"Are you familiar with Bamboo Leaf Green?"
"Fenjiu!"
"No, it's Sichuan's tea."
"Oh, I'm not familiar!" ......
When it comes to his impression of ZhuYeqing, the first reaction of a Sichuan reporter in Beijing was wine. Sichuanese who love tea drinking are completely unaware of local tea, what is the problem?
"Consumers outside of Sichuan may be unfamiliar with Bamboo Leaf Green." Tang Xianhong, the founder of Zhuyeqing, once told the media. This "strangeness" has some feelings that tea leaves "do not go out of the river". In fact, Zhuyeqing is not lonely and nameless, it has long gone to the world, and it has also been given as a national gift to foreign heads of state.
Who is Tang Xianhong? According to Baidu Encyclopedia, Tang Xianhong, 52, was born in Huangwan Town, Emeishan City, Sichuan Province, "at the age of 28, he took over the director of the Emei Mountain Bamboo Leaf Green Tea Factory, at that time, Bamboo Leaf Qing, or a factory with an annual output value of one million and debts of more than ten million, was on the verge of closure." "Today's bamboo leaf green has long been different. According to the website of the China Tea Circulation Association, Tang Xianhong, as the chairman and general manager of Sichuan Emei mountain bamboo leaf green tea industry co., LTD., served as the vice president of the association. According to Tianyan, Zhuyeqing currently has nearly 400,000 mu of designated tea gardens and pollution-free tea production bases, with an annual production of 3,600 tons of various types of famous green tea, and its marketing network is spread throughout Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and other domestic first-tier cities, and exported to Overseas markets such as Japan, North Africa, Europe, and the United States.
Today's bamboo leaf green is not only to "go out of the river", but also intends to "go out of the circle". As a "high-end green tea", Zhuyeqing's official WeChat public account published on June 22, 2021, citing the selection results of the "World Brand Lab", saying that it "has become the only tea brand on the list of "China's 500 Most Valuable Brands" on the "500 Most Valuable Brands" as a tea brand. Interestingly, according to the ranking, Zhuyeqing ranked 419th with a brand value of 11.286 billion yuan; Moutai was 326.739 billion yuan, and Huawei was 384.717 billion yuan.
Bamboo leaf green is known as "Maotai in tea". It is said that Tang Xianhong put forward the brand strategy of "ordinary heart, bamboo leaf green" from 2002, and since then has opened the road to building a high-end brand of bamboo leaf green. What is relatively rare is that bamboo leaf green is not only a category of green tea, but also a brand, unique in the country. Today, the elements of the high-end green tea brand displayed by Zhuyeqing are: Gaoshan, Mingqian, and tea buds.
The "high mountain" of Mount Emei has undoubtedly become the biggest selling point. As we all know, "good tea" in Chinese tea culture has always paid attention to "scarcity". Rare things are more expensive, such as "on the cliffs of a certain mountain, tea pickers climb up tea trees several meters high with difficulty, and only pick a few young buds", which is the public's perception of "good tea". Bamboo leaf green uniquely sits on the tea garden "Jinshan" at 30 degrees north latitude of Mount Emei, occupying a geographical advantage. It is said that "all the tea buds come from alpine tea plantations at an altitude of 600 to 1500 meters".
What is even more remarkable is that Bamboo Leaf Green has attracted the blessings of countless celebrities. In China, he participated in the Boao Forum and discussed with thousands of entrepreneurs, and was selected as a "national brand" of CCTV; abroad, it became the Tea of the Dubai World Expo, "mingling with the prince and the earl", as if it had stepped out of a high-end luxury route. Under the aura of domestic goods, celebrities in the political, business and academic circles have also stood for them, such as Li Zhaoxing, former foreign minister of China, Jiang Nanchun, chairman of Focus Media, Feng Lun, chairman of Wantong Holdings, Joseph Needham, a well-known British sinologist, Wu Xiaobo, a financial writer, and so on.
