Adapt to the Times and Embrace Change —— The 3rd CGO Brand Growth Summit 2025 Kicked off with Innovation and Concluded Successfully
Growth is achieved by brands; innovation is contemplated by brands. Through intense debates, reflections, collisions, and sublimations, the creativity of brands has reached a new height at the CGO Brand Growth Summit!
For brand growth in 2025, a clear understanding of the overall situation is needed, guidance from entrepreneurial wisdom is required, exchanges of brand experience are essential, and a sense of industry responsibility must be assumed. In 2025, the brand spirit has shown unprecedented importance.
On March 19th, the 2025 (3rd) CGO Brand Growth Summit arrived as scheduled. Guests from all parties gathered at the Shanghai Baohua Marriott Hotel for passionate dialogues to discuss growth together. Compared with the previous two sessions, this summit has shown significant changes - a transformation from a one-way sharing input scenario to a multi-dimensional dialogue collision scenario.
Compared with previous years, the speech sessions at this year's summit have been significantly reduced. Except for one keynote speech in the morning and one in the afternoon, the rest of the time has been set as in-depth dialogue sessions. The three dialogue sessions throughout the day were led by Xu Sitao, the Chief Economist of Deloitte China, and Tang Xingtong, a digital business innovation consultant. Nearly a hundred well-known brands participated in the "Cross-border Dialogue" and "Brand Dialogue with Vision and Responsibility" sessions. They were deeply involved in the whole chain from topic setting, pre-conference discussions to on-site dialogues, and explored brand growth paths from multiple dimensions in terms of methods and practices. On this innovative dialogue platform, the enthusiasm and breadth of brand participation, as well as the height and depth of the discussions on growth, have shown a high demand and acceptance of the market for thinking about growth.
The summit has attracted high attention from the media and society. Mainstream media such as Jiemian News, Weibo, Phoenix Network, and Titanium Media have reported and broadcast it in real-time. The number of participants both online and offline exceeded 460,000. In terms of brands, Deloitte China and JD Retail made wonderful presentations. Nearly a hundred well-known enterprises such as Hengyuanxiang, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Porsche, NAUTICA, Li Auto, Philips Home Appliances, Dongpeng Special Drink, Anker Innovations, Laiyifen, OSM Pearl, Alpine, Chupa Chups, Worm Interactive, and JD Government and Enterprise Business participated in the interaction.
The purpose of the 3rd CGO Brand Growth Summit is to build a high-end dialogue platform for brand enterprises to focus on and participate in. The summit aims to achieve the collision of wisdom among senior management of brand enterprises, senior practical experts in the field of brand marketing, high-end economic scholars, government agencies, investors, and the media, so as to find growth paths for brand enterprises and promote the development of the Chinese economy.
This summit is guided by the China Business Advertising Association, hosted by the CGO Organizing Committee and the Huxiao Award Organizing Committee, and undertaken by the Tianyi Think Tank.
Ride the Tide
2025 CGO SUMMIT
▌At the opening ceremony, Li Xisha, the President of the China Business Advertising Association, delivered the opening speech first.
He mentioned that the role of CGOs in enterprises is to continuously promote growth. There are many difficulties in growth today, which is a problem we have to face. From the "Healthy China" initiative to "Green Consumption", there are abundant policies to promote growth, but more importantly, it is the implementation of growth. China has become the world's second-largest consumer market. In the future, to reach a new level and achieve high-quality development, continuously improving people's living standards is the fundamental goal. He also said that today, AI brings both great opportunities and great impacts. The value of technology lies in application, and growth is promoted through application. Everything is in the process of exploration, and enterprises need to keep up and respond. In addition, Chinese brands are achieving a leap from "manufacturing" to "intelligent manufacturing", and enterprises also need to keep up with the trends of brand upgrading and brand going global. Finally, Li Xisha summarized that new problems in growth emerge every year. We cannot be trapped in old problems for a long time. We need to discuss new ideas and solve new problems.
▌The host of the morning summit was Guo Weizhong, the Senior Vice President of Jiemian News.
▌First, Chen Zhongwei, the Chairman and General Manager of Hengyuanxiang Group and the Co-chairman of the CGO Summit Organizing Committee, interpreted the theme of the summit.
He pointed out that in the current era of great changes unseen in a century, with the deep integration of globalization and digitalization, the business environment has become more complex and changeable. Consumers' demands are becoming increasingly personalized, and market competition has shifted from a single price war to a value war, a cultural war, and an experience war. Therefore, "Riding the tide and changing with it" is not only a strategic choice but also a survival wisdom. This CGO summit focuses on core issues such as the international situation, economic environment, AI technological innovation, generational changes in consumption, and brand going global strategies from three levels: macro, meso, and micro, providing multi-dimensional insights and practical experiences for participants. Finally, he emphasized that brands should maintain a keen sense of insight and innovative spirit, actively embrace changes, and respond to changes with changes.
