For China's marketing communication industry, how to highlight China's strength on the global stage in the next decade is a major issue.
On June 8th, Lingsi Communication Institution grandly announced its future-oriented talent strategy - the Tianjie Project in Beijing. Dr. Philip Kotler, the father of modern marketing, was invited to attend, and together with Tan Ming, president of Lingsi Communication Institution, inaugurated the "Tianjie Project" of Lingsi.
At the conference, Dr. Philip Kotler gave a speech titled "Marketing Management in Chaotic Times", engaging in deep interaction with the guests present regarding scientific solutions for companies to manage marketing in response to the current financial crisis and long-term growth strategies.
In the next decade, can Chinese communication truly enter the mainstream of global communication? The gathering of authoritative masters and industry elites provides a path for reference for China's marketing communication industry to achieve breakthrough growth.
Issues and Opportunities of Chinese Communication
Tan Ming: Over the past decade, China's marketing communication industry has achieved rapid growth, with overall operational capabilities greatly improved. However, compared to the communication industries of developed countries in Europe and America, most Chinese marketing communication companies are only competing at a low level. First, there are few advertising enterprise groups and media groups with international competitiveness. Second, there is a lack of high-end professional talent. These two issues have troubled China's advertising industry and directly affected the in-depth development of the advertising communication industry; the situation in public relations communication is similar. Most PR companies only do low-level execution work. Such companies lack the ability for high-level, macro-strategic planning and thus lack core competitiveness. A large number of companies will adopt non-scientific competition methods such as price wars and relationship-based competition for survival, which is detrimental to the industry's development over the long term, and these are problems that need to be solved.
Philip Kotler: The importance of the communication industry is already well known. Therefore, how the communication industry maintains scientific, healthy, and rapid growth should be an issue we must pay attention to. Although this financial crisis has caused significant impacts on the financial industry and other real economies, we need to carefully analyze it and gain valuable lessons and experiences, applicable also to the communication industry. We can see that companies in crises become more cautious in all their decisions and pursue more tangible results. This places higher demands on service providers, i.e., our companies within the industry. This high demand is a test for us but also an opportunity for improvement.
Our topic today is about breaking through marketing under the financial crisis. How should we break through? I believe we can proceed from two directions: one is that companies need to possess strategic marketing and management capabilities in chaotic times; the other is that companies in the communication industry need stronger strategic management capabilities based on talent as the core foundation. Breaking through strategically in both directions will be an effective way to solve the problem.
Strategy for Marketing Breakthrough in Crisis
Tan Ming: Regarding the strategy for marketing breakthrough in crisis, I completely agree. Corporate marketing and management in chaotic times have been clearly explained by Mr. Kotler in his theory, which I believe can provide some reference for the majority of corporate leaders in China. Now let me supplement on the growth of integrated marketing communication companies. First, I would like to point out what is the core factor in evaluating the excellent capabilities of integrated marketing communication companies? I think it can be summarized in one sentence: how to create more efficient influence.
How to understand this statement? Let me illustrate with an example. For instance, when Chairman Mao said something, the whole country was affected. This is due to Chairman Mao's highly effective influence. Why does he have such great influence? Because he created a communication system and possessed unique communication methods, so one sentence from him could achieve such strong influence.
How should integrated marketing communication companies achieve such influence? I believe it can be realized through four dimensions.
First, at the academic level: using continuous creative abilities and highly macro strategic abilities, combined with a large amount of practical experience, to forge classic theories and concepts, thereby achieving influence in the academic field within the industry.
Second, at the management level: perfecting standardized, scientific, and comprehensive management methods to ensure smooth cooperation between various departments within the company and smooth external connections.
Third, at the capital level: paying attention to accumulating various resources of the company and using these resources to improve the efficiency of the company. For example, Ling Si has accumulated many resources over the past ten years and continues to expand in breadth and depth. We can imagine: if all the media across the country or even globally become Ling Si's resources, then Ling Si using these resources to help its clients convey a message would immediately show results.
Fourth, at the operational level: currently, China's communication industry is moving towards integration, which is a trend and also a representation of the comprehensive strength of companies within the industry. Ling Si has now become the leading brand nationwide in the field of integrated marketing communication and is currently striving to expand globally to achieve global high influence.
These levels are the key points to achieve high influence for integrated marketing communication companies. To achieve efficient influence, I believe the prerequisite is the support of "talent". We just mentioned that "people-oriented" is the key to the growth of the communication industry, and Ling Si's full effort in launching the "Tianjie Project" is the embodiment of Ling Si's "people-oriented" philosophy.
Philip Kotler: The core concept of the communication industry being people-oriented is a universal truth followed globally. Developed countries in Europe and America have been making every effort to cultivate talents in the communication industry. Ling Si's approach of operating talent as a resource conforms to the scientific growth rules of modern economy and is also the inevitable trend of the future growth of the communication industry. It is very rare and precious for China's integrated marketing communication companies to have such far-sighted strategic vision and courage to innovate.
I believe that the Tianjie Project launched by Ling Si can actually become a model commonly followed by China's communication industry and can even be considered an industry standard. This will promote companies within the industry to master core competitiveness and push the communication industry towards healthier and more stable development.
From Human Resources to Human Capital
Tan Ming: For China's local knowledge industry, what we really need to consider is what you have done from the perspective of people. What have you done in the past, present, and future? We have our own statistical indicators. For example, each employee in the knowledge industry, apart from training through competitions, what other kinds of training have they undergone? What kind of knowledge have they received? We believe we are quite professional and have a good reputation within the industry. However, the numbers in this area are also pitiful. If we don't focus more on human resources and make more investments, it will be difficult for us to go global.
The Tianjie Project is a strategic plan that Ling Si is committed to launching. The 10-year goal of the Ling Si Tianjie Project is: to invest over 1 billion yuan RMB, cultivate 10 master-level talents in different fields, over 50 expert-level talents in different fields, over 500 managerial talents at the department manager level and above, and cumulatively over 5000 specialized talents in various aspects. These numerous talents are not solely for Ling Si's use; the vast majority of them will integrate into various fields of the communication industry, making their contributions; at the same time, these talents will also use their driving power to bring up more talents, thus enabling the professional talents in the industry to continuously grow geometrically.
Using continuous talent as the foundation for industry growth, I believe this will ultimately have a huge promoting effect on the industry.
Philip Kotler: I am very confident that China's marketing communication enterprises can go abroad. However, this should be in three stages: the first stage is that these Chinese communication enterprises serve domestic clients within China.
The second stage is that Chinese marketing communication enterprises can help Chinese clients go abroad to other countries. The third stage is the most difficult because in this third stage, these Chinese media companies can obtain non-Chinese clients. In other words, these foreign clients hope that this method of communication has a Chinese style, a fresh style, different from the old, general European and American-made communication methods. Here, we need to see that for Chinese marketing communication enterprises, if you enter the third stage, at least you can collaborate with large foreign communication enterprises and become cooperative partners.
If you want to become an extraordinary communication agency, I feel you need to at least achieve the following three points: first, you must have outstanding theories that can clearly describe consumer purchasing behavior, such as why consumers buy this toothpaste or that beverage. Second, performance evaluation, of course, we evaluate through financial means, for example, Ling Si Company has its own exclusive theory that can clearly inform clients that if we help you with these activities, the return on investment can reach 20%. Third, you may become the first such communication enterprise that can fully mix new and old media methods for communication.