Shen Changliang, HKU ICB Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Beijing Class 20, Chairman of Beijing Yanjing Beverage Co., Ltd
When it comes to national liquor, most of the Chinese people will blurt out "Maotai". What about national drinks? Supermarket shelves are full of drinks, but it is difficult to find a local beverage brand that represents American culture like Coca-Cola.
Under the background of consumption upgrading and the rise of great powers, Yanjing Beverage took the lead in shouting out the industry slogan of creating a "new national drink", hoping to launch "Coca-Cola" belonging to China.
Unlike most people who believe that tea can best represent Chinese culture, Yanjing has been given the mission of "new national drink" by Yanjing, which is a bowl of sour, sweet and delicious sour plum soup, and the brand behind it is the old brand of sour plum soup that has undergone dynastic changes and wars and disputes in the past three hundred years, and still has a deep mass foundation - Jiulong Zhai.
Why sour plum soup at Kowloon Sai?
Yanjing Group has not tried to take the route of tea drinks. In 2002, Beijing Yanjing Beer Group (hereinafter referred to as Yanjing Group), which has occupied an oligarchic position in the Beijing-Tianjin beer market, found that these two Japanese beer giants have already begun the layout of the beverage industry, and even the revenue of beverage products has surpassed the income of the beer market.
Considering that its product line is too single, Yanjing Group immediately made a strategic decision to develop the beverage industry, established Beijing Yanjing Beverage Co., Ltd., and launched a number of product lines such as iced black tea, raw tea, green tea, fresh orange, green orange and so on in 2003, and the brands of all beverage products were uniformly named "Yanjing".
Marketing has a "seesaw phenomenon" where when a brand represents two or more different categories of products, it leads to a blurring of consumer perception of the product. Founded in Beijing in 1980, Yanjing Beer has rapidly grown into one of the largest beer enterprise groups in China under the dividends of reform and opening up, and has become one of the T5 enterprises that have widely participated in beer competition nationwide. As a beer brand, the word "Yanjing" is full of weight. However, in the field of beverages, the "Yanjing" brand can play a role in accelerating promotion and enhancing brand trust in the short term, but it is not easy to defeat expert brands that only do beverages in long-term competition.
The "Yanjing" series of tea beverages also did not set off too many splashes in the consumer market, "the more things a brand represents, the easier the brand power is weakened." ”
The road of tea and beverage stumbled, and Yanjing Group began to look for developable categories again. This time, they chose the most familiar region, Beijing, and chose the most familiar old Beijing drink, sour plum soup. Like Ningxia Babao Tea and Gansu Apricot Peel Water, sour plum soup is also a traditional drink unique to old Beijing. A bowl of sour plum soup made from ingredients such as ume, hawthorn, osmanthus flowers, licorice, tangerine peel, and ice water candy. There is a degreasing and degreasing. Appetizing and spleen-strengthening effect. After freezing, it is a good product to cool off in the middle of summer.
According to historical records, sour plum soup is a summer quenching drink made by the Imperial Dining Room of the Qing Palace for the imperial family, and later spread to the folk to this day. In the past, there were many long-established brands in Beijing that were famous for sour plum soup, such as the "Qiu Family" in the Tianqiao, the "Lu Yu Zhai" in xidan Archway, and the "Jiulong Zhai" outside the front door, all of which were old brands loved by old Beijingers.
Since you want to make sour plum soup, it is natural to choose Kowloon Sai, which has the title of "Kyoto No. 1". Yenching Group has cooperated with the Palace Museum to bring new life to the old brand of sour plum soup with a history of 300 years.
Shen Changliang's marketing "three knives"
At the end of 2007, Yanjing Beer issued an announcement to transfer 22% of the equity of its beverage company Yanjing Beverage to Shanghai Nova And its venture capital co., Ltd., the think tank behind Nova is the world-renowned strategic consulting company Trout (China) Strategic Positioning Consulting Company. Yanjing Group said that the introduction of Trout is to comprehensively improve the strategic and market management level of Yanjing Beverage and accelerate the development of Yanjing Beverage. Shen Changliang took over the transfer to the beverage company at this time and went all out to create the "Kowloon Zhai".
The Kowloon Zhai in the 1.0 period was designed as PET soft packaging, and the main sales scenes were street shops, supermarkets, etc. Although sour plum soup had a good mass base in the Beijing area, the popularity of the sour plum soup category was far less high than it is now, and the major beverage giants rarely set foot in it. Jiulong Zhai, which seized the market opportunity, has both the endorsement support of Yanjing Group and the sharp positioning given by Trout, but Shen Changliang still has many confusions about how to land the product and truly detonate the market.
In 2013, Shen Changliang enrolled in HKU's ICB Integrated Marketing Communication Course (IMC) to systematically study integrated marketing related content. This time to study. Not only helped him sort out the vein of Qingmeng brand building, but also allowed him to explore a new set of playing styles in practice, thus enabling Kowloon Jai to enter the rapidly expanding 2.0 era.
