When people hear the word "brand", most people think of the company's name, slogan, LOGO, products, services, advertising, trademarks, patents, etc. These are just market manifestations, and the brand is The sum of all these things. So what is marketing? Marketing is the voluntary exchange of value between buyers and sellers through the market, guided by consumer needs, and creating value for all stakeholder organizations or individuals. When it comes to brand marketing, there are many classic marketing cases in the marketing world, such as Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Apple, etc. Picture source: Qiantu.com 1. The purpose of brand marketing If an enterprise wants to carry out brand marketing, it must first understand the purpose of brand marketing. From the perspective of the AIDA model, brand marketing is the process of making consumers understand, interest, and desire corporate brands and products, then take action, and ultimately achieve consumer brand loyalty. If companies want to continuously gain and maintain competitive advantages, they must build high-grade marketing concepts. Then, we must first determine the company's vision, mission, core competitiveness, and consumer insights, so as to clarify why the company needs to do brand marketing. Purpose determines strategy and tactics, and then guides how brand marketing should be done. Based on this, companies need to pay attention to several important questions: Who are the consumers? What pain points do they have? What differentiation can the brand offer? What does it mean for consumers? What does it mean for the brand? Use this to understand pain points and provide differentiated products/services. 2. Brand marketing should be consumer-led. Brands are shaped by consumers and are the overall feeling of the public or consumers towards a company or a product. It is also a commitment made by an enterprise to the public or consumers, so marketing should be consumer-led. Therefore, brand companies must understand: 1. Consumers don’t care about the stories told by brands, they care about themselves. If a consumer takes a photo in front of the "Avengers" poster, he or she can become a hero. 2. The consumer is the hero of the story, not the product. Consumers can customize a pair of their favorite Nike sneakers through NikeID. 3. Consumers want brands to tell them that this brand can make them proud, happy, grown up, progressive, powerful, and beautiful. Coca-Cola and Disney both make consumers happy. The Apple brand story affects not Apple, but Apple users. 4. Consumer success stories: Where does the brand take consumers? 5. Difficulties/Challenges: What problems does the brand solve for consumers? Uniqlo: affordable, comfortable and simple clothes; Disney English: children learn English happily; IKEA: tastefully designed furniture. 3. How to build a brand pyramid. In view of what was mentioned earlier, in order to clearly understand what it is doing, why it wants to build this brand, what value the brand can create for consumers, and what its brand "is not", companies must build a brand. The pyramid can determine a standard statement and direction for the brand, and give the brand a meaning of existence. 1. At the top of the pyramid is the brand vision and mission: the corporate vision is to create value for mankind, and the corporate mission is to create value for consumers to meet their needs that have not yet been met. Coca-Cola’s vision is to be a responsible global corporate citizen, making the world a better place by building and supporting sustainable community development; its mission is to make people around the world happier, to continue to inspire people to stay optimistic, and to make people we touch Everything is more valuable. Vision and mission are the foundation of brand marketing. 2. Target consumers: It is the composition of the consumer groups selected by the company when formulating product sales strategies. For target consumers, do not set a large-scale target, but first serve a small group and slowly spread it. The biggest misunderstanding in marketing is often not even defining who the customer is. 3. Consumer insights: means having an in-depth understanding of consumers and consciously using such understanding to help consumers realize their needs. Consumer insights can be carried out through observation, questionnaires, direct conversations with consumers, conversations with consumers on social media, interviews with store clerks, interviews with competitors’ customers, mystery shopping, social listening, etc. to see what consumers like or do. What they don’t like, what their needs are, what they don’t like, and discover new markets. Don't be self-righteous.

4. Brand keywords: They are used to frame the brand’s personality and content, and will not let the brand run away like a wild horse. Starbucks' brand keywords are quality, taste, comfort, service, warmth, and fashion, which match Starbucks' positioning among urban white-collar workers who pursue advancement, focus on quality of life and personal living space, and like to socialize. 4. The bottom of the pyramid is the brand proposition, which is also the brand positioning in one sentence. It is the core identity and values ??conveyed by the enterprise to consumers. One-sentence brand positioning can express the company's brand/product/service, target communities, their unmet needs, the unique differentiation of the brand/product, and the benefits it provides to consumers. For example: ManiaIcon is mainly marketed to petty bourgeoisie white-collar workers over 25 years old who live and work in Yongxinfang, Xuhui District, Shanghai, to satisfy their desire to find a place that is more comfortable, quiet, and high-end than Starbucks, where they can read and work quietly alone. The purpose of the coffee shop is to provide simple meals, book bars, large sofas, light music, and personalized services, so that they can freely enjoy quiet moments, considerate services, and petty bourgeoisie luxury. 4. Brand Marketing in the Software Industry The software industry is a technology-intensive and knowledge-intensive service industry. Its industry characteristics lead to the typical brand consumption characteristics of the software industry. For a software company seeking long-term development, a good brand image is the key to success. From a professional brand perspective, consumers buy products and consume brands. This is especially true for the software industry. As mentioned earlier, brand refers to all the feelings consumers have about the products or services provided by the company, and it is also a promise made by the company to consumers. Products will continue to be introduced, but what remains unchanged is the promise given by the corporate brand. A company has a good brand image as its foundation, and its products and technologies are updated and iterated without affecting consumers' loyalty to the brand. Of course, product quality is fundamental. Take Yum Software brand marketing as an example. Its company vision is to become a leader in the digital transformation and upgrading of China's retail industry, and its mission is to achieve smart brands. Since its establishment in 2000, the company has been committed to providing solutions for the informatization and digital construction of brand retail enterprises. The company believes that only by connecting online and offline, unifying service standards and realizing omni-channel operations can retail enterprises be called "smart" brand". Based on this vision and mission, the company has also developed from the earliest pure software attributes to now creating a one-stop enterprise digital ecological service. Consumer positioning has also changed from the earliest "serving clothing companies" to today's "serving brand retail companies with digital transformation." The company's value proposition is to target large and medium-sized customers in the domestic and foreign retail industries as its main marketing targets to meet their digital transformation and business innovation purposes, and to provide one-stop enterprise digital ecological services from IT to DT to OT. At present, Yum Software has developed into the top brand in the industry in the field of omni-channel retail. Brand marketing brings many benefits to enterprises, such as improved image, increased customer loyalty, and a symbol of trust. The quality of brand marketing directly affects the economic benefits of an enterprise, so every enterprise should pay attention to it and strive to do a good job in brand marketing.