Image source @ Visual China
Wen 丨 good look business, author 丨 Dong Xiaohua, editor 丨 peace of mind
The 2022 Winter Olympics are not over, and the winners have already been "baked".
On the afternoon of February 15, China's Su Yiming won the championship in the men's big jump final of snowboarding and won the sixth gold medal of the Chinese team at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Su Yiming won the championship, the source network
On the morning of the same day, China's Gu Ailing won the silver medal in the women's steeplechase final of freestyle skiing at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
On the evening of February 14, in the women's aerial skills competition of freestyle skiing, China's Xu Mengtao won the gold medal with a high score of 108.61.
So far, these three Chinese players have won a gold and a silver in this Winter Olympics.
With the success of Su Yiming's victory, the beverage company Yuanqi Forest could not sit still, and they posted on Weibo: Bet on three in three, too blessed, sit and wait for praise.
Soon, Yuanqi Forest appeared on Weibo hot search, and the super words "Yuanqi Forest won the numbness" once ranked second in Weibo hot search, and the popularity ranking was second only to Su Yiming's victory.
In addition to hot searches, the topic of Yuanqi Forest becoming the biggest winner of the Olympic Games is also hot on platforms such as Tiger Punch and WeChat Circle of Friends.
From betting on three Winter Olympic players before the game to marketing with the momentum of winning awards, this series of operations looks very "Yuanqi Forest".
Genki Forest, which has a Japanese temperament, is actually a local Chinese domestic beverage company, founded in 2016. However, according to Caijing, its revenue in the fourth year of its establishment (2020) is 2-3 billion yuan; the revenue target for 2021 is 7.5 billion yuan.
In November last year, 36Kr reported that Yuanqi Forest was about to complete a new round of nearly $200 million in financing, with a post-investment valuation of $15 billion.
Behind the rocket rise in sales and valuations, Gongyu marketing is regarded by the outside world as a killer of Yuanqi Forest. With the help of successful marketing, it quickly rose to become a popular brand in the domestic bottled beverage market, harvesting a large number of young people.
In a populous country like China, bottled drinks are an enduring trillion-dollar race track. Looking at the changes of the times and the change of kings in this field, you will find that who has not yet had a few brushes for companies that can become winners in this field? And marketing must be the brush that must be one of them. This is true of the Yuanqi Forest, as is the Nongfu Spring and Wahaha.
So, what kind of market pattern is Yuanqi Forest facing today? It gambles on three Winter Olympic champions such as Gu Ailing and high-profile marketing, what does it mean for the drink jianghu?
The traffic code of Yuanqi Forest: crazy marketing
In the four years since its establishment, Yuanqi Forest has become popular with a sugar-free sparkling water, breaking a new path in the red sea of the beverage market.
It focuses on the concept of "health" and strengthens the label of "0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calorie" in product promotion.
The United Nations has warned that sugar may become a new type of "tobacco", and that excessive sugar intake by residents can lead to obesity and cause health risks. With the increase of people's health awareness, sugar control has become the choice of more and more people.
Sugary drinks are one of the main sources of sugar that people consume. Yuanqi Forest has shaped itself into the image of a "sugar-free specialist", which just meets the urgent needs of young people for health.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences has done in-depth research on the subdivision of sugar-free sparkling water. In their 2021 survey report, they mentioned that among all sugar-free sparkling water brands, Yuanqi Forest has been recognized by more than 80% of consumers and occupies a leading position.
In addition to cutting through the sugar-free sparkling water track, crazy marketing is another success code for Yuanqi Forest.
Tang Binsen, the founder of Yuanqi Forest, is a serial entrepreneur with a strong Internet mindset and is good at marketing. He was the first to do games. It is said that when doing the game business, he dared to put out 1.8 billion yuan for advertising when the revenue was 2 billion.
Operating the Yuanqi Forest project, he also continued the style of crazy marketing. An article in 36Kr mentioned that last year there was news that the marketing fee of Yuanqi Forest in the past 3 years was close to 3 billion yuan.
Today it can be said that as long as there are young people, there will be a Yuanqi forest. Their marketing methods include titled variety shows, elevator advertisements, TV advertisements, online grass planting, celebrity endorsements, live streaming with goods, etc.
Celebrity endorsement is one of the marketing strategies of Yuanqi Forest, and it is to find multiple stars to endorse different products, who is red to find whom.
In 2020, at the time of the fire of "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves", Yuanqi Forest signed Zhang Yuqi as its bubble water ambassador, harvesting a wave of traffic by taking advantage of Zhang Yuqi's soaring popularity at that time.