Unexpectedly, under the blessing of so many halos and celebrities, Tea Bamboo Yeqing still appears "niche", "unfamiliar", "very high-end", "gift-oriented" and other labels in front of the public. "In the past two years, I have also bought a lot, buying a few pounds is a few thousand gifts", a local consumer in Chengdu said, Zhuyeqing's current product line, the price is all 1,000 yuan a pound or more, the most expensive can reach 20,000 or 30,000 yuan, the commission is high-end tea, which is the same as small pot tea, only sell expensive. According to Zhu Yeqing's publicity, it is "the leading sales volume in the high-end tea market for 13 consecutive years", unfortunately, no specific revenue data was disclosed.
In 2008, Xinhua News Agency issued an article titled "China's 70,000 tea enterprises are not inferior to a Lipton", the embarrassing dilemma of China's tea market makes people sigh, Du Guoyao, known as "marketing ghost talent", decided to try it, groped for 4 years, and he founded a small pot of tea in 2014.
Compared with small pot tea, Tang Xianhong's bamboo leaf green brand has a very obvious first-mover advantage, which has both the origin base and many years of experience in the tea industry. Why is small pot tea the first to become famous in the industry? What is missing from traditional tea companies? Is there a lack of Liptonian standardized operation, or is it the "ghost marketing" like a small pot of tea?
It is generally believed that there are three reasons: one is too regional. Yunnan Puer, two lakes black tea, Fujian rock tea and old white tea, even Jiangsu and Zhejiang are also divided into different types, etc., people in different regions are more inclined to choose to drink local tea, there is no "bag to fight the world" brand; the second is that the tea industry concentration is not high, the deep processing capacity is weak, more is the rough processing of raw materials; the third is brand marketing, may be the main reason, did not accurately find the "user's mental blank" or pain points.
In the analysis, bamboo leaves are green in Mount Emei and will also be subject to Mount Emei. The advantages are obvious, the place of origin is more dominant, the latitude is higher, and the appearance and taste are very good. The disadvantages are also obvious: first, Emeishan has produced tea since ancient times, there was no unified brand before, and second, the publicity and delivery were not enough or not accurate enough, unlike small pots of tea, "holding high" and quickly "out of the circle", bamboo leaf green was obviously half a beat slower.
First, to create a hundred billion brand? The positioning is not clear enough to make people understand
"In the future, Zhuyeqing's goal is to become a 100 billion brand, one of the three must-haves for Chinese social networking, and let more Chinese drink this cup of high-end, healthy green tea." Tang Xianhong said this in an interview with Southern Weekend in 2020. In Tang's view, consumers pay more attention to quality, and brands with poor quality and unstable foundations may be eliminated; enterprises with excellent quality and strong brand strength will surely occupy the minds of consumers and become the masters of the industry
Tang Xianhong mentioned the use of brands to "occupy the minds of consumers", which is in line with the founder of Small Pot Tea, Du Guoyao, advocating finding "the blankness of the user's mind". Du Guoyao discovered this "essence" from Jack Trout's book "Positioning", and relying on this recognition, the small pot of tea quickly became successful.
Good products are inseparable from good quality, and quality is king. Bamboo leaf green should be said to have naturally possessed elements of good quality. Sichuan Emei Mountain is the birthplace of the world's green tea, which was quite famous as early as 1,000 years ago. Tang's "Selected Notes on The Anthology" has clouds: "Emei has many herbs, and tea is especially good, different from the world." Su Shi also had a poem, "I am poor and sick today, and I am holding Emei in a jade bowl." ”
It can be seen that Emei mountain green tea has a deep cultural accumulation, but unfortunately it has not been widely disseminated. The origin of the name "Zhuyeqing" is said to have been given by Marshal Chen Yi in 1964, and gradually spread. Whether geographically or culturally, bamboo leaf green should be more excellent.
