Recently, it was reported that a number of employees broke the news that Wen Heyou had launched a round of large-scale layoffs a few years ago, and more than 60% of the departments were laid off; years later, a new round of layoffs continued.
Coincidentally, the national tide brand Cha Yanyue, which also rose in Changsha with Wen Heyou, also broke out negatively, such as the closure of the store.
Is the national tide not fragrant?
Wen | Zhang Shule (Columnist of People's Daily And People's Post and Telegraph, Observer of Internet and Game Industry)
Recently, I helped a platform to do the analysis and commentary of the innovation of the new consumer track category, and contacted many emerging brands that were not paid much attention in the past.
I have to say that there are some interesting things, such as wanting to take the "tea wine" of the plum wine, the cold brew tea that makes the tea bag into ancient costumes, and the Chinese dim sum that is killed with freshly baked selling points in the circle surrounded by tea colors...
The breakthrough points of the innovative entrepreneurs who have impacted the new consumption track are also quite concentrated: playing fancy innovation on the national tide and differentiating with traditional brands.
However, the category innovation of new domestic products, is it difficult to really only have the national tide as a way?
Perhaps, this is a shortcut, but it narrows the new consumption track that was supposed to be broadened.
Why choose the national tide, it is not difficult to understand, the user attributes of the new consumption track are placed there.
Taking alcohol as an example, according to the "2020 Young People's Alcohol Consumption Insights" released by CBNData, the post-90s and post-95s are the largest consumer groups in the increase in alcohol consumption in 2020, of which fruit wine and formulated wine blending growth rate is the second.
Why the growth rate of cider and prepared wine is so high, the answer is not difficult to imagine:
Young people do not like the traditional wine table culture, but instead slightly drunk in the party scene, brush the sense of existence of interesting wine in friends, and even suitable for reading a book, watching a movie or listening to music alone, adding some ice cubes, unloading the tired and enjoying the time alone, tasting wine alone, has become a life choice.
However, in another ten years, when this wave of young people gradually enters the middle-aged and young people and needs more social social entertainment, they will be kicked out of the new consumption target group like the post-80s "predecessors" and become the masses of the traditional consumer army.
This is a postscript, after all, ten years is too long, only for the day.
Therefore, the current new consumption track, to put it bluntly, is a targeted market exploration around the wave of generation Z.
When 275 million Generation Z people poured into the consumption battlefield, the new domestic brands thought of quickly seizing this wave of passenger flow, which was only valid for 10 years.
If you can't take care of precipitation, the way of playing will inevitably be short and fast.
Guochao is obviously a good entry point.
Baidu data shows that guochao's attention has risen by 528% in the past 10 years. By 2021, the attention of domestic brands will be 3 times that of foreign goods, among which people's attention to popular industries such as domestic mobile phones and domestic automobiles has surpassed that of foreign brands.
The national tide is also one of the best areas to dress up, because it is not precisely defined, climbing relatives on the line, not to mention how many generations.
Li Ning, who was the first to lead the trend, had a very simple path to the national tide, and a few calligraphic Chinese characters or a few Chinese paintings on the upper body seized the eyeballs.
You say it's a national tide? I also said it was a high-priced version of the cultural shirt...
Later museum cultural creation, opened up more "dress" space, as far as an ice cream is concerned, Suzhou's garden series ice cream, Shaanxi Terracotta Warriors and Horses series ice cream, West Lake Liang Zhuhua butterfly series ice cream, Dunhuang Research Institute Mogao Grottoes series...
Proper tourist souvenirs are integrated with regional restrictions.
You don't go to the place to eat, it's really not interesting...
As for Wen Heyou, Tea Yan Yue and other catering brands that are particularly national in decoration design, in fact, they are not also regionally limited routines!
Later, elements of technology began to appear. After all, just by relying on packaging and concept, playing for a long time will inevitably become buying and returning pearls.
For example, Jiang Xiaobai's green plum wine Meimi, Jiang Xiaobai mainly attacks the young people's social scene, and Mei Xiaobai mainly attacks the leisure scene, how to avoid left and right fighting each other?
For wine, the direction of leisure must be reshaped.
After all, table drinking is the norm, and it's a bit perverted to drink without drinking.
Umemi's routine begins with storytelling.
There is a very obvious story of ome wine: boiling wine is a hero.
There are allusions to Cao Cao and Liu Bei, and there are the leisure and contention of the ancients in their bones, but in the end it is not as easy as tea switching in various life, business, and social scenes.
Therefore, a different story was changed, and the technical threshold of simple plum brewing wine, which is not difficult, was replaced by a technical content of tea brewing.
"Brewing wine with tea" was originally a concept of Su Dongpo, mi fu, Shen Zhou, Li Yu and many other literati celebrities circulated a dream of the previous year, and Mei Mi fused oolong tea with green plum wine, and launched a master tea plum wine, which fulfilled the dream of the literati Yake and added a subdivision footnote to reshape the scene.
However, whether you can really taste wine such as tea tasting and reshape a wine culture scene, in addition to the national tide and feelings, taste is still the decisive factor.
In the end, all kinds of milk wine, fruit wine and foreign wine are ultimately not dealt with with the taste buds of the Chinese people, even if there are more stories in it, and even the poignant classic love, it is in vain.
What will be the future of tea brewing cannot be predicted, but the Internet red dim sum next door to the red wine network has given some reference coordinates.
Every year, a large number of Internet celebrity dim sum will break through the net of traditional pastry bosses, but the result?
