Reporter | Zhou Qi
Edited | Jiang Yuyue
When you think of red wine, what comes to mind?
Is it the wine in the movie's domineering president's rotating glass, sniffing lightly and tasting gracefully, or the awkward name of the winery and the indistinguishable aroma of red wine?
After 85, Zheng Junjie, a returnee, wants to break all this. "I'm going to subtract so that consumers can taste red wine without psychological burden." He founded Oran China only ten years after its birth, and in 2016 launched the cutting-edge wine brand Oran Little Red Riding Hood, which is a fledgling "newcomer" in the industry.
"Grounded" red wine has been favored by young people. Last year, Oran China's sales reached 460 million, and the explosive "Little Red Riding Hood" sold about 7 million bottles.
Wine is bold
Unlike most school-level business founders, Zheng Junjie said that he was a bit stupid.
"I didn't open my mouth until I was five or six years old, and I stuttered a bit later." His parents saw that he was "not very smart", and considering the pressure of further education in China, they thought of a total and sent him to Spain to study.
Spanish high school after school early, two or three o'clock in the afternoon, Zheng Junjie asked a friend to go to the bar for two drinks.
It doesn't matter if he doesn't drink it, as soon as he drinks it, he discovers a new world.
"Stuttering? Non-existent, after drinking you will find that you can speak any language, I will say in French on the dance floor ' Come on the dance floor, let's dance!' Zheng Junjie said with a flying eyebrow, "On my Facebook, there are also photos of girls dressing up ugly with female classmates' scarves after getting drunk." ”
No one cares if what Zheng Junjie says is right, he walks out of a very timid state and becomes willing to express himself.
It also changed his life. Then, Zheng Junjie joined the Spanish Centennial Oran Winery and stayed in Spain for more than 10 years.
In 2009, the European debt crisis broke out, and the vast Chinese market became a fragrant feast for European consumer brands to compete for entry. Zheng Junjie, one of the few people in Oran who understands the Chinese market, was entrusted with the important task of becoming the head of the Oran Asia-Pacific region, bringing the products of Oran Winery to China.
He first held "high-pressure" wine tastings at the Shanghai Yacht Club and the Beijing Chang'an Club, which included Spanish red wine, ham, and flamenco. "Everything is the best, what is done is cultural export, bringing Spanish culture and the Oran winery brand to China."
In 2016, everything changed.
China's Internet shifted from PC to mobile, followed by the rise of short videos and live broadcasts, and the speed at which domestic young people accept new things far exceeded the imagination of foreigners.
"At that time, smart phones still had a bit of luxury attributes for foreigners, but they were completely different in China." Zheng Junjie keenly felt that the speed and iterative ability of foreign culture output could no longer meet the needs of domestic young people.
In 2017, without any foreign participation, Zheng Junjie chose to spin off Oran China from Olan. He explained that what Oran Winery finds very valuable is no longer attractive to consumers in the Chinese market.
On the contrary, it is Olan China that does cultural export. "Now the sales team in Europe and the purchasing managers in the channel will also use our Olam China material as a publicity."
Who am I?
According to the data of the China Commercial Industry Research Institute, the market size of the mainland wine industry will rise to 58.72 billion yuan in 2022.
Although the wine market is huge, it is not easy for young brands to get out of the circle. There are many big brothers in the industry such as Dynasty, Great Wall and Zhang Yu. Clearly positioning yourself and clarifying "who I am" is the most important thing that Zheng Junjie believes.
He has targeted young people in China, and in addition to making Oran China's products younger, his team has also added young people. "Our quality control and product leaders are mainly post-95s, in order to capture the ideas and preferences of young people." Zheng Junjie positions Oran China as an all-round wine company that creates trendy wines for young people.
First of all, what do young people like to drink?
After years of experience and research, Zheng Junjie's answer is that they prefer wines with low tannins or low degrees. He began to change from the upstream of grape cultivation, choosing high-quality grape varieties with low acidity in Valencia, Spain, and Yantai and Helan Mountain in China.
Secondly, what should I do if the decanting operation is complicated?
Some grape varieties are aged in oak barrels for long periods of time and need to be decanted before drinking. The team at Oran Winery takes the route of technological breakthrough, using new technologies such as airbag pressing, rapid peeling and seeding and membrane technology to shorten the fermentation time of grapes and achieve ready-to-drink without decanting.
Moreover, traditional red wine drinking is too formal, how to highlight the personalization, and into the young people's fashion social scene?
