文：Carol He
来源：Foodaily每日食品（ID：foodaily）
How many rolls are there now?
Looking back at 2023, the instant noodle market can be said to have reached a new height! Street homemade #Large Beef Instant Noodles# exploded, allowing many brands to enter the "Big Piece of Meat" high-end product line track; Tom Yum Gong, crayfish, and even stinky tofu turkey flavors, all kinds of novel flavors emerge in endlessly; What's even more bizarre is that Baixiang launched "coriander noodles", and Jinmailang launched "green" braised beef noodles", but even Master Kong himself began to roll himself to create the peculiar taste of "Beef Tea Noodles" (Master Kong Braised Beef Noodles X Master Kong Ice Black Tea).
Image source: Douyin, Station B
Image source: Tmall
It can be seen that even in the 100 billion instant noodle market, the competition between brands has never stopped. At the beginning of 2024, the "soup noodle" market, which meets the diversified dietary demands of consumers who "love noodles and love soup", seems to have become the first battle of the current competition. In November 2023, Master Kong launched the "Good Soup" brand (two flavors of old hen noodle soup and oxtail noodle soup), and the sales volume exceeded 40,000 cases on the day of the official announcement, ranking first in grain and oil fast food, and in the first month of listing, the sales volume of the Good Soup brand exceeded one million boxes.
Image source: Master Kong's old hen noodle soup official Weibo
In the context of the instant noodle market entering the stock game, why does the "noodle soup" category attract the attention of instant noodle brands? How does Master Kong create explosive products? Behind the new product breakthrough, what does Master Kong do right?
1
With a bowl of good noodle soup,
Satisfying consumers' "both wants and wants"
iiMedia data shows that the size of China's convenience food market has reached 596.1 billion yuan in 2022. With the further release of consumption potential and changes in consumption habits, the size of China's instant noodle market is expected to reach 184.99 billion yuan in 2025.
The favorable market environment has attracted more brands to enter the market, and it has also driven consumers to put forward higher requirements for convenience food. Relevant data show that domestic consumers have higher expectations for convenience foods in terms of rich ingredients, innovative tastes, safety guarantees, and attention to nutrition. Even if the fast-paced life and work require a quick solution to meals, young people want to supplement their nutrition with convenience foods and are reluctant to compromise on healthy eating habits. This has given the "noodle soup" category with good taste and high nutritional value more room for development, and has also become the main position of major brands.
Image source: iiMedia Consulting
Considering the public's ultimate pursuit of umami and flavor preference, Master Kong's "Good Soup" brand chose "Old Hen" and "Oxtail" with stronger umami as the direction of flavor research and development, and made great efforts to improve the umami and pure flavor of the soup.
As the core carrier that embodies the taste and accommodates the ingredients, the quality of the soup profoundly affects people's eating experience. Master Kong selects whole hens for more than 1 year, and after 6 hours of careful boiling and 4 stages of slow cooking, boiled into a pure, fragrant, golden and bright soup, and finally extracts the broth to obtain a pure soup with a clear and long aftertaste. Condense this delicacy in a soup bag, and after brewing, you can get bowls of fragrant old hen noodle soup.
The fresh and spicy flavor of oxtail noodle soup is more in line with young people's needs for spicy and enjoyable food, reflecting a warmer and stronger emotional companionship. The rich bone broth made with raw cut oxtail as the quality ingredient provides a fresh and spicy soup flavor.
Image source: Master Kong's Tmall flagship store
In order to further optimize the eating experience of instant noodles, Master Kong's good soup also adds real meat grains with colorful vegetables, plus a strong and smooth classic pastry, and finally creates this "good soup noodle" with delicious and surprise values.
Foodaily observed that from the consumer purchase and tasting reviews of the Tmall flagship store, young consumers not only commented on the taste and texture of the product, but also actively shared their social emotions and personal feelings.
"It's very warm to eat this instant noodle in winter"
"Woke up the roommates"
"It tasted delicious and I liked the postcard"
"At the end of the meal, what is left is not spice residue but chicken residue!"
Some consumers even shared such a personal experience: when they ate old hen noodle soup on the bullet train, a passer-by who may have opened a convenience store by himself smelled the fragrance and immediately called his subordinates to buy goods and sell them in the store.
Image source: Tmall
"It's not just fast food, consumers also want nutrition, quality and emotional value!" Master Kong is based on the research and judgment of market changes and the insight into the consumption psychology of young people, and develops and innovates a bowl of "good noodle soup" with selected ingredients to achieve an upward breakthrough in the market.
2
Occupy the high ground of public opinion with the power of marketing,
Volume and sales are flying
The world's marketing guru Al Rees once said, "Marketing is not a battle of products, but a battle of cognition". In order to capture the limited attention of the masses in this day and age, the recognition of consumers quickly is the key to successful marketing.
In addition to the carefully polished product power, Master Kong has accelerated the product out of the circle by signing Zhou Shen's endorsement and efficient marketing gameplay!
The little lark in the world, the mascot of Guoman, the OST god, and the "busiest artist" who is active in the various David TV galas...... Zhou Shen, a "zero negative" singer with both fame and strength, has always had a stable and excellent reputation and national popularity. This time, Master Kong chose Zhou Shen as the spokesperson of the "Good Soup" brand, and detonated the social platform with a wave of #Zhou Shen's old hen soup noodles # and #Won My Heart# topics, which aroused consumer discussions. Consumers shouted: "National singers endorse national brands, strong alliances!"