In 2021, Yuanqi Forest signed a number of celebrity spokespersons in one go, attracting young users:
In July, Yuanqi Forest announced that Chen Feiyu would serve as the brand spokesperson for its tea burning. In October, Ni Ni became the spokesperson for the first sugar-free and decaffeinated plant tea drink in the forest, Fiber Tea. Also in October, Zhao Lusi, a young actor after the 90s, became the spokesperson of milk tea under Yuanqi Forest.
In 2021, Gu Ailing won a number of world-class ski competitions; in September, Yuanqi Forest announced that Gu Ailing would be the spokesperson for Yuanqi Forest Sparkling Water.
In January 2022, Yuanqi Forest officially announced that Yi Qianxi became the spokesperson of Yuanqi Forest Bubble Water.
Yi Yi Qianxi is a popular post-00s student in China, and among its fans, most of them are post-95s and post-00s, and most of them are female fans, which are also the target users of Yuanqi Forest.
In the external caliber of Yuanqi Forest, Gu Ailing, together with Su Yiming and Xu Mengtao, appeared in his "Yuanqi Ice and Snow Group" documentary as a representative of "Yuanqi New Youth".
The offensive and defensive battle of marketing masters
Sugar-free sparkling water is currently the revenue pillar of Yuanqi Forest. After the success of this single product, they began to lay out new categories and broaden the moat, including burning tea, milk tea, electrolyte water, coffee and so on.
In July 2021, Yuanqi Forest's mineral water product , "Youmine" began to be tested on e-commerce channels such as Tmall and Jingdong; in December, "Youmine" officially entered the offline channel on a large scale and took the lead in listing at Shanghai FamilyMart.
This means that Yuanqi Forest is entering the core business of Nongfu Spring.
According to media reports, Yuanqi Forest's sales target for 2021 is 7.5 billion yuan. This figure is already comparable to Nongfu Spring's 2020 beverage business revenue other than packaged water (7.857 billion).
In the face of the rise and challenge of the Yuanqi Forest, Zhong Shui, the 67-year-old founder of Nongfu Mountain Spring, could not sit still. He personally led the team to launch a counterattack in the sparkling water field of the Yuanqi Forest.
In April 2021, Nongfu Spring launched sparkling water products. However, this product, from the "Japanese" bottle style to the concept of "0 sugar 0 fat 0 calorie", has been accused of imitating the Yuanqi Forest sparkling water.
On June 27, Nongfu Shan Quan was sent to Weibo for a hot search because the copywriting overturned - when they promoted the "Dawn White Peach Flavored Sparkling Water" product, the promotional copy said that "Dawn White Peach is produced in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan" in the promotional copy. There was a famous nuclear accident in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
Although Nongfu Spring responded urgently, leaving aside the relationship between products and "nuclear radiation", the capital market did not buy it.
Investors reacted by saying that on June 27 and 28, Nongfushan's stock price plummeted, and its market value evaporated by nearly 50 billion.
In fact, the capital market's concern about Nongfu Spring at that time was not only this copywriting dispute.
In 2020, Nongfu Spring's revenue was 22.877 billion yuan, down 4.8% year-on-year, of which the revenue of packaged water, tea beverages, functional drinks and juice drinks all declined.
In the first half of 2021, Nongfu Spring's revenue was 15.17 billion yuan, an increase of 31.4% year-on-year. Among them, packaged drinking water products, which account for nearly 60% of revenue, grew the slowest, with a year-on-year increase of 25.6%; other categories (including coffee drinks, sodas, plant yogurt, and gas flavored drinks) grew the fastest, an increase of 86.8% year-on-year, but this part of the revenue accounted for only 5.5%.
Nongfu Spring said that the company will continue to promote the development of drinking water and beverage dual engines.
Since the second half of 2021, although the stock price of Nongfu Spring has rebounded, it is still far from the high point in 2020.
Previously, Nongfu Spring had been laying out in the field of sugar-free soft drinks for many years, but it had little effect, and it did not want to be preempted by the rising Yuanqi Forest.
Yuanqi Forest entered the sugar-free soft drink market with the health concept of "0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calories" and quickly became a dark horse. It is inevitable that it will be tough on the front of water giants such as Nongfu Spring.
Nowadays, the big brother who sells water is not good, because the times have changed, consumers have changed, and opponents have changed.
The newly founded Nongfu Spring used almost the same logic to defeat the giants of the time, who announced in 2000 that they would replace pure water with natural water, because long-term drinking of pure water is not good for health.
Zhong Shui, the founder of Nongfu Spring, has been a media reporter, has also been the general agent of Wahaha, and has sold health care products, and he knows too well the demands of consumers for bottled water.
Nongfu Spring declares that "I don't produce water, I only work as a porter of nature", and "Nongfu Spring is a bit sweet".
Relying on large-scale investment and high-profile marketing strategies, Nongfu Spring has gradually entered the image of "safety and health" into the minds of consumers.
