Chapter 22 The Seventh Hidden Champion

"Marketing" and "brand" are perhaps the most popular and exciting words among Chinese companies in the past decade.Whenever mentioning the press conference that their company just held at the Shanghai Jin Jiang Hotel, or the commercials that will appear on CCTV during the prime time, people are often inexplicably excited.However, among the many invisible champion companies we have come into contact with, few people talked about such pomp and demeanor.Because of the industries they are engaged in and the strategies they adopt, they often do not have the opportunity to become the hot spots of public attention, and it is difficult for them to enter the ranks of so-called mainstream enterprises.What's interesting is that because of this, and because they didn't make brands in the way respected and familiar by the secular torrent, they were even ridiculed by some superficial media as "not enterprising" and "arrogant".

Although "reclusiveness" is indeed a common feature of most hidden champion companies, I would like to remind every reader again-this does not mean that they reject branding (branding), let alone that they are in everyone's mind. It is anonymous.As Simon said: "The so-called 'invisibility' is only for the public or irrelevant people. Every invisible champion company is not only visible to their customers and competitors, but also the most eye-catching." In fact, hidden champions not only understand the brand, but also attach great importance to the brand; they not only do marketing, but often do creative and passionate marketing.

In the process of interviewing the hidden champion, we were attracted by those wonderful marketing stories many times.For example, Southern Surveying and Mapping Company, the most outstanding enterprise in China's local surveying and mapping instrument industry, is a model of so-called "cultural marketing".Although their products are "cold instruments and software", when the company was only two years old (1991), Yang Zhenpeng, one of the founders of the company, started to run a one- or two-page leaflet-style thing , known as "New Information from the South".Although shabby and rustic, users "began to feel that the South is a little different from other agencies."Later, this thing gradually developed into two newspapers and one journal with division of labor in terms of content, form, and publication cycle. It not only undertakes the output of company information and culture, but also conveys customer feedback and industry trends, and gradually expands. To be the link for the company to gather customers, employees and experts in the industry.The sincerity, interaction, and life-oriented features of these corporate culture carriers have important similarities with one of today's most innovative marketing methods - "corporate blog".

And this issue we want to focus on the two "hidden champions" - St. Allen Daily Necessities Company and Lihua Fast Food Company, who are also the most important promoters of marketing innovation in their industries.What is particularly admirable is that these two companies are engaged in very traditional industries and produce very ordinary and even humble products.But precisely because of their breakthroughs in business models and marketing strategies, they not only became market leaders in just a few years, but also brought unprecedented vigor and vitality to the entire industry.