--- title: "2016 New Beverage Products: Who Are the Top 11 Breaking Through 400 Competitors?" description: "This summer, over 450 new beverages hit the market. TopMarketing's annual ranking evaluates them on brand name, taste, packaging, and marketing. The top 11 include Tea π, Hong Cha Jun, Ji Huo π, Bao Qu Zhu, and others, with scores reflecting their market potential and promotional strategies." author: "TOP君" publisher: "New Distribution" email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com" telephone: "+8615854817671" published: "2016-06-05" language: "en" canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/2016-new-beverage-products-who-are-the-top-11-breaking-through-400-compe-58242d4d/" markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/2016-new-beverage-products-who-are-the-top-11-breaking-through-400-compe-58242d4d.md" original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Pa1DD3BRZMzD4s7Mfutgpw" translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/2016%E9%A5%AE%E6%96%99%E6%96%B0%E5%93%81-%E7%AA%81%E5%9B%B4400%E7%AB%9E%E5%93%81%E7%9A%84%E5%89%8D11%E5%BC%BA%E9%83%BD%E6%9C%89%E5%93%AA%E4%BA%9B-58242d4d.md" attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/2016-new-beverage-products-who-are-the-top-11-breaking-through-400-compe-58242d4d/" usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt" --- # 2016 New Beverage Products: Who Are the Top 11 Breaking Through 400 Competitors? > This summer, over 450 new beverages hit the market. TopMarketing's annual ranking evaluates them on brand name, taste, packaging, and marketing. The top 11 include Tea π, Hong Cha Jun, Ji Huo π, Bao Qu Zhu, and others, with scores reflecting their market potential and promotional strategies. What to drink this summer? #Brain Platinum BGM# What to drink, what to drink? Drink new products, new~products! It's that scorching season again, and the beverage market, perfectly matched with hot weather, welcomes a wave of "new student enrollment": over 450 drinks are queuing up for shelves. Some have unique flavors, some have stunning looks, and some are irreplaceable for reasons hard to articulate... TOP Jun's annual tradition—the "New Beverage Marketing Ranking"—is now complete and ready to go. As usual, the ranking scores each product on brand name (out of 10), taste (out of 30), packaging (out of 20), and marketing (out of 40), totaling 100 points. TOP Jun exclusively holds the final interpretation rights. Come on, let's see which new beauties have arrived this year. 1. Tea π: The Choice of Asia's Top Boy Band * Name: Tea π Egg yolk pie, red bean pie, teenage pie... This isn't the first time "pie" has been used. It originated in the bakery industry and now extends to beverages. Nongfu's official explanation is that it symbolizes infinite, non-repeating youth, homophonically linked to "pie," meaning stylish and unique—a tea sect. —**6 points** * Category: Tea beverage * Company: Nongfu Spring * Target audience: Post-90s and post-00s; #not for post-80s# * Price: 5-6 yuan (500ml) * Taste: 25 points Four flavors: grapefruit jasmine, lemon black tea, peach oolong, and pomelo green tea. TOP Jun, as a guinea pig, tried the first one. The initial taste is sour, mid-palate sweet, and the aftertaste is a complex tea aroma. To sum it up in one sentence: it tastes like Mizone. * Packaging: 19 points With its flashy colors, bright art style, and fresh posture, it's unmistakably a Nongfu product. * Marketing: 32 points Nongfu clearly has high hopes for this product, spending millions to bring in the so-called "Asia's Top Boy Band" BigBang (led by G-Dragon). Other brands under Nongfu, like Da Nai Cha, Shui Rong C100, and Dong Fang Shu Ye, have never had such endorsement treatment. However, the decision to print the endorser's image on the bottle significantly lowers the packaging's aesthetic level: The combination of masterful illustrations and cheap-looking endorser images creates a visual impact that's simply crude. A Douban netizen commented: "Where the sad Tea π passes, all the sophistication turns to dust..." #Currently both packaging versions are sold simultaneously# The TVC hasn't aired yet, but here's a video announcing the endorsement, with GD looking adorable in it. They also offer various endorser merchandise and meet-and-greet tickets as auxiliary marketing. **Total: 82** 2. Hong Cha Jun: A New 2D Flower from a 3D Veteran * Name: Hong Cha Jun #Has an indescribable relationship with TOP Jun# The increasingly popular personification naming method; the character "轰" (hong) is vivid, evoking a scene of "fire at him," and is homophonous with "红" (red), while "君" (jun) is homophonous with "菌" (bacteria), reflecting the product's