In 2016, Olan China launched the Oran Little Red Riding Hood series for young people.
| picture says: Little Red Riding Hood of Oran
In terms of product appearance, the "Little Red Riding Hood" IP was selected, which was quite mysterious fairy tale style; the price was suitable for young people to "spend small money to do big things", and dozens of yuan could buy a bottle; in communication, he joined hands with the new generation of actor Hou Minghao to play the influence of star consumption.
A set of combination punches in exchange for a strong desire to consume. In 2021, Oran China imported Spanish Oran Little Red Riding Hood dry red wine, accumulating nearly 4.5 million bottles.
In addition to Oran Little Red Riding Hood, the "net red line" has also launched the color Olan Otaiwolf series, providing young people with wine introductory drinks, such as dry red, dry white, peach, semi-sweet red, prepared wine, etc., all priced at less than 100 yuan.
Zheng Junjie did not forget the "high-end line", Li Li, Gu Teng 80 and other products, the price range of 300-1000 yuan, play is with a number of star hotels at home and abroad, settled in the Michelin restaurant this set.
Net red products convey a simple trend of wine drinking culture, and the ancient vine series products focus on "things are rare and expensive", selected from the old vine grapes with rare output, and the wine taste is more intense and complex.
| illustration: Oran "high-end line" | illustration: Oran "high-end line"
Who are we?
In Zheng Junjie's view, the structure of China's consumer population in the future is olive-shaped, the gap between people's income and living will become smaller, and the population with medium consumption power will become increasingly large.
This means that for consumer brands, the audience will no longer be distinguished by income or geography, and the key point will become hobbies. In the Internet age, the threshold for turning wine tasting into a hobby will be lowered. This is Zheng Junjie's chance. After clarifying the product positioning, the next step is to tell the market "who we are".
How to let consumers know Olan China?
Zheng Junjie has set his sights on KOLs (opinion leaders) to expand the consumption scene through cooperation with young artists, fashion designers, popular homestays and internet celebrity restaurants.
"On social platforms, ordinary consumers will pay attention to these talents, and when they share 'Little Red Riding Hood is especially suitable for boiling red wine', 'My goodnight wine is the dry white of the Oran magic mirror', 'I drank sparkling wine with my girlfriend today', it is easier to reach consumers." Zheng Junjie shared.
| picture says: Working with KOLs
He also cooperated with Taobao Live to set up an Olan brand live broadcast day, and implanted it in movies and TV series such as "Sister Let Me Go", "Happy Her", "Kickball Bar Teenager" and so on.
"Secondly, it is to reduce the friction in contact with consumers." Zheng Junjie told the "21CBR" reporter that in the past wine promotion process, most brands over-marketed aristocratic and Western-style, so that consumers are afraid of a subconscious move, in the eyes of the understanding of pedestrians and the same as the East Shi Gong. This also widens the gap between the consumer and the wine.
"If consumers spend a year attending a lot of wine courses, fully understanding the history and culture of wine in France and Spain, and then making choices and purchases, this cost is too big for consumers."
Therefore, some of Aolan China's products do not indicate the place of origin and year on the bottle to alleviate the psychological pressure of consumer purchase.
Since it is a mass consumer product, the convenience of purchase is crucial.
Many wine brands do not easily enter convenience stores, small restaurants and group buying platforms because they "cherish feathers", and even in sam's club stores, some red wines cannot be purchased on their online APP.
In Zheng Junjie's view, wine should come out and make everyone accessible.
For example, Oran "Little Red Riding Hood" not only appears in online sales channels such as Taobao, JD.com, Daily Excellent Fresh, Dingdong Grocery Shopping, Pu Pu, Yonghui Life, etc., but also in offline channels such as 7-11, Carrefour, RT-Mart, Super Species, and Hema Fresh. At present, Oran's Chinese products have covered more than 100,000 retail terminals.
Finally, how to keep up with the hot spots.
At the beginning of 2020, Zheng Junjie led the team to do short videos and live broadcasts, "At that time, there were a lot of short videos, I went live every day to introduce wineries and products", red wine bosses were selling goods, young people were very popular, in 2021, Olan China became the first in the field of segmentation in Taobao and Douyin Live.
The meta-universe is in the limelight, Zheng Junjie set up a meta-universe group to "do things", and cooperated with the meta-universe AI art IP "Like a Flower in the Wild" to launch a wine NFT digital collection with the image of "Like a Flower" as the wine label.
"In 2021, orland China's sales increased by 4 or 5 times." This is also the initial recognition of Zheng Junjie and Olan China by the market.
Capital also stands on the side of Zheng Junjie, and has obtained A and A+ rounds of financing with a total amount of more than 100 million yuan within one year. "Olan China will continue to raise funds, but at present, the most important thing is to clearly position and do a good job."
Source of the title image: Courtesy of the interviewee