But a careful study of ZhuYeqing's "product positioning", you will find that it is really very "high-end", its product "narrative orientation" has been emphasizing that there are many celebrities in pursuit, in addition to the celebrities mentioned earlier, there are Cai Lan, Hurun, Gao Xiaosong, Liu Jialing, Zhang Jike, Hui Ruoqi, Ding Junhui, etc., can pull out a long list of celebrities, which is nothing more than proof of its brand added value.
The question arises: Mount Emei has such a large output to provide enough high-end tea? Is quality guaranteed? According to the data disclosed by Zhuyeqing that "3600 tons of various types of famous green tea are produced annually", that is to say, Zhuyeqing has an annual output of 7.2 million kilograms of high-end tea? What products are made from these teas? According to Baidu Encyclopedia, the main works are Bamboo Leaf Qing, Nong Dao, Erui and Bamboo Leaf Green Ecological Tea Garden, etc., not old tea customers, you may have questions: What is this product? Confusing, the product line is not clear enough.
According to the investment situation disclosed by the official WeChat public account of Zhuyeqing, the focus is on three types of products: one is the high-end alpine green tea "Bamboo Leaf Qing", the other is the high-end jasmine tea "Bitan Drifting Snow", and the third is the Emei Alpine Black Tea "Ten Thousand Purple Thousand Reds". It can be seen that "high-end" is the main positioning and main appeal of its product positioning, and only black tea does not have the word "high-end".
From the perspective of product line design, it is reasonable to say that Zhuyeqing is both a category and a brand, and has a very large advantage, somehow, Zhuyeqing did not explain the products in the category very clearly, but simply divided into three levels: one is the taste level, known as "the upper grade of tea", the second is the meditation level, known as "tea in the boutique", the third is the Taoist level, but also "the output is limited, extremely rare".
According to Baidu Encyclopedia, bamboo leaf green is also known as green leaf nectar. Tea is produced in Emeishan City, Sichuan Province and its surrounding areas, belongs to the flat shape of stir-fried green tea, its mellow, light style is well-known. Note that it is "Emeishan City and its surrounding areas". The area of a mountain in Mount Emei is 154 square kilometers, and the total area is converted to 231,000 mu, and it is impossible for a mountain in Mount Emei to be planted with tea. It is worth noting that the official tea planting area of Zhuyeqing is nearly 400,000 mu, that is to say, most of the places where tea is planted should be in "Emeishan City and its surrounding areas".
From the perspective of planting area, the bamboo leaf green brand is indeed formed in Mount Emei, and it will also be subject to Mount Emei. The attributes of the geographical environment are too strong, and the marginal effect is very obvious. It's nothing, it's all about the taste. Small pot tea is not also a blur of the origin, the highlight is the "master work", can also be made into a hit, Lipton such a British bag of tea has also swept China. It should be mentioned that a really good brand, how much praise it has enjoyed in the past, now it has to accept how much pickiness, this is the only way to grow, and it needs a larger pattern and thinking.
"If you want to make tea a brand, you must extract the empirical thinking and switch to scientific thinking, otherwise you can't make tea, make complex problems relatively simple, and use unified standards to simplify cognition." Du Guoyao, who has achieved fame, described his methodology of making tea in this way, and the "unified standard" has become the underlying logic of the success of small pot tea.
So, is it possible for Bamboo Leaf Green to be made into a more "unified standard" product? Of course. Packaging is obviously important. According to Du Guoyao, it took him 4 years to make a jar, hired a Japanese design team, cost 5 million yuan, and repeatedly polished it. He caught a sore point: In the past, people didn't wash their hands before making tea for guests, and his cans were dispensed to solve the problem. What's more, the jar has a wonderful use.