selling point of "lactic acid bacteria black tea beverage." **#This scheming gets 9 points#** * Category: Lactic acid bacteria black tea beverage * Company: Jianlibao, from our childhood memories * Target audience: Students aged 13-22, the post-00s generation. #Don't be discouraged if you're overage; many other drinks later aren't for you either# * Price: 500ml for 5 yuan * Taste: 25 points Two flavors: lemon and grapefruit. The slogan is "Youth needs drama, black tea needs fizz," and the taste combination is somewhat novel. * Packaging: 17 points Besides the strong ACG vibe, the biggest highlight is the bottle cap—designed as a small black top hat, making the bottle look like it's come to life, with high recognition. * Marketing: 30 points It has a dedicated personified image, the one below with a sword and dinosaur hat, a bit ugly but convenient for spreading. He's active on Weibo, WeChat, live streaming, and other social platforms, interacting with fans, creating buzz, and developing emoji packs and creative giveaways. 520 emoji pack Don't overthink; it's just a wet wipe. Jianlibao, having a child late, dotes on Hong Cha Jun: not only did they invest 100 million in advertising on CCTV and major satellite TV stations, but they also spent a comparable amount on video sites like iQiyi, PPS, and LeTV, even favoring the latter. Besides online pre-roll ads, they co-sponsored web series like "Rage Comics," "Goddess Has Medicine," and "Detective Monkey Sai Lei," inserting verbal mentions, though the latter two shows didn't gain much traction. **Total: 81** 3. Ji Huo π: We Got Wang Leehom at an Insider Price * Name: Ji Huo π Clashes with Wahaha's Tea π, adding another member to the π family—**6 points** * Category: Vitamin beverage * Company: Wahaha * Target audience: Fashionable and individualistic people * Price: 4.5 yuan * Taste: 24 points Three flavors: fresh grapefruit, kumquat jasmine, and mojito (a rum-based cocktail), corresponding to "Little Coffee π," "Face Control π," and "Deep Well π." I don't know about the other two, but the mojito is light on entry but has a lingering astringent aftertaste. * Packaging: 15 points The pastel colors of light yellow, light green, and light blue look very fresh, but the bottle design is odd, resembling a yogurt or milk drink at first glance. * Marketing: 35 points Wahaha is a loyal brand, having loved the ultimate straight man Wang Leehom for 20 years. From the oldest Wahaha purified water to the previous Ji Huo, and now Ji Huo π, he's been the spokesperson all along. #Is there an insider price or what? However, this former idol is now 40, and his activity and influence have declined significantly. Since Ji Huo π targets the youth market, maybe it's time to switch. It also favors internet platforms, sponsoring iQiyi's key summer web variety show—"Thirteen Hundred Million Points," a dialect music program. The more local, the sexier. Previous hits like "Tun Er" and "Thank You for Your Love" have proven the magic of dialect songs, so the industry is generally optimistic about its prospects, with sponsorship slots even more sought-after than the second quarter's web variety king "U Can U Bibi." **Total: 80** 4. Bao Qu Zhu: Jay Chou Is Busy * Name: Bao Qu Zhu Tongue-twisting to say, **6 points** * Category: Bao Qu Zhu milk beverage (a self-created term) * Company: Yili * Target audience: Young student groups * Taste: 25 points Promoted as "full of stuff," but the pearls are small, few, and due to an impractical straw design, they sink to the bottom, wasting them. * Packaging: 12 points Average, neither good nor bad, mediocre among the flashy newcomers. * Marketing: 35 points As the new favorite, Bao Qu Zhu's popularity is evident from the official Weibo page of You Suan Ru—it's everywhere, squeezing out the previous favorite, Professor Do from the Hami melon flavor. The wealthy Yili has chosen Jay Chou as its spokesperson. Perhaps following the principle of getting full value for money, they've kept the little prince busy: First, a pre-heating video online, where our Jaylen shows off his piano and ball skills in a one-take domino game, never forgetting to look cool; Old Jay, honestly, did you have to film that backward basketball throw many times? Then he entered the hottest live-streaming room, and just as he was about to reveal a mysterious gift, it was stolen, leaving a cliffhanger; The third reveal: the Bao Qu Zhu TVC launches, using gushing pearls to convey the product's unique taste experience. **Total: 78** 5. Orange PLUS Lemon: Descendants of the Fruit Pulp * Name: Orange PLUS Lemon 5 points 4A accent, directly stating the raw materials, but a bit awkward. Also, this product is under Uni-President's Fresh Orange, so the full name is a long string—"Boss, give me a bottle of Uni-President Fresh Orange Orange PLUS Lemon!" * Category: Fruit pulp beverage * Company: Uni-President * Target audience: Young people * Price: 5-6 yuan (400ml) * Taste: 26 points Lots of fruit pulp, each piece tasting like the descendants of the sun. But it's a case of false advertising: although called "Orange PLUS Lemon," it's actually orange pulp plus grapefruit pulp, with the latter dominating. That grapefruit bitterness, to TOP Jun who can't appreciate it, smells like pungent chemicals. #Crowd: You've actually drunk chemicals?!