"Six walnut dealers ran away with tens of millions of dollars?"
At the end of 2023, the news that six walnut dealers ran away with tens of millions of dollars caused an uproar in the industry.
In this regard, Yangyuan Beverage, the parent company of Six Walnuts, responded that they had already terminated the distribution contract with Junke Trading in late November 2023.
Obviously, this run away was premeditated, and the merchants were also fooled because they didn't know Yangyuan's decision to change dealers.
To sum up, this dealer runaway incident has little to do with Yangyuan Beverage, the parent company of six walnuts.
When it comes to Yangyuan drinks, you may not know much, but Six Walnuts is definitely a household name, and the advertising slogan "often use your brain, drink six more walnuts" is even more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
At that time, six walnuts were indispensable for New Year's holidays and visiting relatives and friends, and for students preparing for exams, six walnuts were frequent guests on the desk.
However, times have changed. Smash hit brands will inevitably encounter moments of decline.
In recent years, the national health awareness has been greatly improved, and the demand for dietary consumption and health preservation has increased.
Correspondingly, the growth of the domestic health care products market, among which health drinks are naturally indispensable. Beverage brands such as Sanyuan, VV, Yinlu, and Wanglaoji have successively seized market share, while Yangyuan, which is dominated by six walnuts, is obviously a bit difficult to support alone.
Among the top 10 brands of walnut dew newly launched by China Brand Network, the top 3 are VV, Yinlu and Happy Home, and the six walnuts are only ranked 8th, while its old rival Chengde Lulu ranks 4th.
Social attention is decreasing, and the core competitiveness is declining, and these problems continue to restrict the development of six walnuts.
In 1997, Hebei Yangyuan Zhihui Beverage Co., Ltd. was established in Hebei, in the land of Yanzhao, such a beverage factory is inconspicuous. After all, there are also drink giants such as Little Foreigner Miaolian and Lulu Almond Juice.
At the beginning of its establishment, Yangyuan mainly focused on the research and development of walnut dew drinks, and also had a large walnut production base, but it did not operate well at the beginning and once faced bankruptcy.
In 1999, due to business problems, Yangyuan was merged into Hengshui Laobaigan Enterprise, and now this small company can be regarded as having a state-owned enterprise background, but it is useless, and the company has still been in a state of loss.
In this way, Yang Yuan gnawed for six years.
In 2005, Lao Baigan couldn't stand Yangyuan's continuous losses, so he planned to sell Yangyuan. At that time, Yao Kuizhang, who was only an employee under Lao Baigan, led 58 workers to raise more than 3 million yuan and took over Yangyuan.
In order to launch a product with core competitiveness, Yao Kuizhang did a variety of market research.
At that time, the plant-based protein beverage market, "Xiweiyi, Dongyinlu, South Coconut Tree, North Lulu", had many enterprises and fierce competition, and the market was close to saturation.
But the good thing is that Yangyuan has a unique vision and a different way. Since the market is saturated, then open up new markets, why bother with your old brands.
He set his sights on walnuts, known as the "king of nuts", and he also has a ready-made walnut production base.
Just do it.
In less than a year, Yangyuan has developed a unique walnut milk production process - "5.3.28", that is, "5 patents, 3 unique technologies and 28 processes", which effectively solves the problem that walnut nutrition is not easy to absorb and has a bitter taste.
Yangyuan successfully developed the first walnut milk beverage in China, creating a precedent in the domestic walnut milk beverage market.
Now that you have a product, it's time to think about publicity and marketing.
To make a splash in this competitive market, a loud slogan is essential. The six walnuts used to be called Yangyuan Walnut Dew, but this name was obviously not eye-catching enough in the era of "princes competing for hegemony".
But what should it be called? At a company meeting, one of the participants inadvertently counted "one walnut, two walnuts ......." When he read "six," everyone's eyes lit up.
"Six" means six or six great shuns, which sounds festive, and Chinese medicine believes that eating 6 walnuts a day can nourish the brain and intelligence, which will definitely attract the attention of consumers.
So the name of "Six Walnuts" was decided.
Six walnuts also changed the "walnut dew" that was often called in the industry to "walnut milk", although it was only a word difference, but it instantly made the drink taller and more nutritious.
But the marketing of Six Walnuts was not very smooth at the beginning, after all, there is Lulu Almond Milk next door, and many stores regard Six Walnuts as a pirated brand of Almond Milk, and they do not trust it, they only favor Lulu, which has more than one billion sales per year.
