In the era of consumer sovereignty, Yangyuan Beverage has entered middle age?

Image source @ Visual China

Wen | Silver Arrow Finance

Unsurprisingly, Yangyuan Beverage's revenue and net profit in the first quarter of 2022 plummeted, of which net profit fell by as much as 29.10% year-on-year.

01 Healthy brain publicity into IQ tax, Yangyuan drink "sense of the times" marketing water and soil dissatisfaction?

People in every era have the cognitive limitations of each era, just as the older generation does not understand why to drink coffee and add oat milk, the younger generation does not understand why the six walnuts that "replenish the brain" were so hot in the past.

In fact, oat milk and six walnuts are not only the same category of products, but even the way to explode the fire follows the logic of marketing. However, the back wave of the Yangtze River pushes the front wave, compared with the frequent outflow of oat milk, the topic of six walnuts is relatively not high.

The main reason for this phenomenon is that the marketing logic of the two is different, and behind it can reflect the difference in concept of the new and old brands, which may be the main reason for the poor performance of the six walnuts. Specifically, it is reflected in the following two aspects.

1. There is a bias in the perception of the market wind: six walnuts emphasize the efficacy of drinks and create a "healthy brain" label, while oat milk emphasizes the health attributes of drinks and creates a "healthy life" label. The former runs the risk of facing IQ tax questions, while the latter responds to consumer demand.

"Often use the brain, often drink six walnuts", this is the classic advertising words of six walnuts, coupled with the marketing of Liuhe walnuts are mostly concentrated in the Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and college entrance examination and other important festivals, the gift concept is stronger, and even some people once thought that six walnuts are health care products.

The advantage is that six walnuts quickly opened the market with the label of "healthy brain", and the three-yuan beverage has also become a giant in the beverage industry, but the disadvantage is that the efficacy of its product itself is difficult to bear the added value of healthy brain. In the words of the moment, it is an IQ tax.

Some relevant institutions have concluded by analyzing the carbohydrates and fats of six walnuts that a can of "six walnuts" is at most two walnuts, which is inconsistent with its propaganda. In fact, Yangyuan Beverage has also explained that "six walnuts" is only a trademark, which is an ordinary drink, although it has a certain nutritional function, but it is not a health care product, quite a chicken company registered the "walking mountain" trademark to sell pheasant meaning.

In fact, oat milk is also quite different from the consumer's cognition, from the composition point of view, oat milk is not even as high as the nutrition of milk, but it is more expensive to sell and consumers pay, because it will focus on high fiber, low fat, no fat, avoid the suspicion of IQ tax at the same time, catering to young consumers on the pursuit of zero sugar, low calorie food.

The advantages and disadvantages of the two marketing methods are established, the root cause of this phenomenon or the difference in the awareness of the market wind direction between the two, the yangyuan beverage of the old company may be far inferior to the new brand in how to please young people, and this also lays the groundwork for the poor marketing transformation effect after the six walnuts.

2. The limitations of product and marketing lead to its misalignment with mainstream audience groups: unlike the precision marketing of oat milk on new marketing channels such as Xiaohongshu, Yangyuan Beverage still seems to be practicing traditional marketing methods.

Although oat milk and six walnuts are both plant protein drinks, consumers seem to have difficulty linking the two, mainly because the marketing of six walnuts is difficult to be received by the audience of oat milk.

In the promotion of six walnuts has been following the traditional marketing methods, such as rubbing the college entrance examination hotspot to launch the corresponding products. The main audience of this type of advertising is still middle-aged and elderly people and teenagers, rather than white-collar workers who pursue exquisite life.

Although Six Walnuts also has ads on new marketing platforms such as Xiaohongshu, the main theme is still the brain tag, and it is difficult for white-collar workers to directly receive the promotion of Six Walnuts through keyword search. Even if you don't brush it unintentionally, the ingredient list of six walnuts may be difficult to attract the younger generation.

From the 2021 financial report, it can be seen that white sugar is still the main material of Yangyuan beverage. According to the calculations of relevant agencies, the sugar content of six walnuts in a 240ml can reached about 8.64g, which is equivalent to one-third of the amount of sugar that people need to consume a day. The sugar-free version of the six walnuts has not become a phenomenon-level hit due to marketing misalignment and taste problems.

In 2021, the sales expense of Yangyuan beverages was 964 million yuan, an increase of 59.59% over the previous period, of which the main reason for the increase was the increase in advertising expenses. Judging from the results, the investment and harvest of its marketing do not seem to be directly proportional.

02 New and old forces actively seek change, and Yangyuan drinks are exhausted and fished?

Compared with new plant protein beverage companies such as soy milk and oat milk, the biggest drawback of Yangyuan beverage is that there are certain limitations in the use of products.

For example, when you think of Yangyuan drinks, you will naturally think of brain supplements, and when you mention herbal tea, you can think of scenes such as hot pot. In other words, consumers may not treat these products as regular beverages, but mostly buy them in fixed scenes or specific seasons, which is caused by the lack of comprehensive consideration of enterprises in marketing.

When the old brand is promoted, most of them will substitute for the scene. The advantage is to improve the consumer's sense of substitution and increase the memory point of the brand, but the disadvantage is that once the label is bound, it may become a restriction on the subsequent development of the enterprise.

The characteristics of the new brand are its main label of healthy life, emphasizing the daily attributes of the product, and making soy milk and oat milk a substitute for milk and breakfast, and the consumption frequency is much higher than that of the six old brands such as walnuts and herbal teas that are limited by the scene.

Therefore, if Yangyuan Beverage wants to tear off consumers' inherent impression of the brand, it must first avoid scene-based marketing of new products.

In fact, it is understandable that old brands consider "incomplete" when promoting. In that era, the competition intensity of the domestic beverage market was relatively low, and the sense of boundary between the giants was strong, and the two did not invade each other, and each deeply cultivated its own field. In the segmentation field, the giants have high competitive barriers, and it is difficult to be occupied by new brands.

Therefore, the old brand has always followed the national marketing philosophy: spend a little money to find an advertising agency to create an advertisement, and then go to an influential TV platform to run it, and then there is no more. Marketing is more like a hammer thing for the old brand, and there is no need to change the advertising words at any time with the changes in the market trend. Therefore, scene-based marketing, which is more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people in more than ten seconds, has become the marketing first choice of established enterprises.

However, now THATL talents have become an important marketing channel, and civilian and long-term marketing has provided promotion channels for many new brands, and many new brands have stood out, inspiring the scuffle between new and old forces. The boundaries between beverage companies have been broken, Yili and Mengniu are no longer limited to dairy, Nongfu Spring is no longer limited to tea and water, and Dali Food has also launched bean milk cut into the field of plant protein drinks.

In this new scuffle, enterprises that do not transform or adjust their thinking in time will naturally be "beaten". Although it is difficult to occupy its own field by other brands, the biggest feature of drinks is that it is replaceable, such as the turmoil in Coca-Cola's carbonic acid market after the Yuanqi Forest sparkling water burst.

Lying on the old book and fishing is better than taking the initiative, has a history of 26 years of Yangyuan beverage, whether it can change the way of thinking in time to meet the new era, we wait and see.