In April this year, pet brand pidan collaborated with director Bi Gan to release the first brand short film "Heart of the Broken Sun", which tells a fairy tale about love. The short film was also shortlisted for the short film competition at this year's Cannes International Film Festival. The short film originated from pidan's brand concept: "The reason why humans need cats is because they can solidify the sadness that you and I tend to fall into when we are alone into the beauty of peace." In conjunction with the release of the short film, pidan also collaborated with multiple podcast programs to launch the "Guide to Cats and Calm Life" topic, and set up viewing and book exhibition areas for Calm Island in many bookstores.

As the first statement at the brand level, pidan chose to shoot a brand short film in a slightly obscure film format instead of a conventional form that is louder, has a wider reach, and does not even have short-term data requirements. Du Qian, marketing director of pidan, explained that many people underestimate the influence and long-tail power of brands. Although this project cannot bring high traffic and GMV in the short term, it will slowly shape brand recognition. "Brand The first important thing is that the long-tail power brought by the brand must be much higher than some current investments that seem to have good ROI. ”

The reason for brand voice at this node is related to the industry's competitive environment and pidan's thinking about itself. 2021 is a hot year for new consumption, and many new brands are emerging in the pet industry. The team began to think deeply about what kind of pet brand pidan should become. Starting from the "Igloo Cat Litter Box", pidan has expanded its categories to include cat supplies and dog products. After the expansion was frustrated, it focused on a full range of cat supplies, mainly the cat litter category. Among them, pidan cat litter quickly achieved the first place in the category. one. Starting from 2019, pidan has expanded from cat litter and cat supplies to cat food categories, becoming a company focused on creating a full range of products for cats. This year is Pidan’s seventh year as a full-category pet brand for cats. "Cats First, Public Welfare Plan" is the boundary of pidan's category expansion and product creation. All decisions must be beneficial to kittens and consistent with the public welfare plan. For example, the supply chain of cat litter adopts a fully automatic production line to prevent air from entering the cat litter and causing moisture; in terms of public welfare plans, in addition to having a public welfare account to rescue stray cats, pidan has also built a waterproof and ant-proof public welfare outdoor supply station for cats. Launched in June this year. They also formed their own brand system through adjustments to the organizational structure, that is, product innovation under the premise of "cats first, public welfare plan". At the brand level, pidan uses "calm beauty" as a unified expression. This concept was first proposed by founder Ma Wenfei and formed a consensus within the team. Du Qian believes that effective expression of a brand is particularly important in the current marketing environment, and the prerequisite for effective expression is to reach a consensus internally and be wary of consensus externally. This consensus reflects Pidan's understanding of the pet industry and brand, and is also the result of their thinking about "what kind of brand they want to become." For kittens, the value of pidan is to provide the products they need; for cat owners, the core value of pidan is not to solve practical problems, but to provide spiritual comfort. Du Qian said that the domestic awareness of pet ownership is rising, and they hope to arouse the most fundamental desire of cat owners for kittens, which is the feeling of peace. From their observations, cat owners are a group of people who are more sensitive to loneliness to a certain extent. What they need most is peace. They hope to create content that can bring a sense of calm to users like kittens. Secondly, the particularity of the pet industry is that buyers and users are inconsistent, and there is an information gap. Pidan wants to reduce users' consumption anxiety and information asymmetry as much as possible, and refuses to over-package and promote products. For example, after upgrading the VI, the packaging design is simplified and only the basic product ingredient list is retained; each batch of cat litter and cat food is tested and a query entry is provided to reduce users' insecurity from the source. The core propositions of "calm beauty" and "cats first, charity plan" are the core reasons for pidan to achieve efficiency, because the team is clearer and more focused on what must be done. Based on thinking about products and brands, pidan has built a triangular framework consisting of product research and development, content creation, and public welfare plans. The company mainly invests in this framework. In Ma Wenfei’s words, a company is not a complicated thing. The stronger a company is, the simpler it is. “The organizational structure is simple, the process is simple, the work evaluation criteria are simple, everything is simple.” Taking advantage of the release of the brand video, we An interview was conducted with Ma Wenfei, founder of pidan, to gain an in-depth understanding of how pidan’s core proposition and brand system were formed, and how they are reflected in daily operations. "Narrow Broadcast": In both the short film and the logo, pidan emphasized the long sentence "The reason why humans need cats is because they can condense the sadness that you and I tend to fall into when we are alone into the beauty of peace." What is the value of this sentence to pidan? How did it come about? Ma Wenfei: This sentence is our unified expression on the brand, and behind it is our thinking about the pet industry