In today’s saturated mobile internet market, businesses face the challenge of oversupply and fragmented traffic. Cognitive marketing offers a fresh growth strategy by focusing on value innovation, customer orientation, and cognitive restructuring. This article explores the key dimensions of cognitive marketing—value, information, and relationships—that businesses must leverage to stay competitive and realize long-term growth.
The fundamental logic of internet thinking is: traffic generation, relationship accumulation, and value realization. Essentially, this is a business growth strategy that combines traffic thinking, behavior induction, and relationship marketing.
Today, mobile internet has become a traditional industry, facing problems such as product oversupply, information overload, and fragmented traffic. To achieve growth, businesses must find new strategies for growth.
Today, we’ll share the underlying logic of cognitive marketing, which is a business growth strategy based on value thinking, customer orientation, and cognitive restructuring. We will analyze it from three dimensions: value innovation, information transmission, and relationship accumulation.
1. Value Innovation
Businesses sell products, but customers buy cognition.
What does this mean?
At the core of the buyer-seller relationship is value exchange. This value has two types: seller value and buyer value. Buyer value is the value perceived by the customer.
Here's the question:
Is there a gap between the seller's perceived value and the buyer's perceived value?
Of course, there is—and it’s often a significant gap, a chasm that’s hard to bridge.
What constitutes high buyer value?
In the internet industry, high customer value is defined by: necessity, frequency, and pain points.
In traditional industries, high customer value is defined by: large industries, niche scenarios, and strong desires.
We won’t go into detail about the high customer value in the internet industry. Instead, let’s focus on high customer value in traditional industries.
First, you need to find a large industry. A big pond is needed to raise big fish; fish in a small pond can't grow large.
Choosing an industry is like choosing a track. Industry growth is like rolling a snowball—only when you find a "long slope with thick snow" will there be enough profit space and room for continuous growth.
In theory, large industries should be paired with large scenarios to refine products. However, customers in large scenarios have many decision points, leading to complex decision-making processes, high decision costs, and difficulty in realizing value.
Large industries and small scenarios are easier to realize value. If customers in these small scenarios also have high purchasing desires, it becomes even easier to generate revenue. This fits within the three dimensions of customer value evaluation.
Customer value varies across industries. How do you evaluate whether customer value is high or low?
There is a strong correlation between value and price. We can't say that a product sold at a higher price necessarily has higher value, but if our price is higher than our competitor’s in the same industry, it could mean that our customer value is potentially greater. Therefore, we compare against competitors, not absolute values.
The relationship between value and price can be examined across five dimensions:
Dimension 1: Supply + Demand
In large-scale sales, price is determined by the relationship between supply and demand. More supply lowers the price; more demand raises it.
For example, in the erythritol market, demand surged last year, causing prices to spike, but later, as supply exceeded demand, prices plummeted like a rollercoaster.
Dimension 2: Explicit + Implicit Needs
In large-scale sales, based on the size of the customer base, needs can be divided into explicit and implicit needs.
For instance, many young women prefer red bean barley drinks over yam powder. However, some women who suffer from cold-induced stomach issues realize that yam powder has a warming effect, so they opt for a mix of red bean barley and yam powder, addressing an implicit need.
By tapping into customers' implicit needs, we can expand the customer base and shift the supply-demand relationship, affecting price.
Dimension 3: Hard-to-Perceive + Easy-to-Perceive Value
Customer value can be divided into hard-to-perceive and easy-to-perceive value.
Take a mattress brand claiming to improve sleep quality, which initially struggled with sales. However, after releasing a video showing a glass of wine placed on the mattress remaining undisturbed while someone jumps on the bed, sales surged.
This demonstrates how turning hard-to-perceive value (improved sleep) into easy-to-perceive value (wine not spilling) drives sales, even if the perceived value may lack technical depth.
Dimension 4: Homogeneity + Differentiation
Homogeneity and differentiation significantly affect price and value.
Many products succeed without competitors but struggle to articulate their advantages once competition emerges. The harder it is to replace a competitor's product, the more likely your product lacks differentiation.
Dimension 5: Old Habits + New Habits
Even if your product is better, customers may not purchase it due to entrenched habits. For example, selling forks to Chinese customers for eating may be challenging because chopsticks are the norm.
