If User Demand Vanishes, Is It Still Marketing?

When homogeneous competition stalls, the traditional practice of carving user personas is increasingly ineffective; modern marketing is undergoing a paradigm shift from "digging abstract needs" to "responding to scenario‑based tasks".

In the age of UGC explosion and instant retail, consumer decisions are no longer anchored to static labels but are triggered by concrete, fragmented life scenarios. AI can capture these scenario signals in real time, generate personalized solutions, and deliver them instantly through network channels.

Rather than spending effort labeling users, brands should immerse themselves in creating scenarios, allowing the brand to appear in high‑frequency moments of consumers' real lives, which becomes the key to sustainable, high‑quality growth.

Marketing expert Miao Qingxian asked what marketing can discuss if it no longer talks about demand. The answer cited is Clayton Christensen’s “Jobs To Be Done”. If users disappear, the answer is “scenarios”.

The question “If user demand disappears, is it still marketing?” has no simple answer because user demand is the root of modern marketing; removing it creates a serious problem.

Historical analysis shows that in 1957 John Maketrick (John McCarthy) introduced the marketing concept that firms should be consumer‑centered rather than product‑centered. This view persisted for decades, but it rests on three forces that made “market‑orientation = consumer‑orientation”.

First force: the marriage of marketing and mass media, which required audience tags for ad placement, turning consumers into statistical segments.

Second force: the nature of functional demand, which aligned closely with demographic attributes, making consumer‑based segmentation efficient for half a century.

Third force: traditional shelf organization, where retailers did not know the exact consumption scenario, so targeting the consumer was sufficient.

With the internet, “consumer” became “user”. E‑commerce introduced the “people‑goods‑place” model, refining user tags through browsing and purchase data, yet the core remains linking people to goods in a transaction venue, not the origin of demand.

UGC content is triggered by scenarios: a late‑night noodle bowl, a short trip, a ten‑minute gym session. These stories share a common scenario rather than age or income, and scenario similarity now outweighs traditional demographic similarity.

Instant retail further changes the logic: a midnight order for cold medicine is driven by the scenario “runny nose, pharmacy closed, need to work tomorrow”, not by a 25‑35‑year‑old female label. The same person may order completely different items in different scenarios, while different people in the same scenario place similar orders. Thus orders are generated by “Jobs To Be Done” within a scenario, not by pre‑defined user demand.

Consequently, marketing’s first question changes from “who is my user?” to “in which scenarios does my user need to accomplish which jobs?”. The marketing core is being replaced by scenario‑driven tasks.

The article predicts a future loop: scenario triggers a job, AI interprets intent, generates a scenario solution, and instant retail delivers it.

In conclusion, the physical person (user) does not disappear, but as the starting point of marketing analysis it may be supplanted by scenario. Scenario is not a supplement to the user; it is a substitute, and the first marketing question becomes “how can my user be needed in more life scenarios”.