Qiaqia: Teach people who can't eat melon seeds to eat melon seeds

Economic Observer reporter Ye Xinran In 2023, when Qiaqia Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Qiaqia") participated in the Canton Fair, a Thai audience came to the booth, he saw the packaging of chacha melon seeds, was stunned for a moment, and asked in surprise: "Isn't this our Thai brand?" What he didn't expect was that chacha was actually a Chinese brand. Chacha is the brand name adopted by Chacha in the Thai market.

Thailand has now become the largest overseas market. Chacha has also become the No. 1 melon seed brand in Thailand in terms of market share.

In-depth localization is the overseas experience accumulated by Qiaqia in the Thai market. Because it is local enough and close enough to local consumers, the country label behind the brand is weakened.

At present, Qiaqia's products have been successfully exported to nearly 50 countries and regions in Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

In 2023, Qiaqia's revenue in overseas markets will reach 516 million yuan, an increase of 7.72% year-on-year. This part of the revenue accounted for 7.58% of the total revenue.

The first shot was fired at sea

As early as 2008, Qiaqia fired the first shot of officially going to sea. In this year, Qiaqia set up an office in Vietnam and entered the development stage of the overseas business model. Prior to this, Qiaqia's overseas expansion was carried out in the form of trade, and the overseas dealer team was mainly composed of loyal fans of Qiaqia - Chinese and overseas Chinese.

Since 2008, Qiaqia has successively set up offices in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Middle East and other countries and regions.

In 2008, it was only 6 years after the establishment of Qiaqia, and Qiaqia had not yet been listed at that time. When proposing the strategic plan to go overseas, the company's internal attitude is generally positive, but there are also some doubts and worries: first, the domestic market is still in the stage of rapid growth, whether it is necessary to disperse efforts to go overseas at this time;

Although the domestic market was fiercely competitive and the problem of product homogeneity had not been fully exposed at that time, Qiaqia decided to go overseas after full demonstration from top to bottom. On the one hand, it is to seize the opportunity, and on the other hand, to promote the improvement of the product quality and brand power of the whole company with the help of going overseas.

At that time, Qiaqia set the target markets in Southeast Asia, North America, Western Europe, etc., hoping to gradually move from easy to difficult.

Overcoming the challenges of localized innovation

In the process of brand going overseas, localization is one of the methodologies that is often mentioned. For Qiaqia, in addition to promoting localization in the market of "eating melon seeds", it is also necessary to teach people to eat melon seeds in the market of "not eating melon seeds".

Before Qiaqia entered the Thai market, there had never been coconut-flavored melon seeds on the market. Now, coconut melon seeds have become the third largest single product in the overseas market, the first two are melon seeds and original melon seeds.

Finding a breakthrough along the preferences of local people is one of the elements of product taste innovation. However, there are also mistakes that can be taken for granted. Cha Cha had wanted to introduce tom yum goong melon seeds in Thailand because they observed that the locals liked to drink tom yum soup, so they naturally combined tom yum flavor with melon seeds. However, during the R&D and market research phases, after in-depth communication with the locals, Qiaqia finally abandoned the idea.

Li Yanfei, head of the Asia-Pacific region of Qiaqia's overseas business department, told reporters that the team had discussed that the logic of tom yum gong-flavored melon seeds is applied to the Chinese market, that is, "Chinese love to eat tomato scrambled eggs, so they launched a tomato scrambled egg-flavored melon seeds." In the Chinese market, the reason why such a combination is strange does not seem to need much explanation.

As a national snack, melon seeds have their long-term development and accumulated growth logic. Through trial and error, Qiaqia found that this logic is also applicable in foreign countries. Product innovation is not simply attaching the flavor that local consumers like to melon seeds. In overseas markets, traders still have to be very careful about the use scenarios of melon seeds and the consumption habits of snacks, which means that the insight into localization should be entered into the game, rather than external observation.

To create innovative local flavors, there are still many difficulties to overcome from idea to implementation. For example, how to formulate testing standards for new products? For the Thai market, coconut melon seeds are a new category, and there is no reference on the market.

