What is alternative marketing? Ask for an answer! !

Everyone agrees on Coca-Cola, Disney, McDonald's and so on. They are all excellent marketing experts, but how many companies can spend a lot of money on TV and large-scale activities like them? Alternative marketing is unique, avoiding traditional marketing methods and adding luster to marketing. For most small-scale companies with a slight disadvantage at present, learning the ideas and practices of alternative marketing can catch up with them.

Reverse thinking

A small-scale bank in the United States has similar business content to other competitors. Although its internal staff work hard from top to bottom, its overall operation is very general. Once in its auto loan business, due to the change of internal process, the bank found a competitive advantage-that is, it completed the auto loan procedures that competitors could only complete in 48 hours in 24 hours. In the highly competitive American banking industry, it is very competitive to complete a car loan business in half the time of the opponent. But in the long run, this advantage generated by changing internal processes is easy to be imitated by competitors. Inspired by this tactical advantage, bank leaders began to implement strategic integration with the goal of shortening the time. Through the integration of equipment, processes, personnel and many other elements, the company has become the fastest bank in the United States. The strategic integration of the company generated by a process tactic not only makes this bank unique among many banks in the United States, but also makes the company enter the list of banks with the best profitability in the United States.

The above case is a typical case of reverse marketing, that is, transforming a certain business process speed advantage that a bank cannot maintain for a long time into the company's operating characteristics and advantages, and transforming tactical advantages into strategic goals. In China, most companies first set long-term strategic goals, and then implement phased tactics. This often leads to the failure to achieve strategic objectives because of the changes in specific circumstances, and the strategy will become worthless because of the tactical fiasco at a certain stage. There are many such examples. For example, Qin Chi's company suffered a fiasco due to tactical errors in advertising, Zhu San went bankrupt because of tactical errors in handling one user at a time, Zhongshan bully went bankrupt because of tactical errors in internal communication, and Xiang Xuehai's brand went bankrupt because of mistakes in using time. Finally, the company had to sell this once famous brand at a low price of more than 654.38+0 million.

Restrict supply

Hope is the most valuable thing, and things that are in short supply are always easily sought after by consumers. Suppressing supply caters to this psychology of consumers. There are three main advantages: first, it can make goods more attractive in the eyes of consumers, thus increasing potential demand and enabling enterprises to gain a larger share of the whole market; Second, the shortage of goods may become the news focus of people's attention, which can establish a good image for the company and create a bigger market; Third, while waiting for the products to be out of stock, customers may buy other unsalable substitute products of the company. Of course, the risk of adopting this method is also great. It may shrink or lose the market instead of creating it. Therefore, we must be cautious in adopting this strategy, do a good job in market research, and it is best to use it on products with better quality or certain popularity. Nintendo, which is famous for operating electronic game cards in Japan, once restricted the supply when the sales of game cards reached a climax, resulting in a temporary shortage. The most typical thing is that on Christmas Eve of 1988, retailers ordered 165438+ billion game cards, while Nintendo only provided 330 million. Interestingly, this shortage has created more consumer demand, and the company has obtained this demand.

Create a mystery

Curiosity is human nature, and alternative marketing is to make full use of this characteristic of human beings to achieve the purpose of marketing. The best-selling Harry Potter is unforgettable for all fans. The mystery, strangeness and twists and turns of the story and Hollywood-style superb production art are certainly a major reason for the box office, but the publisher's sophisticated alternative marketing art is also a major reason for its success. Before the release of Harry Potter, the publisher covered up the story of a cute and magical little wizard. Two weeks before the release of Harry Potter, the publisher announced the price and page number of the book. Foreign language translation is forbidden for fear of revealing stories during translation. The distributor must sign a confidentiality agreement with the distributor in order to obtain the right to sell Harry Potter, and peeking is not allowed. On Harry Potter Day on July 8, 2000, a few lucky publishers could only watch the clips in a locked room. What's more, for those readers who are eager to get it, several pre-prepared Harry Potter books were "accidentally" sold in an unknown Wal-Mart store in West Virginia. Publishers go further, claiming in public media that "Harry Potter" may be in short supply. A stone stirs up a thousand waves, and consumers are afraid that they will not get Harry Potter. When books and movies were officially released, readers who had been tortured enough by publishers snapped them up.