Image source: Master Kong's old hen noodle soup official Weibo
Under the hot topic, Master Kong's series of marketing activities have brought the new product to a higher level: in the @Master Kong old hen noodle soup official blog launched a good soup noodle call voting, building a building, lottery and other customized activities, which drove tens of thousands of people to participate in the interaction; The instant noodle bowl is full of sincerity in the product portfolio and surrounding materials.
Image source: Master Kong's old hen noodle soup official Weibo
After the epidemic, the consumption concepts and emotional needs of young people are quietly changing. From Zibo to Erbin, from the "you love me, I love you" of Mixue Bingcheng resounded through the streets and alleys, to the "people-oriented" Fat Donglai has received countless praises, which is enough to gain insight into the profound impact of "love" and "warmth" on young people's consumption choices. For the customized marketing of the good soup brand, Master Kong's main "warm accompaniment" also directly hits the hearts of young consumers.
As for the effectiveness of marketing, data is the best answer: the total number of Weibo views has exceeded 200 million, and the new user acquisition rate is as high as 99.36%, nearly doubled.
3
Divide the cake, or make the cake bigger?
Behind "change" is "unchanged"
There are business wars every year, but this year's plot is particularly rich. From Michelle Bingcheng and Luckin "falling in love and killing each other" on major social platforms, to how Dong Yuhui's "mother-in-law" sent traffic to the live broadcast room of the opposite family, it contributed a lot of materials for netizens to eat melons and hot discussions.
However, the business war of instant noodles has always followed the evolutionary mechanism of "natural selection", whether it is the traditional leading instant noodle enterprises or the emerging brands that have gradually risen in recent years, they are constantly seeking category innovation, and resting on their laurels will only allow themselves to be "passively beaten", or "overtaken by their peers". The successful launch of a new product is likely to become the key to its own "breakthrough", whether it is to take away a piece of cake from the existing market, or to make this cake bigger, it can inject new vitality into the industry, and promote the healthy development of the industry. From the consumer's point of view, there is another option on the shelf, isn't that a good thing?
With more than 30 years of experience in the FMCG industry, "Master Kong", as a classic brand, has been soberly and rationally observing market changes, adapting to the changes in the consumer market, starting from food culture and product quality, continuing to innovate product layout, and at the same time bringing more high-quality choices to consumers, but also injecting more possibilities into the industry.
First of all, Master Kong takes Chinese food culture as his root, and constantly explores the charm of Chinese regional food culture in terms of taste. Since 2003, when the first local flavor was launched inspired by the spicy rice in the southwest region, there are now 300 kinds of instant noodle flavors of Master Kong. Following the Sichuan "hemp" food culture, the "rattan pepper beef noodles", the "old vinegar sour and hot beef noodles" that follow the five processes of Shanxi old vinegar, and the "millet pepper pickled pepper beef noodles" with the unique pickling process of Yunnan-Guichuan, etc., almost every region has its own localized taste of Master Kong instant noodles!
Image source: Tmall
Secondly, Master Kong has always adhered to the principle of "people-oriented", conformed to the needs and taste changes of generations of consumers, keenly captured the differences in the demand for noodle soup among different segments, and continued to explore new category territory:
Based on the market insight into the high-end of the instant noodle category, the Suda Noodle Restaurant series, which focuses on "restoring noodle noodles", and the Dry Noodle Hui series, which are "niche and more outstanding" in taste, both of which shined at the "23rd China Convenience Food Conference" hosted by the China Food Science and Technology Society, and won the "2022-2023 Outstanding Innovative Products in China's Convenience Food Industry".
The royal feast with "large pieces of beef" has received countless praises on the market, which greatly satisfies the "feast-level enjoyment of eating meat" for diners.
New products such as Double Radish Beef Brisket Noodles and Master Kong Good Soup Noodles have been developed and launched one after another, taking into account the deliciousness and bringing consumers a more convenient and cost-effective choice.
Eat happily, but also eat with confidence. In terms of food safety, Master Kong has given consumers a sense of security, including: inviting experts, consumers, and media to visit the factory to make the entire production process of instant noodles more "transparent", introducing aerospace technology into food safety system control, and benchmarking aerospace quality to promote product upgrading.
It is precisely because Master Kong continues to understand the changes in the consumer market, continues to create products that the public loves, optimizes the market, and maintains good communication with consumers, so that it can continue to accept the test of the market for decades and occupy a place in the ever-changing instant noodle market for a long time.
4
brief summary
In the dazzling array of instant noodle products, it is not difficult to gain the attention of consumers for a short time. How to transform a short-term attention into a long-lasting product mentality has always been an urgent problem for instant noodle brands to overcome if they want to successfully occupy the market.
The answer given by Master Kong is "consumer-centric". Starting from consumers, Master Kong jumps out of the "involution" of the basic attributes of the product, so that the innovation of the product falls into the actual needs of consumers, penetrates the circle of young people with trendy marketing language, and establishes a profound consumer mind. From the first braised beef noodle to the breakthrough of good soup noodles, Master Kong has provided new inspiration for the industry on how to seize new growth opportunities for the instant noodle category from the upgraded and changing consumer demand.
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