Source: IC Labs
If you want to be middle-class, you can't position the middle class, you should position luxury, and set the threshold to the point that even the middle class can't afford it.
I've found that there are fewer and fewer Cafes now with Oatly boxes on the counter.
For unfamiliar students, Oatly is a brand of Swedish oat milk.
The so-called oat milk, to be precise, is not milk, but a plant-based protein drink. Soy milk and almond syrup are actually counted.
In the past few years, plant-based food concepts such as plant-based milk and plant-based meat have prevailed, and Oatly is one of the representative brands.
Especially in the coffee market, "+5 yuan for oat milk" is simply the standard configuration of specialty coffee shops.
If you don't fill the counter with Oatly, you're too embarrassed to sell 30 cups of coffee.
As for the taste of oat milk...... All I can say is that the benevolent see the benevolent, but I am not human.
The point is, it's still high in calories.
That's excessive, a thing you can be unpalatable, but you can't be high in calories. You can also be high in calories, but you can't be unpalatable.
If you are high in calories and not tasty, you will be killed for money.
So in the past two years, the concept of plant-based has not been very popular, and Oatly has not had a good time.
But I don't think Oatly needs to panic. The way to break the game is to raise prices.
Now the official price of Oatly, 6 bottles of 1L is about 150, and ordinary pure milk of the same specification is about 50, which is only three times that of milk, which is still too cheap.
01
Oatly's marketing history can basically be summarized as the top stream of milk is the top of the five-line paste coffee.
In fact, the existence of oat milk, or plant-based milk, has a rigid demand. Mainly to solve the problem of lactose intolerance.
That's how Oatly was born. At that time, a professor at a Swedish university developed an enzyme that could convert solid oats into a liquid state, so he created oat milk.
In the beginning, Oatly only existed as a substitute for milk. After all, although lactose intolerance is a rigid demand, the market is not large, so for 20 years, Oatly was just an obscure Swedish brand.
It wasn't until 2012 that the company changed its CEO, and Oatly began her own road of porcelain.
Oatly realized that if the product was only positioned as a substitute for milk, serving lactose intolerant and vegetarian people, it would be difficult to make a big deal out of it.
If you want to expand your products to the entire European and American markets, you have to raise your mind and turn it into a way of life.
Oatly's card is eco-friendly, advocating that plant-based milk has a much lower carbon footprint than animal milk.
Come to think of it, when someone asked you why you drank oat milk, you said it was to avoid thinning. Now, in order to protect animals, protect people, and protect the earth, this sense of value has risen gradually.
It's simply the difference between stick noodle porridge and Nshima.
02
Oatly has also come up with a concept called "Post Milk Generation", which shapes people who drink oat milk into people who support eco-friendly, healthy fashion.
Not only that, Oatly is also a master copywriter, and has created a lot of copywriting around milk, such as:
「这喝起来像牛奶，但是是为人制造的（It’s like milk but made for humans.）」
Or:
「牛奶来自牛，是为小牛宝宝制造的（Milk comes from a cow. It was designed for baby cows.）」
The implication is that milk is produced by cows and is for cows, and people should drink artificial milk.
The logic of this copy is actually very weird, because according to this idea, the person who drinks oat milk should grow in the ground.
But it doesn't matter, just put it on the concept of environmental protection, as long as you continue to scold milk, you can have heat.
In addition to marketing, another operation of Oatly is to break into the coffee market.
Maybe Oatly also knew that although he scolded milk, he still couldn't be tough with milk in the positive market, so he chose a roundabout route and replaced milk from other fields.
In the U.S. market, Oatly began to work heavily with specialty baristas, positioning itself as a coffee companion and promoting it through free trials.
It's a clever trick indeed.
First of all, oat milk is not good to drink, and some foreign consumers bluntly say that "it tastes like". But as a coffee companion, it is a good way to hide its unpleasant characteristics.
Secondly, coffee also needs to be talked about, just like Luckin keeps launching single products. The gimmick of oatmeal latte quickly became popular in the coffee circle, and with the blessing of environmental protection and health, it is difficult not to think about it.
03
In 2018, Oatly entered the domestic market and found that this market was even more difficult to bite.
It is not unusual to drink plant milk in China, and the history of Chinese drinking plant protein drinks may be the longest in the world.
What grade of oat milk do you want to compare with my soy milk?
Moreover, the domestic plant-based milk brands are particularly rich, such as South Coconut Tree, North Lulu, West Weiyi, East Yinlu, and six walnuts of Doubendou, any one can burst the oat milk dog's head.
It's just that none of these drinks have any lofty value of "protecting the world".
In addition, milk also has a special status in the country. Everyone grew up listening to "a glass of milk a day, strong Chinese", and to openly claim that replacing milk is to move the public's healthy plate, and no brand dares to do so.
Even if you want to claim it, everyone won't believe it. You go to see the elders during the New Year, replace Telunsu with Oatly, and the elders say you go out.
