OPPO and vivo are attention-grabbing, first of all, of course, because of the impressive performance in the past few years.In 2016, OPPO and vivo were ranked second and third in terms of share in the Chinese smartphone market. The first place is Huawei. But the share of these two brands, OPPO and vivo, combined was number one. Why can these two brands add up? Because their historical origins can **** the same upward extension to BBK. BBK is a very famous brand of consumer electronic products founded by Mr. Duan Yongping, who used to make telephones, DVD players, language repeaters, children's learning machines, electronic dictionaries and other electronic products that are not very popular but also not very niche. The founder went to the United States to make investments for various reasons, but two separate and related trees have sprung up at the root of the BBK tree: OPPO and Vivo.

The second reason OPPO and Vivo are noteworthy is that they are competing with some of the world's biggest giants. Huawei is also a world-class company, not to mention Samsung and Apple. It's pretty amazing that they've been able to stand out in a field of oligopolistic competition, and that they've maintained their rapid growth.

The third reason these two brands are notable is that their models seem to have little to do with the Internet model and social networking model that has been so much talked about in the past few years, although of course it can't be said that they have nothing to do with it at all, but they don't seem to be operating on the so-called Internet model. Xiaomi cell phone is also very successful, in a relatively short period of time to achieve the brand jump, using a more typical Internet model, such as the software of the many iterations; build community, and have professional ability to interact with the fans; through the network of direct sales, and so on.

OPPO and vivo have adopted a relatively traditional marketing model. This model has been on the Chinese market for a long time, and was once the mainstream model of consumer goods marketing, also known as deep distribution. The concept of distribution is sometimes easy to cause ambiguity, because the international practice of distribution is closer to the Chinese wholesale. Broadly speaking, distribution is actually sales, including retail. Some industries also refer to distribution as retail. Depth of distribution has now evolved into depth of marketing, because the depth of distribution is more emphasis on the channel, emphasis on the terminal, in fact, now the depth of marketing and progress, is a kind of three-dimensional marketing, not only in the channel and terminal links on the force, but also including brand promotion, product positioning, etc. series, the overall approach.

Recently, I've been writing a book on marketing, and I've summarized some of the successful models in the Chinese market over the past few decades. I found that the depth marketing model is an important contribution of our Chinese to the world of marketing, an effective market development method based on the characteristics of the Chinese market. What are the most important characteristics of the Chinese market? We can summarize it in one sentence, it is a multi-level three-dimensional market.

Two, the characteristics of China's three-dimensional market

China's such a huge market, from the first-class cities, provincial capitals, prefectural cities, to the county, townships and villages, the difference between the six levels is relatively large. First of all, it is manifested in the difference of customer groups. That is to say, the same kind of product, such as cell phone products or color TV products, the customer characteristics of the six levels are different. Customers in big cities have more knowledge, less information asymmetry with the brand, more autonomy, and less influence from the channel.

Overall, the further down the hierarchy of the market, the more vulnerable consumers are to channel influence, and the weaker their ability to make decisions on their own. This is not to disparage these consumers, it is such a characteristic. This also involves the transfer of knowledge and some other special demands of consumers. For example, the lower the level of the market, the more consumers rely on the service of the channel. If a cell phone breaks down, they can only go to the channel, unlike in big cities where there may be independent service providers.

From a channel (mainly retail) point of view, the further you go to the sub-markets, the more fragmented the channels become. Traditional businesses (store formats) that are rarely seen in Beijing and Shanghai, such as independent cell phone stores, or small chain cell phone stores, are still the mainstay of the channel, or an important part of the channel, in some prefectures and counties that aren't particularly developed, even though they have been consolidated over the years.

Another feature of the three- and four-tier markets is that they are relatively more efficient in terms of communication than the primary and secondary markets. To go to work on a brand, if you invest in advertising in Beijing and Shanghai, it usually takes an astronomical amount, because the city is so big and the media is highly decentralized. In Beijing, there are so many public **** transportation routes, it is unlikely that one or two public **** body advertisements will attract widespread attention. The county (including some smaller prefecture-level cities) is not the same, it's not a lot of streets, people concentrated in the space or square is relatively small, in the dissemination of some of the high points, seize some key resources, you can quickly create a dense, three-dimensional, customers repeatedly contact the information environment.

In terms of promotion, the three or four sub-markets are also more convenient. For example, in front of the store to get an arch, some activities, banging gongs and drums, play music ...... This is better to get in the county, of course, in the townships will be easier to do. But this is not feasible in the north, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the city management is also not allowed.

The special characteristics of China's submarket (submarket is a broad concept, including three, four and five levels), we have just made a brief introduction from the customer, channel, communication environment three aspects. In this context, for the three, four and five levels of the market, the depth of the marketing model mentioned earlier came into being, and it has been long-lasting.

Three, OPPO, vivo's "three high" mode

OPPO, vivo, these two brands and three, four and five levels of the market characteristics of what is the correlation? How do they develop such a three-dimensional market? In my opinion, OPPO and vivo's approach and marketing strategy mix are basically in line with the norms of marketing textbooks, in line with the general laws of marketing, and at the same time fit the Chinese market conditions. The marketing characteristics of these two brands can be summarized in one sentence: integrated marketing based on precise target market positioning, and in-depth marketing based on China's multi-level market.

