Recently, published by CITIC Publishing Group, China's first digital upgrading fieldwork record "From Connection to Activation: Digitalization and the New Cycle of Chinese Industry" was officially published. The book is authorized by Tencent, edited by well-known financial writer Qin Shuo, written by Qi Dezhi, professor Zhou Qiren of the National Development Research Institute of Peking University, Tang Daosheng, senior executive vice president of Tencent and CEO of cloud and smart industry business group, Li Dongsheng, founder of TCL Group, Xiang Wenbo, president of Sany Heavy Industry, Chen Chunhua, dean of BiMBA Business School of The National Development Research Institute of Peking University, and Li Bin, founder of Weilai.
Among them, "the first share of new-style tea drinking" Nai Xue's tea, as a representative brand of domestic trends, has been written into the new book. Peng Xin, founder of Neixue Tea, and He Gang, CTO, were interviewed by Tencent authorized to tell the secret of Nesher activating the brand with digital transformation. Peng Xin believes that for Nai Xue, digitalization is innate, and it is unimaginable without digitalization.
The following is the original text in the second chapter of the book, "The Rise of the National Tide Activates the "Force Field" of Brand Growth", titled "Ne Xue's Tea: The Explosive Methodology in the Domineering Jade Oil Orange":
"To make a product, you have to have both a very emotional feeling and a rational test, so although a lot of ideas are very interesting, many times you are constantly doing tests." In 2015, Peng Xin, the founder of Naixue's tea, just began to enter the industry, and the matter of tea was also a stage of learning, and he drank and vomited on the same day.
"Tea suppliers say they won't do our business anymore." Peng Xin found that a cup of fruit tea to be delicious, the most important thing is not fruit, but the matching of tea, if you want both the front end has aroma, the middle has a sense of fullness, but also want to have a long staying power, a single tea is difficult to do, just like a delicious latte, need a lot of coffee beans to match, "We drank tea from all over the country, different varieties, made a variety of combinations together, one day from 9 am to 11 pm, and finally found a very good direction." ”
In this direction, after the new tea season every spring, iterated for three more years, peng Xincai firmly believed that he had found a way to make "explosive products". In Peng Xin's view, Chinese tea culture has a long history, milk tea, matcha, fruit tea and other different drinking methods, has long appeared in the life of Chinese, "Nai Xue's tea is doing today, not a pioneering category, we are just constantly exploring the way of tea drinking, exploring suitable for contemporary people's consumption habits, more convenient, more fashionable way of drinking tea." ”
This is also the brand vision of Naixue Tea: to become an innovator and promoter of Chinese tea culture to the world.
Nesher's Tea PRO store
21 May 2021 is the second International Tea Day. International Tea Day was proclaimed on 27 November 2019 at the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly and celebrated annually on 21 May to celebrate the economic, social and cultural value of tea. This is the first time that a tea-producing country, mainly in China, has successfully promoted the establishment of an international festival in the field of agriculture.
On this day, the first specific product standard of the new tea industry, the "Tea Beverage Series Group Standard", which was led by Naixue's Tea, was officially released. The first batch of new tea product standards were formulated, and the new tea drinks included five categories: fresh milk tea, fresh milk cover tea, fresh fruit tea, freshly made bubble tea and freshly chilled bubble tea.
Peng Xin said that the idea of setting standards existed two or three years ago, mainly based on two considerations, "On the one hand, when Nesher's tea was founded, the entire industry was still based on bubble tea made of creamer as the main product." We want our products to be healthy, so we look for fresh ingredients such as tea and fruits. The search found that the industry lacked standards."
"On the other hand, we set this standard from the intention of doing a good job in internal quality control and management. In the process of promoting this matter, many teachers also remind us that once this standard is made and open to the public, it will in turn become the basis for external supervision and even criticism of us. In the end, we decided to continue to do this because we can use this as a yardstick to promote the healthy development of the industry together with upstream and downstream partners. ”
From the launch of explosive products and categories to promote the formulation of industry standards, and then to the disclosure to the whole society, in just a few years, with tea as the carrier, "Naixue's Tea" has been rapidly activated and risen as an emerging consumer brand. On June 30, 2021, Nesher's tea was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as the "first share of new-style tea drinks", with a total opening market value of more than HK$30 billion.
What password is hidden behind the brand activation?