▌Subsequently, Xu Sitao, the Chief Economist of Deloitte China and the Co-chairman of the CGO Summit Organizing Committee, gave a keynote speech titled "Outlook for 2025 - The Prominent Role of Consumption in the Intersection of the AI Revolution and Geopolitics".
He believes that geopolitical risks affect enterprises' investment decisions, asset prices, and even consumers' preferences at any time, and also have a profound impact on policy - making. Regarding the current tariff issue that everyone is most concerned about, he analyzed China's possible coping strategies under three tariff scenarios: favorable, moderate, and bad. In 2025, against the background of the transformation of old and new driving forces and the unpredictable export situation, promoting consumption is not only the most important means to boost domestic demand, but also the economic balance brought about by revitalizing consumption will play a positive role in alleviating the geopolitical tensions caused by the intensification of protectionism. If China can alleviate economic imbalances by boosting consumption, it will greatly reduce the competitive pressure between China and the United States.
▌After the speech, Xu Sitao continued to have a dialogue with Zhu Qinqi, the founder and chief designer of NAUTICA, to decode the dual genes of brand growth.
Zhu Qinqi summarized his years of brand experience, especially recalling the 1980s in the United States when he first started his business. He believes that the timing of brand creation is very important, and so is channel expansion. At that time, the designed brand entered excellent boutiques, formed a clear positioning, and then precipitated into brand value. Today, the diversification of channels in the US hypermarket is different from that of the past, and it is much more difficult to launch a brand. As a brand operator with a design background, he believes that founding a brand often starts with love, and operating a brand requires a thorough understanding of the brand DNA. He also introduced that today, the functionality and practicality of outdoor sports clothing have become more important.
▌Finally, the morning forum entered the last cross - border dialogue session titled "Riding the Tide and Changing with It: Opportunities and Challenges in Brand Growth".
The host was Deng Chen, the CEO of Rootify and the Secretary - General of the Brand Going Global Ecosystem Working Committee of the China Business Advertising Association. The guests were Ma Zhenshan, the former Executive Vice President of the Joint Sales, Marketing and Service Organization of Jaguar Land Rover China and the Vice - Chairman of the CGO Summit Organizing Committee, He Ting, the partner and CEO of OSM Pearl, and Tan Li, the co - founder of Ningji.
Ma Zhenshan believes that the automotive industry has entered an inflection point. The century - old rules have failed, and the intelligent attributes of automobiles have changed the industry. The market has doubts about brand building and lacks patience. Brand building should use the thinking of traditional Chinese medicine to understand the brand, which is a long - term and systematic process, and also use the thinking of Western medicine to look at data. The two need to be combined.
He Ting believes that the online dividend is disappearing, and the growth of personalization and differentiation is declining. The OSM Pearl brand is positioned for mass rapid consumption. It first meets basic needs and then develops different consumption scenarios. The brand tends to target the silver - haired population, who have higher consumption ability and a higher repurchase rate.
Tan Li believes that competition in the domestic market is more intense. Although the overseas market is a blue ocean, only by exporting culture can a brand truly go global. In the catering industry, the supply chain and the number of stores determine the cost. Brands should go global rationally and not expand blindly.
Innovation
2025 CGO SUMMIT
▌The host of the afternoon summit was Luo Wenqin, the Vice President and Partner of Titanium Media.
▌First, Mr. Zhu Bing, the person in charge of Marketing Cloud and Data Business at JD Retail, made a presentation titled "Riding the Tide and Changing with It, Digital and Intelligent Growth".
He believes that the construction of the marketing field is essentially a process of efficiently connecting people and goods. Relying on massive data, digital and intelligent capabilities, and the advantages of the e - commerce field, JD efficiently integrates resources to achieve accurate matching of people and goods, thereby enhancing brand power and business operation ability. To this end, JD focuses on four aspects: First, wide reach. Through full - domain resource coverage and digital and intelligent capabilities, it achieves accurate penetration of the "general population". Second, deep brand awareness building. Through the integration of brand awareness building and sales, it strengthens the brand image in the minds of the "targeted population". Third, strong conversion. Through full - domain linkage, it realizes the timely conversion of the "high - potential population". Fourth, new product innovation. With the help of the whole - chain strategy, it accelerates the popularity of new products. Finally, he emphasized that marketing should return to people, goods,