The rise of the national tide, the wave of rejuvenation, the high-end of local brands... —— Ten new trends of Chinese brands in the new era

Per special commentator Li Guangdou

Today is the sixth China Brand Day, and it is also the day when the CSI Brand Value 100 Index (100 per brand, code: 931852) was officially launched and the Brand Value List of China's listed companies was officially released.

Brand is the soft power of the country, and the rise of a big country is accompanied by the rise of the brand. Brand competitiveness is the core competitiveness of a country. To measure the competitiveness of a region, we must look at how many national brands there are; to measure the competitiveness of a country's brands, we must look at how many world brands there are.

As the world's second largest economy, the brand strategy has become a national strategy, Chinese brands are getting rid of low-quality, cheap labels to the development of high-end, Chinese brands are ushering in a new era.

Trend one: the rise of the national tide

With the increasing local awareness and cultural self-confidence, Chinese consumers' acceptance and love of domestic products are increasing day by day, driving profound changes in Chinese brands, whether in the local consumer market or in the global competition pattern. In the home appliance market, the national tide has dominated, color TV, air conditioning, refrigerators, soybean milk machines, all kinds of small household appliances, Chinese home appliance brands are full of living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, everywhere; also in the catering industry, the highlight era of foreign fast food has ended. Catering is always the biggest demand for Chinese, and China's catering industry has become a pillar market, with a market size of nearly 5 trillion yuan. Chinese food culture has a long history, in the world is also unique, in the new format, new consumption, new brand, new communication of the trend, Chinese catering brands are promising; in the daily chemical industry, the rise of the national tide has driven more consumers to more and more favor local brand cosmetics, and even there is a spillover effect, which has formed a challenge to Japanese and Korean brands.

Trend two: rational consumption

Just as the national economy has the inherent law of cyclical fluctuations, there is also a cyclical trend of consumption capacity and consumption preference. Subject to income expectations and employment situation, many consumers are more rational, from simply pursuing high-quality and high-priced big brands to high-quality and inexpensive flat brands, promoting the advent of the era of brand blossoms. In today's mobile Internet era, the monopoly power of brands is dispersed, and personalized tide brands, niche brands, small and micro brands, and personal brands have emerged. For example, the dominance of traditional big brands such as Starbucks, Nestle and Mai's in the coffee market has been challenged, and many emerging brands such as Luckin Coffee and Three and a Half Coffee have been born.

Trend three: consumption upgrades

The trend of consumption is rational consumption, and there are also consumption upgrades. As one of the troika driving economic growth, consumption will always be an important engine for the stable operation of the economy, and the mainland has become the world's second largest consumer market. From the structural point of view, the people's consumption level and quality of life have been greatly improved, with the continuous improvement of people's living standards, the pace of consumption upgrading continues to accelerate, service consumption, new consumption hotspots emerge in an endless stream. Whether it is traditional consumption or new consumption, consumption upgrading will drive the personalized needs of consumers, who creates new consumption scenarios and seizes the trend of consumption upgrading, who will grasp China's future business opportunities.

Trend 4: High-end Chinese local brands

Nowadays, China's domestic products have shown a high-end trend, consumer recognition is getting higher and higher, and brand value has also increased. Behind the changes in consumer psychology and consumption behavior is the tremendous changes in China's overall consumption structure. The comprehensive national strength and the overall consumption strength of the people have been further improved, and consumers' sense of identity and self-confidence in local culture has been enhanced. The current new generation of consumers is a generation that grew up under the atmosphere of this enhanced "local cultural identity", and with the improvement of their economic strength, they have gradually become the main group of new consumers, and have rapidly promoted the rejuvenation and upgrading of national tide brands. For example, Haier, which has successfully grasped the trend of high-end Chinese local brands, has been focusing on launching the high-end home appliance brand Casarte since 2006 in order to better meet the diversified needs of consumers, and now Casarte, as an independent brand of Haier, has occupied a large share of China's high-end home appliance market.

Trend 5: Enhance Chinese brands with Chinese services

China is not only a world manufacturing power, but also a world trade power. According to the latest Global Trade Update report released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), global trade volume will be about $28 trillion in 2021, an increase of 23% over 2020. China's total import and export trade accounts for 21.6% of the global total. China's import and export trade has become the core engine driving global economic growth. The ultimate goal of all economic activities is to serve people, service is one of the core connotations, which determines that service trade is closely related to social production and people's lives all the time, so Chinese enterprises should pay more attention to research and development and brand marketing and service with higher added value while improving product quality. Chinese enterprises should pay more attention to brand marketing, create brand core values based on quality, innovation and service, and go to the international market.