"I remember very clearly, the first class was about consumer insights, the first time I realized that we had to look at what consumers needed, first turn those needs into products, and then we can spread it with better ideas. , marketing is '0'. Without the product '1', marketing is just flickering. ”
Shen Changliang summed up the experience he had explored as "three knives of marketing", and every time the sharp blade came out of the sheath, it made Jiulongzhai further rank in the competitive and motivated beverage jianghu.
The first knife is called the "human knife", that is, the core customers do not like not to do. The repositioning of Kowloon Jai targets white-collar users. Studies have shown that with the acceleration of the pace of life and the increase of work pressure, the consumer demand for functional drinks is increasing, among which digestive/intestinal health drinks have become one of the main functional appeal products in addition to sports energy drinks, and 49% of consumers have drunk digestion products every day or often in the past year. In 2017, herbal tea drinks grew by 136%, and sour plum soup drinks grew by more than 120%, both showing the advantages of single products.
In view of the post-80s and post-90s consumer groups' focus on personalized, healthy and toned consumer demand, Kowloon Jai has made adjustments to varying degrees in terms of product packaging, marketing strategies and pricing. Shen Changliang invited the TOP design company that has served Nestlé and MARS Food to redesign the packaging design for the Kowloon Sour Plum Soup, upgraded the original PET packaging to a round and fat glass bottle, and won the IAl International Advertising Award with its new design packaging. "Wang Laoji is an iron can, we do not make iron cans, in order to reflect the ancient and ancient capital elements of old Beijing, we finally chose a glass bottle."
In Shen Changliang's heart, the herbal tea brand "Wang Laoji" has always been set by him as a benchmark brand. As we all know, it is with the help of Trout that Wang Laoji relies on the precise positioning of "afraid of fire, drink Wang Laoji" to obtain today's tens of billions of market positions. Even in 2007, when Yanjing Group announced its cooperation with Trout, some media suspected that Yanjing's move was to copy a new "Wang Laoji". Nowadays, Kowloon Zhai, which also belongs to the help of Trout, is in contact with Wang Laoji in the health drink market, and it is natural to face each other.
Shen Changliang's second knife is called the "Knife of Differentiation", which consists of two parts: a visual hammer and a language nail.
Visual hammer, that is, after the outer packaging of the trademark, labels are all torn off, consumers can still recognize that this is the sour plum soup of Kowloon Zhai. "Just as you naturally think of BURBERRY when you see the classic plaid, you think of the Beetle when you see the silhouette of the Q cute car."
Language nails, through a strong slogan, to complete the brand in the hearts of consumers mental registration, whether a sentence to locate the brand difference point, to a large extent determines the life and death of a brand. There are many similar success stories, such as Wang Laoji jumping out of the physical properties of herbal tea, so that consumers remember the characteristics of "fear of fire". Nongfu Spring jumps out of the physical properties of mineral water, making people remember the "porter of nature"...
"Degreasing, drinking Kowloon Sai" is the language nail of Kowloon Sai.
Since 2007, Kowloon Jai sour plum soup has undergone many positioning adjustments such as "sour point - degreasing - authentic sour plum soup", and finally decided to settle from people's demand for healthy functional drinks, considering the homologous characteristics of sour plum soup medicine and food, with the effect of clearing heat and relieving heat and relieving greasiness, "perfectly fits the health needs of modern people, which can be described as opportune." ”
Shen Changliang's last knife was called the "Knife of Breakdown". In the marketing 4P combination theory, channels and products, prices, and publicity are reduced to the four basic strategies of marketing. In Shen Changliang's view, the location of the channel is particularly important. If you can concentrate your strength on breaking through a little, you can achieve double the effect with half the effort.
In the 1.0 period, the Kowloon Jai Sour Plum Soup, the main sales scene is street shops and various supermarkets, and the sales volume has been mediocre. The redesigned packaging of the Kowloon Zhai sour plum soup, with a delicate glass bottle body debuted in the major restaurants in Beijing, listed for a few months to occupy the main catering market in Beijing, and even consumers on social media because of the appearance of the new packaging and share photos.
The delicately packaged sour plum soup with healthy ingredients and the incision of the catering market to fully enter the retail market are obviously a decision made by Shen Changliang after deep consideration. "In terms of the art of war, when attacking the city, after encircling the four walls, concentrate on attacking only one of the gates, as long as one of the gates is taken, all the soldiers can swarm in from this point. From the perspective of channels, the main catering channel is also the same. Shen Changliang said.
Create a super single product "national drink" with IP ideas
"How to make consumers know and like your products, and then take the initiative to pay attention to and share, this is actually the process of creating product IP." Good products come with traffic, and all we have to do is to create our product IP with the most traffic. ”
In 2017, Shen Changliang was awarded "China's 100 Innovative Marketing People". In his view, in order to successfully create a super product in the beverage industry with the idea of creating product IP, the more effective way is to combine product appeals with popular IP, and reinterpret it in a way that consumers like to hear and accept.