However, Yangyuan soon found a solution, since the retail channel hit a wall everywhere, then change the way to enter the market. They set their sights on the catering industry, which also took advantage of the channels in the liquor catering field when they operated Hengshui Laobaigan before.
Customers who feel good after tasting in restaurants will go to retailers to buy them, which in turn drives sales and sales. Since then, the market for six walnuts has been completely opened.
From 2005 to 2006, in one year, six walnuts in Hebei alone sold more than 30 million sales.
In this year's time, six walnuts proved their strength with actual combat, and after that, they made great progress, maintaining a small change in one year and a big change in three years, and gradually created another industry sales myth after JDB herbal tea.
However, if the six walnuts that have successfully created the market want to continue to be successful, it is obviously not enough to open up circulation channels alone.
If the brand can stand and stand firm, more and more consumers will patronize.
The brain platinum that was popular all over the country back then was not a name that was simply sold, and the two twisted aunts and uncles on the CCTV channel left a deep impression on many people.
At that time, Six Walnuts also wanted a marketing slogan that would make them popular all over the country.
In 2009, six walnuts played the extremely explosive slogan - "use your brain often, drink six more walnuts". Since then, they have labeled their products with the healthy nutrition label of "plant milk + brain health care", which has left a deep impression on consumers.
This year, Yangyuan's total sales reached the 1 billion mark.
In fact, the marketing concept of "healthy drinks" can be described as tried-and-true in beverage marketing.
In the hearts of consumers, walnuts can always be linked to the brain.
The walnut kernel is shaped like a miniature brain, and its folds resemble the cerebral cortex. And the folk have always had the saying of "complementing the form with the form", so eating walnuts can replenish the brain has spread, children can eat more to improve intelligence, and the elderly can eat more to prevent memory loss.
This cognitive subconscious affects consumers' understanding of six walnuts, and they feel that drinking this thing may really be useful for tonifying the brain, in line with the idea that they would rather believe that they have not believable, more and more consumers will take six walnuts as the first choice for visiting relatives and friends and supplementing nutrition.
After realizing the importance of publicity, Six Walnuts began to increase their investment in advertising.
In 2010, Six Walnuts signed a contract with the well-known host Chen Luyu, and spent 60 million huge sums of money to put the new version of the advertisement in the prime time after the news broadcast.
Since then, six walnuts have successively named puzzle challenge programs such as "The Strongest Brain", "I Am Mr.", and "Challenge the Impossible".
Under the huge advertising boost and magic slogans, the growth momentum of six walnuts has been unstoppable.
During this period, Yangyuan continued to subdivide the category of walnut milk products for different groups of people, and achieved continuous growth in revenue.
In 2013, Yangyuan's revenue and net profit soared to 7.431 billion yuan and 1.582 billion yuan. In 2014, the operating income reached 8.262 billion yuan.
In 2015, Yangyuan's total revenue exceeded 9 billion, an increase of 32 times compared with 2008, and its net profit exceeded 2.6 billion, occupying the top spot in dairy sales that year.
From a small company that is not well-known and even needs to rely on "gnawing the old" to get by, to a leading enterprise with an annual revenue of nearly 10 billion yuan, Six Walnuts has created a marketing legend in China's beverage industry in less than ten years.
However, with more attention comes more skepticism.
In fact, disputes over the six walnuts have been going on since its inception.
First there was the trademark dispute, and then there was the quality dispute. Some peers even blamed Six Walnuts: "Playing with concepts, false publicity, emphasizing advertising over quality." ”
Between 2015 and 2017, six walnuts were sued twice for false advertising, but studies in related laboratories have shown that walnut milk does have the effect of improving the ability to learn Xi memory, and long-term consumption has a very positive effect on the human brain.
Although the lawsuit was eventually dismissed by the court, it still had a serious negative impact on the brand image.
At the same time, questions about other aspects are constantly coming.
According to data, in 2015, the sales expenditure of six walnuts was 920 million yuan, and its investment in advertising alone reached 380 million yuan, while the research and development expenditure in the first half of the year was only 5.45 million yuan.
This makes consumers wonder, can such a small R&D investment really ensure the health care effect of drinks?
And that's not all.
In 2018, according to a report by Sina Finance, the purchase amount of six walnut cans accounted for 58.84%, while the walnut kernel was only 15.98%.
As early as 2015, it was reported that the ex-factory price of six walnuts was 2.1 yuan per listen, and the gross profit margin was 49.11%, that is to say, the cost per listen was 1.11 yuan, of which walnut kernels accounted for 30.47% and the cost of iron cans accounted for 49.49%.
