After Messi "overturned", Mengniu sought growth, and Jia Ling came to the rescue

After Messi "overturned", Mengniu found the "hot and hot" Jia Ling. On May 15, Mengniu officially announced on Weibo that actor and director Jia Ling would serve as the brand spokesperson. Last year, Mengniu did not wait for the "double 100 billion", but completed the handover of the old and the new at the beginning of this year, and the replacement of the spokesperson was the first big move after its new president took office.

Looking back on the spokespersons of Mengniu's sub-brands in the past, from TFBOYS, Wu Yifan, Li Yifeng, Zhang Yixing to Messi, it has been Mengniu's consistent strategy to use traffic stars. However, with Messi's word-of-mouth "overturning", the star's quality is doubtful, and Mengniu, which is in a state of growth fatigue, urgently needs to make up for the "void".

Although many netizens guessed Mengniu's new brand spokesperson through Weibo copywriting and silhouettes the day before, when Jia Ling's poster was revealed on May 15, Zhang Qian (pseudonym) was still surprised, "It's actually her."

"Today, I am very happy to unlock a new identity: Mengniu brand ambassador, which gives us another partner. We use the common strong background, overcome obstacles along the way, and face challenges in our own way. At the same time as Jia Ling's official announcement, topics related to "Jia Ling's endorsement" appeared on the hot search.

Jia Ling, who made her debut as a sketch actor, became the fourth actress and director in Chinese film history to exceed 10 billion box office with "Hello Li Huanying" and "Hot and Hot", two Spring Festival hits. Especially with the release of "Hot and Hot" at the beginning of this year, Jia Ling's inspirational story of successfully losing 100 pounds in and out of the drama may be one of the most important reasons why Mengniu chose her as the brand spokesperson.

Throughout Mengniu's successive brand spokespersons, from TFBOYS, Wu Yifan, Li Yifeng, Zhang Yixing to Messi, stars in the cultural and sports industry have brought huge traffic exposure to Mengniu. However, Messi's "rollover" incident caught Mengniu off guard. On February 4, 2024, Miami International played a friendly match with the Hong Kong team at the Hong Kong Stadium. This incident sparked public opinion. Messi's personal image in China has also been severely damaged. On February 5, Mengniu shares fell 2.16%.

On February 24, 2018, Mengniu announced that Messi would become its brand ambassador. According to media reports, Messi's endorsement fee is 40 million yuan/year, and the final cooperation lasted for six years, and it is reasonable for the two sides to part ways after the "rollover". According to the quotation published by the star agent business cooperation website, Jia Ling's advertising endorsement fee is 8 million yuan/two years, which is much "inferior" to Messi. However, Mengniu did not disclose the specific years of cooperation between the two sides, and a star agent told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily that "the external quotation and contract may be different, and the specific amount depends on the content of the project between the two parties." This time, Mengniu changed the endorsement in a hurry, and it should not last long, Jia Ling's endorsement fee is relatively low, and the risk is minimized."

Mengniu is a heavy marketing "enthusiast", and Xiao Zhan, the star that Zhang Qian likes, is the spokesperson of Mengniu's sub-brand "Selected Ranch", so he has also bought a lot of products.

At present, many sub-brands of Mengniu still invite celebrities as spokespersons, Zhao Liying endorses "0 lactose", Wu Lei endorses "flavored milk", Xiao Zhan endorses "Selected Ranch", Wang Yibo endorses "Chunzhen", Luo Yunxi endorses "Real Fruit Grains", Zhao Lusi endorses "Youyi C", Mok Wenwei endorses "Daily Fresh Cheese", Tang Wei endorses "Daily Fresh Language", Sun Li endorses "Future Star", Da Zhang Wei endorses "Change" ice cream, Gong Jun endorses "Green Mood" ice cream, Zhang Guoli and Haiqing endorse "Yourui" milk powder, etc.

Last year, Mengniu's sales and distribution expenses were 25.192 billion yuan, an increase of 2.845 billion yuan year-on-year. Among them, advertising expenses increased by nearly 2 billion yuan year-on-year, an increase of 36.9%. Roughly calculated, in the past four years, Mengniu has invested about 27 billion yuan in advertising alone. The high marketing expenses have also compressed Mengniu's net profit margins. From 2020 to 2023, Mengniu's net profit margin will be 4.61%, 5.63%, 5.6%, and 4.96% respectively, showing a downward trend.

