"Huaxia Wine News" reporter Zhang Yuchen
On May 11, Langjiu and Xiang Division held a national working conference. At the meeting, Wang Junlin, chairman of Langjiu Group, clearly pointed out that Langjiu will unswervingly promote the strategy of concurrently fragrant, continue to strengthen, grow and expand the cause of Langjiu and fragrant, and form a pattern of "high-end sauce and fragrance, leading and excellent fragrance".
It is worth mentioning that just two days before the meeting, Langjiu Group has decided to merge the Longmalang Division and the Shunpinlang Division to jointly form a new Langjiu and Xiang Division. This move quickly aroused widespread attention in the industry, making Jianxiang once again the focus of discussion in the liquor market.
However, in the current market environment of increasingly diversified aroma types, the wine industry is showing two seemingly contradictory trends: the innovative exploration of "de-aroma" and the traditional adherence to "aroma return". The former injects new energy and innovative thinking into the industry as a whole, while the latter emphasizes the respect and inheritance of traditional values and classic fragrances.
In this context, how should Kanexiang stand out in the fierce market competition and achieve its own rapid development and growth? It has undoubtedly become a question worth pondering.
The leap from "niche" to "mainstream".
Since it was officially identified as the fifth fragrance type in the country in 1983, it has gone through 40 years of precipitation and exploration, and in the past two years, it has shown a strong momentum of revival.
On the one hand, with the growing pursuit of diversified tastes by young consumer groups, the aromatic liquor has successfully attracted wide attention from the market with its unique flavor characteristics, which not only combines the richness of the strong flavor type and the mellow flavor of the sauce flavor type, but also does not lose its own characteristics.
According to iResearch's report, young consumers aged 18 to 29 show a higher preference for niche flavors such as Jianxiang, indicating that the traditional baijiu market is undergoing a transformation driven by young consumers.
On the other hand, although the current market share of aromatic liquor is relatively small, accounting for about 5% to 7%, and the scale is estimated to be between 20 billion yuan and 30 billion yuan, its growth potential is huge, especially in the absence of tens of billions of leading brands, which indicates huge market opportunities.
Therefore, in the past two years, liquor companies have continued to make layouts to jointly promote the quality upgrading and market expansion of aromatic liquor: shortly after the beginning of 2023, Langjiu officially announced the strategy of combining fragrance, planning to achieve an annual marketing scale of 10 billion yuan in 2-3 years. The setting of this goal not only reflects Langjiu's keen insight into the market, but also demonstrates its confidence in its own strength and quality.
Subsequently, well-known liquor companies such as Kouzijiao, Jinshiyuan, and Yuquan Liquor successively released new products with aroma strategy to strengthen their market position. These new products have been innovated and upgraded in terms of quality, taste, packaging and other aspects to meet the diverse needs of consumers.
This year, Langjiu has accelerated the implementation of the Jianxiang strategy again, which is not only reflected in the expansion of production capacity and the optimization of the marketing network, but also in the in-depth excavation and dissemination of the culture and brand story of Jianxiang.
In addition, according to the reporter of "Huaxia Liquor News", in recent years, nearly 30 key liquor enterprises in Shandong have been involved in the production of fragrant liquor, among them, Gubeichun, Yunmen and other leading liquor companies have also launched related products.
It can be said that with the continuous efforts of a number of liquor companies in the strategy of combining fragrance, a new upsurge in the consumption of flavored liquor is constantly being set off in the market.
"At present, the aromatic liquor has not yet formed a large-scale market influence like strong fragrance and sauce fragrance, but its lack of high-end price band and the concentration of popular positioning provide a broad space for its future development." Yan Wenchen, a liquor analyst, pointed out that with the deepening of consumption upgrading and brand differentiation strategies, Jianxiang liquor is expected to further expand its market share and realize the leap from "niche" to "mainstream" by improving quality, strengthening brand story and cultural connotation, and innovating marketing strategies.
Three major issues cannot be ignored
Although from the trend point of view, the flavor liquor has entered the fast lane of development, in the current liquor market, it still faces many challenges and problems.
First of all, as a unique category, many companies are not willing to actively promote or advertise their products as flavor-flavored liquor, but prefer to emphasize personalized and characteristic unique flavors.
"This is mainly because the market positioning of aromatic liquor is relatively vague, and compared with mainstream flavors such as strong aroma and sauce aroma, consumers do not have enough awareness of it." In an interview with the reporter of "Huaxia Liquor News", some dealers pointed out that the competition in the wine industry is gradually becoming fierce, and enterprises will also worry about being limited by a certain label, and then miss the opportunity to establish a distinctive personality and brand characteristics in the increasingly segmented market.
Secondly, as the market share of aromatic liquor is increasing year by year, more and more companies have begun to launch aromatic products, but it cannot be ignored that most companies still regard it as a complementary product rather than a mainline product.
This means that companies may not pay enough attention to resource allocation, marketing, etc., as an attempt to explore market responses and meet the needs of specific consumer groups, rather than as the main driver of long-term growth. This kind of investment in the nature of "testing the water" also limits the ability of the flavored liquor to further develop the market potential to a certain extent.
Thirdly, compared with other flavor types that have formed a mature market pattern (such as strong aroma and sauce flavor), the flavor liquor is still in the process of finding a leader and building a stable development echelon, which makes the development of flavor liquor in the market lack a clear direction and goal.
Generally speaking, without obvious industry leaders to guide market trends and promote consumer education, it is difficult to quickly form a unified market perception and stable consumer group across the country. In addition, effective echelon building is essential for the continued prosperity of the industry, which can promote healthy competition between brands at different levels, and at present, the market for flavored liquor is still relatively weak in this regard.
On the whole, the traditional and aromatic liquor industry presents a development pattern in which the head is not strong, the waist is not prominent, and the basic plate has not yet been formed. Although large liquor companies such as Langjiu have begun to accelerate the layout of the fragrance strategy, intending to build a 10-billion-level fragrance market, compared with the market dominance of head enterprises such as Moutai of sauce-flavored liquor and Wuliangye of strong fragrance, the head brand of aroma-flavored liquor has not yet formed absolute market leadership and brand appeal, and because the process is relatively complex, it is difficult to follow up quickly, and the large-scale development of the entire industry needs to be further promoted.
However, the more challenges there are, the more opportunities there are, and the more strength you accumulate, the easier it is to accumulate them.
Looking back at the development of the past 40 years, the aroma liquor is not only a witness of time, but also an active promoter of liquor culture and technological innovation, which integrates the essence of a variety of flavor types and breaks the boundaries of traditional flavor types.
Now, with the change of market trends and the upgrading of consumer tastes, many liquor companies are constantly enriching the product line of aromatic liquor and strengthening its market position through technological innovation, quality improvement and in-depth exploration of brand stories. At the same time, with the help of the power of the Internet and channel reform, the culture of aromatic liquor has been more widely disseminated and the market boundary has been further broadened.
It is believed that in the future, the aromatic liquor will be able to occupy a place in the market, and the road ahead is long and bright.