# * Packaging: 14 points Fruit comic style, colorful and youthful. But the brand name is too small, drowned in the colorful design, almost invisible to the naked eye. * Marketing: 32 points In celebrity selection, Fresh Orange shares a similar loyalty with Wahaha, but it's not devoted to one person; it's devoted to one country—South Korea. Past endorsers include Jang Keun-suk, Park Min-young, and Park Shin-hye. This year, the wealthy brand brought in the red-hot Asian husband Song Joong-ki, appointing him to a strange, unheard-of position fitting his persona: "Chief Pretty Officer." **Total: 77** Additionally, Fresh Orange released another bilingual product—"Ice Sha Ice"—which is the high-tech representative among this year's beverage newcomers. Its magic lies first in the product: it turns into slush when frozen; second, in the packaging: the thermochromic ink on the back changes from white to blue locally below 8°C. (As shown in the rightmost image below) 6. Ti La Tu: A Touch of Exotic Flavor * Name: Ti La Tu —**7 points** This year's tea beverage market is bustling. After Tea π and Hong Cha Jun, here comes TEA LA TOUR—Chinese name "Ti La Tu." Besides the homophone, it likely aims to associate with "Plato," using the great Western philosopher and thinker to reflect the product's positioning depth. But from the name alone, you can't tell what beverage category it is, or even that it's a beverage at all. ╮(╯▽╰)╭ * Category: Western-style fruit and flower tea * Company: Uni-President * Target audience: Mid-to-high-end consumers * Price: 5-5.5 yuan per bottle (450ml) * Taste: 23 points Two types: German-style (classic fruit and flower tea) and French-style (jasmine tea). The former claims to include "a basket of berry flavors including apple, pineapple, and melon, letting you glimpse the secrets of sunny German forests," but in reality, peach dominates, with an intensity rivaling perfume. * Packaging: 18 points Surrealist illustrations, giving a very bourgeois first impression. * Marketing: 28 points The spokesperson isn't too expensive but is quite popular—it's your "Crown Princess" Zhang Tianai. They've created emoji packs, filmed TVCs, and launched marketing campaigns around her. With the release of her new drama "My Friend Chen Bailu," Ti La Tu's visibility is likely to increase. **Total: 76** 7. A Beverage Tasting Like Golden Throat Lozenges * Name: Golden Throat, 5 points Borrowing the famous name of Golden Throat lozenges, it's easy to gain recognition, but the taste is also easily associated with the lozenges, creating unpleasant psychological associations. * Category: Herbal plant beverage * Company: Golden Throat * Target audience: Young people, yes, still young people * Price: 300ml; 5.5 yuan (Taobao price; product not fully launched) * Taste: 23 points TOP Jun was very eager to try this quirky drink, but after searching all stores within a 5-kilometer radius, couldn't find it, so I'll give an average score. * Packaging: 16 points Incorporates the "cute" and "refreshing" elements favored by young people, using classic animal sound designs as elements, but the fierce lion seems out of place with the other three kawaii ones. * Marketing: 30 points As a pharmaceutical company entering the consumer market, market promotion and channel building must start from scratch. Moreover, with JDB and Wong Lo Kat already leading in plant beverages, Golden Throat will find it hard to break through with this new category. Currently, its biggest promotional move is sponsoring Jiangsu TV's summer variety show "Gai Shi Yin Xiong," an electronic music and dance program produced by Canxing. Although music aligns with Golden Throat's product attributes, TOP Jun is not optimistic about the show's prospects: the broadcast platform ranks last among the four major satellite TV stations, awkward; producer Canxing, despite its fame, hasn't created a phenomenon show since "The Voice of China"; and electronic music and dance are niche elements, unlikely to go viral. Another piece of good news: I heard a senior executive at Golden Throat has a habit