Trend Six: From output product to brand output

The ultimate goal of the "double cycle" is to go out and better participate in the international cycle. If China's economy wants to ensure long-term and stable development and upgrading, it is ultimately necessary for Chinese enterprises to base themselves on serving the domestic and international "double cycle", plan and promote development with a global vision, create more model enterprises with a globally renowned brand image, and contribute the power of Chinese brands to the world. To be bigger, stronger and better, it is to go far and go, enter the international cycle, and achieve internationalization with excellent brand awareness, brand satisfaction and brand recognition.

Trend Seven: The Wave of Rejuvenation

The back wave of the Yangtze River pushes the front wave, and the young people win the world. How to catch young consumers is a top priority for enterprises. Despite the current weak consumption, new fast-moving consumer goods are still explosive. Many influencer shops are crowded because they grasp the trend of rejuvenation and provide immersive new experiences. In this era of brand rejuvenation, we must change from the original tall to the current home cute pet, from traditional manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing and young manufacturing, young people have become the protagonists of consumption, and the demand for new home appliances and single home appliances is getting bigger and bigger.

Trend Eight: The wave of entertainment, the brand looks good and interesting

The younger generation of consumer groups no longer only pay attention to the long-standing sense of the brand, they are more concerned about their own feelings, the pursuit of fresh, personalized, unique consumer experience; brands with interactive functions are more favored by young people. Affected by the rapid development of the Internet, the younger generation of Chinese consumers are more actively seeking consumption upgrades, prefer a simple and fast lifestyle, they live in a hyperlinked and information-saturated world, and they also believe more in technology and rely on smart products. This has also led to a big change in the way they approach things and deal with problems. They prefer fun stuff. In this regard, the younger "post-00s" have their own unique communication vocabulary and are keen on online emoticons. Cute language, cute expressions filled social media. In addition to cute products, they also like interesting little things, it can be said that the starting point of the "post-00s" purchase is more "entertainment". At the same time, they attach great importance to participation and experience, which is the driving force that stimulates their desire to consume. If the product is fun and playable, it will get more favor from the "post-00s". If you want to capture more of the consumption of young people, you must first let them play happily.

In the face of a new generation of consumers, the managers of domestic brands have long ceased to simply put cost performance in the first place, but have paid more attention to product quality and design innovation. The younger generation of consumers not only value the brand and experience, but also pay attention to quality and connotation, not only have a strong consumption ability, but also have a greater right to speak, they require brands to be good at and willing to communicate with themselves, and the values conveyed should be in line with their own ideas. Just as people's evaluation of the three generations of Chinese entrepreneurs: the first generation of entrepreneurs rely on boldness; the second generation of entrepreneurs can't be bold, but they must also have knowledge; but the third generation of entrepreneurs must have artistic accomplishment and aesthetic intuition like Jobs. The beauty economy of the younger generation of consumers is to see if your products are beautiful or not, and then to see if they are good or not, but also to see whether they are fun.

Trend Nine: Low-carbon economy, green brand

"Double carbon" has become a major strategy at the national level in China, and achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals is an inherent requirement for the high-quality development of the national economy, which further requires the brand to anchor green, environmental protection and health in future development. In the future, consumers will not only care about the safety, organicity and environmental protection of the product itself, but also pay attention to the carbon footprint of the enterprise in the process of product production and brand operation, require enterprises to assume environmentally friendly social responsibility, and closely link the brand's green consumption, green supply chain, global climate governance and international trade activities.

Trend 10: The rise of new tracks

Under the tide of new development pattern and new consumption, the new industries and new tracks represented by the big health and silver economy will continue to rise and shine with huge business opportunities. The pandemic has profoundly changed the way people think and behave.

Under the general trend of everyone paying attention to health, the big health industry has expanded to all aspects around food, clothing, housing and transportation, all industries have the opportunity to integrate with the big health industry, and scientific development and technological innovation have gained greater health momentum, including telemedicine, distance teaching and remote office industry are accelerating industrialization. Telemedicine is developing from simple offline diagnosis to today's online diagnosis and treatment, from the application and diffusion of various digital tools to relying on cloud computing and big data to provide a technical "shield" for drug development, under the framework of the digitalization of the industrial Internet, this traditional industry is undergoing rapid changes.

2022 is an extraordinary year, but also a new starting point for Chinese brands, Chinese brands must not only change the world's stereotypes about Chinese products, but also reshape the confidence of Chinese people in Chinese manufacturing. No matter what kind of difficulties we encounter in economic development, we must overcome difficulties and work hard. (The author is a well-known brand strategy expert and CCTV brand consultant)

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