August has always been the "high incidence season" for listed companies to publish semi-annual reports, although still facing various pressures from the market environment, consumption transformation and so on, most companies still handed over quite beautiful semi-annual reports: dairy giant Mengniu Dairy's revenue in the first half of the year reached 45.9 billion yuan, an increase of 22.3% year-on-year; Tencent's revenue in the first half of the year was 273.5 billion yuan, and the net profit was 90.3 billion yuan.
Similarly, Master Kong, a national classic brand that has gone through 29 years, still gave a more eye-catching result even in the face of rising cost pressure on raw materials in the first half of the year: on August 23, Master Kong Holdings announced its 2021 mid-year report, and the data showed that the revenue of the instant noodle business in the first half of the year was 12.722 billion yuan, an increase of more than 10% compared with the same period in 2019.
According to Nielsen's public data, Master Kong's instant noodle sales accounted for 45.4% of the market and 47.9% of the sales volume, ranking first in the market.
For the instant noodles Master Kong semi-annual report also mentioned that the brand rejuvenation strategy is also an important strategy of Master Kong in the next few years.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="90" >01 User-centric: "Generation Z" business experience</h1>
The mobile Internet has broken down the barriers of channels and media, and accelerated the changes in consumption concepts, tastes and needs of the whole society. Whether it is the concept of consumption or the ability to buy, the young group represented by Generation Z is the main force in the future.
According to public data, as of the first half of 2021, China's Generation Z population accounted for about 260 million people, supporting a consumer market of 4 trillion yuan, spending 13% of the country's total household expenditure, and the growth rate of consumption far exceeded that of other age groups.
In this context, whether it is an established giant or an emerging enterprise, the common era test is - how to be user-centric, understand The Z generation, understand the Z generation and then capture the heart of the Z generation? Some head companies have made various other attempts at this: for example, the national skin care brand Baijiling tells the topic of "nostalgia" in a young way, injects fresh blood into the brand, makes the classic old brand appear "young", and achieves a qualitative breakthrough in image and sales conversion.
In this regard, Master Kong's strategy for instant noodles is to make the strategy high-end; cut into the subdivision scene, product diversification and differentiation; insist on doing research before the product is launched; and marketing is young.
In terms of high-end products, Master Kong launched the "Speed Noodle Restaurant" series such as "Speed Noodle Restaurant" to the standard of standard noodles, with bowl noodles, boiled noodles, self-heating noodles to comprehensively layout office, home, outdoor and other diversified scenes, using FD freeze-drying technology, broth extraction technology, RP rapid prototyping technology and other advanced production technologies to provide consumers with more nutrition and better taste.
▲Master Kong mini casual cup
Cut into the subdivision scene, product diversification, differentiation: for example, for vegetarian groups, Master Kong launched a vegetarian instant noodles, fresh vegetable noodles, hand-rolled noodles, new version of the soup master and other new products; for groups with different dietary weights, Master Kong Soup Series specially launched different specifications of products such as Big barrels, large food bags and small portions of mini casual cups; for groups pursuing health, Master Kong launched tomato egg beef noodles, selected high-quality ingredients such as Xinjiang tomatoes, pure grain eggs, using slow simmering process to restore the sweet and sour taste, Maximize the health and taste needs of consumers.
In addition, Master Kong instant noodles insist on supporting detailed research data before each product is launched; in marketing, try brand rejuvenation, cross-border joint names, cooperation with secondary elements and popular variety shows, and communicate with young people.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="35" >02 Digital marketing helps brands become younger</h1>
There is no era in which the media is so developed, and there is no era that is more fragmented, differentiated, and layered than the present. Where to find an audience, how to reach them, how to please them, and how to get them is a course that is easier said than done.
Reebok, a 123-year-old sports brand, signed 80-year-old "elderly youth" Wang Shunde as the brand spokesperson, conveying to consumers the mentality of "at any age, you can live your own appearance, break through the limits, and break the boundaries of age".
For Master Kong, embracing change, embracing new technologies, and promoting brand rejuvenation are also unchanging strategies.