In summary, customer value across industries is difficult to precisely define, but it's usually judged by comparing product prices with those of key competitors.
Thus, good customer value manifests in five aspects:
Demand exceeds supply.
There are many hidden customer needs.
Customer value is easily perceived.
Significant differentiation from competitors.
Customers are likely to form new habits after purchasing.
Higher-Level Customer Value
Designing customer value according to these five rules doesn't guarantee business success because this customer value is still low-dimensional, focused mainly on transactional value. There are higher dimensions of customer value.
The logic of customer value falls into three main categories:
Transactional Value:
This occurs when a business sells a product to a customer in exchange for money. Traditionally, we consider transactional value as either functional or emotional.
Newer generations, such as Gen Z, add two more values: content value and service value.
Interactional Value:
When relationships between businesses and customers are scattered and single-use, customer value is lower. However, when customers interact with each other, customer value increases.
Group buying, like with Pinduoduo, is a typical example where customers interact to unlock lower prices.
Asset Value:
As a business grows its customer base or daily active users, customers become business assets, generating higher-level customer value.
For example, the large daily traffic on WeChat transforms into assets for Tencent, enabling multiple revenue streams. Similarly, private domain operations capitalize on customer asset value.
2. Information Transmission
There’s an old saying: "Good wine doesn’t fear a deep alley."
This brings up a very important question—why is it necessary to transmit information?
The primary reason is information asymmetry. There’s a significant gap between the quality and quantity of information that businesses possess versus what customers know.
Innovations need to be communicated to customers in a way that allows them to see, understand, and remember them, and ultimately facilitates decision-making. Therefore, the importance of information transmission is self-evident.
First, let’s break it down from the perspective of the information receiver.
Humans perceive the external world through three ways of information input: perception, cognition, and awareness.
Perception is primarily unconscious, filtering and processing information based on habits and common sense.
Cognition is primarily brain-driven, filtering and processing information based on preferences and thought processes.
Awareness is heart-driven, adjusting cognitive strategies and deeper cognitive mechanisms through metacognition.
Still hard to grasp? Let’s look at three business examples.
Haidilao's Excellent Service:
From the customer’s perspective, the information input method is perception; from the business’s perspective, the information output method is behavioral induction.
Haidilao's good service is a form of behavioral induction for the business, but for customers, it’s perceived as an experience-based input.
For example, queuing is usually frustrating, but at Haidilao, while waiting, you are provided with snacks, drinks, or even a manicure, turning a potentially annoying experience into a pleasant one without much verbal explanation. These actions convey information to the customer through perception.
Banmu’s Challenge to Haidilao:
For customers, the information input method is cognition; for the business, the information output method is comparative marketing.
Banmu hotpot promotes product-oriented philosophy, emphasizing that good service isn't as important as great products like their tripe and mushroom soup.
When you hear this, your first reaction isn’t necessarily to go into the store to consume. In fact, there’s no direct sensory experience involved. However, it sparks curiosity and thought. This is a rational analysis process, where the subconscious processes a lot of information—“Banmu is challenging Haidilao.” This is cognitive input.
A Kindergarten Case That Adjusted Cognitive Strategy:
A kindergarten opened a Weibo account and posted daily photos of its lunch menu, and business boomed as a result.
This is an interesting case. When choosing a kindergarten, parents have many decision points:
Is it close to home?
Are the teachers good?
Will the child learn well?
Does the child enjoy going there?
Is the environment nice? Is the food good?
There are many factors. But this kindergarten cleverly adjusted the cognitive strategy of its customers.
Initially, parents choose kindergartens based on education quality. But the kindergarten shifted the focus to lunch quality. Subconsciously, parents equate good meals with good service, and this assumption then extends to all other aspects.
This is a typical process of adjusting the customer’s cognitive strategy.
For the customer, the information input method is awareness (different from basic perception or cognition); for the business, the output method is customer cognitive reconstruction, where multiple hard-to-perceive customer value points are consolidated into a single perceptible value point.
Next, let’s break it down from the information sender’s perspective.
From the perspective of the sender, customer value can be categorized into three types: hard-to-perceive value, perceivable value, and easily perceivable value.
Some information is like non-combustible material—customers feel indifferent to it; this is hard-to-perceive value.