Gan Kun was moved.

There is a cross talk joke that says: three businessmen tried their best to attract customers to their stores by the roadside, and the store on the left took the lead in hanging an advertisement for "big auction" in front of the door; The shop on the right is not to be outdone, and the slogan of "great sale" is also displayed in front of the door; I saw four big words "entrance is here" unhurriedly displayed in the middle of the shop. Coincidentally, there is a similar situation in the United States.

1995, WBTV and WSOC, two TV stations in Charlotte, North Carolina, used to draw a lottery to improve the ratings and attract viewers to turn on the TV to see if their numbers won the prize. Soon, the two TV stations fell into an inevitable dilemma: their bonuses must be higher than each other's. At this time, WCNC Third TV Station adopted another positioning. It didn't pay any bonuses, only broadcast the winning numbers of those two TV stations, and didn't spend a penny, and the ratings increased by 83%. Here, WCNC avoids confrontation and benefits by using the strength of its opponents.

Create differences

65438-0992 The total annual sales of cosmetics in China is less than10 billion yuan. With its huge market capacity, low entry threshold and relatively considerable profits, cosmetics industry has become a hot industry sought after by investment experts from all walks of life. Softer rushed into the field of cosmetics under such fierce competition.

At that time, most of the cosmetics market emphasized a kind of spiritual feeling, but few products really put functional interest into practice, so Softer well identified the weakness of this market and competitive brands. Sofitel's market choice has two elements: one is people who need special interests, and the other is people who have purchasing power. Both markets are not very sensitive to prices, but more concerned with solving problems. Faced with a clear positioning, Softer is more concerned about how to maximize the price paid by consumers. 1993, aiming at the market difference at that time, Sofitel took the lead in developing a soap that had never been seen or even existed in the market-Sofitel seaweed slimming soap. The birth of soft seaweed slimming soap took the lead in realizing the functionalization of soap and adapted to the safe and convenient consumption psychology of consumers. 1995 has formed a scale advantage in China market. This is the success of market terminal differentiation. 1997, Sofitel launched "Papaya White Skin Soap", which was very popular. "Papaya" is known as the king of fruits in Lingnan. Papain and citrulline contained in it have good effects of decomposing melanin and peeling off dead skin. "Papaya white skin soap" has been welcomed by consumers in Hong Kong and Guangdong. Lead the skin care trend in China market again. Papaya skin care has become an area that various brands are scrambling to develop. In 2000, Sofitel facial cleanser began to enter the market in an all-round way, and suddenly launched the "Top Ten Beauty Cosmetics" facial cleanser. Sofitel starts with consumers' facial needs, including papaya white skin, pearl white skin, lemon white skin, pore contraction, micro-particle skin care, aloe moisturizing, MG bean cutting, sheep embryo wrinkle removal, eye socket rejuvenation, face-lifting and so on 10. "Wash your face to solve the problem of your face", a unique product, makes Rourou win a great victory in the market. 200 1, Sofitel facial cleanser ranks first in domestic brand sales.

Sofitel's success is inseparable from the in-depth study of the industry and competitive brands. In particular, the series of products developed under the guidance of this idea have achieved "no one has me" and thus quickly occupied the market. Not only that, Sofitel also pursues "no one has me" in brand communication. For example, Sofitel Papaya White Skin Soap was listed on 1997 and published in the form of an article "Natural Papaya, New Discovery of White Skin", which jumped out of the previous situation of hard advertising and made consumers feel refreshed.

Only after the enemy/opponent attacks can we gain an advantage through the attack.