Someone on the zhihu said of the small pot of tea: "I really like the color jar of the small pot of tea, so I also bought the big red robe of the color pot." After the jar is empty, the jar will leave a good smell of tea. So I really don't want to throw it away! There are two cans, washed and put in the small ring for decoration. Put it in just right, save the money to buy a jewelry box, recently followed the online tutorial, learned to do lip balm, and then after doing it is worried about no container, just put the lipstick in a small jar of tea jar, it is quite appropriate. ”
It is said that some people buy tea for a few jars, which is obviously of reference significance for bamboo leaf green to be "standardized", even if it is the decline of Lipton is also worth learning, the success of others is not necessarily replicable, but the failure of others is worth studying. In addition, Zhuyeqing's product line really has to be sorted out, and the very general way of playing has not kept up with the times, and must be accurately positioned to the target user population.
Second, who is consuming bamboo leaf green, high-end members can afford high-end brands?
Who is in the consumer Bamboo Leaf Green? According to Tang Xianhong, "Zhuyeqing currently has nearly 400 stores across the country, nearly a thousand tea artists, and millions of high-end members. According to incomplete statistics, the number of zhuyeqingfline stores in Sichuan is the largest, with 186, 10 in Beijing, 4 in Shanghai, and others in various large and medium-sized cities across the country." This also fully demonstrates that tea consumption has great regional attributes.
It should be noted that the user group of Zhuyeqing is mostly "high-end members", and the number is "millions". Curiously, apart from the celebrities mentioned earlier, who are the "millions" of members? Will the membership model constrain "more Chinese" participation? The characteristics of members determine the privacy of the service, and how much interaction between members, whether it can form a "closed-loop ecology" is also a problem, of course, this is an open "Internet thinking", and Zhuye Qingtang Xianhong may be a traditional "productist".
It can be seen from the official website of Zhuyeqing Tea that Zhuyeqing has shaped itself into a relatively high-end image, but there is a very prominent problem, it does not portray the "consumer image", does not reflect the value to customers, and has always told its own characteristics in a more blunt way, so how to make target consumers fall in love with themselves?
How big is China's tea consumer base? According to the "14th Five-Year Development Plan Proposal for China's Tea Industry" released in February 2021, at present, China's tea consumption group has reached 490 million. From the perspective of traditional original leaf tea, the consumer population has the characteristics of moderate aging. It is worth noting that this trend has undergone some changes in the late "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan". E-commerce platforms are becoming more and more mature, forming the forefront of the tea industry to expand the younger generation of tea customers, such as the hot sales of spring tea season, and a large proportion of purchases come from young people who are keen on spring tea. These consumers are very important because they are the "living water" of the raw leaf tea consumer group.
Zhu Yeqing clearly saw such a trend. It once invited Nie Weiping, Gu Li and others to be image spokespersons, and recently invited Li Yuchun and Li Yifeng, two "traffic celebrities", to speak for them. It is worth mentioning that Chinese young people do not love to drink tea, they love to drink bagged tea, such as white peach flavored tea bags, the taste is the first, they are not keen on the traditional way of drinking tea for middle-aged and elderly people, traditional tea companies still live in the original "comfort zone", did not keep up with the times. Behind the change of spokesperson of ZhuYeqing, it is more like breaking the stereotype of the past and intending to close the young middle class to "out of the circle".
The addition of Li Yuchun and Li Yifeng is undoubtedly Zhu Yeqing's understanding of the "fan economy" in the Internet era, but how many fans will pay attention to Zhu Yeqing? After all, tea, especially high-end tea, needs to be carefully tasted, and how much the fans of the two stars can be converted into members or buyers of bamboo leaf green need to be observed. What is more gratifying is that in addition to understanding the trend, Zhuyeqing also has the advantages of tea brands.
In 2018, following Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily published a book titled "Ten Thousand Chinese Tea Enterprises, Why Are The Profits Less Than One Lipton?" The article once again describes the dilemma of China's tea market. The article talks about Lipton's success because companies put product, brand and user communication first, which is what Chinese tea companies lack.