A set of data from the China Catering Report 2019 shows that 80,000 bakeries closed in 2018. Recently, Shanghai Yizhiduo, Hangzhou Buoyancy Forest, Guangzhou Donghaitang and other established baking brands have closed their stores one after another.
How many Internet celebrity baking brands are hot for a while, and finally fall silent, so that after many years of fighting, the long-distance runners on the track are still a few old brands such as Yuanzu, Hollywood, and Wei Duomei, and the market value is only billions.
Looking at the market value of net red dim sum, take the Mo Mo dim sum bureau that opened in Changsha in August 2020 as an example, and has continuously obtained multiple rounds of financing including Qingliu Capital, Yuanjing Capital, Richu Capital, Tomato Capital, and Yuanlai Capital in one year, with a total valuation of nearly 3 billion yuan.
One year can withstand the development of the old brand for more than ten years, and it looks really beautiful.
Even more surprising is yet to come.
To know that in a year, this internet red dim sum brand is in Changsha, but more than twenty stores have been opened, that is to say, just from the perspective of the valuation of a single store, more than 100 million yuan, more than Xicha (the valuation of a single store is about 70 million yuan), Naixue's tea (a single store valuation of about 26.05 million yuan), and it is far beyond Starbucks's single store valuation of 27 million.
Is it really good?
The national tide style is the appearance of this shop.
The logo of the lion's head element, the product packaging is mixed with Chinese, English and Japanese, and accompanied by vector illustrations with Chinese elements such as shadow puppetry. In terms of store design, retro and trendy neon lights decorate the red and blue contrast doors, and the copywriting uses words with the meaning of the times, such as "material selection management division", "handmade baking line", "fragrant production office", "ink moss commissary" and so on...
But this is just a consumer scene design, which is no different from Wen Heyou and Cha Yan Yue.
The difference is only in the regional consumption (as far as possible not out of Changsha) under the restrictions, supplies (freshly baked) and the next door shop steamed, freshly boiled, stewed, freshly fried to form a difference, earning money from punching tourists, and returning customers have no chance.
At least a dozen of my friends who went to taste the early adopters didn't look back and say where the delicious food came from.
A hammer deal is also a deal, but it is not long after all, and the short flat and fast popularity of the national tide has contributed to the impetuosity of new domestic goods on this new consumption track.
Track running horses, want to run out, the early stage must have gone through a round of field horse racing, with their own strengths to attack the other short routine, which is actually a kind of differentiation.
At present, this routine is basically locked in the national tide.
But the first horse that can finally run in each segment of the new consumption track is after a competition, the initial setting of the Field Ji horse racing routine is no longer effective, the basic route is highly consistent state of competition, how to win?
It lies in the horse's endurance, habits, and the cooperation between the horse and the horse.
In fact, in the end, it is to use real technology to determine the real gap, that is the truth of differentiation.
In fact, imitation is not shameful.
On the new consumption track of perfume, there are successful imitators and are technically nationally trendy.
For example, when Lou Xiaozhi founded the Smell Library in 2009, the Smell Library was still a salon perfume collection store, and the star brand DEMETER would produce the smell of something or scene in life, such as sunshine, grass, thunderstorms, and puppy breathing.
In 2014, the smell library began to do its own brand for the post-90s, which followed the previous "grocery store" route, and the fragrance also came from various things and scenes in life, such as the wind, rain, and earth of the natural series, and the black, white, and pink of the color series.
But then the routine changed, no longer abstract but for the post-90s memory began to be concrete, such as the 2018 monthly sales of 40,000 bottles of explosive cold white boiled perfume, its product inspiration comes from the Chinese family with aluminum pot boiling water scene.
The memories of a generation, irreparable, are reproduced.
The technical content may not be high, but this national tide with a little technology has won some time for it to outperform other new domestic products and narrow the gap between international big names.
Even technology can be more penetrating, not limited to the national tide, but must be emotional.
On the evening of the spring of the Year of the Ox in 2021, on the stage, the first large-scale four-legged robot developed by UBTECH, "Pioneering Cow", presented a creative performance "Cow Up" with Andy Lau, Wang Yibo, Guan Xiaotong, etc.
However, UBTECH, which was established in 2021, its robot has landed on the Spring Festival Gala stage 4 times, but has repeatedly IPO and repeatedly announced its abandonment, one reason is that although there are explosive Internet celebrities are still very high, consumers do not need it, and the capital market is not enthusiastic.
Consumer robots, with technology and feelings, really no market?
But a robot company next door was "unexpectedly" successful, and the card played by the people was "Auto-deformation Optimus Prime", and it was a perfect replica of the earliest version.
Up to 5,000 parts, 27 high-performance servo motors and 60 chips are the most complex IP derivatives in history, which is its technical target. The image and perfect deformation of Optimus Prime is its comprehensive impact on the consumer mentality of the young and middle-aged generation, as for companionship, play, teaching, voice...
That's all giveaways.
This company named Lesen has not failed, before they launched their own IP of the all-electric deformation robot interstellar agent, the technology is very strong, everyone is very surprised, but there is no emotion, on the technology to change the skin of optimus prime, the result is two different.
Perhaps, the story of Tianji horse racing has misled us for too many years, so that when the new consumption track is opened, at the beginning it wants to be clever, and the result is still speculating all the way, and may eventually rely on the new domestic products that are differentiated by the national tide, and will fail. (Published in the November 2021 issue of Creative World)