Alumni Interview | Rodney CAO: Knowledge Is the Best Charity

As a Shaanxi native, Rodney CAO smilingly attributed the perseverance in his character to the typical indomitable spirit of Shaanxi people. He prefers not to easily submit to the status quo and give up before all the possibilities having been exhausted. This kind of personality drove him to pursue a DBA after the completion of his EMBA study and motivated him to embark on his entrepreneurial project while conducting the DBA research.

"A grand vision without feasibility is just a castle in the air"

In 1999, Rodney founded the first professional brand communication management website in China - BrandVista, where he not only shared professional articles on brand management from foreign media and think tanks, but also published his own articles. Thanks to that, he made a lot of friends and became famous in this field. Owing to many years of hard work in JWT, one of the renowned 4A companies, Rodney has accumulated rich experience in providing services to clients from both international and national famous brands. And furthermore, in 2004, JWT helped Rodney to establish a professional brand management company and started the advertising business.

Everything seemed to be thriving, but Rodney felt unsatisfied. He had been paying close attention to brand management for many years and wanted to create something unique. In his EMBA study, a course on "platform strategy" gave him great inspiration: “Since I have good resources in both supply and demand, why not use platform-based thinking to make a change? What if I build a platform between demanders who need brand management services and professionals who provide such services so that both sides could take what they need? Wouldn’t it be nice that more people benefit from such an ecosystem on projects and knowledge of brand management which facilitates, at the same time, the efficiency of resources?”

Rodney quickly took action. First of all, he created a specialised we-media. Benefiting from the accumulated popularity, the official wechat account of "BrandVista" started with 30,000 followers and the number rose rapidly to 200,000 within only three years. He also introduced some consulting products such as “workshops” where marketers used spare time to provide services to companies that cannot afford an in-depth consultation with limited budget and time; the cases collected from “workshops” were subsequently adopted to enrich the services reserved to companies requiring a more comprehensive consultation.

With products, popularity and profits, the platform seemed to be running well, however, Rodney was not fully content. The people that he can help were not as numerous as expected, and the value he had promised was always limited. A grand vision without feasibility is just a castle in the air. In pursuit of a methodology, Rodney chose to apply for the EA-DBA programme of KEDGE Business School in cooperation with 2 other top-ranked Business and Management research institutions.

"Doing what you love is the best way to cope with the changing world."

The journey of DBA study culminated in the final doctoral dissertation. At the very beginning, the dissertation advisor told Rodney that the topic should not be too vast. Don’t overestimate yourself by thinking that you could come up with a theory that worked for everything and everyone. Those words led Rodney to take a deep look at his business, and finally helped him to narrow down the topic to “How does the brand resonate with many parties in the digital marketing era?”

Should I take a step back on the platform thinking? Having realised that not everyone had such energy to build and run a platform, he decided to throw himself into the development of “BrandVista”, focus on the field of brand marketing and drill down as deep as possible. However, the transformation forced him to make a difficult choice – should he abandon the advertising business?

The advertising business had made a lot of profits with a good amount of projects done, but Rodney’s enthusiasm was consumed day after day while pursuing the profits. He wanted to have a life of deeper value, but if the transformation failed, he would lose the income source by giving up the advertising business.

Rodney said that the hardest thing in work was to make choices, which could be done only by yourself. With the mental burden, he finally decided to follow his heart and do what he loves. In his opinion, it is difficult to keep on working if you always feel suffered in doing it. Only by working for what we love can we cope with the changing world.

So, Rodney restarted an innovative business while writing the DBA dissertation. First of all, he built an intellectual radio station called "BrandVista Granary" (品牌米仓) – where he published and sold what he has written for the dissertation in a regular basis (about 3,000 words per week). With the accumulated popularity and the traffic converted from the official wechat account, it is possible to make a profit equal to the DBA tuition fee before his graduation. Besides, more and more people are willing to pay for the online courses as the content continues to get enriched. "BrandVista Granary" has gradually become a marketing knowledge learning community under BrandVista.

"A good idea is far from enough for the systematic and comprehensive competition in the future."

Besides writing his own articles, Rodney, with some colleagues, reads daily others’ doctoral dissertations as well, trying to find clues that could enrich "BrandVista Granary". On one side, the cases accumulated from the consultations to enterprises (although no longer considered as core business) allow "BrandVista Granary" to have a broader and up-to-date source for the curriculum. On the other side, the cases (with sensitive information being removed) included in the courses and the working experience written in the assignments submitted by students from all industries become sources in their turn, both for further strategic enterprises consultation and operation of the official wechat account. And the good operation of the official wechat account will furthermore enhance the influence of BrandVista, attracting more students and corporate customers – a well-functioning closed-loop ecosystem has been formed.

The business getting better and better with more and more strategic consulting projects in the waiting list, Rodney chose not to expand the scale of the business. Instead, he put more efforts into the development of "BrandVista Granary", because he wanted to do something romantic – create more “brand advisors” for the country.

In Rodney's view, a simple good idea is far from enough for the systematic and comprehensive competition in the future. Enterprises need to go beyond “the rule of men” and improve operational efficiency with more systematic models and methodologies. The marketers recruited by the company often project their past experience into the actual work. Different experiences lead to different ways of thinking and behaviours, which makes it difficult for people to work together. Those are the problems that "BrandVista Granary" is trying to solve.

How do brand people build their brand ideas? How do e-merchants find exactly what the consumers need? And how to do the b2b brand marketing? Rodney divides the curriculum of "BrandVista Granary" into different modules and then integrates the characteristics of each module to standardise the systematic curriculum and build the models that can be reproduced and promoted. It will not only facilitate the standardisation of teaching, but also help to bridge the gap between different marketers so as to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of enterprises.

Delivering open class in enterprises, holding brand summit forums..."BrandVista Granary" gradually combines its online courses with offline activities, getting more and more people involved. The number of marketers with systematic and sustainable marketing ability keeps increasing with the help of “BrandVista Granary”. As an old saying goes, it’s better to teach one to fish than to give him fish. Rodney is getting closer and closer to his dream.

Some friends check the curriculum and said: "Knowledge can be copied, but thinking can’t be the same. Thinking model is our basic code, which can be upgraded unlimitedly..." Rodney wants to see the world in a higher dimension with the members of BrandVista so that he can have resonance of real value with them, resulting in a long-term and even an ever-lasting bond.

At the end of the interview, Rodney said: "It might be arrogant to say that we want to build an operation system of brand marketing for everyone. But why can’t we just keep motivated and rebellious like we were in our early days and chase our dreams with passion and perseverance?

Indeed, doing what you love is the best way to cope with the changing world.

Article from Shanghai Airlines - Written by Bian Lingli

China Chine