently or it will be forgotten because there are no words to record it. This kind of fixed-line, formulaic thinking is human-centered creation. Communication scientist Walter Ong gave an accurate evaluation and enthusiastic praise to spoken clichés: clichés help enhance the rhythm of language and help memory. Clichés are fixed phrases that are easily passed down by word of mouth. Clichés are not an occasional phenomenon in spoken culture. Clichés appear one after another and form the essence of thought.

Hua and Hua said that marketing communication is "linguistics of speaking". The essence of communication is not "dissemination" but "dissemination". We must mobilize consumers to spread the word for us. Brand super words are not about me saying a word to consumers, but designing a sentence for consumers to pass on to their relatives and friends. The advertising slogan is not something I say, but something designed for consumers to say. Therefore, the "jingle" form is often used precisely because this is the original instinct of human beings for tens of thousands of years!

As mentioned earlier, super words should be spoken, clichés, common sayings, and rhymes, not written language. Let’s go on to talk about super words, which require declarative sentences and action sentences. They should directly state facts and require actions, and should not be empty or elaborate. Brand super words either use declarative sentences to state a fact or use action sentences to ask people to take action. There should be specific content. Just say what the facts are. You can just say one thing. Don't say nothing at all. Just say what you want people to buy, and don’t ask for anything.

In Hua and Hua's view, super words are a higher level than super words. They have moved from one sentence to one word; from one sentence to conquering the world, to one word. The book uses the example of Obama's campaign, when he used the CHANGE word tactic to defeat his opponent Hillary.

Product naming, company naming, and children’s naming are all manifestations of super discourse.

The consumer has a task, a memory task: to remember that our logo corresponds to this name. The design of the logo should help him accomplish this task, rather than turning his one memory task into three memory tasks: remember the name, remember the logo, remember the logo is the name. This will increase the memory cost for consumers. If you come up with a slogan and need another sentence to explain its "connotation", throw away the slogan and use the next sentence. If you design a logo and need to write a logo explanation to explain it, throw away the logo, because it can't even explain itself, what else can it explain?

What costs can packaging design reduce? The first is display cost: the cost of being found on the shelf. Going to the store and onto the shelves is the first step in the packaging design process. Because of the nature of packaging design, it is not about designing the package, but designing the entire shelf. Other places on the shelf have already been designed by others, so the design rights for the small area occupied by our packaging belong to us. We want to use this small piece of design to make our products stand out. You don’t have to look at any references, but you have to look at the shelves. Because you don’t know what 99 out of 100 is, how can you start designing this one? This reminds me of going to an entrepreneurial base some time ago and chatting with an entrepreneur who was doing packaging design. I was curious about why the packaging he designed looked so ordinary, not as novel and unique as what I usually see in magazines. He told me in just one sentence that my packaging is practical and can directly increase sales. The actual effect, no matter how beautiful the design is, what’s the use? Therefore, the great designs in foreign design books are not the standard, but the designs on supermarket shelves are the standard. Because those "great designs" often fail to survive on the shelves and can only sleep in books. But what’s on the shelves is the winner in the big wave.

The first level is to highlight the product on the shelf just mentioned, and the second level is how to organize symbols and information on the packaging to improve the sales communication efficiency of the packaging. This is also an important way to reduce marketing costs through packaging design. Hua & Hua calls it: Let the product speak for itself!

In packaging design, we must have a belief, a firm belief: I have no advertising, and no one has heard of me, but as long as my packaging is on the shelves, it can speak for itself. Communicate quickly with consumers and sell yourself. If I put my packaging pictures on the web page, it will make people's hearts move without having to click on the big picture! This brings out the power of packaging. This can reduce marketing costs with packaging design. So packaging design is the biggest marketing plan.

In today’s video ads, when everyone shoots ads, they always use 30 seconds as the creative length, and then edit 15-second and 5-second versions, so 30 seconds is the complete story. Hua and Hua said this was wrong. They believed that now was the era of 15-second TV advertisements. Why is it 15 seconds? Because the playback cost of 15 seconds is half of that of 30 seconds. The advertising cost of 100 million can become 50 million. If you insist on using it for 30 seconds, it means you have to spend an extra 50 million - too expensive! You must think in terms of 15 seconds and solve all problems within 15 seconds. TV advertising is not "telling stories", it is "playing tricks", it is "product performance". What's the trick? The trick is to make you watch intently, listen to every word, fully accept the opinions you convey, and be inclined to accept the conclusions you provide!

