Autumn sugar highlights | The new and old forces of baijiu are competing for glory, and innovative marketing models may become the key to success

From October 12th to 14th, the 109th Autumn Sugar and Wine Festival will kick off in Shenzhen. As one of the largest and most far-reaching exhibitions in China's food and wine industry, this year's autumn sugar fair adopts the special model of "one city, two exhibitions", which not only successfully continues the super high popularity of this year's spring sugar fair, attracting more than 4,000 enterprises to participate in the exhibition, but also as the first ultra-large-scale industry exhibition after the Mid-Autumn Festival National Day holiday, leveraging the active participation of distributors in the alcohol and food industry across the country, and launching the first shot of the national sugar and alcohol commodity trading season in the second half of 2023.

At the same time, as one of the most favored tracks by capital, baijiu will further start a tug-of-war between new and old brands at this autumn sugar fair. It is understood that not only the booths of old wine companies such as Moutai and Xijiu are "ready", but many latecomers have also competed to join the competition, such as Guojixiang, which created a "small miracle" in the domestic sauce wine track in 2023, will also attend to break the traditional marketing model, the strong layout of "multi-brand + rich product line", and continue to deepen its national layout. And the competition of new and old forces of baijiu on the same stage will also bring more different points of interest to this autumn sugar.

Point 1: The attention of liquor continues to be high, and the soy wine market is hot

In recent years, under the boom of "sauce wine", sauce-fragrant liquor has become more and more favored by consumers, and the scale of the related market has continued to grow, and it is expected to exceed 500 billion yuan within ten years. Due to the strong increase in demand, at this autumn sugar meeting, the popularity of sauce-fragrant liquor remained high, and continued to occupy the focus of market attention, not only leading enterprises such as Moutai and Xijiu continued to shine, but also Guojixiang, Yunhanchun and other cutting-edge sauce wine from the core production area of Moutai Town also attracted much attention, becoming one of the brands that small and medium-sized liquor distributors are most looking forward to working with. Some distributors said that as the attention of baijiu continues to rise, more and more people will drink sauce wine, Tibetan sauce wine, sell sauce wine, and invest in sauce wine, and the soy wine that ordinary people such as Guojixiang and Yun Hanchun can afford, drink, and continue to drink, with good reputation and sales, will be expected to bring them more new business opportunities.

Point 2: The era of "selling method" is coming, and "marketing model innovation" is the breakthrough point

As the vane and bridgehead of national alcohol consumption, the twice-yearly sugar and wine party has always been a battleground for major alcohol brands. Compared with previous editions, the investment competition for major liquor brands at this autumn sugar fair has become more intense. On the one hand, leading wine enterprises such as Moutai, Wuliangye, Fenjiu, Yanghe, and Luzhou Laojiao accelerated their sinking, and launched crushing attacks on small and medium-sized wine enterprises at the bottom of the waist with low-end products at full price and saturation. On the other hand, the linear growth of small and medium-sized liquor brands represented by new talents in Moutai Town, such as Guo Jixiang and Yun Hanchun, has not only accelerated the national layout, but also frequently emerged in large-scale wine professional exhibitions such as wine fairs and won honorary awards such as "China's Influential Brand in the Liquor Industry" and "Top 10 New Products" for many times, constantly setting off waves in the soy wine market.

From the perspective of playing style, the "successful exit on the street" of Guo Jixiang and Yun Hanchun is closely related to their marketing model innovation in the era of "selling law". It is understood that Guojixiang and Yun Hanchun, as the cutting-edge brands of sauce wine that launched the marketing plan in August 2022, took the lead in initiating marketing innovation from the sauce wine industry, relying on powerful algorithms and computing power, building business logic with consumers' own value, perfectly integrating consumers' application value with value scale, and realizing the free value exchange of goods and services between the government, enterprises and people by breaking the traditional national auspicious new consumption ecosystem, which is "grown, replicable and recyclable". Therefore, the revolution on the supply and demand side of soy wine was quickly detonated, and consumption created value and circulation generated value, and the brand also achieved high growth and promoted changes in the soy wine industry pattern while successfully breaking through.

Point 3: The concept of "drink less, drink better" prevails, and a healthy drinking culture is sought after

In 2019, the State Council issued the Opinions on Implementing the Healthy China Action, which included healthy lifestyles in the goals of the action. Among them, healthy drinking, as a part of a healthy lifestyle, has also become an important advocacy of more and more liquor companies at this autumn sugar meeting. As a cutting-edge brand that won many honors such as "China's Influential Brand in the Wine Industry" and "Top 10 New Products" at the 12th Wine Expo, Wang Yunwan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Guojixiang Holding Group, and Li Xiaochun, Vice Chairman, have proposed on many occasions the new consumerism of "innovating consumption scenarios and reducing consumption costs" and the healthy drinking culture of "drinking less and drinking better". This time, Guo Jixiang and Yun Hanchun will take advantage of the communication platform of this year's autumn sugar festival to further promote urban healthy drinking scenes such as "slightly drunk", "sauce fragrance +" and "small gathering", bringing more possibilities for the people to cope with the "social drinking" of traditional wine table culture, hoping to make rational health a new connotation of Chinese sauce culture.

Point 4: The ability to create value is the core, and the long-term growth of soy wine is more optimistic about investors

The soy wine industry is changing with each passing day, from the barbaric growth of the brand to the midfield stage of the market turning into the "big wave of sand", the ability to create value makes all players "the leftover is king". Compared with the super popularity of this year's Spring Sugar Fair, the investors of this year's Autumn Sugar Festival are more rational. Some distributors said that although the sauce wine market is very hot, some brands are not very active to do terminal expansion, so under the dual pressure of crowded track and global economic downturn, some unknown sauce brands are difficult to sell.

Relatively speaking, although Guojixiang, Yunhanchun and other brands entered the market late, these sauce wines both take the high-end route, the price is close to the people, the market foundation is relatively good, at the same time, under the digital channel ecosystem built by Guojixiang, the traditional transaction-based alcohol marketing channel model has been broken, brands, distributors, liquor consumers rely on the new consumption system to reconstruct the relationship between people, goods, and the field, with complex algorithms and powerful computing power, making "selling wine" easier, and making "buying wine" become desire. It has solved a series of marketing channels and consumer willingness problems, so this type of long-term layout of sauce wine brands can make dealers go further, and its development prospects are more worth looking forward to.

As one of the largest events in the industry, this autumn sugar fair not only opens a door for the majority of wine companies and investors, but also brings more business opportunities. However, in the face of the vicissitudes of the sauce wine market, whether it is "stable" old wine companies such as Moutai and Xijiu, or "new" such as Guojixiang, Yunhanchun and other industry cutting-edges, we must move forward cautiously. It is hoped that with the transformation of the competition pattern of the wine industry and the upgrading of the consumption structure, these wine companies can explore their own new models in the big waves and continue to promote the prosperity and high-quality development of China's sauce industry.