Some information is like flammable material—if customers are interested, they will notice it; if not, they won’t. This is perceivable value.
Some information is like spontaneous combustion material—it spreads or goes viral before customers even notice it. This is easily perceivable value.
Still confusing? Let’s look at three business examples.
What is Hard-to-Perceive Value?
For example, when developing a SaaS system, customers won’t know whether the software is good or bad without deep use, so most sales strategies rely on persuasion and trials. For this type of customer value, consultative selling is particularly important.
What is Perceivable Value?
As mentioned earlier with the mattress example, the entire mattress is physically divided into sections. Place a glass of red wine on section A, and a person jumps onto section B without spilling the wine. This is perceivable value.
For people who tend to get up at night to use the bathroom and often disturb their partners, this perceivable value easily translates into a key decision-making point for these target customers.
What is Easily Perceivable Value?
Some fast-food chains advertise the quality of their rice. The aroma and texture are immediately recognizable to customers. The next time they feel like eating rice, they’re likely to return to that fast-food chain. This is one form of easily perceivable value.
Another example is Jiang Xiaobai's early-stage marketing with bottle slogans. Without even tasting the liquor, customers already felt connected to it through social resonance. This is another form of easily perceivable value.
We’ve now analyzed the perspectives of both the information receiver and the sender, but what happens in between?
Finally, let’s examine the chemical reaction that occurs between information output and input.
Information reactions fall into two categories:
Reactions for individual customers, focusing on memory points, transmission points, and decision points.
Reactions for customer groups, focusing on transmission symbols, group memory points, and social transmission.
While the process of information reaction is complex, the outcomes are relatively easier to deconstruct. Many marketers believe categories are crucial—categories are one of the results of information reactions.
Let’s deconstruct this concept of information reaction through the lens of categories.
Take Apple’s iPhone as an example. Many people equate Apple with smartphones, but this is a misconception—it’s far too simplistic.
What is a category?
A category is essentially the customer’s decision-making path.
There are two types of categories: explicit categories and implicit categories.
Explicit categories include product category, industry category, sales category, and transmission category.
Implicit categories include capital market category and underlying logic.
Apple iPhone Product Category: High-end smartphones
Industry Category: Consumer electronics
Sales Category: Fashion, mass luxury
Transmission Category:
Innovative smartphones (especially in the early days, when innovation was key; later, it became a luxury brand)
Steve Jobs IP (fans), quality content (e.g., the world’s first game developer to earn $1 million)
Excellent user experience (e.g., the world’s first mobile video calling via FaceTime)
Differentiation (more natural color photography compared to competitors like Huawei, Samsung, Xiaomi)
Capital Market Category: The world’s leading high-end smartphone manufacturer, the largest game distributor, the largest music distributor, and the safest mobile app ecosystem.
Underlying Logic: Technology-driven innovation + consumer-grade experience. The core of smart hardware lies not in the hardware itself but in content, services, and the business ecosystem they create.
Now, let’s reverse engineer the information reaction process (the following is a simplified explanation, as the actual process is far more complex):
For individual customers, Apple’s iPhone:
Memory Point: (Early) The most innovative product in the 3C category + (Later) A mass luxury product.
Transmission Point: New product launches.
Decision Point: A symbol of niche, high-end luxury + a mass luxury product for conspicuous consumption.
For customer groups, Apple’s iPhone:
Transmission Symbols: (Early) Steve Jobs as a super IP + visual symbols + slogans for each product generation.
Group Memory Points: Jobs’ obsession with excellence, annual product launches, annual reports, and the in-store super-experience.
Social Transmission:
(Early) The explosion of apps (game developers made fortunes).
(Early) Video calling (functionality innovation + application innovation + scenario innovation).
The establishment and modification of industry rules (e.g., combating privacy-infringing ads).
New product launches (there were leaks).
Stock price reaching new highs.
After this analysis, you should have a better understanding of how crucial information transmission is. It’s not simply about buying traffic and advertising but involves psychological and physical-chemical reactions.
3. Relationship Consolidation
In internet thinking, relationship consolidation is placed in the middle—first consolidate relationships, then realize value.
Traffic introduction, relationship consolidation, and value realization.
