Text | Everyone wine review content center Li Xupeng
On June 1 this year, the Coca-Cola Company, which made "fat house happy water", suddenly announced the new "happy wine" topo chico. It is understood that this is the first alcoholic beverage launched by Coca-Cola in the Chinese market. Coca-Cola's move reflects the heat of the low-alcohol market.
From small fights with categories and no brands to the strong entry of many well-known enterprises, what is the core logic of low-grade wine fire?
Low-grade liquor is a general term, in fact, liquor below 41 degrees can be called low-grade liquor. But for young consumers, their favorite low-alcohol wines are less alcoholic cider, pre-mixed cocktails, sparkling wines, etc., and the alcohol content is generally around 10 degrees. These low-grade liquors can win the favor of young people, mainly due to three reasons.
The first is to occupy the high ground of value in terms of consumer values. Almost all of the marketing value of low-alcohol liquor is a healthy lifestyle, and Coca-Cola's newly launched alcoholic beverages are naturally not exempt. Its low sugar, 0 fat, low alcohol and other attributes cater to the modern young people's pursuit of a light burden lifestyle, there is no doubt that from the value marketing on the commanding heights. Compared with traditional liquor, low-grade liquor gives many consumers who are overwhelmed by alcohol have the opportunity to drink freely on the wine table, and micro-drunkenness can not only set off the atmosphere without delaying the follow-up work and life, which is very suitable for the needs of young consumers.
The second is to lead the fashion in appearance. Since low-grade wine has become popular in recent years, it is closer to the aesthetics of young people in terms of product design and packaging, and it is easier to attract their attention. In the new consumption era of "appearance is justice", low-grade wine can often rely on appearance to win.
Finally, the diversity of tastes has expanded the consumer audience. Based on the four stages of modern consumption behavior in Japanese society divided by Miura Exhibition, the current alcohol consumption behavior in China can be classified as the "third consumption era", that is, the whole society began to promote personalized consumption. Compared with the situation where the taste of highly high wine is less differentiated, low-grade sake has richer flavors due to its varied brewing methods and drinking methods. This diversified taste design and collocation method greatly meets the personalized consumption needs of young consumers.
Low-grade liquor, which is loved by young consumers, is thriving and hiding the hidden worries of growth. Two of the major development problems have been restricting the development of the industry.
The first problem is that the product value expression system is seriously homogenized. Under the trend of increasing the production and consumption of low-grade wine year by year, there are few brands with real brand influence. The reason for this phenomenon of categories and no brands is related to the different marketing priorities, but more importantly, because there is no differentiated value memory point.
Based on the diversified consumption and aesthetic needs of young consumers, the competition in the low-alcohol market is still quite fierce. Due to the low brand recognition, most low-alcohol suppliers tend to adopt the operation strategy of emphasizing marketing and light branding, and do their best to promote products in marketing and channels. The result of such an operation is a high degree of homogenization of the product core value expression system, whether it is the product concept or design ideas are amazingly similar, consumers are prone to aesthetic fatigue, and it is difficult to form a continuous brand memory point.
Taking the pre-mixed cocktail brand rio as an example, rio has quite a few spokespersons, including Yang Yang, Guo Caijie, Deng Lun, Zhou Dongyu and other popular traffic stars, but what they advocate is nothing more than "slightly drunk" and young fashion. Despite its dominance in the pre-mixed cocktail industry, it is still difficult for consumers to know and remember the specific differences between their products and similar products.
The second problem is that the product quality is not stable enough, and the price advantage is not obvious. In the early stage of the development of low-alcohol wine, many low-alcohol wines paid too much attention to channel marketing and packaging design, ignored the improvement of wine quality, and walked through some detours. In the development of alcoholic beverages for young consumers, it is an indisputable fact that the price threshold cannot be raised. Young people do not have high consumption power, and the huge marketing cost of low-grade liquor also makes its profit margin much smaller than that of traditional liquor. Under the trend of consumption upgrading, it is not easy to obtain living space by winning by quantity.
From the perspective of the overall development of the industry, the proportion of the liquor market with less than 1% of low alcohol is still extremely small, and its market potential is far from being released. As more and more well-known brands enter the low-grade wine industry, this field that is deeply in line with the consumer needs of young people may usher in a new era of rapid prosperity. In addition to labels such as "healthy and slightly drunk" and "fashionable and young", low-grade wine should also find a more systematic and differentiated value expression system, and use good taste and value to lock young consumers. In this way, the industry can continue to grow.