Wagley is the largest chewing gum manufacturer in Japan, but for a period of time, the company suffered losses due to its inability to compete with Danny brand, which dominated the Japanese market. After a lot of market research and research, they found that Danny has two shortcomings, one is that the fresh breath is kept for a short time, and the other is that the chewing gum is not big enough. Therefore, they introduced "Danny" chewing gum with "long" versus "short" and "big" versus "small", which was well received by consumers and eventually became the leading brand in this market. In the market competition, many entrepreneurs advocate "preemptive strike" and "preemptive strike". But the first move is easy to hit people, and the second move is not necessarily subject to people, and it is possible to hit people. Video recording technology was first invented by Sony, and its "Beta Max" video recorder is very popular in the market. Panasonic, which is good at "taking the lead", specializes in researching competitors' new products, finding out their shortcomings, improving them and making more advanced products. On the basis of Sony technology, Panasonic has launched two brands of video recorders, Lesheng and RCA, which have more perfect functions and make consumers fall in love at first sight. Once put into the market, it quickly overwhelmed the other side and won half of the video recorder market.

Wear old clothes with new clothes.

How to make old products sell well forever? Lipton black tea, a world-renowned Unilever product, has a coup. Because teabags contain tea dregs, they have always been rejected by authentic tea tasters. In order to attract consumers in Taiwan Province Province, Unilever developed a triangular three-dimensional tea bag in 1997, which contained rolled oolong tea, Wenshan tea or scented tea. Once soaked in boiling water, the three-dimensional tea bag will swell up, and the tea fragments inside will stretch into the original shape, which is very in line with the taste of people in Taiwan Province Province who love China tea. Achieve an annual turnover of more than 300 million yuan and a market share of over 50%.

Lipton adopted the strategy of changing the product shape to attract tea drinkers; Hong Kong Volkswagen Telecom has slightly changed its advertising style, which is even more refreshing. The advertisement "Don't care about eternity, only care about how long you can speak" slammed by PHS on TV media is obviously a change of the advertisement "Don't care about eternity, only care about owning it" in the timetable of the Hong Kong Tower at that time, so as to convey the demand that PHS communication fees can last for a long time. In the film, please bring out the light rain in Qiong Yao's novels. The first half shows the beautiful and romantic background of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and the second half jumps to a funny story about the monitor's style. The style before and after is wrong, which caters to the young people's personality of jumping thinking and not playing cards according to the cards.

Lipton Tea Bags and Public Telecom both innovate in the form of "Everyone is better than me", and process and improve on the basis of existing products and services. It can be seen that if you want to make some changes in product sales and expect extraordinary results, you don't have to develop new things and abandon old nests to build new ones. With marketing creativity, you can also lock in special markets, avoid dead chess and start new games.

Discover complementarity

Try to enlarge the market by looking for the complementarity of products, instead of competing with competitors for the existing market. In the early 1960s, Kodak wanted to open the film market, but they were not in a hurry, because they knew it was not easy to get the newly developed film on the market immediately. So they adopted the method of developing complementary products, developed a popular camera at 1963, and announced that other manufacturers could copy it, which led to the upsurge of automatic cameras. The explosion of cameras brought a broad market for film. Kodak took the opportunity to quickly launch film, which sold well all over the world. "Kodak" became famous from then on, thus achieving the goal of creating the film market. A typical example of using complementary products to open up the market is the relationship between software and hardware of computers. For example, Windows95 is more effective on Pentium than on 486. Similarly, the Pentium chip running in the Windows95 system environment can reflect its value better than running in the lower version of Windows. Therefore, the two complement each other and promote each other, creating or amplifying the market of Pentium chips and Windows95.

deliberate deception

Cheating here is not cheating in the legal sense, but means that enterprises can deliberately tease customers through some means. Of course, this kind of "cheating" behavior cannot violate the law. Ye Maozhong, a famous planner in China, once had such a plan. When consulting a brand called "Xiaoyudian", he skillfully used the name "Xiaoyudian" and made many advertisements for missing people in Beijing Youth Daily, Beijing Evening News and other media. Many people thought they were looking for a lost child, so they provided clues one after another, which also attracted the attention of various media. When everyone is worried about this "child", the popularity of "Xiaoyudian" has also been greatly improved.

