Normally, a product's packaging design, theme slogan, and endorser should be consistent and mutually reinforcing, but some domestic brands or products are completely disjointed, especially in common beverages. Over time, this will cause great harm to the product, the company, and the brand they intend to build, having only negative effects and making it difficult for the enterprise to sustain itself. The reasons for this phenomenon, in the author's view, are as follows:

  1. Long-standing manufacturer mindset. China's rapid economic growth and large population have brought enormous consumer spending power and market scale. Beverage companies that have experienced wild growth have always considered things from their own perspective: This product is good! It has selling points! It can sell! They never care about what consumers need, what consumers like, why consumers buy, where consumers buy, when consumers buy, or who consumers buy with. They only emphasize their own selling points, treating consumers as sheep they raise. How could that be? Consumers are the key to turning a product into a commodity.
  2. Company owners' personal preferences. Beverage company owners especially like to decide on product endorsers based on personal preferences, rarely considering product suitability or the endorser's limitations. Especially when an endorser has personal problems or bad behavior, it can cause consumer aversion and lead to boycotts of the endorsing company. Such cases are numerous.
  3. Neglect of brand marketing planning. Most domestic beverage companies rely on a single product to explode. Due to rapid development, there are problems in systems, organization, team, execution, etc. But companies overemphasize sales, believing that the sales team can solve all problems. The planning or marketing department is merely an appendage of the sales department, not the brain of the enterprise. Some marketing departments are small, mostly internal transfers or poached from other companies, not truly elite. Additionally, they don't trust or are unwilling to use the wisdom of professional brand planning teams, so when the product reaches a certain scale, performance stagnates. Below are a few examples of mismatched beverage products, without any intention to attack the companies behind them; no over-interpretation needed. They dare to launch packaging that doesn't match the target consumers without even understanding who they are. Personally, I don't agree with the packaging and product expression direction of Su Xiaohe's products. From the packaging design, the cute style can only target students and young people just entering the workforce, while most soda water consumers are men and women over 25. This age group starts to pay attention to quality of life and health, has their own consumption views and aesthetics, and no longer blindly follows trends or makes impulsive choices. But the product design is far from the concepts accepted by the target consumers. The overall copy expresses a relaxed adult sentiment, a typical disconnect between copy and main visual. Who are the target consumers of soda water? What are their drinking habits? When do they drink it? Where do they buy it? Without understanding these, launching mismatched packaging—I don't see it favorably! Endorsers have nothing to do with the brand or main color, adding no value to the product. Susa's Special Forces fresh-squeezed coconut juice is definitely a dark horse in the coconut juice industry. Instead of focusing on its production base in Zhanjiang, it focused on the Jiangsu market where it had no foundation. After years of cultivation, it is now challenging the industry leader, Coconut Palm. In terms of product concept, the fresh-squeezed concept is more intuitive and differentiating compared to Coconut Palm's claim of being a state banquet product with no added flavors, colors, or preservatives. The packaging breaks away from Coconut Palm's classic black, red, and yellow cans, with a unique blue, white, and black camouflage design. It also breaks away from Coconut Palm's simple three-piece cans and Tetra Brik packaging, using PE material. But Special Forces' endorser in 2015 was Li Xiaolu. Setting aside the coconut juice, Li Xiaolu's image can indeed reflect the product's fresh-squeezed feature. But Susa's coconut juice brand is called Special Forces, using Marine Corps camouflage colors. The endorser has nothing to do with the main brand or main color, adding no value to the product. If they really want an endorser, why not choose Wang Baoqiang, Duan Yihong, Li Chen, or Wu Jing, who have played special forces? These people have positive images and fit the brand. By the way, about Huanlejia: their packaging actually imitates Special Forces, but to show difference, they changed the main color to blue. Not to mention the difference between blue and coconut juice color, the fresh-squeezed concept has already been proposed by Susa. Huanlejia's mention is basically blatant plagiarism. As for the leading brand issue, consumers don't really care. The entire packaging and concept have no talking points. As for the claimed high growth in 2014-2015, it was just national recruitment of distributors, releasing channel inventory too early. The biggest problem in 2016 is sell-through. Drink and then speed? This positive energy must be criticized! Here I'm not criticizing the pseudo-concept of positive energy, but rather the media advertisement of Lehu. In the "Gas Station" ad, after drinking Lehu, the speedometer jumps to 260 mph! Who shot this ad? Who approved it? Is the company encouraging speeding? Is the so-called positive energy about speeding after drinking? Companies and products with such wrong concepts are dangerous to consumers. Mismatched products exist in the beverage industry, and even more in other industries. How to formalize, professionalize, differentiate products, and study target consumers should be the homework for enterprises. About the author: Chen Xingjun, 13 years of experience in the FMCG industry, served domestic first-line FMCG brands for many years, and is an expert in solving channel problems. Currently the Marketing Director of Beijing Shengxiong Brand Marketing Agency. -END- The best FMCG distributor learning platform in China Focusing on providing professional, practical, and actionable tutorials for enterprises and distributors Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry Reply with the red number below to get the corresponding content Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base | 001 Excellent article selection | 002 Distributor market operations | 003 Terminal visit management | 004 Sales supervisor skills | 005 Sales improvement techniques | 006 Channel expansion | 007 Managing distributors | 008 Distributor development | 009 Distributor internal operations management | 010 Team management | 011 Efficient distribution techniques | 012 Sales manager's eighteen skills | 013 KA operation methods and strategies | 014 First lesson for new salespeople | 015 Internet, brand | 016 Distributor B2B transformation | [Long press QR code to follow]