and brand. Why do humans need cats? No matter how warm and cute the kitten is, it still requires a lot of time and energy from you. Why do people pay willingly? The reason is simple: loneliness. Suppose you are a single young man, live alone, work during the day, and don’t like to go out to play in your spare time. What do you need most when you get home? We think of kittens as quiet, undisturbed, and kept at a distance. What are the characteristics of this group of people? Why kittens and not other small animals? From what we have observed, cats are little animals that bring peace of mind. Cat owners are a group of people who lack nothing but peace, because our daily experiences and experiences bring about many emotional changes. Everyone listens to sad songs, and no one listens to rock music anymore. We are all sensitive and lonely people to a certain extent, and such people need to feel calm. What is the brand? Brands certainly don’t solve actual problems, and no one person’s problem can be solved by anyone else. I don’t really like words that amplify personal power, and I don’t really appreciate statements like “I want to change the world.” The world doesn’t need you to change, the world will change on its own. To me, branding is not such a thing either. We just have an insight that this group of people needs peace, so we produce content that can bring them a sense of peace. "Narrow Broadcast": Du Qian, the marketing director of pidan, once told us that the prerequisite for effective brand expression is to reach a consensus internally and be wary of consensus externally. pidan has found the consensus of "the beauty of calm", which means that it is more efficient in brand expression. Ma Wenfei: Beauty can be perceived through expression. When we say that a person has good aesthetics, it often means that the person has good expression ability. Good expression ability means that he knows what he wants. For a person with aesthetic and expressive abilities, the process of unification of aesthetic style is the process of unification of what he wants. This is the starting point of efficiency. The reason why many brands are inefficient is not that they don’t understand aesthetics, but that they have not yet begun to express what they believe in a unified way. pidan has been established for almost seven years. In the past few years, we were not as focused and efficient as we look today. It was not until April and May of 2021 that we became more clear about "what is beautiful". The standards are very clear and special. , is easy to understand, and the company will be very efficient. "Narrowcast": What caused you to make such a change in April and May? Ma Wenfei: The objective reason is that after receiving Series B financing in 2018, we did not receive a new round of financing until July 2021. During this period, we realized that we need to focus our resources on the right things we want to do. superior. The subjective reason is that at that time we formed relatively unified conclusions on what to do in the pet industry, what to do as a brand, and what we wanted to be. We just want to be the company we want to be, no matter what the environment is or how outsiders judge us. "Narrow Broadcast": Although "the beauty of calm" is a unified expression formed last year, it should have sprouted long ago, because your products, visuals, and offline activities have always had a calm atmosphere. Ma Wenfei: When we were still not sure what kind of brand we wanted to be, our basic understanding was that "at least it is not something that will disturb users." It should not be like a big-character poster that actively creates anxiety. "Narrow Broadcast": It is said that the brief you gave Bi Gan was only the long sentence "The Beauty of Peace". You came to this after thinking about the brand and the pet industry for a long time. How did you communicate with him at that time? Does he feel the same way? Ma Wenfei: We are two companies creating in parallel. I express my views and feelings about animals to Bi Gan, and Bi Gan expresses his views and feelings through his works. We didn't start shooting on the basis of consensus, we were just expressing it in parallel. Pidan appears in a long brand sentence at the beginning of the film, and the brand logo appears at the end of the film, with Bi Gan's expressions in the middle. Doesn't it mean that there is no conflict between the well and the river? "Narrowcast": Are you worried about starting cooperation without reaching a consensus? Ma Wenfei: We paid the full amount before seeing the script. What do you think I'm worried about? I knew that Bi Gan became a director because he loved animals, and I saw that he had two cats in the studio. Based on these two points, I was completely relieved. "Narrowcast": How do you personally interpret this short film? What do you think Bi Gan expressed? Ma Wenfei: Love is a painful exploration with a beautiful and sad ending. "Narrowcast": Does this conflict with the "beauty of calm" advocated by pidan? Or can they coexist? Ma Wenfei: We don’t think about such issues. Bi Gan's movies themselves have a mysterious and calm tone, and this short film can also make people feel calm. As for why it feels calming? It's up to the author to express himself, and the viewers to experience it themselves. "Narrowcast": After the setback in category expansion, pidan has been adhering to the principle of "doing less overall" since 2020. You also emphasized that a brand company's efficiency and strategy are more important than diligence. How did this knowledge come about? How is it reflected in company operations? Ma Wenfei: There is only one reason why I made up my mind to remove diligence and "doing more" from the company's operations. As a group of people who love small animals, if we are not particularly satisfied with the product or content we create, we should not put it out in an attempt to take advantage of consumers' understanding