For example, the short video giant Douyin has become one of the important means for Master Kang to communicate and influence young people. Master Kong related topics on Douyin #花式吃面播放量超过了3.5 billion times, and the blogger @ handsome Sydney Piggy Pig a video of Master Kong mixing noodles, the number of likes exceeded 37.3W.
▲Video about Master Kong's instant noodles on Douyin
Cross-border two-dimensional and cooperation with popular variety shows are also Master Kong's brand rejuvenation attempts in the past one or two years.
For example, in the previous birthday celebration activities in which Master Kong Xiang Crispy cooperated with the two-dimensional super virtual idol Luo Tianyi, the total exposure exceeded 400 million + times. In addition, in 2020, Master Kong carried out large-scale marketing and promotion activities focusing on high-priced noodles and high-end noodles.
Including Master Kong's braised beef noodles sponsoring "Strange Story", Laotan Sauerkraut Beef Noodles and "Kung Fu Panda", Spicy Beef Noodles and Peace Elite, Rattan Pepper Beef Noodles and Douluo Continent, etc., through various IP cooperation, deepen the influence of instant noodle products in young consumer groups.
The star product tomato egg beef noodles adopt the main vision of catering to young people in packaging design, and create their own two-dimensional IP "egg set boy" to attract generation Z people with youthful visual marketing.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="92" >03 What should FMCG brands learn from Master Kong? </h1>
Whether it is a traditional giant or a new consumer brand, in the future more competitive market, learning how to sustain development is the key to victory Master Kong brand rejuvenation There are several places worth learning from FMCG brands:
First of all, keep up with the pace of the times and embrace the young market.
For traditional industries, usually because the vested interests are high enough and the transformation is complex, most brands are slow to move in the transformation of rejuvenation. Master Kong embraced the young ethnic group in a timely manner, responded quickly from the product side and the marketing end to carry out healthy product layout, multi-scene penetration, cross-border secondary element, e-sports, variety show, and cultural IP.
▲Master Kong linkage game Peace Elite
Second, comprehensively promote the digital strategy and benchmark the quality of products in aerospace.
As early as 2012, Master Kong has begun to try to cater to the digital transformation of the young market. Master Kong combines the experience of cooperation with internationally renowned enterprises such as PepsiCo and Starbucks, introduces the systematic management model of European and American countries, and localizes it to form a complete strategy suitable for the Chinese market. The digital strategy enables Master Kong to respond quickly through data decision-making in terms of supply chain, channel layout, and consumer insights.
While promoting digital construction, Master Kong instant noodles respond to the call of "aerospace power" and product quality control benchmark aerospace quality. Two star products: "Braised Beef Noodles" and "Suda Noodle House" are examples of the application of aerospace technology. At the same time, it also actively participates in the popularization of public welfare aerospace education for the younger generation.
▲Aerospace education science popularization site
At the same time, pay attention to food safety and strictly control product quality.
As a food enterprise, Master Kong has always adhered to the "zero tolerance" for food safety risks, from farmland to table, strictly controlling every link to ensure food safety and product quality.
At the same time, Master Kong is also actively popularizing food safety knowledge. In June this year, Master Kong responded to the 2021 National Food Safety Publicity Week and organized a one-month food safety publicity month activity. This is the eighth consecutive year that Master Kong has carried out this important activity, aiming to help the "Healthy China" strategy and continue to make efforts to protect the "safety on the tip of the tongue".
In addition, with data as the core, increase the size of new retail.
Under the trend of gradually stabilizing traditional distribution channels, Master Kong's instant noodles division continues to increase the efficiency of channels, logistics, marketing and other links, and continues to increase new retail.
Last year, Master Kong's instant noodle business upgraded the e-commerce department to a new retail department, in addition to focusing on traditional e-commerce, while diversifying the operation layout of channels, such as social e-commerce, catering e-commerce, fresh and other O2O platforms. At the same time, an intelligent supply and marketing network is established, and with the help of an intelligent data platform, the intelligent operation of the entire process is realized, the operating cost is reduced, and the sales efficiency is improved.
In summary, building a good food safety protective wall, product innovation, young marketing, digital transformation, and increasing new retail have made Master Kong achieve stable performance even in the face of rising raw material prices and fierce competition in the industry, and it is also worth learning from other FMCG brands in similar situations.