In terms of "communication with users", tea companies are not without doing, how do they do it? For example, Longjing, the price range is still very large, from hundreds to thousands, but the West Lake Longjing produced in the core production area of the West Lake is "national". Some companies listed "production map", "dry tea map", "tea soup map", "taste introduction" when introducing. The high-end Longjing's publicity method clearly focuses on high-end people who are not familiar with tea.
For another example, in addition to highlighting its own origin and quality, the high-end Xinyang Maojian also portrays "not a product limit, but a natural limit". Such a publicity method highlights the "scarcity" of the product.
Tang Xianhong also told the details of the "communication" of a bamboo leaf green member. "During the epidemic period, Zhuyeqing closed almost all other stores in the country except for some large supermarkets, with sales falling by more than 98%; tea artists came to provide members with high-end green tea private exclusive brewing services."
Interestingly, Tang Xianhong mentioned that Zhuyeqing was the first green tea company to provide customers with private customized tasting meetings, "Trained tea artists will come to the door to provide tea brewing and explanation services for members, and these activities cannot be carried out due to the impact of the epidemic." Tea artists use online channels to care about the physical condition of customers and their families, provide members with tea brewing guidance and explanations through WeChat and telephone, and pass on warm and valuable information. Through the above methods, the pre-order volume of bamboo leaf youth tea this year increased by 89% year-on-year, and the number of pre-orderers increased by 154% year-on-year. Tang Xianhong said.
Looking at these "user communications" of many traditional tea companies, although many of them reflect the "sense of participation" and "visibility" of users, and even have value-added services, why has this style of play still not appeared in the explosion? The core reason may be that you have not yet explained yourself clearly, or that you have not grasped the "user's mind".
Some studies have also found some strange phenomena that have existed in the tea market for a long time: first, tea sales are weaker than tea drinks and other after-dinner drinks, second, Chinese consumers have good tea, but they can't brew good tea, and third, many consumers can't actually correctly distinguish the authenticity of tea. "The tea market is big and the water is deep. A lot of things don't depend on quality, but on marketing. It's that you have no idea whether the high price is worth the price. An insider confessed.
What does the first phenomenon illustrate? Many tea companies are still living in their original comfort zone. Taking small pot tea as an example, many traditional tea companies do not really make tea when small pot tea, they think that "living is OK", "generally have a gross profit margin of 40-60%", "small and beautiful" live better. Is Du Guoyao's playing style worth learning? Is there anything I can learn from? This requires breaking through the previously entrenched thinking and embracing change.
Look at Zhuyeqing, its way of playing to retain high-end users is "health care brand", using value-added services to communicate with users, which seems to be not enough, this move is not too much positive correlation with the demands of Zhuyeqing brand, do not rule out that users will have some positive feedback, that can only show that Zhuyeqing is a very caring enterprise.
So, the key to the problem is to let consumers understand "who you are".
Third, publicity and delivery have been frequently criticized, what are tea companies missing?
In terms of brand promotion, how to carry out accurate and in-place delivery is also an important factor that determines whether traditional tea companies can quickly "go out of the circle", and good publicity and delivery strategies are necessary.
Zhu Yeqing's advertisement gives the impression of being very blunt, and has been telling on the CCTV platform: I am very good, I am "leading the sales volume in the high-end tea market for 13 consecutive years". In fact, a good product must have a reputation in the minds and brains of consumers, which is better than the effect of saying "I am very high-end" ten thousand times, and the "amplification effect" in the mobile Internet era is immeasurable.
Zhuyeqing's brand appeal is high-end, atmospheric and high-grade, such an appeal itself is correct, but you yourself say that you are very high-end, this is not appropriate, users will be disgusted, can drink thousands of yuan of tea consumers, IQ is not low, they have enough judgment or discrimination ability, Zhuyeqing in the product promotion orientation can do better. Haidilao, which also originated in Sichuan, as a catering company, it does not pay attention to taste, cow, right? Made into a company with a market value of hundreds of billions, and the marketing cost is 0, is this not worth the study of Zhuyeqing?