1. Make people remember the name of the brand; 2. Make people remember what the product looks like; 3. Give people reasons and impulses to buy; 4. Establish brand symbols and corporate strategic advantages. In TV commercials, the product is the main protagonist. All advertisements must have the product as the protagonist, because everyone comes to serve it. Without it, nothing else would exist. What are the criteria for a protagonist? It just has the most roles. Therefore, creativity cannot compete with products. We invest in advertising to sell products, not to entertain the public. Celebrity spokespersons cannot steal the spotlight from products. We invite celebrities to highlight our products, not to worship them.

Hua & Hua's corporate strategic thinking is deeply influenced by military strategy masters such as Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Jomini.

The fundamental reason why an enterprise can survive, no matter what the business model is, is that the enterprise's value to society has become an efficient part of the social operating mechanism, so society allows it to survive. Otherwise, society will eliminate it.

Three levels of corporate social value: leading products, authoritative experts, and dream embodiment. The theory of corporate social value is to formulate strategies based on corporate social value and decompose corporate social value into three levels.

Hua & Hua proposes that all industries are consulting industries, all companies are consulting companies, and they are all consultants for customers. If you are a company that produces toothpaste, you are an oral health consulting company; if you are a company that produces chemical fertilizers, you are a crop yield consulting company. B2B companies are in the consulting industry and even have to bear the responsibility of product research and development for customers. For example, new flavors of toothpaste are mostly developed by flavor companies and proposed to toothpaste companies, rather than developed by toothpaste companies. The flavor company conducts market research, develops a new toothpaste, and sells this toothpaste solution to the toothpaste company, thereby achieving the goal of the toothpaste company purchasing flavors from the flavor company. Therefore, companies that engage in customer consultation, provide customers with market consultation, and do new product research and development for customers are the secrets of B2B business. Here, consultation is free, but it is the key to product sales.

To think like a consulting company, you will re-understand your "product". You provide products to customers and information to customers. So, what is the relationship between the products and information you provide? People often talk about customer stickiness, product experience is a stickiness, and knowledge dependence is a broader and deeper stickiness. In terms of knowledge dependence, there is another important thinking angle, which is “becoming a trustworthy speaker”. That is, whether "making enterprises a trustworthy professional spokesperson" has been planned and implemented as a long-term strategy.

I also took a survey class in college, but after finishing it I forgot everything except that my semester homework was to make a survey questionnaire. The research proposed by Hua and Hua was something I had never thought of before.

First of all, make it clear what the purpose of the research is, firstly, it is a reference for decision-making, and secondly, it is creative inspiration. Finding references and inspiration is the purpose of our research, but finding "basis" is not the purpose of our research. Among the results of research, the least valuable is the research report. You won't get anything from reading the report. What you will get is what the person who wrote the report summarized. If you don't go to the scene yourself and don't develop the habit of always being there no matter what happens, you are not a qualified businessman. The key to research is that you need to understand the story of consumption. This story includes time, place, people, process, and emotions, all of which can be vividly remembered. Because product planning and marketing planning are the scripts for writing consumer stories. If you don’t have stories in your mind and only have data, you won’t know anything.

You have to do the research yourself, you cannot send out a questionnaire. You have to go down to the grassroots level, go to the store and talk to the clerk. No method of research will yield more than a conversation, so be sure to talk to the store clerk in depth. When talking to a store clerk, don't ask "scientific" questions, ask homely questions. In fact, when you ask anyone questions, don’t ask “scientific” questions, ask homely questions.

In addition to the market research we talk about every day, Hua and Hua also mentioned an industry competition history survey.

All disciplines are history, and today’s understanding only represents the history of that discipline. Mathematics has a history of mathematics, and physics has a history of physics. An industry has also evolved from its past to today. The wisdom, experience, and lessons of each generation in this industry are all in history. So when we face any industry, we must first look at its history. It is necessary to be familiar with its Chinese history, and it would be even better to know more about its world history. The more historical data you have, the more creative you can be. Next, let’s narrow the scope of history to the domestic market and the competition history in the past ten years. The history of industry competition is what each brand has done over the years, and what changes have occurred. Correlate each brand's initiatives with changes in market competition and study them.