Chen Fangchao, General Manager of the Industry Department of Kmind Strategic Consulting, said, "The traditional marketing of FMCG is advertising, endorsement and promotion. Although the effectiveness is reduced, it is still effective for FMCG products with relatively low prices, high consumption frequency, and low decision-making costs. At present, Jia Ling has a certain degree of topicality with her movies, and her positive image due to her successful weight loss, which is in line with the consumption trend of healthy dairy products themselves, and connects with the health needs of consumers."

Zhan Junhao, a well-known strategic positioning expert and founder of Fujian Great Aim Brand Positioning Consulting, also said, "Jia Ling's endorsement will help Mengniu further expand its brand image to a certain extent, emphasizing the value of its products in terms of health, weight loss, and active life." From this point of view, Jia Ling's endorsement is a blessing for Mengniu. It's just that Mengniu missed the peak period of Jia Ling's traffic topic, and the effect of announcing the signing of Jia Ling at this time was not too ideal."

In 2023, Mengniu will achieve annual revenue of 98.62 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%; operating profit was 6.17 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.8%; Profit attributable to shareholders was 4.809 billion yuan, down 9.31% year-on-year. Revenue growth slowed down, net profit declined, and Mengniu fell into a sluggish growth state.

On March 27, 2024, at Mengniu's 2023 annual results conference, Gao Fei officially debuted, succeeding Lu Minfang and becoming the new helmsman of Mengniu. Gao Fei, Mengniu's fifth president, said, "Mengniu's development strategy will not change, and it will be further strengthened. At the same time, more emphasis will be placed on improving profit margins and continuous improvement of cash flow, so as to enhance shareholder returns."

A number of industry analysts pointed out that Mengniu may use a new brand spokesperson to further lay out the sinking market. As a grassroots inspirational woman, Jia Ling's audience is first and foremost women, followed by thousands of ordinary people. Big data shows that Hubei audiences contributed a total of 238 million yuan to the box office for the 2024 Spring Festival, and among these box offices, "Hot and Hot" accounted for 35.2%.

The 2023 annual report shows that Mengniu is strengthening the laying of township outlets. By the end of the reporting period, Mengniu's liquid milk business had covered more than 26,000 townships and more than 800,000 township outlets.

Song Liang, a senior dairy analyst, told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily, "For a 100-billion-level enterprise like Mengniu, it is necessary to have a global layout online and offline, and different categories or sub-brands can adopt different playing methods and marketing strategies." In recent years, Mengniu's marketing thinking has also changed, such as some new products such as milk drinks and sports protein drinks, which are taking the route of new retail and private domain traffic, but from the perspective of Mengniu's main body, it is still necessary to rely on offline, the majority of channel providers and retail stores."

Song Liang further said that Gao Fei's succession essentially has to do three things, "one is how to break the situation when the dairy industry has developed to this day and encounters a bottleneck; the second is how to make Mengniu reunite and consolidate the market foundation and fill in the gaps in the overall market shrinking environment; Third, in terms of exploring new business areas, it can provide some help, so that Mengniu can get rid of the shackles of traditional dairy enterprises and truly move towards the development path of modern professional food enterprises."

However, at present, it is quite difficult for Mengniu Dairy to get out of the sluggish growth with the help of traffic. Zhan Junhao pointed out that Mengniu, as a fast-moving consumer goods brand, did rely mainly on marketing in the past and invested a lot of money in advertising. However, as the cost of traffic rises, this strategy can squeeze profit margins. Therefore, Mengniu does need to consider new marketing ideas.

Chen Fangchao said, "Judging from the current more advanced marketing methods, the way of deep binding of brands to a single generation of spokespersons is becoming less and less respected, and the core reason is that the uncontrollable risk of artists will directly lead to damage to the brand image." In the future, it can continuously strengthen its brand leading position and unique product advantages through the time-sharing detonation method of dairy multi-category + hard advertising + Internet public relations around the core value of customers, so as to obtain the long-term competitiveness of the brand."

As of the close of trading on May 15, Mengniu's share price fell 1.06% to close at HK$16.82 per share, with a total market capitalization of only HK$66.192 billion. Compared with the highest point of HK$52.632 per share, the stock price has fallen by nearly 70%, and the market value has evaporated by nearly HK$140 billion.

Regarding why Jia Ling was chosen as the brand spokesperson, how to break the situation of marketing to squeeze profit margins, how to create an endogenous growth model, etc., a reporter from Beijing Business Daily sent an interview letter to Mengniu by email, but did not receive a reply as of press time.

Beijing Business Daily reporter |

Edited by Topol