In short, the value of plant-based milk is relatively low in the eyes of Chinese consumers, and they don't like to hear you fool about the concept of environmental protection. So at first, it was put on the shelves of boutique supermarkets, and no one bought it.
In the end, Oatly still saved the country by curves, and still took the coffee route.
The best product Oatly sells right now is a product called "Coffee Master".
As you can tell from the name, it's not for you to drink directly, it's for you to serve with coffee.
What's more, Oatly got Starbucks.
In the list of Oatly's shareholders, Starbucks founder Howard Schultz is prominently listed.
Hitched a ride with Starbucks and became a godson, and Oatly naturally became the new answer to coffee drinks.
Many small coffee shops have followed suit, developed oatmeal latte products, introduced Oatly, and placed the packaging box in the most eye-catching position on the bar to remind consumers: We have oat milk.
04
This trend has been blowing for a few years, and soon the problem comes: these marketing concepts, it is untenable!
Because of the use of oats, Otaly has always advertised health, often associated with weight loss.
The question is, let's look at the ingredient list of oat milk:
In addition to water and oats, there is also canola oil and salt, which looks like a totose oil mixture.
Although it is not explosive in terms of calories, it is comparable to pure milk, much higher than skim milk, and it can be said that it has nothing to do with weight loss.
As for the nutrition that has been boasted, the protein is only 1/3 of that of pure milk, but the price is three times that of pure milk. And the extra bit of dietary fiber, you take this money to buy a carton of pure milk, and then buy a pack of oatmeal, not only the nutritional value and taste are stronger than oat milk, but the rest of the money can also buy an egg to eat.
In the once-dominant coffee market, Oatly's story is even more difficult to tell.
Isn't my raw coconut latte also plant-based milk, why can I sell it for a dozen yuan, and I have to add five yuan in exchange for your oat milk?
The point is, the coconut milk coffee drink is delicious.
No reason, friends!
Note that I'm not saying that oat milk isn't nutritious and has no value. It has consumer groups and scenes.
The problem is that it chose to touch porcelain milk in the first place, concocting the idea that drinking milk is better than oat milk.
Many consumers, of course, bought it for "milk", and finally found out that this thing was not milk, but should be called oatmeal dew, which was completely defrauded.
If virtue is not matched, there will be disaster.
The most interesting thing is that a lot of recommendations about Oatly are now in tune with the change. It will tell consumers that we are not milk, we are not a competitor to milk, but another nutritious drink.
I'm done with all the words, I think it's okay not to call it oat milk, but green tea milk.
As for environmental protection, I especially support continuing to dig deeper into this concept, especially after the concept of health is shattered and the road of coffee is not easy to follow.
Why?
Oatly's core concept of environmental protection is that the carbon emissions of plant-based milk are lower than that of animal milk.
Reducing carbon emissions is certainly a good thing, but I don't think it has much to do with ordinary people.
The carbon emissions you save by drinking oat milk for a lifetime are not as good as a rich man's private jet to fly.
Therefore, oat milk is an environmental protection concept, you should not sell it to ordinary people, you should sell it to rich people.
Many people think that oat milk is too expensive, that is not too expensive, it is obviously too cheap.
You should sell oat milk, a carbon emission concept, to the wealthy, which is simply their environmental redemption vouchers!
When you think about it this way, does the mind open up?
05
So I think Oatly can do three things:
First, the price must rise to the point that ordinary people cannot afford it, and even have a feeling of reproductive isolation.
Now the average price of oat milk is only three times that of pure milk, so that ordinary people at the next table see it and think that rich people can't afford to drink it?
The price has doubled to at least 300 times that of pure milk, and it can't be packed with 1L, it's too ugly. Uniform boutique small package, calculated by ounce.
Second, it is necessary to set a threshold, not just to buy it with money, but also to verify capital.
This capital verification does not verify your property, it is too vulgar, and it will test your environmental protection. Before buying Oatly, print out a three-month diet to see if you have ever drunk animal milk.
However, if there is a record of drinking animal milk, no matter how rich it is, it will not be sold.
Third, the price is there, the threshold is there, but you can't buy it alone, you have to distribute the goods.
After all, in order to achieve carbon emissions, oat milk also has to be produced in small quantities. In particular, popular products such as coffee masters are scarce resources.
At this time, there are some Oatly environmentally friendly shopping bags, Oatly environmentally friendly mobile phone cases or something, a 2w start, you have to buy enough of these peripherals, to be eligible to buy a can of oat milk.
There is another benefit to doing so.
Oatly has always wanted to be a middle-class product, so it was a big mistake to position its brand as a middle-class company.
If you want to be middle-class, you can't position the middle class, you should position luxury, and set the threshold to the point that even the middle class can't afford it.
At this time, if you get a new brand and make light luxury oat milk, won't it sell better than now?
As long as you follow this line of thought, what kind of milk do you touch? Since then, Oatly has been Swedish Moutai.