In 2020, Nongfu Spring was IPO in Hong Kong as the "No.1 domestic bottled water"; Zhong Washuo also became the richest man, with a net worth of more than $60 billion.
Seeing that his subordinates came to the top and became the new richest man, I don't know how Wahaha founder Zong Qinghou will feel.
I think that at that time, he also sat in the position of China's richest man, and was also praised as a "marketing master".
"After drinking Wahaha, eating is fragrant", this once well-known advertising slogan was produced by Zong Qinghou. Relying on the advertising bombardment on the TV station, Wahaha Nutrition Liquid sold 150,000 bottles in the first month, and became a key turning point in Zong Qinghou's fate.
In 1996, Zong Qinghou took a fancy to the bottled water market and launched Wahaha Pure Water. Crazy advertising is still his killer skill.
Wahaha was the first company to advertise bottled water on CCTV. Not only that, they also hired stars as spokespersons, and the slogan also ranged from the Jinggangshan version of "Only You in My Eyes" to Mao Ning's version of "Only You in My Heart", and to Wang Lihong's version of "Loving You Equals Loving Yourself".
In 1996, Wahaha Bottled Water achieved the first market share in the first year of launch, with revenue of 100 million yuan and advertising investment of 50 million.
By 2010, Wahaha won 1/4 of the domestic beverage market, with an annual profit of more than 10 billion yuan, and Zong Qinghou also became the richest man in the Chinese mainland for the first time. Later, in 2012 and 2013, he was the richest man.
But after the historical peak of revenue of 78.28 billion yuan in 2013, Wahaha's glorious era ended and began to go downhill without looking back.
Marketing is not a panacea, but medicine cannot be stopped
To win in the bottled beverage market, only relying on marketing is absolutely impossible, it is the channel capability, product capabilities and other comprehensive strength of the PK. But marketing is like a drug, the drug can not be stopped.
Since 2021, Yuanqi Forest has increased its marketing efforts and constantly invited popular celebrities to do endorsements, behind which is the epitome of its multiple product lines running wildly and growing desperately.
In 2021, the giants will collectively launch a siege and suppression of the Yuanqi Forest. Among them, there are not only Nongfu Springs, but also Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Wahaha and other giants.
When Yuanqi Forest proved that sparkling water was selling well, the sparkling water of major manufacturers took turns to appear: Coca-Cola had a small universe AHHA sparkling water, Nongfu Spring launched 4 fruity sparkling water with 0 sugar; Pepsi Cola launched a "smile bubble"; Wahaha also made a "angry" sugar-free sparkling water.
In order to win the battle of sparkling water, in 2021, the water giants have adopted a star endorsement strategy without exception.
PepsiCo China took Cai Xukun, Coca-Cola signed Wang Junkai, Wahaha invited Wang Yibo, and Nongfu Mountain Spring had Zhu Yilong. They are all traffic bearers, and they all have considerable appeal among young users, of course, the endorsement fee is not low.
Judging from the logic of the water sales giants choosing spokespersons, it is not difficult to understand why Yuanqi Forest changed the brand spokesperson from Gu Ailing to Yi Yanqianxi.
After all, young female users are the main buyers of sparkling water. And this year's popular students have a leading effect among female fans and post-00s young people.
Yuanqi Forest's "three bets and three middles" at this year's Winter Olympics is undoubtedly a manifestation of increasing competition, and it is also a victory of its endorsement ideas - multi-star endorsement, which helps to improve the winning rate and reduce risks.
In particular, Gu Ailing, as the top stream of this year's Winter Olympics, is popular; in the short term, brand owners bet on earnings.
But historical experience proves that marketing is also a double-edged sword, and if you don't play well, you are likely to be hurt by the sword.
Yuanqi Forest has not only eaten the dividends of marketing, but also become a typical example of being regurgitated by marketing.
In April 2021, some people questioned Yuanqi Forest's suspected false propaganda, pointing out that its milk tea products are mainly "sugar-free", "low fat" and "milk tea control is not afraid of fat", but the ingredient list shows that it has added crystalline fructose.
In this regard, Yuanqi Forest issued an apology statement "a belated upgrade", saying that in the labeling and publicity of milk tea products, it did not explain the difference between "0 sugar" and "0 sucrose", which was easy to cause misunderstanding.
However, many netizens do not buy this apology that does not seem sincere enough, and feel that they have been deceived. Yuanqi Forest was quickly pushed to the cusp of public opinion, and the once-popular drinks seemed to suddenly become unscented.
The higher you stand, the more painful it is to fall, which is probably what it means.
As a rising star, Yuanqi Forest may make mistakes, step on pits or even fall down in the process of sacrificing its life, but it needs to repair and adjust with more fierce firepower and faster speed, and then continue to run.
After all, it's not so easy to become the new king of the generation that sells water.