Essentially, this is a business growth strategy combining traffic thinking, behavioral inducement, and relationship marketing.
Cognitive marketing works in reverse, placing value innovation first.
Therefore, cognitive marketing is a business growth strategy based on value thinking, customer orientation, and cognitive reconstruction.
As long as customers recognize your value innovation, relationship consolidation becomes a natural process.
When it comes to relationship consolidation, there is a lot to cover, but we will simplify it into three types:
Relationship from traffic sources
Relationship from scenario share
Relationship from psychological accounts
Let’s break this down from the customer's perspective through an analogy.
How do young children improve their cognitive abilities and build relationships with external objects?
Children under 1 year old: This stage is characterized by attachment relationships.
When the attachment figure (e.g., their mother, the most trusted person) leaves their sight, the child assumes their mother has disappeared, triggering immediate insecurity and crying. In this situation, offering the child candy won't stop their tears.
Children under 2 years old: This stage is about clue-based relationships.
When the child wants candy, and the mother distracts them while the father quickly removes the candy from sight, the child forgets about the candy due to the lack of visible cues.
Children under 3 years old: This stage is characterized by conceptual relationships.
The child might be lying in bed with no external cues but suddenly says, "Mom, I want to eat the chocolate you bought yesterday." At this point, the mother might try to distract them by saying, "Look, there are fireworks outside." Although the child’s attention shifts momentarily, they will soon say, "Mom, I still want the chocolate."
In this case, the chocolate is not a real, visible cue but rather a virtual concept the child has in mind.
What does this tell us?
It shows that a child’s cognitive ability grows significantly over the first three years, from trust collapse to external cue triggering, and then to mental concept development.
This principle also applies to business.
Trust is the biggest transaction cost. Some customers, like a one-year-old, experience trust collapse when dealing with a merchant’s product.
Memory is the biggest customer asset. Some customers, like a two-year-old, will not remember the merchant’s product without walking past the merchant’s counter.
Concepts are the most powerful memory triggers. Some customers, like a three-year-old, will associate a concept with a specific desire in real-life situations.
In other words:
Without trust, even wealthy customers won’t have the purchasing capacity.
Without cues, most customers will only purchase once and then disappear.
Without concepts, market share and scenario share are rigidly separated.
Based on this cognitive breakdown, let’s examine the three categories of relationship consolidation:
1. Relationship from traffic sources:
A customer sees a store and decides to go inside, eventually purchasing a product. In business, most traffic sources are clue-based relationships—like opening a store in a mall or buying keywords on Taobao.
This relationship is akin to a 2-year-old customer.
2. Relationship from scenario share:
When a child craves candy, their brain triggers several candy-related concepts, with chocolate being at the top. In business, when a customer encounters a pain point in their daily life, a few business concepts will similarly come to mind. This is a customer brought in through scenario share.
This relationship is akin to a 3-year-old customer.
3. Relationship from psychological accounts:
Some customers show high loyalty to a specific brand, meaning they have developed a preference for the brand's product. When they have a need, they prioritize this brand, only considering alternatives if the brand cannot meet their needs.
Some customers, however, show low loyalty and will choose whatever is within their line of sight.
Loyalty is essentially determined by psychological accounts.
This type of relationship is divided into two: one with high loyalty (similar to customers over 3 years old), and one with low loyalty (similar to a 1-year-old customer).
4. Conclusion
Let’s wrap it up with a summary.
What is cognitive marketing?
Selling products, advertising, buying traffic, offering promotions, and creating memberships—these are traditional marketing tactics.
Traffic introduction, relationship consolidation, and value realization—these are the strategies of internet-era operations.
Through customer insights, reverse-engineering product definitions and decision-making—this is cognitive marketing.
Why should we use cognitive marketing?
Cognitive marketing involves understanding customer decisions and reconstructing their perceptions.
What is the essence of cognitive marketing?
Good marketing always creates a cognitive illusion.
A strong brand always creates a cognitive advantage.
The essence of cognitive marketing is cognitive breakdown and cognitive reconstruction.
First, it helps businesses better break down their understanding of products and customers.
Second, it helps customers better reconstruct their perceptions of products and brands.
Value innovation, information transmission, and relationship consolidation—this is the cognitive marketing strategy we have introduced today.