When entering overseas markets, Qiaqia not only needs to establish contact with the local food and drug administration, but also needs to work closely with them to jointly develop appropriate inspection standards for new products. This is often the first and crucial step in product innovation and market introduction.

For coconut melon seeds, Qiaqia has conducted many in-depth exchanges with local regulatory authorities to let them understand the product characteristics, production process and quality assurance measures to ensure that the product can meet the regulatory requirements of the local market.

Today, Qiaqia has successfully launched new products in Thailand with coffee flavors and red date flavors. There are also successful examples of innovation in other markets, such as truffle-flavored melon seeds in Japan and curry-flavored melon seeds in Indonesia.

Start with category education

What kind of experience is it to teach people who can't eat melon seeds to eat melon seeds? At this point, the experience summarized by Qiaqia is that it is necessary to carry out category education and brand promotion in a "moisturizing and silent" manner.

Before Qiaqia entered Japan and South Korea, Japanese melon seeds were mainly fed to hamsters, while Koreans did not eat melon seeds at all.

Qiaqia has integrated melon seeds into the classrooms of primary and secondary school students in Japan and South Korea.

In South Korea, where Chinese language classes are widely offered in primary and secondary schools, with a focus on Chinese food culture, Cha Cha took the opportunity to distribute sample tastings of melon seeds to students. When the students listened to the teacher's talk about the cultural history of Chinese melon seeds in class, they could also taste the melon seeds of Qiaqia. This hands-on experience not only gave the students an in-depth understanding of melon seed culture, but also encouraged them to share this Chinese snack with their families when they returned home. According to reports, every year, Qiaqia will carry out such promotion and education activities in hundreds of schools in South Korea.

In addition, when communicating with overseas consumers, Qiaqia found that tasting Chinese melon seeds and learning to use chopsticks are often the starting point for them to experience Chinese food culture. Therefore, Qiaqia intends to deeply integrate the eating of melon seeds with Chinese culture, and adopts the label of "eating melon seeds and using chopsticks" to attract consumers who are interested in Chinese culture. "Eating melon seeds and using chopsticks" is not a subjective imagination of Qiaqia, but a real feedback extracted from market insights and consumer experience. Qiaqia takes this as a propaganda point, and constantly repeats and amplifies it.

In addition, Qiaqia also found that integrating melon seeds with local strong scenes is an effective strategy.

Different from China, overseas, melon seeds are extremely compatible with the catering scene. Compared with the abundance of Chinese food, consumers in many countries are more inclined to light food culture. Therefore, when eating light food, accompanied by chatting and drinking among friends, melon seeds have become an ideal choice for them. In the process of promotion, Qiaqia actively interacts with beer, alcohol and beverage brands to connect melon seeds with a relaxed and enjoyable social experience.

To become an international brand close to local consumers

In order to ensure that the brand name can be easily seen, read and remembered by consumers, most of the international versions of Qiaqia melon seeds are named after "chacha" and "chacheer", and are named in combination with the pronunciation habits of different countries.

When asked whether Qiaqia will emphasize the brand's Chinese identity overseas, Li Yanfei said: "From the perspective of long-term development, we hope that Qiaqia can become an international brand, realize the localization of production, manufacturing, marketing, publicity and other aspects, and the final development goal must be that the brand is deeply integrated into the lives of local consumers." ”

When branding and promoting overseas, in addition to the above-mentioned ideas of "seeking change" such as localized taste innovation, scene integration, and market strategies adapted to local conditions, Qiaqia also pays attention to sticking to it.

Qiaqia believes that each brand should have self-confidence and make full use of its original brand equity and historical accumulation. Enhance the brand's influence and recognition in overseas markets by telling brand stories and disseminating corporate culture.

So far, Qiaqia has gone to sea for 16 years. Compared with the beginning, Qiaqia clearly feels that the ecology of Chinese brands going overseas is more complete and mature, which is reflected in the delivery of international logistics funds, market-oriented marketing supporting services and other aspects. The driving force behind this transformation is the positive effect brought by more and more brands on the road to the sea.

At present, Qiaqia's nuts have also begun to go to sea, and they have layouts in Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea. Qiaqia believes that nuts will also become the second explosive growth point of Qiaqia in overseas markets, just like melon seeds.