Text | Those things about the Internet
Open the public comments in Changsha, the first place in the machi list is the "rainbow egg pop pulp mochi" from the Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau, with a collection of 23,000 people, far exceeding the 1956 collections of the second place other brand products.
Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau is a new Chinese baking brand, founded in June 2020, and the freshly baked mochi is his family's blockbuster. Consumers are crazy about it, it is understood that since its inception, each store outside Mo mo mo "surging crowds", willing to wait in line for half an hour or more customers abound.
The Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau is becoming the "darling" of capital. Up to now, Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau has completed the B round of financing, and in just one year, it has obtained multiple rounds of investment from Qingliu Capital, Yuanjing Capital, Richu Capital, Tomato Capital, Yuanlai Capital, and Today Capital, with a cumulative financing of hundreds of millions of yuan and a valuation of 2-3 billion yuan.
In fact, according to official information, Momo has 16 existing stores, which means that the valuation of Momo's single store is more than 100 million yuan.
How did the young Momo Dim Sum Bureau become an Internet celebrity brand? Why has the new Chinese baking track been so popular in recent years? Is there a bubble behind ultra-high valuations?
And look at the breakdown of this article.
<h2>Baking rookies are on the rise</h2>
As can be seen from the menu, mochi, cheese crisp, puffs for the main products in the store, in addition to small shellfish, toast, egg tarts, wife cakes, egg yolk crisp, etc., the unit price is between 6-50 yuan, in the public reviews, the average consumption of Mo Mo is 30 yuan.
Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau integrates traditional pastries into new elements, midpoint West cooking, it is worth noting that compared with other similar baking brands, Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau has also launched a series of drinks, pastries + drinks extend the consumption scene of young people, bringing a unique experience of "one bite of dim sum and one sip of tea".
How did the young Momo Dim Sum Bureau grow?
From the perspective of decoration style and marketing methods, the lion's head logo + red and blue neon lights + solid wood laying decoration reveals the "national tide flavor" that has been very hot in the consumer market in the past two years, and also jointly creates snacks that integrate Chinese cultural elements with natural creations, which meets the aesthetic needs of young people for new consumer brands.
Although the same type of new Chinese pastry brands such as Wu Shusheng, Zhan Ji and Guangli Shen are also positioned as young consumers, they have not played such a special role in brand style.
In addition, the explosion of the Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau is also inseparable from its unique geographical location - Changsha. Changsha, as the top stream of the "Internet red city", has successively given birth to two major Internet red brands of "Tea Beauty" and "Super Wenheyou", which some people call the "incubator" of the new brand.
Young people who come and go spread Changsha's cuisine to all parts of the country through various social media, accelerating the growth of the brand, and as of now, the Notes on the Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau in the Little Red Book have exceeded 10,000. Most of Momo's stores are laid out near the Wuyi business district, which is the "heartland" of Changsha, helping Momo to quickly make a name.
Wang Dan, the founder of Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau, has served as the founder of fashion hat brand FUO and the cutting-edge tea brand ARTEA, she has a deep insight into the consumer needs of young people, from the beginning, Mo Mo will find the user's pain points, choose new Chinese baking, on the one hand, pastries are high-frequency consumer goods, no longer need to spend money to open the user's mind; on the other hand, the new Chinese style has innovated on the basis of traditional pastries, improving the past high sweetness, high oil taste, both appearance and taste.
It can be said that the Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau has rekindled the fire of the baking market in less than a year, which is inseparable from the brand's keen insight into the market and its own product innovation.
<h2>The new Chinese roasting of the flock of deer</h2>
Baked goods entered the mainland market from Hong Kong and Taiwan in the 1980s. In the past, traditional Chinese baking brands included Daoxiangcun, Xinghualou, Xu Fuji, etc., focusing on traditional festival gift-giving scenes, giving people a slightly stereotyped atmosphere, while Western-style baking brands such as Paris Bethel, Christine, Holly Lai, etc., gave people a delicate and young impression, traditional vs Western, became the opposite.
In the past 30 years, the domestic baking market can be said to be the world of Western-style baking. Taking baking stores as an example, related research reports show that at present, China's baking stores are still mainly engaged in bread and cakes, and such stores account for nearly 80%, while Chinese pastry stores only account for about 10%.
In 2013, a food program on Beijing Satellite TV made Master Bao's signature product "Meat Pine Shell" explode on the Internet, thus leveraging the market, and since then, various new Chinese baking brands have begun to rise. According to the "2020 China Bakery Store Market Report" released by Meituan Dianping, the growth rate of Chinese pastry stores nationwide will reach 21% in 2020.
Especially in the past two years, the fiery scene of the new Chinese baking circuit has been obvious to all.