Enlarge information

In 200 1 year, the total revenue of China's advertising industry has reached11200 million US dollars, and the growth rate is 16% year-on-year. With the continuous expansion of information, the channels of communication are easily blocked, and the information that enterprises want to spread is difficult to be heard by target customers. In this case, it is necessary to amplify the information you want to spread. This effect can be achieved in two ways: one is mild aggressive propaganda. For example, on April 22, 2000, Nongfu Spring announced in the public media that it was proved by experiments that pure water was not good for health, and Nongfu Spring no longer produced pure water, but only natural water. This statement caused an uproar after being disclosed by the media, which triggered a war of words between Nongfu Spring and its peers such as Wawa Ha and Robust. In this war of words, the media don't know how many free advertisements have been made for Nongfu Spring. Another good way to expand the effect of information dissemination is to create a sensation. Many domestic planners are good at this, and there are many successful cases, such as Ke Shouliang flying over the Yellow River sponsored by Rainbow; In the 1990s, Jianlibao set up a special prize of 50,000 yuan, and all sales with prizes were enlarged in this way.

Emotional infiltration

"People of China, are you ready?" -This is a cordial greeting from P&G every day for many years, much like the situation of a loving couple Qi Mei.

"Did you wash your hair?" I'll wash it for you.

"Can you wash your hair?" I'll teach you how to wash it.

"Is it ready?" I'll tell you how to wash it.

Procter & gamble is like a gentle wife, attached to her husband's side, not only to coax, but also to practice; You not only pay attention to your life, but also take good advice.

With a history of over 65,438+000 years, Procter & Gamble has become the largest market share in China and the most popular enterprise in China. The key to P&G's success lies in its ability to "educate" consumers. When this enterprise, which appeared as a "mentor", presented a healthy lifestyle, a brand-new health concept and a credible health product to consumers, people first accepted it with some respect, and then prayed very devoutly. In China's concept of "being a teacher for a day and being a father for life", P&G's brand loyalty is indestructible.

P&G not only teaches people to wash their hair, but also teaches farmers in China to brush their teeth. At the same time, it has achieved unprecedented social benefits and is more long-term. Because, behind all these efforts, it is the change of people's living habits, the improvement of people's health level and the civilized growth of the whole society.

Because of this, when P&G paid an advertising star to do "I wash my hair every day, what about you?" In the large-scale advertising campaign, I didn't even have the name of my own company, and I became an out-and-out "Uncle Lei Feng". This move has caused "widespread speculation" inside and outside the industry. Finally, people come to the conclusion that P&G allows people to wash their hair every day, and shampoo is of course very expensive. P&G is the country with the largest sales volume of shampoo. Therefore, it is P&G that will ultimately make a profit, so it is useless to get up early!

In fact, the behavior of many excellent enterprises can no longer be simply understood as marketing behavior or marketing behavior in general. When an enterprise develops to a certain extent, it not only pays attention to the input-output ratio, but also pays attention to the machines that create value. They prefer to position themselves as the cells of society, and they will give full play to the social role of enterprises in many aspects, thus promoting the development of the whole society to a certain extent. At the same time, enterprises will also get unprecedented development in this process. P&G must be a "living Lei Feng". From another point of view, it is to consider the interests of one's own enterprise and the interests of the whole society together. What an enterprise earns in the whole activity is not profit, not share, but a kind of social reputation. As the saying goes, "When the river is full, it will dry up when it is gone." Therefore, it doesn't allow or need anyone to remember its name. Enterprise marketing to do this, it should be said that it has entered an alternative realm. (The author is a professor of economics and head of the Department of Economics at the Party School of Shiyan Municipal Committee, Hubei Province. )