What happened in the market in 2012, what happened in the market in 2009, what happened in the market in 2006, and the growth and decline of these brands in the past few years, we need to study this issue very carefully.

For consumers, no amount of knowledge is too much. Hua & Hua divides consumers into four roles, which are four stages of consumption, four situational contexts, four different times, places, information, reactions, purposes, methods, contents, etc. These four situational contexts are: 1. Before purchase; 2. During purchase; 3. During use; 4. After use. Corresponding to the audience, buyers, experiencers, and disseminators.

Those who have not paid yet cannot be called consumers, they can only be called audiences. Awakening the audience from confusion is the first priority of communication. How to wake him up? The first is excitement. Stimulate him to react. What kind of reflection is most effective? Make an instinctive reflex. Therefore, the most efficient communication is to stimulate the audience's instinctive reflex. It is to let him discover in the first second that what you want to say is related to him. This is the most important and most efficient. You have to find the point and word that he can reflect the most, and choose the point and word that you want him to reflect. In order for the audience to react, it is very important to make them immediately feel that the matter is relevant and highly relevant to them.

When purchasing, you need a decisive terminal. Where exactly is the decisive point? Product packaging is the largest media. Use symbols to stimulate shoppers’ instinctive reflexes. Use shelves as advertising spaces. Turn the packaging copy into a shopping guide. Let the product speak for itself and the packaging become a shopping guide. Packaging design creates display advantages. Use product structure to occupy a larger counter and create more sales opportunities. Shoppers read product packaging seriously and rationally. All copywriting on the packaging must point to the value of your product. You must be sure that the copywriting on the packaging is worth consumers' money. Using colors is like using soldiers. Symbols stimulate instinctive reflexes. This is just the first step. Next, start a quick and serious communication with him immediately.

The process of use is also a process of experience. The experience economy methodology of the service industry divides consumption into three stages: Create expectations before coming. Customers come with expectations. Come and create surprises. The definition of satisfaction is to exceed expectations, so expectations and surprises must be accurately designed. For the surprise, you also need to design the emotional climax of the entire time process. Just like watching a movie, there must be an excitement point in three minutes. When you end a play session in the amusement park and your emotions reach the highest climax, the next one The first step must be the souvenir shop, because it is easiest for you to spend money at this time.

After the last use, that is, after the tourists leave, they want a memory and are willing to talk about it. Also be sure to design a “souvenir” that you will buy and take back. When we write the copy of a product, we not only think about how to introduce the product to buyers, but also how to let consumers spread my product after using it, and how to let consumers describe your product to others. , using the same language you use. What do you have to do? You have to make sure that the language you describe is unquestionable and there is no misunderstanding. Moreover, these languages ????and copywriting are the easiest to remember.

The role of consumers as communicators is a focus of the Hua & Hua method. It can be said that all designs and advertising creations of Hua & Hua are based on how consumers themselves spread it. The more consumers can spread things to others, the more we can spread it to consumers.

To summarize the Hua and Hua method, I would like to use two sentences to summarize our thoughts and our academic system. One is "human cultural prototype, brand super symbol", and the other is "brand discourse system, the supreme power of the market”. Our knowledge is "brand semiotics" and "corporate discourse".

Hua and Hua said that the top-level design of the brand: everything is one thing. The essence of a product is the reason for buying, and the reason for buying is just a sentence, or even a word. Product development is when you come up with a reason to buy and then use a product to realize it. In other words, you come up with a word and then implement it with a product. The Hua and Hua method is a method of strategic marketing creativity and a method of reducing marketing costs.

All of Hua & Hua's thinking is firmly based on the basic point of "reducing costs". Whether it is super symbols, super words or super words, they all minimize the marketing communication costs of enterprises. The Hua & Hua method uses creativity to comprehensively reduce costs in all aspects of corporate strategy, brand strategy, product development, packaging design, advertising creativity, etc.

It is difficult to write good notes on this book, because the theories proposed in it are very systematic and comprehensive, and each chapter is closely linked to each other. It seems incomplete if any part is missing. Even if I have the original text in the book, I have to sort it out for a long time, for fear that I don’t understand it well enough and the writing is not good enough or comprehensive enough. It took eight or nine hours to compile this reading note intermittently, and I reviewed it again at the same time. In short, this is a book worth picking up and reading several times.

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