For a long time, I have heard countless times that BSC is dead. Although it is now called BNB chain @BNB Chain , many people still remember it as a zoo, a great scientist, a clamp that reaches the sky, a team leader who writes copy and bombs groups everywhere, high taxes, and Pixiu.
The reason why a brand is called a brand is because of the preference of users. Preferring Coca-Cola to Pepsi or vice versa, preferring Nike to Adidas or vice versa, preferring BNB to Solana, preferring one product to another, is a brand. How to make a product become a brand preferred by consumers is very important.
After CZ's return, bnb is now the number one in the Universe Institute. He personally helps the ecosystem to be active, so there is no shortage of traffic. However, it always feels that there is no unity within the company, and the CEO is separated from other departments of the company, which is why everyone jokes about "CZ's first visit to Shang K". From the dog released last night, it can be seen that at least a few people who are close to CZ have never played memes seriously. It's like a VC project going online, and it needs to be preheated. The truly contagious memes have always been cold, and now they are more criticized than profitable, which has somewhat damaged the bnb brand.
For a long time in the past, brands were only about marketing departments, budgets and media. As long as you had enough money, found the best KOLs and the best media, and made a big enough noise, plus the generally good market conditions in those years, no matter how bad it was, it was not like today when the products are launched and peaked immediately, you could create a good brand with a little bit of price increase. This logic has always made sense.
This creates a situation where values only exist in the marketing department and in the publicity of big Vs. In theory, if the marketing is successful enough, retail investors will understand the brand story better than company employees. The largest budget is used to invite the best KOLs, produce wonderful research reports and even gain great publicity, but when you look back at the product, you find that the product is not what it seems. What is said in the advertisement is not the same as what is actually said.
This is a very common situation in my career, whether it is web2 or web3. Because only the marketing department is doing branding, other departments in the company don’t care about branding. Product development cares about not breaking the product, the design department cares about looking good, sales cares about how much share is sold, and customer service cares about low complaint rates. Except for the brand marketing department, no one has brand awareness. Even some CEOs don’t care about branding, but just think that branding can make the price comparison more expensive and higher.
What if we look at this from the perspective of the company as a whole?
First of all, we need to have a unified brand value, which is a concept and attitude advocated by the brand. For example, if I want to support the ecosystem, it is just an O to apply the OKR that big companies like to use. How to support it specifically, what is KR, and whether to give real money or really serve every project well and help them connect with resources or support. Don't be arrogant and think that I am the best in the universe, or do a good job of marketing, continue to have topics, or find a market maker or conspiracy group, have a golden dog every day, and be able to pass every day
On the product side, the product is the only and core embodiment of the brand's values. For example, the transaction speed, the ability to handle high concurrency, and various supporting tools, are they optimized for current user needs? What other competitors are doing well and can be learned? The company should unify and allocate corresponding resources towards this goal to shape the brand's values.
Finally, the marketing department will promote the brand to users through different content and KOLs, get feedback, and form a brand consensus. If the marketing department is the only one to promote this process, it will be impossible to complete it. Even the CEO will find it difficult, not to mention other departments that collaborate horizontally. Therefore, the brand must be decided by the CEO. If the CEO does not care about the brand, no matter how much money and effort the marketing department spends, it will be difficult to build a real brand.
After the CEO has resolved the unification of the internal organizational and product values, the marketing department will start to do what it should do, integrating internal resources, coordinating with developers in the external ecosystem, and communicating with front-line users. This job is not easy either. Personally speaking, I have met Jiujiu @0xjiujiu99 several times, and he is very thoughtful and can imagine the pressure he has faced recently. From this position, it is almost the most thankless role. You have to integrate into all aspects of the company. As an integrator, connector, and communicator, you have to take on almost all brand issues, which is far beyond the scope of job responsibilities.
Finally, to sum up, branding is an overall systematic project, so "brand" is not the KPI of the marketing department, but the KPI of the entire company. Whether it is CZ @CZ or Yijie @Yi He , the company's thinking should be unified as soon as possible.
