2024与年轻人再碰杯，新酒饮不能只有pussy drink

Text | Praying mantis observation

Author | Easy to do

In 2012, Jiang Xiaobai took the first sip of baijiu with young people with different intentions, smashing the ceiling of baijiu "only hidden in the cellar". After Jiang Xiaobai, who experienced a short period of highlights and was not palatable, returned to loneliness, he relied on Guo Cube and Mei Jian to "score twice".

Earlier than Jiang Xiaobai, Ruiao, which specializes in pre-mixed cocktails, has been dormant in the low-alcohol wine track for many years, and has ushered in a wave of explosion when the new alcohol trend arrives.

At a time when mulled wine has become a ritual that opens up the sense of winter, red wine brands such as Oran Little Red Riding Hood have long tried to quietly catch the new drink by making friends with young people.

Whether it is craft beer that has sprung up with the help of capital, or the emergence of pubs such as Helens, highway stores, and communes, beer that is already closer to the public is seamlessly connected with young consumers.

Basically, whether it's cocktails, cider wines, wines, beers or anything else, it's always a good idea to find a way to get a ride on a new drink as long as you want to get close to young people. According to the statistics of the "2022 Low-alcohol Trendy Drink Trend Report", the size of China's low-alcohol wine market is expected to exceed 70 billion yuan in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 30%.

It's just that in the past few years, when the trend has swept by, new drinks and young people have been staggered, and many brands that "can't drink anymore" have been off the table, and those brands that still want to "drink to their heart's content" have not stirred up the "market tsunami" of development.

In 2024, how should new alcoholic beverages smoothly enter the 70 billion market and clink glasses with young people?

新酒饮的故事，还停在pussy drink？

The trend of new alcoholic beverages originated from the reflection and rebellion of young people who focus on self-pleasing to traditional alcoholic consumption. Since 2016, the wine industry has been innovating around the preferences of young people. For a time, fruit wine, craft beer, new liquor, pre-mixed cocktails, etc., surrounded the young people vying to clink glasses with them.

The most brilliant ones are Jiang Xiaobai and Ruiao. One captures the emotions that young people want to express but can't talk about, and the other lowers the bar for cocktails with a softer taste and a more convenient way to drink.

However, for consumer groups who are accustomed to drinking traditional wine, Jiang Xiaobai, who is neither strong nor sauce-flavored, and Ruiao, who is not like a drink, are both "outliers", which also caused initial product doubts.

Rui Ao was even ridiculed as a pussy drink - that is, sister wine, small sweet water, a low-alcohol wine that only girls drink.

Of course, young people who reject spirits and like to be slightly drunk do not care whether the new liquor stands at the bottom of the industry's contempt chain, and in 2019, Jiang Xiaobei will be pushed to the peak scale of 3 billion revenue, and at the same time contribute 1.279 billion revenue and 214 million net profit to Ruiao.

It was also this year that the capital that smelled the fragrance of the new wine rushed to the news, and piled up more brands in a vain attempt to stir up a bigger situation, and brands such as Berry Sweetheart, Seventeen Light Years, Drunken Goose Lady, and Horsepower Ton Ton were successively on the wine table of young people. The momentum is so fierce that traditional liquor giants such as Moutai, Wuliangye, and Luzhou Laojiao have panicked and launched drinks with lower degrees to please young people.

It's just that the new wave of alcohol stirred by capital, if you take a closer look, not only are they all the same low-quality, sweet, good-looking packaging, and soaring prices, but they are also fast-moving products under the concept of drunkenness along the stereotype of Pussy drink, and want to use this to obsess the future of a new alcoholic drink.

Even after Jiang Xiaobai began to go downhill, the way to make two goals was to launch the fruit cube with one hand, and make plum with the other hand, moving closer to the young female group.

Drunkenness is used to distinguish the difference between traditional liquor, foreign liquor and new liquor, and the concept of mental labeling is quickly established in the minds of young people. However, based on the fact that young women are the main force of low-alcohol consumption, many new alcohol brands with the concept of slightly drunk will only follow gender stereotypes to make products that please women, and uniformly increase sweetness, appearance, and price.

As a result, relying on the power of capital, the market is overwhelmed with "various versions of Ruiao" and "various versions of Meijian", and many experts on social media are working hard to recommend slightly drunk wine that is more suitable for girls, slightly drunk strategies for girls, and drinks that girls of different ages love to drink......

The aroma of wine is not afraid of deep alleys, but I am afraid that in the narrow alleys, there are so many different wines that they are all flavorful, and they are still so fragrant?

At this time, if there is more money, the clamor will naturally be louder, and the more consumers can be attracted. This is also why, there is a saying in the market that Jiang Xiaobai and Ruiao have opened a door to China's low-alcohol wine market, but they have also closed the window for themselves.

No matter what kind of halo brands and capital want to put on their products, consumers who have tasted it know their true taste. If young people raise their glasses countless times and only have the same taste of alcohol and sweet water mixed with various fruits, they will be kicked off the table sooner or later. For example, the soda brand horsepower, which received tens of millions of yuan in angel round financing in 2020, is now close to cool.

It's not wrong to accurately anchor a group of young women and make products that suit their preferences with a slightly tipsy concept. In today's society, there is a lot of business that eats gender dividends, and of course new drinks are also available, but businessmen are profit-oriented, and it makes no sense to pull social morality. The problem is that there are too many people doing it, and the products are all very similar, and there are not enough young women.

