Xinfeng snack old brand Phoenix Nirvana, the Red Sea to open up a blue ocean road
"Catering is becoming more and more difficult to do" is the voice of many people in the industry. There are countless catering brands that were once brilliant but later fell into the quagmire of operation, and Xinfeng Snacks is one of them. With declining performance and stores closing due year after year, the Hangzhou snack brand, which has a history of more than 60 years, once faced death threats at any time. In 2014, we formulated a new strategic positioning for Xinfeng Snacks, "working against the whole industry" and insisting on only doing one thing for snacks. By restructuring its operational designation, Xinfeng Snacks grew from 9 stores in 2014 to 75 in 2019. The results of the 2016 citizen mental survey show that in the snack category, Xinfeng snacks have surpassed industry competitors to become industry benchmarks. In 2017, Xinfeng Snacks was listed on the New Third Board, becoming the first stock of the New Third Board in the catering industry in Zhejiang Province, and the first share of the New Third Board focusing on the snack category nationwide.
01. Industry competition intensified, and old brands fell to the altar
China's catering industry suffered a cold winter in 2012, during which countless brands broke down. Founded in 1958 and with considerable accumulation in Hangzhou, the old brand Xinfeng Snacks also showed decline during that period. Under the intensification of competition, problems such as aging personnel and backward business ideas have gradually emerged. At its peak, the sight of more than a dozen chain stores became history, and in 2010, Xinfeng Snacks began to decline, resulting in a large number of store closures; In 2014, only 9 of its stores remained, and then 2 more were closed... This decades-old brand has reached a moment of life and death.
In 2014, we began to redefine the strategic positioning of Xinfeng Snacks, hoping to revitalize this time-honored brand in Hangzhou and find its own right direction.
02. Standing on the trend to see the future, category opportunities appear
Positioning is to stand on the trend and look at the future. Studying the development trend of catering in that year, we can see that before 2013, the catering market showed a rapid growth trend, and then the growth rate tended to be stable; As an important part of Chinese fast food, snacks account for an increase in Chinese fast food year by year, and they are the categories with the most potential for standardization and supply chain development. We conclude that the category of snack fast food has great potential in the future, and Xinfeng snacks need to focus on the subdivision of "snacks".
This year's catering industry report also confirms our judgment that year. According to the "China Catering Report 2019", in 2018, the national catering consumption exceeded 4.2 trillion yuan, and it took only 3 years from breaking through 3 trillion to 4 trillion yuan, which has become the world's second largest catering consumer. Among them, the advantages of snack fast food are unshakable, ranking first with 44.3% of the number of stores. Whether in first-tier and new first-tier cities, or second-tier cities and third-tier cities, the rise of snack categories is very fast, and the per capita consumption amount is also upgrading.
03. Comprehensively analyze the competitive environment and "work against the whole industry"
Clarifying the direction of differentiation of strategic positioning requires a comprehensive analysis of the competitive environment. Before determining the strategic positioning direction of Xinfeng Snacks, we analyzed its competitive environment from four aspects: competition, cognition, advantages and trends.
From the perspective of competition, there were more than 70,000 restaurants in the Hangzhou area at that time, which were divided into two types: foreign fast food and Chinese fast food. Among them, Chinese fast food includes three categories: set menu, meal type and snack class, and the category to which Xinfeng snacks belong is the snack category. Through mental research, we have analyzed that although some brands in the Hangzhou snack category have already made a certain degree of popularity, they have not yet become synonymous with "snacks".
From the perspective of cognition, the "snack" category in Hangzhou still has a vacancy in the minds of consumers, and there is no brand that firmly occupies the minds of consumers.
From the advantage point of view, Xinfeng Snack has a history of more than half a century of founding, focusing on making snacks, and has a certain cognitive advantage in the minds of Hangzhou people.
From the trend point of view, Hangzhou's existing snack brands are not only focused on selling snack products, restaurants across the industry are expanding their product lines, which is a huge opportunity for Xinfeng Snacks.