of an unfamiliar brand through professional marketing and investors' money. , let others know who we are. This is really not the path we want. If things are divided into three categories: things that cannot be done, things that can be done but not done, and things that must be done, our previous stupidity lies in doing things that can be done or not. The thought at the time was, what if it works? What if your opponent does it? What if we don’t do the hot spot anymore and it passes? These are anxieties and expressive impulses brought about by the environment and are meaningless. Our biggest change is that we don’t do the things we don’t want to do, we don’t do the things we can but don’t do, and we have to ask ourselves whether we really have to do the things we have to do. If this matter is just our own motivation and has no actual impact on the objective world, then we will not do it. We would rather go bankrupt as a company that is lazy and idle and does not make any decisions than to go bankrupt as a company that is industrious, shouts slogans, and works overtime every day. "Narrowcast": Speaking of efficiency, I heard that your efficiency is getting higher and higher. From 2019 to 2021, pidan's employees decreased from 80 to 50, but the sales scale increased from 120 million to 400 million, and the loss changed from 10 million to a net profit of 10 million. How was this done? Ma Wenfei: Just do what you have to do, and don’t do what you can’t do. "Narrowcast": What must be done? What can and cannot be done? What are your standards? Ma Wenfei: Cats First and Charity Plans. All decisions take two points into consideration: first, whether it is good for the kittens; second, whether it is worthy of the title of public welfare plan. Take the cat food we are making recently as an example. We know how to promote products and how to compete with our peers, but we have never pushed forward with this matter. Because compared to the global pet food industry (non-domestic pet food), our past products have not yet reached the stage where we need to promote them. It wasn't until we conquered new technologies for this product and the production line was ready in February or March this year that we decided to start introducing pidan cat food to everyone. This may sound like an understatement, but if we sell cat food a year or two in advance, people will think that we are more valuable and better. But we don’t want to sell products that may get out of control. We insist on "not doing the things that can be done or not done." the rules. We also wasted some opportunities because of this, rather than seizing the traffic dividends of short videos, but we don’t feel it’s a pity because we don’t want to make shoddy videos. We still insist on finding overseas photographers and high-quality experts from all over the world to help us take product pictures. Even the videos and promotional videos we use to invest in ROI are aesthetically processed, hoping to bring a calm feeling to consumers. "Narrow Broadcast": "Cats First" is easy to understand. How should we understand "Public Welfare Plan"? Many companies refer to charity more like corporate social responsibility marketing. Ma Wenfei: That's not the case. The essence of public welfare programs is the widespread transmission of love. Although we are a company that provides products for domestic kittens, the cats in the world are not only domestic cats, but also stray kittens. The first principle of the charity plan is that for every product sold by pidan, 0.15 yuan will be donated to our charity account to rescue stray cats. The second principle is that our communication must be logical and consistent with the basic science of life. We cannot judge quality based on human standards just because the buyer is a human. What is more important is whether the product is beneficial to kittens. For example, adding too much of some nutrients will make people think that the product is good, but excessive amounts of nutrients are not good for kittens. We must not do such a thing. If the whole world is selling nutrients that are bad for cats, what is the difference between this and the companies that are still selling white sugar? In the era when white sugar was invented, humans needed sugar, and it was understandable for the companies that produced white sugar at that time. But today, when the supply of sugar is so abundant, if we still add cheap industrialized sugar to our products, it doesn’t qualify as a public welfare program. "Narrow Broadcasting": pidan has experienced from large expansion to small overall business, and has also experienced full category expansion from cat supplies to cats. I feel that the premise for pidan to judge whether it can expand is whether this behavior satisfies the cat first and public welfare plan. Ma Wenfei: Whether it’s a product or content, as long as it doesn’t comply with the cat-first and charity plans, we won’t do it. We don’t think we are omnipotent, we just want to do what we are good at. Many companies feel that they can do anything, their teams are great, and their ROI is high. But I think the prerequisite for becoming an outstanding and impressive company is that you have to know that you are ordinary and mediocre. Maybe your starting point is meaningless. We often say that if we don't work hard, no one will be sad if the company pidan goes bankrupt. In addition to taking good care of the kittens and delivering scientifically tested products, our ultimate ambition is that when the company goes bankrupt one day, those who know us will be sad and say, "Is the pidan gone? That's so boring." Ah", that's fine. "Narrowcast": You don't think pidan is an omnipotent company, what are your boundaries? Ma Wenfei: Our boundary is that we can only do things this way: communicate with consumers through creation and calculation, communication and dissemination. We only use communication methods that are