of inviting people to taste their products. It used to be lozenges, but now there's finally another option. **Total: 74** 8. Qiao Ke Nu Li: Feels So Ambitious * Name: Qiao Ke Nu Li Feels so ambitious, 9 points * Category: Chocolate milk beverage * Company: Bright Dairy * Target audience: High-end consumers * Price: 5-6 yuan for 250ml * Taste: 25 points Everyone who's tried it says it's good. * Packaging: 18 points The bottle is short and sturdy, round and cute. Marketing: 15 points Bright Dairy hasn't been "working hard" on promoting this new product; so far, they've only run four months of ads on Shanghai Pop Music Radio. Are they saving up for something big? **Total: 67** 9. Zico: The Foreign Coconut Water That Chants Sutras * Name: Zico Born in the US in 2004, acquired by Coca-Cola in 2011, and entered the Chinese market this year. No Chinese name—too lazy, 5 points, negative review. * Category: Coconut water * Company: Coca-Cola * Target audience: Mid-to-high-end consumers * Price: 9.9 yuan per 330ml * Taste: 26 points 100% pure coconut water, no tricks. * Packaging: 16 points Continues the international market packaging style, resembling its top competitor vitaCoco, which is under Red Bull and entered China two years ago. * Marketing: 18 points Backed by Coca-Cola, it became the official coconut water partner for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Although there's no advertising in mainland China, thanks to years of cultivation in foreign markets, it's taken a path of "blooming outside the wall, fragrant inside": for example, product placements in Korean shows like "Infinite Challenge" and "The Producers" have given it some recognition among Korean-culture fans in China. Here's a quick lesson on the difference between coconut water and coconut milk. Coconut water is the clear liquid directly from cracking open a coconut, classified as "near-water beverage." Coconut milk is extracted from coconut meat, milky white, and is a "plant protein beverage." So Zico's main competitors in China are not the well-known Coconut Palm brand coconut milk. **Total: 65** 10. Shui Qu Duo: Tastes Bland * Name: Shui Qu Duo I don't see where the "fun" is; calling it "Shui Duo" (more water) might be more accurate, 7 points * Category: Lactic acid bacteria beverage * Company: Uni-President * Target audience: Students & white-collar workers * Price: 5-6 yuan per 500ml bottle * Taste: 26 points Like melted old-fashioned ice pop, or flat Sprite, or a bottle of water with a drop of Yakult. * Packaging: 16 points Simple, elegant, warm and cute style. * Marketing: 10 points This one doesn't seem to be the favored child; so far, Uni-President has only held a Shui Qu Duo Cup "Shanghai University Billiards Championship" for it. Although the target market is students, and campus events are a good way to gain visibility among consumers, this scale is far from enough for FMCG. **Total: 59** 11. Liang Bai Kai: The Name Is Its Only Highlight * Name: Liang Bai Kai The ultimate vulgarity is elegance; a childhood memory for a generation. It stands out clearly among the high-silicon good waters, dragon gate springs, water aristocrats, selenium-rich waters, and oxygen-rich waters, earning 10 points. * Category: Drinking water * Company: Jinmailang * Target audience: Everyone * Price: 2-3 yuan * Taste: 20 points Drink a cup of cool boiled water and experience it yourself; it tastes just like that. * Packaging: 18 points Simple and friendly, with calligraphy fonts evoking nostalgia. * Marketing: 10 points No promotion seen. Of course, the name itself is a promotional tool; netizens who bought it spontaneously showed it off as if it were something new. **Total: 58** Besides the above, many other new beverages are also full of personality. Che Dan Su Xiao He & Huang Xiao Ning From Nongfu Spring, which always has creative packaging, but it feels like they're not filled to the top. The black water series that emerged last year is expected to gain popularity this year: the overall black packaging exudes an evil, dark vibe, and drinking the black liquid is especially suitable for showing off in summer... attracting many young people seeking individuality. Some old brands have also made minor changes to grab attention: Mizone pineapple limited edition packaging—Ai Xin Jue Luo Uni-President's Gu Xi product line PLAN N Power, following "Because of Stomach," "Ignite Metabolism," and "All-Nighter Strategy," launches a new product—"Time Never Ages." Of course, this summer's new beverages are far more than the above. TOP Jun's collection may be biased due to incomplete data, and we welcome everyone to actively supplement. 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