In addition, China is a big tea country, and when it comes to tea, everyone can say a few words. The geographically identified tea of "high mountains" and "altitude" is not only famous for bamboo leaf green. How to make "more Chinese", and even the people of the world, buy your expensive tea? You need to be able to give a reason why most people can't refuse to buy. To put it bluntly, it is "preempting the user's mind".
Zhu Yeqing's efforts in publicity were criticized a few years ago. In the 2016 "360 Q&A", Xu Dawei, a well-known brand strategy expert, answered the question "What is Zhuyeqing Advertising doing?" The core meaning is that Zhu Yeqing does not understand publicity and delivery, and has not thoroughly studied the "mind of Beijing users". The Q&A mainly mentions four aspects:
First, whether it is the "Zhuyeqing" brand or the "On the Tao" brand, the influence in Beijing is very weak, and the brand tension and brand premium are very low. Second, there is a problem with the sales channel. Third, the brand communication is chaotic, and the "main leaf is not clear". In the advertising campaign, one will be "Bamboo Leaf Qing", the other will be "On the Tao", in the end in Beijing, whether it is the main push "Bamboo Leaf Qing" or the main push "On the Tao" is not clear, the marketing strategy is not clear, the parent brand, sub-brand lack of scientific sorting and planning. Fourth, only understand "hard advertising" and do not know "soft propaganda".
Xu Dawei also said that Beijingers generally do not believe in "hard advertising." Xu Dawei also quoted a Beijing girl who drank tea and knew tea as saying: "Since ancient times, green tea has not been on the table in Beijing, and Beijingers rarely drink green tea, but all drink flower tea." Judging from Xu Dawei's answer, although he said it very sharply, there was no lack of sincerity. For brands, what kind of scenes are used to describe different themselves, not just exposure, but to effectively convert exposure, quantify it into KPIs, and use every penny just right, which is today's "Internet thinking".
The same is the small pot of tea exposed on CCTV, why is it done so successfully? "Sales and Marketing" once summed up: the victory of profound cognition and insight, "The first is to create a can is a bubble, this is the scene consumption, under the scene, you are the consumer, this tea is not a purchase, but a necessity; second, this packaging is tall, there is a concept, very suitable, take the gift, to achieve product differentiation." "The small pot of tea has accurately caught the habit of having business tea drinking, and likes to flaunt new business upstarts, but they actually don't know much about tea."
A small innovation by Du Guoyao has made the business gift-giving group's desire to buy explode. His method is still to abandon the traditional calculation of the pound, sell it on the gram, dominate the screen for a long time on CCTV, and let the small pot of tea quickly burst out of the circle. The core of success lies in the "master telling the experience", which essentially gives consumers a "sense of participation" and "visibility".
From this point of view, how to let "more Chinese" drink, how to become a necessary tea for "social circles", how to build a "100 billion brand", there is obviously a lot to do in the product, in the user development also need to be deeply cultivated, in the publicity strategy also need to tell a good story, so that consumers can participate.
The epidemic has also changed Zhuyeqing, and Tang Xianhong has also begun to have "Internet thinking". According to Tang Xianhong's description to the media, Zhuyeqing switched from offline sales to online sales during the epidemic. "We conform to... Compile the "Online Sales Dictionary" to provide online sales skills guidance for salesmen. Increased the drainage of e-commerce to achieve the integration of offline business and online business. It can be seen that Zhuyeqing is also transforming and is also trying to "go out of the circle".
Zhu Yeqing wants to make a "100 billion brand" comparable to Huawei and Maotai, but to achieve such a goal, to some extent, Tang Xianhong must come out of the previous comfort zone and build a new brand strategy. The market is cruel, and perhaps, there is not much time left for him!