Shen Changliang combined his learning experience in the IB classroom of HKU and the "three knives" theory explored in practice, aimed at the positioning of the young group of Sour Plum Soup in Kowloon, and successively launched a series of fashionable and fashionable marketing promotion activities, trying to create a super single-grade "national drink" with the idea of creating IP in the process of educating young consumers.
Shen Changliang first designed a very representative IP image for kowloon jai sour plum soup. In view of the fact that the sour plum soup recipe comes from the history of the Qing Dynasty court, the marketing team designed a whole set of silly cartoon characters, including the four characters of the emperor, the empress, gege, and Ago, and made them into popular memes, the queen who nibbled on the chicken leg said "small support, come to the bottle of Nine Dragon Zhai", the hot to the point of tantrum Ge Ge angrily said "No Nine Dragon Zhai, give you a washboard"... The centuries-old Kowloon Zhai has changed the stereotype and seriousness of the old brand, and its youthful Q Meng image has greatly reduced the difficulty of dissemination among young consumer groups.
In view of the brand positioning of "degreasing", Shen Changliang also combined with the popular marathon, since 2015, every year in October in Beijing to hold a healthy marathon with the theme of "greasy running". Participants need to wear "greasy clothes" designed according to the fat bottle of sour plum tangyuan in Kowloon, run the competition project of the designated mileage, and let everyone personally feel the harm of greasiness through the various inconveniences of "greasy clothes" in the running process, so as to establish the concept of "staying away from greasy and healthy life".
In order to strengthen consumers' mental construction for "degreasing and drinking Kowloon Jai", in 2015 alone, Shen Changliang launched a series of marketing promotions for a single category of Sour Plum Soup in Kowloon Jai. In more than 1,000 office buildings, the "Degreasing Ten Thousand People Free Drink" activity was organized, and lunchtime was specially selected to strengthen the brand memory for white-collar people. At the same time, at the same time, it has also carried out 30,000 "degreasing time to" brand promotion activities in KA stores such as Beijing Walmart and Carrefour, and official data shows that the cumulative number of communications of this series of activities has reached 3 million.
With the rich experience of practical combat, Shen Changliang's ideas on innovative marketing have emerged in an endless stream. In 2016, in order to celebrate the title of "Kyoto First" in 1906, Shen Changliang led the launch of the "110th Anniversary of Kyoto First Kowloon Zhai" series of activities, and the viral marketing short video with the theme of Qianlong crossing attracted attention as soon as it was launched, the cumulative number of videos played exceeded 25 million, and triggered hot topic discussions on Weibo, the cumulative reading volume of the topic exceeded 100 million times, and the Baidu index of Kowloon Zhai also increased by 20 times.
In order to cooperate with video marketing, Shen Changliang launched the "Qianlong Limited Edition Bottle", the novel design of the crown cap, which was unsurprisingly loved by young consumers, and some fans posted photos on Weibo and said that it was "the emperor amma in sour plum soup". This wave of operations can be described as a complete victory. At the 2016 China Innovative Marketing Summit and China Innovative Marketing Awards Ceremony, the Kowloon Jai brand won the Gold Award of the "Annual Innovative Marketing Award Case Award" for its "Kowloon Jai Century Heritage Anti-Greasy Virus Video Dissemination".
Shen Changliang once analyzed the marketing logic of the two periods of Kowloon's sour plum soup. He believes that the main focus of the Kowloon Zhai in the 1.0 period is to increase terminals and promotions. In the 2.0 period, Kowloon Zhai paid more attention to consumer psychological demands and paid attention to the stage of developing core fans.
Dripping stone wear is not a day's work, thanks to the preparation of these two years, the IP image of Kowloon Zhai sour plum soup and widely recognized, and in 2017 ushered in the trend of expansion, only more than 4 months, it took more than 4 months to complete a hundred investments, from Shen Changliang's heart of the explosive IP is a step further.
"If a brand wants to really stand out, it must be good at mobilizing the mental strength of consumers, once this power is successfully mobilized, the brand can achieve 'bright moon straight in, no heart to guess', a one-time occupation, effectively distinguish competitors, become the first choice of consumers."
When it comes to the future marketing strategic direction of Kowloon Jai, Shen Changliang tries to find opportunities in the changes and changes in the development of the industry. The first is innovation under the change of consumer demand. Consumption upgrading and consumption downgrading carry greater opportunities, which are mutually inclusive and inclusive. Kowloon Zhai "small mines" cover high-end catering channels, the emperor version of Kowloon Jai takes the high-end route, and the red bottle Kowloon Jai is between the two poles, adapting to the needs of multi-level consumers.
More important is value innovation. As consumer perceptions change, entrepreneurs need to talk about the value that brands can really provide to consumers, including functional appeals and emotional values.
Shen Changliang has never publicly stated his time expectations for making Kowloon Jai sour plum soup into a "new national drink", but judging by his frequent moves in the past three years, Kowloon Jai has gradually formed his own unique marketing style, and what he has to do is to invisibly mobilize the power of consumers' hearts and wait for the instantaneous qualitative change of "one occupation".