"Three generations of tea drinks" to solve the "four major problems"
Peng Xin likes to drink tea and also likes to study tea. Before 2015, she had studied the thousand-year-old culture of Chinese tea, and also studied foreign tea drinking methods, including popular European-style milk tea and Japanese matcha. In her opinion, these foreign tea drinking methods are actually related to China.
"I don't agree with milk tea as European tea and matcha as Japanese tea!" Peng Xin believes that the popularity of milk tea in Europe is because the British visited Guangzhou and were served by the locals with milk tea; the popularity of matcha tea in Japan is even clearer, that is, it was transmitted to Japan from the Song Dynasty, and the tea drinking culture of Chinese is not set in stone. Today's tea industry experts feel that traditional brewed tea is Chinese tea, but Chinese tea from history to today, the way of drinking tea is constantly changing. During the Tang Dynasty, various things were combined, and polished tea appeared in the Song Dynasty, and it was only in the Ming and Qing dynasties that brewed tea began to be drunk. ”
This gives Peng Xin the confidence to innovate: "We are not a pioneering category, but constantly looking for ways to drink tea, looking for tea that contemporary people like more, feel more convenient and fashionable." So in our store, there are both hot brewed tea and cold tea, as well as fruit tea and fresh milk tea. ”
This eclectic cognition allows Peng Xin to completely transcend the intergenerational model that previously constrained the evolution of the industry when planning The positioning and tonality of Naixue's tea brand.
For the modern tea industry, Peng Xin believes that it can be divided into at least three generations.
The first generation of products and brands, the earliest can be traced back to 1987 Taiwan Chunshuitang bubble tea, from then until today, some brands with relatively small stalls to make more traditional products, the price of 5 to 8 yuan.
The second generation of products and brands, around 2006, the emergence of milk tea brands will open stores into the shopping mall, the tone of the entire brand is very clear, the store area is in the range of 20 to 50 square meters, the product price is around 15 yuan.
"At that time, consumers already had the impression of the brand, but the consumer population was relatively young, and the business and white-collar groups and family groups rarely consumed. Starting from these current situations, we further discovered the two major pain points of the tea industry at the commercial end and the consumer side. Peng Xin said.
On the commercial side, milk tea brands have never been able to get the best commercial resources, and the rent of shopping malls for milk tea shops is frighteningly high, and the location is poor and the area is small. Whether it is a shopping mall or an office building, the best location is always reserved for the café, which also leads to the milk tea shop can only sink more and more, often falling into the endless cycle of desperately saving costs and ensuring quality.
On the consumer side, as the young people who consume bubble tea grow up, they will pay more attention to health issues, thereby reducing the consumption of tea. At the same time, the consumption scene of milk tea shops is out of touch with the mainstream groups in society, and no one is willing to ask important business partners to talk about things in milk tea shops, because it will be considered disrespectful to each other.
It is based on the insight of these pain points that the third generation of products and brands represented by The Tea of Nesher, founded in 2015, has emerged. Peng Xin believes that the third generation of products and brands has solved at least four problems existing in the first two generations of products and brands.
First of all, it has created a new tea brand, the brand is high standard, high quality, is in line with the fashion trend, and matches the mainstream consumer population in society.
Secondly, we must make healthy, sustainable, and experiential new products, only in this way can we really impress consumers, promote consumer repurchase, and then make them products that consumers are willing to consume every day.
Third, insist on making the store a social space for consumers, so whether it is in the location of the store or the space design, there are very high requirements: must be opened in the best position, must have a sense of design, must make consumers feel comfortable.
Finally, we must do a good job in service. Traditional tea shops don't care much about service, but for brand building, service is an important means of transmitting brand tonality.
In order to achieve these four points, before the official establishment of Naixue's tea, Peng Xin and a few small partners, from April 2014 planning, to May 2015 first opened a pilot store, every day to continuously debug products, and then take these products to the pedestrians who come and go in the square to taste.
How to judge whether it is a good product? There is only one standard. It's not that people try it and say that you're a good drinker, but that when he's done drinking it, he'll ask, "Where's your shop?" I'm going to the store to pay. ”
It is with this ultimate pursuit that the new tea beverage redefines the industry in terms of products, brands, and relationships with consumers. After Naixue's tea opened its first offline store, it almost became a "model room for the industry", and peers came to visit and learn.
"Two standardizations" and "tea brand life"
"The problem facing Chinese tea brands is actually how to closely interact and connect with the lifestyle of modern people in this era." In addition to product quality issues, Peng Xin has a deeper thinking about tea brands. She gave an example, when you ask the people around you which country produces the most coffee beans in the world, everyone will give different answers, however, when you ask about coffee, everyone will think of Starbucks, the United States.
