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- Source/Night Deep Finance
- Author/Night Deep Finance
Introduction: On April 23, Nongfu Spring announced that it would soon launch green bottled drinking purified water. Unlike red bottled water, the green package says "purified water for drinking" and the red package says "natural water for drinking".
In the promotional image, the net content of green bottled drinking purified water is 550ml, and the promotional slogan follows the classic advertising slogan of Nongfu Spring: "Nongfu Spring is a little sweet".
▶ Source: Internet
Interestingly, on April 22, Cestbon's parent company, China Resources Beverage, had just submitted its report to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and Nongfu Spring announced the launch of "green bottle" purified water.
In addition, the packaging form is also similar to Cestbon, and the bottle cap is a distinctive green color.
This wave, it seems that Nongfu Spring not only "declared war" with Cestbon, but also "declared war" with all pure water categories again.
01. 24 years ago, "based on reason" relied on marketing to make a difference
Nongfu Spring has recently been on the "cusp" of the storm, but I am afraid people would never have imagined that it once singled out the entire "Wahaha" pure water camp.
In 2000, Nongfu Spring launched a shocking experimental result: "Long-term consumption of pure water may be bad for health, while natural water is more beneficial." ”
Then, with the help of the wide dissemination power of the media, it actively guides the public to participate in the discussion of this topic, so as to attract the public's attention to its products.
It has to be said that reporting has become a marketing treasure for large companies and brands. In other words, as long as you go to the "hall", Nongfu Spring has already "won".
▶ Source: Internet
However, when fighting for exposure, we must also grasp the scale and the guidance of public opinion, otherwise it will be like the recent "clarification" of Nongfu Spring, and marketing will turn into crisis public relations in seconds.
Not to mention anything else, the helmsman of Nongfu Spring, Zhong Sui, has been a reporter for five years, and he knows the marketing method very well.
In fact, Nongfu Spring has the active participation of advertising companies in the establishment process, and he has also shown considerable courage and determination in the investment of advertising expenses.
He even positioned himself as an "advertising man", which also made Nongfu Spring regarded as an "advertising company" in the industry.
In 1998, it was identified as the brand slogan's copywriting "Nongfu Spring is a little sweet", which was placed on CCTV and relied on large-scale advertising bombardment to spread this advertising slogan all over the country.
▶ Source: 1998 Nongfu Spring TV commercial
Between 2017 and 2019, Nongfu Spring's advertising and promotional expenses reached RMB982 million, RMB1.234 billion and RMB1.219 billion, accounting for 5.6%, 6.0% and 5.1% of its total revenue, respectively.
Although Nongfu Spring did not disclose its specific advertising and promotion expenses in 2021, it is estimated based on its average revenue ratio of 6% in the past few years.
In 2021, Nongfu Spring's advertising and promotion expenses will be about 1.7 billion, which means that they need to invest about 5 million in advertising expenses every day.
In the current "new era of consumption", the "involution" competition in the marketing industry is like a never-ending track war, and no brand can be immune from this fierce battle.
02 The whole network boycotted, and it couldn't resist the big sale of oriental leaves!
Last year, Nongfu Spring's packaged drinking water business achieved an annual revenue of 20.262 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.9%, accounting for 47.5% of the total annual revenue.
Notably, this percentage fell below 50% for the first time, signaling the need for the company to find new growth opportunities outside of the natural water business.
In order to achieve this goal, Nongfu Spring will explore and launch more different types of drinking water.
Nongfu Spring, which was once boycotted by the whole network, gradually returned to its previous sales after the storm subsided.
What's even more ironic is that the Oriental leaves, which were questioned by netizens that the packaging design "contains many Japanese elements" and were labeled as "flattering Japan", have recently sold out.
And Oriental Leaves, a good demonstration of the brand's choice to change the packaging in the face of a crisis.
▶ Source: Internet
In just 17 hours, 50,000 boxes of products were snapped up, and the sales list topped the list, arousing consumers' enthusiastic pursuit.
In order to reach young consumers more deeply, Oriental Leaf boldly tries cross-border cooperation and co-branded promotion, and actively shapes the brand image of "health" and "0 addition".
In particular, Oriental Leaf cleverly used the creative play of "beverage blending" to successfully attract the attention of a large number of fans.
▶ Source: Little Red Book
On social media platforms such as Weibo, netizens showcased a variety of creative drink recipes through popular hashtags such as "DIY drinks" and "Oriental Leaf Slimming Tips".
Not only has the brand's popularity soared, but it has also set off a wave of healthy drinks among young consumers.
At this time, it happened to be April Fool's Day on April 1, and the hot sales of "Oriental Leaves" made the previous Internet noise seem so insignificant, and those so-called "flattering day" accusations were just a passing cloud.
Later, on April 5, Oriental Leaf launched the second batch of 50,000 boxes of Longjing new tea again, and all of them were sold out in 1 hour.
03The pure water market is increasing year by year
According to the relevant regulations of "National Food Safety Standard Packaged Drinking Water" and "National Food Safety Standard Drinking Natural Mineral Water", bottled water on the market is divided into three categories: drinking pure water, natural mineral water and other drinking water.
The source of pure water is tap water, and through various processing methods, that is, after filtration, the minerals in the tap water are also filtered out.
Wahaha was also called "laboratory water" before, in fact, because Wahaha pure water has the lowest conductivity and the highest purity of water, and as an "experimental material", it is cheap and easy to use.
▶ Source: Weibo
For a long time, purified water products have occupied a dominant position in the packaged drinking water market in mainland China and have become an important area for many beverage companies to compete for.
Nongfu Spring's prospectus disclosed that in 2014, the retail sales of drinking pure water accounted for 54.77% of the domestic packaged drinking water market, while the retail sales of natural water and natural mineral water accounted for 15.47%.
By 2019, the market position of purified drinking water was further enhanced, and its retail sales accounted for 60.4%.
At the same time, the market share of natural water and natural mineral water has also increased, with the combined share of the two reaching 29.55%.
Recently, the prospectus of China Resources Beverage was released, and it is obvious that the overall scale of China's packaged drinking water market has been growing slowly in recent years.
In 2023, drinking purified water will account for the majority of packaged drinking water, as high as 56.09%, while natural mineral water can only rank second, accounting for 8.47%.
However, the growth rate of pure water is also quite amazing. The compound annual growth rate is as high as 7.7%, which is higher than the 7.5% of natural mineral water.
It seems that this pure water is becoming more and more popular, and it is no wonder that Nongfu Spring is also going to start a pure water business.
▶ Source: China Resources Beverage Prospectus
The definition of pure water and natural water is nothing more than the difference between the mineral ion content in it, and it is more of a marketing means to ensure food safety.
People like to define "value" for different brands, and they can also go deeper to say "intrinsic value", which is actually to change the way to better advertise in business.
More than 20 pieces of Evian may give more of a brand value and a positive psychological effect.
04. Conclusion
Without the continuous "swiping" and "bombing of the street" of advertising, how can consumers easily get the unique charm and value of the product? The battle between pure water and mineral water is more about marketing ingredients.
Back then, Nongfu Spring relied on "buttoning the hat" for Wahaha and other pure water brands: pure water is not necessarily safe.
Although Nongfu Spring was fined 200,000 yuan in the end, this judgment did not prevent the Nongfu Spring brand from getting bigger and bigger.
Based on the marketing of this event itself, Nongfu Spring further expanded its popularity and influence, and quickly opened up the market situation.
24 years later, Nongfu Spring gave itself a "green hat" and launched pure water products.
Does it mean that you have given green what you said about pure water?
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