This makes consumers wonder again, is Six Walnuts selling walnut milk or tin cans?
Coupled with the continuous doubts of consumers and the change in the form of the beverage consumption market, the six walnuts inevitably went downhill.
From 2018 to the first quarter of 2022, the net profit attributable to the parent company of the six walnuts was 2.8 billion yuan, 2.7 billion yuan, 1.57 billion yuan, 2.1 billion yuan and 500 million yuan respectively, showing a significant fluctuating downward trend.
Yangyuan Beverage landed on the stock market in December 2017, with an issue price of 78.73 yuan per share, but now it is only 20.84 yuan per share, and the company's market value is only 29.45 billion yuan, which has evaporated more than 30 billion yuan in 6 years.
In fact, the change in sales also reflects the change of market orientation in recent years, the emerging milk tea industry has entered to seize the beverage market share, and some well-known beverage brands such as Yili, Mengniu, Sanyuan, and Lulu have also begun to launch walnut milk and walnut milk products, and the market competition has become increasingly fierce.
It is true that in the past, Yangyuan Beverage relied on the "super single product" of six walnuts to achieve a qualitative breakthrough and leap, and achieved an industry myth of nearly 10 billion yuan per year.
However, in today's era of diversified competition, in the face of the impact of similar products such as soybean milk and oat milk, as well as Yili and Mengniu, which are giants good at cross-border marketing, how long can the six walnuts with a single product structure and lose their marketing advantages last?
Although some experts said that today's consumers' demand for a healthy life is still in a rigid increasing trend, six walnuts as a product in the "tuyere" will not be immediately replaced.
However, the "mid-life crisis" is already a problem that needs to be solved urgently, otherwise it is only a matter of time before it falls to the bottom.
In the face of the looming crisis, Yangyuan is not inactive.
In fact, since 2020, Yangyuan has begun to seek industrial transformation and transformation, take the route of differentiated competition, and increase investment in beverage development.
In March 2021, Yangyuan launched six walnut 2430 series high-end products.
With "0 sugar, 0 flavor, 0 cholesterol" as the product highlight, and at the same time, for the taste of young people, the walnut milk series of "matcha + plant drink" was launched, although the sales were not good compared to similar competing products at first, but it was also a new way.
In 2023, six walnuts will closely follow the attention of consumers, starting from people's special attention to "Shun", and launch six walnuts Six Six Shun red cans for the New Year, providing an excellent blessing plan for people to visit relatives and friends during the Spring Festival.
Six walnuts understand marketing, in this "wolf pack" beverage market, even if there is no previous competitive advantage, you can think of new highlights to focus on the public's attention.
And coinciding with the Spring Festival in 2024, there will be a nine-day super long holiday, and the demand for visiting relatives and friends, traveling and vacationing will inevitably usher in a blowout growth, and the gift market will also rise.
It is not difficult to guess that the sales of the six walnut series will usher in a new round of growth in 2024.
Not only that, while focusing on the development of its own enterprises, Six Walnuts also pays attention to its own social responsibility.
Last year, six walnuts donated 10 million yuan to promote the development of brain research in China with the Red Cross Foundation.
Times are changing, the market is changing, and the six walnuts are also learning Xi constantly changing.
Yangyuan starts from the end of the micro, there is no unique advantage, and there is no opportunity for the right time and place, but only rely on human strategy and manpower to achieve the achievement of a hegemon.
As Yao Kuizhang, the boss of Yangyuan, said: "The success of Yangyuan is, in the final analysis, the success of Yangyuan people." ”
In the future, whether the success of the six walnuts can continue, whether it is unknown to everyone or create brilliance, also depends on the choice of Yangyuan people.
-END-
Resources:
Cattle Knife Finance: "Yao Kuizhang Can't Sell Six Walnuts"
Sohu News: "From Listing for Sale to Leading Enterprises, See How Six Walnuts Create Legends with Explosive Products!"
NetEase News: "How many are left of the "six walnuts"? Yangyuan Drink is trapped in the "Myth of Brain Supplementation"
Financial Network: "Talking about the Development History of Six Walnuts"
China Court Network: ""Six Walnuts" Suspected of False Advertising, Can Drinking Often Really Replenish the Brain?"
Phoenix Information: "Yangyuan Zhihui: From Creating Categories to Leading the Industry"
Chief Brand Observation: "Dealers Ran Away with Tens of Millions of Dollars, What Happened to Six Walnuts?"
Author: Xi Xiaolin
Editor: Willow Leaf chatter