This question was raised by her when interacting with tea industry experts, and it is also her ultimate reflection on the current problems facing The Chinese tea industry and tea brands: "What we want to do today is actually a tea brand that can integrate into everyone's lifestyle, and then use a variety of teas as a carrier to interact with them, so that tea becomes a part of daily life." ”
From this point of view, Peng Xin found that she needed to start from the most basic level of the tea industry to reverse the perception of the industry's own practitioners and consumers: "When developing products at that time, we only had one idea, that is, healthy consumer goods would be sustainable. However, when we went to find fresh ingredients and tea products, we found that there was no standard in the industry. "This is what happened in 2015, when Nesher's tea was in its infancy." We want to do internal quality control and management, do a good job in our own internal management standards, based on this, and communicate with upstream partners. Peng Xin communicated with the experts of the association and the academy with this idea, and the feedback of the experts was that if it was made into a standard, it would definitely be made public, and it would definitely be seen by others.
"We think there is nothing wrong with this, more importantly, after the standard comes out, we can do better internal management, and let the upstream and downstream partners move forward based on this standard." Based on this thinking, Peng Xin and Nai Xue's tea has had in-depth interaction with tea industry experts, food industry experts, and standard industry experts, focusing on product and space experience innovation and standardization around 2015 and 2016, to building different brands and promoting regional expansion around 2017 and 2018, which has higher requirements for the supply chain and further strengthens the standardization of the supply chain system.
Finally, starting from 2019, with the increasingly clear trend of online and offline integration, the third generation of brands has completed the national layout, with higher requirements for internal management, supply chain management, and consumer management, the entire industry has entered the stage of scientific and technological innovation, and the original intention of "brand integration into consumer life" has also entered a real practice stage.
"We already have 400 to 500 stores, nearly 10,000 partners, and a lot of management can't be done by people, and we need to integrate scientific and technological means into our management." Peng Xin said. It is in this context that at the end of May 2020, He Gang, the former chief technology officer of Luckin Coffee, joined Nesher's Tea as CTO, and Naixue's Tea fully started its digital transformation.
At the time of our interview, He Gang had just spent his first year of tea in Nesher. In a year, the most important thing He Gang did at Naixue's tea was to open up the data.
Until the summer of 2020, the management of Nesher's tea mainly relied on various modules provided by third-party system providers. Since different modules are provided by different suppliers, there are many problems, such as many links that are not covered. Taking the onboarding of new employees as an example, a large number of forms need to be filled out, and the onboarding process alone cannot be completed in one morning.
At the same time, there is isolation between different modules. For example, the module for issuing promotional card coupons is provided by this supplier, the order system is provided by another supplier, and the resulting promotional card coupons cannot be associated with the final order, making it difficult to evaluate the promotion effect.
He Gang has set up a huge technical team in the new tea industry, recruited nearly 200 people from the Internet factory, and at present, in addition to the financial system, other processes have been opened. Now Naisher's tea has effectively transformed data into new production factors.
For example, in terms of internal process management, when updating the product menu in the past, the menu on the large screen of the store needed to be copied from the computer with a U disk, and the menus on different e-commerce platforms had to be updated one by one. Time-consuming, laborious not to mention, and often wrong. Now, with the help of different interfaces to open up the decentralized platform, and the data is saved in the cloud, different platforms can update the menu with one click, which greatly improves the efficiency.
For example, in terms of supply chain management, from the procurement of raw materials at the source to the distribution of materials in stores to the production of products, different links have all been digitized. Based on sales data for the past week and the past month, the model will measure how many kinds of bread a store needs to make a day, how many pounds of bayberry it needs, how many people need to go to work, and push back the distribution and procurement links. On the one hand, this reduces labor costs, and on the other hand, it ensures a balance between supply and demand.
For example, in terms of consumer management, Nesher's tea party improves the understanding of consumers through data feedback from different channels, so as to iterate on products. Consumer feedback in the WeChat Mini Program, feedback on the takeaway platform, and feedback on public reviews will be provided to the product development team after being sorted out to help them quickly adjust their judgments.
The "Three Secrets" of Brand Activation Hidden Behind Explosives
"Brands live on classic products, and Coca-Cola's ability to survive in the bottled beverage war is a typical example." Peng Xin introduced that 80% of The sales of Naixue's tea come from classic products, and through the data, they found that drinking is different from eating, eating is just needed, each meal wants to eat a different taste, it is impossible to eat in the same restaurant for three consecutive days, it is impossible to eat the same product in the same restaurant for three consecutive days, but drinking is not like this.