On July 14, Hutou Bureau, a cutting-edge Chinese baking brand founded in 2019, announced the completion of a round of financing, and the brand valuation has reached 2 billion yuan; Nanjing new Chinese pastry brand Luxihe has more than 140 stores nationwide since its birth in 2017, which has attracted the attention of VCs. In addition, a number of new Chinese baking brands such as Xuanma, Zhan Ji, and Muyu have also risen, and they have sought to compete in the baking market.
Why is the track so crowded?
From the perspective of the general environment, China's baking market has a huge imagination. According to the "2020 Baking Industry Development Trend Report", the scale of China's baking market will reach 235.8 billion yuan in 2020, and it is expected to continue to grow at a rate of 7% in the next 5 years.
From this point of view, behind each pastry shop is a vast market worth hundreds of billions, and capital is inevitably restless. From the consumer's side, Generation Z has gradually become the main force of consumption, they pursue "delicious and healthy", advocate personality, like to try new things, compared to the previous generation's blind pursuit of Western brands, they have more cultural self-confidence.
According to Meituan-Dianping statistics, the most important group of consumers in Chinese bakery stores is young people between the ages of 25 and 30, accounting for 36%. At the same time, female consumer groups accounted for 76.6%, becoming the mainstream of baking store consumers.
Therefore, firmly grasping the consumer psychology of young people, especially young women, is the opportunity for the rise of new Chinese baking.
In terms of taste, the new Chinese pastry is based on traditional Chinese pastries, and integrates the characteristics of Western-style pastries in the process, with exquisite material selection and fine production, and low fat and low sugar to meet the stomach of young people. In terms of marketing, tell the new "national tide" story well, and capture the hearts of young people through interesting copywriting, youthful packaging, and cross-border linkage.
In the past, under the PK with Western-style baking, whether in terms of packaging, taste, or marketing, Chinese baking brands have lost a little, and now, in the face of broad market development potential and the rise of new consumers, new Chinese pastries have entered the game strongly, through innovation, Chinese pastries usher in a good time for revitalization, new brands grow rapidly, capital blessings, and the baking track continues to heat up.
<h2>Hidden worries under the heat</h2>
In the new Chinese baking market, there are not only long-established brands such as Daoxiangcun and Master Bao entering the market, but also emerging brands such as Mo mo dim sum bureau, Hutou Bureau, and Xuan Ma, which can be said that the new Chinese baking is currently thriving.
At present, the Mo mo dim sum bureau is favored by both capital and consumers, but behind the highlight is the development of its unstable foundation.
Pushing explosive models, KOL planting grass, storytelling, Mo Mo dim sum bureau is a typical development path of Internet celebrities - choose a track that lacks head competition, launch explosive models, please young people through stories and social media platforms, attract capital to enter the game after obtaining a large amount of traffic, and finally return to inject enough cultural connotation into the brand.
The influencer style can make the new brand rise rapidly, but if the product cannot be guaranteed to continue to stay active, the final result can only be that consumers "come and go in a hurry" and go in a hurry.
For example, the plant-based food track, which is popular with capital, last year's total global investment and financing amount exceeded 8 billion yuan, and a number of Internet red brands such as Zhou Zero, Uneaten, Green Monday, etc. rose rapidly, but soon returned to silence in the market.
In addition, the "national tide" label is now becoming a passport for many new consumer brands to enter the market, in order to attract the attention of young people faster. However, when the national tide is prevalent and the national tide is everywhere, it is not only easy for consumers to have aesthetic fatigue, but also users will question how much real cultural connotation is behind the name of "national tide".
The market needs good stories, but only good stories that can stand up to scrutiny and superimpose good qualities can gain long-term vitality.
For the entire market, the new Chinese baking track is a red sea, more and more new brands are rising, and the phenomenon of homogenization is also followed. Pure meat floss scallops, mochi, egg yolk puff pastry... Each family changes the pattern to create new products, and only a few of them really become explosive products, and most of the so-called new products are just a change of taste and name, reduced to "disposable consumer goods".
In this regard, focusing on innovation, increasing research and development, and innovating are the new solutions for pastry shops to eliminate homogeneous anxiety and win picky taste buds.
It is worth noting that the valuation of Mo Mo Dim Sum Bureau has increased by 500 times in 10 months, financing 4 times in 1 year, and the valuation of a single store exceeds 100 million yuan, which is a rare situation in offline chain stores in the past. Capital is betting wildly, the brand value is high, and it has to be doubted: is there a bubble behind such a high valuation?
There is no doubt that the new Chinese baking track has great potential for development, but in the face of a rapidly changing market, uncertain investment and young people who like to try new but lack loyalty, it remains to be seen whether Mo Mo can keep consumers and capital on the top.
How to move from Internet celebrity to evergreen, how to refuse to be short-lived, and become evergreen, is something that all Internet celebrity consumer brands need to consider.