Let's first look at the target market positioning. From the point of view of the brand's tone, OPPO and vivo are younger, more oriental and more refreshing. The tone of the brand reflects the customers it is facing. The target customers of these two brands are obviously young people. It can be extended downward to students, such as high school students and college students, and upward to young white-collar workers (young white-collar workers in the city who are twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old). Among the young white-collar workers, the positioning of these two brands is on the female side. Can't say it's completely targeted at women, but it's an indisputable fact that it's more popular with girls; the tone is more feminine, which is also an indisputable fact.

This positioning is not quite the same as Xiaomi. Because Xiaomi bias professional, emphasizing and know how the customer for more in-depth exchanges, including in technology, in the software exchange. And female customers (including male customers) in the three, four and five-tier markets are not very knowledgeable about technology and are non-professional. At the same time, OPPO, vivo's positioning is young people, but it gives people the feeling that it is a little higher than Xiaomi, that is to say, the price is not so low. Xiaomi's price is lower at first, and the target market is set to some young people with low income. Of course, Xiaomi has recently been making some efforts to change this situation.

As we all know, most domestic cell phone brands can't be said to have any special core technology. But at the level of applied technology, at the level of applied functions, doing some customer-oriented innovation is actually very effective. In recent times, OPPO and vivo have been focusing on such a value dimension as photography, DSLR, dual camera, 16 megapixels, soft light selfie, "photo your beauty" and so on. With some of these value claims and value propositions, it is simple to attract a large number of young, more beautiful, a little narcissistic, love of life consumers.

In the face of such a customer base, in the promotion and publicity, the two brands are also a systematic and integrated considerations, such as to seize some of the attention of the target group of highly concerned about the attention of resources (star resources). When grabbing star resources, there is not so much entanglement. Nowadays, young people, especially girls, look for whoever they like, whoever is popular, whoever is the national husband, so they used to look for Song Joong-ki, and now they are looking for Chris Pang, all of whom are international, young and more foreign. Sometimes not only find a, but find a group, such as Yang Mi, Li Yifeng, TFBOYS, including foreign Neymar, and so on. This is actually a strong promotional strategy, there are some fan marketing and Internet marketing implications here.

There are some brands in the choice of spokesperson, I personally think it is very interesting: why so choose? Let's take Tony Leung, for example. Tony Leung is already a relatively old man, and there is no special work in the recent past, especially the work of the TV series, and occasionally appear on the big screen, the selection of Tony Leung is connected with which crowd? It doesn't connect with the young, and it doesn't connect particularly well with middle-aged customers - older women also like fresh meat. So a strategy like this one, I think, screams puzzlement.

The way OPPO and Vivo think about it, as evidenced by the way they choose their stars, is accurate and simple. Some other brands, including the ones that pick international superstars, actually have very little impact on specific demographics in the country. Of course, here also involves the investment of resources. OPPO and vivo's model is high gross profit, high brand investment, high customer perceived value, such a cycle between the three.

In addition to inviting stars, these two brands are basically present in the media of communication, including some major events, major celebrations, and important TV programs, and they are never absent. Choose some media and events that have a high degree of customer recognition and are sure to cause a wide range of repercussions to advertise. Many people complicate the marketing, to big data clouds, in fact, like this media selection, basically do not need any big data analysis, based on experience, based on the understanding of the media and observation will be able to draw the right conclusions.

Just now we said, OPPO, vivo is a three high model (high gross profit, high advertising, high customer perceived value), did not take the low price route. Some brands put special emphasis on cost-effective, saying that my things are very good, selling at such a cheap price, it is logical that it should be unstoppable to seize the market share, but the fact does not seem to be the case.OPPO, vivo main products have been sold at a price of between 2,000-3,000 yuan, which can not be considered very cheap. Maybe slightly less than Huawei, but, very close.

The cell phone this product is more interesting, is the consumer at any time, anywhere, and in public, in the social network, this product in addition to the practical function, there is a very strong psychological value. Any product with psychological value, on the whole, can not be too cheap. For customers, too cheap is no face, too cheap seems to be their own income is not very high. After this, it seems that only the more maverick and marginalized people use cheaper cell phones, or people with lower incomes use cheaper cell phones. Once such a concept is formed in society, it is actually not very conducive to brands that place special emphasis on price-performance ratio. the value positioning of OPPO and vivo products, which emphasizes high-grade experience and social functions, is very accurate.

We can also cite a similar example of Uniqlo. Uniqlo's arrival in China was a "second coming".

Before 2000, when Uniqlo first came to China, it positioned itself as a relatively cheap brand. Because it is relatively cheap, it can not rent a particularly good place such as the A-class core shopping district stores, only in the basement or two or three floors, the decoration is not good. Things are sold very cheap, but Chinese consumers do not recognize, not in line with their expectations of foreign brands, that the brand may be a copycat, and the domestic very cheap clothing is not much different.

Uniqlo re-entered the Chinese market after 2000. Prior to that, Uniqlo also made marketing or business changes in Japan, not positioning itself as absolutely cheap, but as a good product of good quality, not too expensive and more affordable. Once in Shanghai, China, leasing thousands of square meters of mega-store on Huaihai Road, the decoration can not be said to be luxurious, but very beautiful, brightly lit, three-dimensional hangers, giving people the feeling that this is a big brand, is a more upscale brand, the price is quite cheap. In fact, the positioning of Uniqlo in the Chinese market than the Japanese market slightly upward a little bit, located in China's young middle class. The same products are priced a little more expensive than in Japan.

Thanks for the adoption.