"Everyone has the habit and dependence on the same product of the same brand and taste and brand. For example, when people go to Starbucks, they often drink the product they are familiar with or like. Peng Xin believes that explosive or classic products are the key to driving the brand to accelerate the integration into the daily life of consumers, and it is also the key to the rapid rise and continuous activation of the brand. In today's market environment, behind the rise of explosive products or classic products, technology and digitalization are indispensable. "Domineering Jade Oil Orange" is a newly launched explosive product of Naixue's tea, and it can be said that this explosive product hides the secret of the rapid activation and rise of the brand.
Blockbuster "Domineering Jade Oil Orange"
The first secret is on the consumer side, with the help of digital means to capture consumer emotions in a timely and accurate manner.
Oil citrus is a niche fresh fruit unique to the Chaoshan region of Guangdong. Before preparing to make this product, the R&D team first found a small market to do a quick test, and once it was found that the attention of this product had grown rapidly in the launch area, it was quickly introduced to the national market.
Consumers in different places have different levels of awareness and acceptance of citrus. The oil citrus itself is very sour, and in order to adapt to the tastes of consumers in different regions, the research and development team initially increased the sweetness of the drink. However, when consumers feedback "tasted too sweet" through different channels such as WeChat Mini Programs, Apps, and e-commerce platforms, the R&D team reviewed the night of the new product listing, and quickly carried out product iteration according to consumer evaluations in different regions within 3 to 7 days after listing.
In this regard, Peng Xin concluded: "No excellent product manager is based on historical data to make explosive products! ”
The second secret is on the product side, and the painstaking efforts and efforts made in the product will be felt by consumers.
In Peng Xin's view, the most important element of new tea drinking is tea. In order to find a good tea that meets their own requirements and standards, Peng Xin and the R & D team can be described as "poor and falling into the Yellow Spring". Run to different production areas, find different famous artists for advice... The most exaggerated one, from more than 9 o'clock in the morning to more than 11 o'clock in the evening, drink tea until vomiting. Later, Peng Xin was inspired by the making of Lipton tea bags and coffee beans. Lipton mixes several different teas to maintain a sense of balance in the tea soup. The same is true for coffee, where coffee beans from different origins can be paired with different aromas and tastes. Naixue's tea is also a mixture of tea from different production areas, which not only satisfies the qi of the front section, but also ensures the fullness of the middle section, and can also make the tail rhyme more long.
The third secret is on the service and brand side, and good products speak for themselves.
A careful analysis of the prospectus of NaiXue's tea IPO (initial public offering) shows that among its cost composition, the first place is the cost of ingredients, followed by the cost of store operations, and finally the rent cost that everyone thinks is the most important. That is to say, unlike many consumer goods brand companies that invest a lot of money in various marketing channels, Nesher's tea has very low marketing costs, and the past average is only 2. About 5%. However, from the perspective of brand voice, Nesher's tea has repeatedly grabbed the headlines.
How did it come to this? "Our approach is to use new products as the starting point based on our insights, combine marketing and service with consumer interaction, and inspire our consumers to take the initiative to produce more content to improve the voice of the brand." Peng Xin said. She has always believed that good products can speak for themselves.
In this way, the "domineering jade oil orange" domineeringly burst out of the circle. And this is the methodology of Nai Xue's tea to create explosive models.
brief summary
In the context of the rise of the national tide, how can the ancient and young Chinese tea reactivate the brand and rise rapidly? What dimensions can impress consumers?
Peng Xin concluded that in order of importance, it should be products, experiences, services and brands.
The importance of the product is self-evident, there is no good product, the other is the wood without the root, the water without the source. The experience includes two parts, offline and online, of which the core of the offline experience is the store, and the online experience requires the use of digital tools such as WeChat Mini Programs.
Service is an important means of transmitting brand tone.
The brand is the master of products, experiences and services, as a lifestyle brand, Nesher's tea should allow consumers to enjoy a good time when consuming a drink.
From the "tea drunk by grandpa" after the 50s and 60s, to the "tea drunk by dad" after the 70s and 80s, to the current "tea I drank", tea drinking is becoming the label of the culture and identity of the younger generation, as well as an important highlight of the new national trend. For contemporary tea consumers, digitalization is innate, and it is unimaginable without digitalization.