non-intrusive, non-flattering, and non-noisy. We also work relatively slowly and don’t have slogans. This is our limitation. If this can yield good business results, I feel lucky; if not, we are willing to admit defeat. No failure is unacceptable, as long as it is failure after we fully express it, because we are not just about commercial success. "Narrowcast": Looking back, do you think pidan has redefined those categories? Ma Wenfei: If I have to say it, it is mixed sand. This is the only thing we feel a little proud of so far. Before this, there was no mixed sand in the world. "Narrow Broadcast": Pidan's mixed litter, or many cat products that consumers think are paid for design, have been imitated and plagiarized by other brands to a greater or lesser extent. What do you think of this? Are there any parts of pidan's products that cannot be copied? Ma Wenfei: I don’t have any opinion, just copy it. I am relatively calm and only disturbed by momentary emotions, but I rarely get angry. Because I am already very happy at work, I feel that I have no right to be angry. If one day I am copied to death by them, I will die without any complaints. So what if he was copied to death? Are a hundred basketball shoe companies in the world really more perfect than just one Nike company? It does not seem. Just follow the course of history, it doesn't matter. Products may be plagiarized, but "who we are" is not so easy to plagiarize. "Narrow Broadcast": Design has always been Pidan's strength, but when you reviewed the experience of great expansion, you mentioned that one of the reasons for the failure was "over-confidence in the power of design." What specific pitfalls have you stepped on? How did this knowledge come about? Ma Wenfei: I have always regarded design as the starting point, thinking that design can make ordinary products extraordinary. Most people are subconsciously superstitious about authority and are prone to misunderstandings about design. They think that a certain design master or a famous brand has used a certain design method to sell a product that they think is ordinary, but they do not understand that it is more difficult behind it. What is the reason. Because everyone just wants to find the simplest way to become the object of their appreciation. When a person attributes the success of a product to design, he or she is subconsciously taking shortcuts. Design is essentially just translation, assisting in spreading our understanding and definition of products. Everyone thinks that Nike's success comes from good-looking design, because Nike pays great attention to beauty and design. But as long as you read enough and in-depth information, you will find that design only accounts for a small proportion of Nike's growth experience. For example, the founder himself is a runner. When the company faced huge operating pressure, he would wear Nike shoes and run 10 kilometers a day to relieve the pressure. This particularly struck me. If you were the founder of a sports shoe brand, could you run 10 kilometers in your own shoes every day? "Narrowcast": In other words, although Nike surpassed other brands through its waffle sole and air-cushion shoe patents in the early days, in your opinion, these designs are just superficial, and the understanding and definition of the product behind it is more important? Ma Wenfei: Yes, the point is why Nike created waffle soles and chose air-cushion soles? Design is an instant choice, but why can Nike continue to make such choices? This doesn’t happen in an instant, but comes from the integrity of the entire process in the past. The founder of Nike loves running, knows many of his peers, and often exchanges ideas on how to run more comfortably. He is also an open-minded person who is willing to accept new technologies and, to a certain extent, be willing to gamble. There has never been a waffle sole in history. To launch such a shoe, there must be a strong driving force. This driving force goes beyond data and research. If we don’t trace these causes, we can easily summarize Nike’s success as the choice of waffle soles and air-cushion shoe patents. A one-time design choice will never bring a company the popularity it has today. It is long-term, countless design choices that make it what it is today. "Narrowcast": Generally speaking, the founders and company culture have laid the foundation. Specifically, they may have established a mechanism to ensure that when certain new technologies and new designs emerge, the company can make the right choice. Does pidan have such an atmosphere and mechanism? Ma Wenfei: We call it "brand system" and we are rapidly forming it. "Narrowcast": How to form a "brand system"? Ma Wenfei: It depends on the organizational structure. We divided the company into two sections: the "Creation and Computing Center" and the "Communication and Communication Center". The "Creation and Computing Center" includes four departments: product design, content creation, supply chain and finance, which I am in charge of; "Communication and Communication Center" "Center" includes three departments: channels, marketing and personnel. The characteristic of this architecture is that channels and markets are parallel to product design. This ensures that we can work behind closed doors to a certain extent. The starting point of each product is not defined by data that can be monitored. We will first think about what we want to do and complete 50% of it. On this basis, product design will collide with the voices collected from channels and markets to improve the product to 75%-80%. The core behind this is that we are a company that rejects the concept of "what is right." It stands to reason that a company would turn the starting point, design, proofing, and production of a product into a process of finding certainty. It would design various checkpoints in this process to prove that past and present actions are leading to the sales results it wants. .