Based on the analysis of the competitive environment, for Xinfeng Snacks, we decided to make a bold attempt - to "fight against the whole industry". The whole industry does more, Xinfeng snacks do less, and only do one thing.
In the eyes of most people, large companies are accustomed to expanding outwards, demand-oriented, and providing more products to satisfy customers. The business idea of small and medium-sized enterprises is to follow the big brands, and the small enterprises that do what products are imitated by reference, they always believe that the big enterprises know what products sell well, and follow the big brands to do the right thing. This is precisely the biggest misunderstanding in today's era of homogeneous competition, following large enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises can only be followers, never come out of the day, and working against large enterprises, and even with the whole industry is the only way out for small and medium-sized enterprises.
04. Establish differentiated positioning, "We only do snacks"
At this point, we have made it clear that the positioning of Xinfeng snacks is a snack expert, which is dramatically expressed as: Xinfeng snacks, we only make snacks, Hangzhou Laodizi taste.
"We only make snacks" simply and directly expresses the difference between Xinfeng Snacks and industry competitors, and labels other brands with a negative label of "do everything", because the mind obviously believes that no one or enterprise can become a generalist who can do everything, and experts are more likely to win the recognition and choice of potential customers.
"Hangzhou laodizi taste" is the point of interest, Xinfeng snacks focus on nearly 60 years only to make snacks, the benefit point to consumers is that the taste is unchanged, but also as delicious as decades ago.
Unlike other competitors in the industry, we want consumers to know that this is a snack company when they mention "Xinfeng Snacks".
05. Reconstruct the operation strategy around positioning, and realize the rebirth of the old brand
For a brand to succeed, it is not enough to find differentiated positioning, but also to form a set of strategic designations with differentiation as the core and interlocking links. Around the positioning, we reconstruct the operation strategy of Xinfeng Snacks:
1, continue to accelerate the opening of stores, for catering, the best spread is the store;
2. Adjust the mode of opening a store, open a small shop, and open more stores;
3. Streamline the product planning product line, and eliminate non-snack products;
4. Comb the price and cater to consumption upgrades;
5. Upgrade the image of the store and remove the old, old, dirty, messy and other arrangements;
6. Introduce letter of trust support, with the help of local advantages;
7. Increase the intensity of communication, carry out public relations, promotion and other means;
8. Open a central factory to ensure maximum standardization and uniform taste.
Under the comprehensive guidance of Gu Junhui's strategic positioning consultation, Xinfeng Snacks has not only survived, but has even become one of the most important brands in Hangzhou catering, and the positioning has been implemented for several years, with remarkable results:
1. Profitability: In 2015, Xinfeng snack revenue was 113 million yuan, and the loss was 127,300 yuan. Two years after the implementation of the positioning strategy, the operating income reached 154 million yuan, and the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company reached 10.4281 million yuan.
2, performance growth rate: In recent years, Hangzhou catering growth rate of about 7%, and Xinfeng snacks have doubled several times in two years, has become the benchmark of the industry.
3. Store expansion speed: Before 2015, Xinfeng Snacks only had 11 stores in the main city of Hangzhou. As of 2019, the number of Xinfeng snack stores has increased to 75, and each one is hot, with the highest single-day single-day passenger flow reaching 3,000-4,000 person-times.
4. The position of the brand in the minds of consumers: The results of the citizen mind survey show that in the snack category, the proportion of Xinfeng snacks mentioned has surpassed that of competitors.
So far, the sales of Xinfeng snacks have exceeded 160 million. All newly opened stores have achieved profitability in the year of opening of the store.
06. Differentiated breakthrough competition, there is also a blue ocean in the Red Sea
In the past year, China's catering market reached 4.2 trillion yuan, officially breaking through the "4 trillion" scale - many people say that it is now a catering winter, but the market is still growing, and the competition in the catering industry is becoming more and more fierce. Surveys show that the life cycle of the catering industry has changed from the original 2.9 years to 2.1 years, and many enterprises are in danger of going out of business within a year of opening. In the middle of a red sea, only by finding a differentiated path can we truly succeed.