Since the beginning of Ruiao, the new drink has been named Pussy Drink, and now the brand has started one stubble after another, actually amplifying the stereotype around the prejudice of Pussy Drink to make a fuss, a few years have passed, and there is still no conjugation of some intentional products and marketing tricks. If you look at the society and know that women's awakening consciousness and progress have caught up with Harmony, do you really think that women will always be happy to accept pussy drink?

2023 has passed, and if the products created under gender stereotypes are really the industry development password, the brands that new drinks can get hold of have long been more than Ruiao and Meijian.

Clink glasses with young people, don't be too stinky

Although the new alcohol market is full of pussy drinks, and it is difficult for brands hiding behind the Tianda prejudice that "women don't understand alcohol" to talk about the future, new drinks do not mean only pussy drinks. From the perspective of the entire wine industry, compared with other wines, new drinks have more room for development.

The liquor industry has long been a red sea of fierce competition, coupled with the high degree of connection with workplace power, closely tied to the wine table culture, more and more tired of young people, and began to show a downward trend.

Although there are a number of new craft beers who want to use the new drinking trend to talk to young people, they must not only train consumers to accept more bitter tastes, but also "fight" with giants such as Budweiser, Carlsberg, Chongqing Beer, and Tsingtao Beer, which have more mature supply chains.

Red wine is mostly played by foreign brands, and it has long been farther away from the mass market, and everyone can play the meme "Lafite in '82", but only the part of the people at the top of the pyramid has really tasted it.

And other rice wine, rice wine, local wine, etc., it is difficult to break the circle to the whole country.

In such a circle, there is indeed only a new drink that is more in line with the needs of young people for drinking and pleasure and has not yet run out of giants, and has great potential for development. According to the "2022 Wine Industry Investment and Financing Report", new wine drinks have broad market growth space and strong brand plasticity, and are a high-growth sector within the wine industry.

Of course, it is also necessary to admit that it is precisely because most brands have made low-alcohol liquor into pussy drinks, so that more young people who do not drink, especially young women, are willing to raise their glasses and drink the first sip of wine in their lives, so that new drinks can have a chance to make waves. Jin Xin, the founder of Luoyin, shared an observation: "We have sponsored some forums and dinners, and there are not only our wines on the table, but also white wine and red wine, but we found that as long as there are more than two women on the table, our bottle of wine will basically be opened."

However, no one wants to be a naked swimmer with a stripe after the tide goes down. The new liquor brand does not want young people to taste the first sip when they are excited, but wants young people to raise a glass with others or drink alone, and the glass is filled with home-brewed wine, and it can always make them happy.

This is no longer about making a fuss about pussy drinks, arranging and combining alcoholic beverages of various flavors, and then making the packaging in the direction of "pink tax", and then letting KOLs from all parts of the head, waist and feet come out with strategies to choose alcohol for women.

If you really want to ask for a new drink, stop being self-righteous and play the abacus of young women, open your eyes and look at the real user reviews under the KOLs that have been launched, and countless people have already complained that the fruity blend of "wine suitable for girls" is so sweet that there is no taste at all.

In so many categories of sparkling wine, fermented wine, and blended wine, we can truly create a signature product that has a universal taste in the hearts of young people, has a strong memory, and can be distinguished from other brands, and then cooperates with the marketing methods that young people like, so that they can "go up" to the brand after they are slightly drunk on the product.

In 2023, Meijian has become the first 1 billion-level brand to run out of the new alcohol track, and the main consumer group is also women, but Meijian has done more to build raw material barriers and process barriers, and talk about green plum culture and traditional culture, rather than looking at the consumer group as women, and not being able to get out of the prejudice of pussy drink.

In the first half of 2023, Ruiao, which contributed 1.452 billion revenue and 309 million net profit to Bairun, is also the same.

The bigwigs in the liquor and beer industries don't have any fancy intestines, and they won't do stupid things like roughly dividing preferences with a single gender label. Wuliangye has a "never pear" flavor liquor, and the promotional page is so clean that even the product name does not affect consumers in the slightest; Tsingtao Beer has a variety of new alcoholic beers for young people, such as white beer, dark beer, IPA, and fruit beer, but they are all classified by taste, not gender.

The new wine drink obviously has a good market, and it would be a pity if only Ruiao and Mei Jian returned from "working hard for half a life".

In 2024, to continue clinking glasses with young people, the new drinking state can be slightly drunk, but the brain must be clear. You know, young people can reject baijiu because of the dregs of the wine table culture, and they can also reject new drinks because of stereotypical gender bias.

As soon as I enter the wine bureau, it is as deep as the sea, can An distinguish that I am a male and female? Young people drink alcohol, and they really don't smell so much.

*The pictures in this article are all from the Internet

#螳螂观察 Focusing on new consumption, new business and new growth, this is an in-depth interpretation of the consumer industry's traditional consumer brand upgrade NO.228

This content is original to [Praying Mantis Observation],

It only represents a personal opinion and is not allowed to be used by anyone in any way, including reprinting, excerpting, copying or mirroring without authorization.

Some of the pictures are from the Internet, and the copyright ownership has not been verified, not for commercial use, if there is any infringement, please contact us.

• Pan-financial new media.

• The creator of 100,000+ WeChat exposure articles "Who killed the "Victoria's Secret Show"?", etc.;

•Focus on: new business (including live broadcast, short video and other big entertainment), new marketing, new consumption (including new retail), listed companies, new finance (including financial technology), blockchain and other fields.