But we completely reject this process, fully enjoy the justice of procedural execution, and are willing to bear the consequences that are not liked by consumers. I don’t believe that every choice Nike has made over the years has been the right one. They must have made countless choices. But they insisted on a certain kind of procedural justice and their own standards for doing things. Under the objective influence of luck, current situation, etc., three or four shining points were amplified, allowing us to see the prototype of this company.

"Narrowcast": Nike's Procedural justice can be summarized as doing what you love and breaking the rules. What is pidan's procedural justice? Ma Wenfei: Don’t just pay energy, money and time for certain success, but also enjoy that the world itself is full of changes. We don’t know what kind of products are easy to sell. We just want to make products that we think are good. If, with the support of the market and channels, we feel that the product is not bad and has not appeared on the market, we will give it a try. Our various departments have a dynamic balance and mutual supervision relationship, but if consumers don’t like it, we won’t blame each other. Because our main purpose is not to get a certain result through hard work, we understand that no result is certain, and we will never discuss whether a product can sell well. We are not a company that pursues certainty. We are making some uncertain moves every year or even every quarter. "Narrowcast": The essence of uncertainty is innovation, but innovation also has costs and even risks. Does your innovation have boundaries? Ma Wenfei: It’s cats first and charity projects. "Narrowcast": Speaking of innovation, pidan conducted a design exploration on the "pet urn" in March this year. What is the idea behind this project? I heard that pidan does some product exploration every year regardless of cost and implementation possibilities. Ma Wenfei: We have 12 design cycles every year, and we will use one or two cycles to explore non-development products. This project started by accident. When my colleagues and I were talking about other products, we felt that it looked like an urn, so we started talking about what to do after the kitten dies. As we chatted, we came up with the idea of ​​doing this kind of exploration. We are a very happy team and many actions are often just like a joke. Because as long as cats are put first and public welfare plans are the boundaries, there will be no problem with the value of the product. But you can't define us as a fool who spends money randomly. We only paid for the time and energy of the design without any money. Another point is that we have built a triangular framework consisting of "product research and development", "content creation" and "philanthropic plans". We mainly invest in this framework and prioritize according to the objective environment. "Narrowcast": The pursuit of uncertainty and the triangular framework is your subjective development motivation. From an objective environment perspective, which development opportunities will you accept as a result of dividends, and which ones will you reject? For example, you won’t choose the dividends brought by short videos. Ma Wenfei: In my opinion, the traffic operation method is not an absolute bonus. The dividends I define are macro dividends. If you treat non-macro things as dividends, it is easy to get sucked into them. For example, in the next 3-5 years, the construction of county towns in China will be a dividend, because nothing like this has ever happened in the world. "Narrowcast": From this interview, we can feel that pidan adheres to the standards of products and brands, and pursues long-term value more than short-term data. In your words, pidan is a brand company rather than a consumer company. To summarize, what do you think are the most important principles for a brand company? Ma Wenfei: It is very important to truly love consumers and the people you serve. We should not always assume that our consumers are ignorant and greedy for cheap. This is very sad. The essence of consumption is not to solve the immediate needs of life, but to satisfy those impulsive needs and please yourself within your own capabilities. Do you really love your consumers by repeatedly emphasizing price and cost-effectiveness? You have to believe that they are a group of people who can get better through hard work. "Narrow Broadcast": As a mid-to-high-end brand, the products you provide have spiritual attributes and meet better consumer needs and instant consumption impulses. However, some high-premium products will be defined as IQ tax by consumers because the gap between price and product experience is too large. How do you balance this scale? Ma Wenfei: First, we are not a profit-making company, and our gross profit has not exceeded 50%. Many consumers think that our products are expensive because they look good, but they don’t know that our raw materials are also very expensive. For example, the wood used for cat climbing frames is very expensive. Its raw materials are formaldehyde-free, very tough, and highly durable. We invest whatever it takes in materials for this durable product. Second, we have determined to be a money-making company from the first day the brand was founded, but we do not end when we make money. We want to use the money earned from selling goods to make cat-first products and to move consumers. According to the content of the readers, we can do charity projects. This is what we have to make money for.