Nongfu Spring listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 8, with a peak market value of HK$445.292 billion, comparable to 2.5 Mengniu, 1.5 Yili, or nearly 5 Master Kong. But Zhong Shanshan, jokingly called the "half-hour richest man" by the media, remains extremely low-key, so low-key that the media can't even stir up topics. Even on the day of the listing, the company was as usual; Zhong Shanshan and his employees were still busy, almost no different from any other day. So Nongfu Spring shows no signs of slowing down, and shortly after listing, it released its first new product—Dongdong Tea. It's both jelly and tea. Made from "jelly powder," Dongdong Tea relies on the combination of jelly and tea to complete Nongfu Spring's first appearance after listing. In terms of packaging, Dongdong Tea continues the cup form and packaging style of Tea π, emphasizing the product concept of 0 fat, 0 preservatives, and low sugar. This time, Dongdong Tea mainly made two moves: adopting combinatorial innovation and aligning with the sugar-free trend. For the FMCG industry, especially the beverage industry, the ultimate goal of product combinatorial innovation is mainly to create new categories, because new categories have three functions—
1. Stimulate curiosity and gain attention.
2. Capture new demographics and meet new needs.
3. Establish new standards and seize new mindshare. As for aligning with the sugar-free trend, the answer is obvious. There are not many outstanding brands in sugar-free tea drinks, and the health and social needs behind sugar-free have been cultivated from niche to mass demand by major brands in recent years. Dongdong Tea has perfectly caught this trend. Of course, excellent distributors and industry practitioners understand that creating new categories and seizing new trends is very important, but when a product like Dongdong Tea appears before us, we seem to not know how to analyze it or whether it can help us overcome challenges in the channel and market. We also don't know how to judge whether Dongdong Tea can, like Genki Forest in recent years, establish a firm foothold in consumer minds, become a truly new category, and become the category leader. Perhaps we can discuss Dongdong Tea through several dimensions, and in these discussions, re-understand Dongdong Tea, re-understand Nongfu Spring, and even re-adjust the way you view products and companies. -01- Dimension 1: Is the product concept valid? Organisms exist in the world and need a unique ecological niche. Rats, oxen, tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes, horses, sheep... each type of organism forms a unique way of survival amid constantly changing factors such as living environment and competitors. This way of survival, based on the world, is the ecological niche. Under this understanding, life in the world is like products in the business world; products also need to find an ecological niche to survive. Whether a product concept has a foothold can be tested with three sentences— Who are you;
What's different;
How do you prove it. Who is Dongdong Tea? Fruit tea + jelly. What's different about Dongdong Tea? It can satisfy cravings. How do you prove it? I don't know... because the product packaging doesn't give clear information. So, Dongdong Tea doesn't seem to have a solid foothold in product concept. However, a sentence in the media's introduction to Dongdong Tea gave a direction—a tea that can be chewed. "Chew" is a very key word, highlighting the texture. When "chew" and "jelly" are put together, the first sensation that comes to consumers' minds is Q-elasticity. In the entire food and beverage field, texture marketing must be studied as the most important part, because compared to taste and appearance, the associations and sensory impact that texture can bring are the strongest. -02- Dimension 2: Who are the users and where are they? The most common user classification is that many companies like to use labels such as young people, post-90s, and office workers to casually define target users. Behind this behavior lies the laziness and greed of enterprises, which can be translated into one sentence— I want to satisfy everyone's needs with one product. It's not impossible, unless you are Durex. Users are living people; they like this today and hate that tomorrow. Observing them from a business perspective, they are composed of one need after another. So we just need to change our perspective, treat users as a collection of needs, and the question of where Dongdong Tea's users are becomes simple. What need does Dongdong Tea actually satisfy? The existence of Dongdong Tea does not solve the problem of product structure, because in FMCG, product differences are very small; it does not solve the problem of customer retention, because the FMCG industry finds it hard to win back lost users... I believe Dongdong Tea essentially solves the problem of Nongfu Spring's brand communication. From the packaging design, it can be seen that Dongdong Tea's packaging design belongs to the same series design style as Tea π's new packaging, which does not highlight the product's own characteristics but rather strengthens the unity of the series products. If we are industry practitioners, how should we cooperate with the company to do brand communication? This requires returning to the real purchase scenario and finding the resonance point between brand marketing and user needs. We must know that when you stand in front of the shelf and pick up a bottle of tea, you are not choosing a flavor, but seeing which brand responds to your psychological expectations. -03- Dimension 3: In what scenario would I buy it? What is a scenario? So far, I think Teacher Liang Ning's explanation is relatively accurate— "Field" is time and space. A field is time plus space, where users can stay and consume. If a person cannot stay or consume in a certain space, that field is non-existent or invalid. "Scene" is context and interaction. When users stay in this space, there must be context and interaction to trigger users' emotions and co-opt their opinions. Where is Dongdong Tea's "field"? We'll talk about that later. Where is Dongdong Tea's "scene"? On the packaging. In the FMCG industry, the most critical function of conveying information cannot bypass packaging. Although the internet has broadened the channels for content display, packaging is the last link for consumers to receive information. Dongdong Tea directly uses Chinese-style illustration as the packaging background, which actually doesn't do much to stimulate purchase. Although under international events such as the pandemic and Sino-foreign conflicts, national identity will persist for a long time, and the concept and style of Chinese-style trends will remain popular for a considerable period. The biggest role of scenario display is to trigger emotions. As the Chinese-style trend becomes increasingly mediocre and homogeneous, the public's aesthetic fatigue will give Dongdong Tea a real answer. Fortunately, Dongdong Tea's role is not to help Nongfu Spring solve product problems. So the unity of packaging design style is more important for Dongdong Tea than highlighting the scenario! If it were you, how would you choose to display the scenario on the packaging? -04- Dimension 4: How to experience my product better and more simply? When it comes to experience, we must return to human senses. When a product appears before me, how are my "eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body" mobilized? After the experience, what perception do I retain about the product, and can this perception provide impetus for my subsequent repurchase? As a standalone product, Dongdong Tea does not bring outstanding visual and associative experiences; the information on the packaging cannot bring visual impact. But as a product for brand communication, the experience it brings may be phenomenal. This is the participatory experience that product attributes bring to Dongdong Tea. Inheriting Nongfu Orchard's "shake before drinking," Dongdong Tea launched the slogan "the more you shake, the more broken." This experience can trigger two communication factors—1. Challenge; 2. Imitation. This is also the mechanism designed by short video platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou, guiding KOLs to initiate challenges and attracting video creators to imitate, such as—shake three times, see who shakes it the most broken... -05- Dimension 5: A memory point that reminds you of it when you see it IP doesn't have a precise definition. It can be a phrase, like Teacher Yu Qian's smoking, drinking, and perming; it can be a style, like the Chinese-style trend; it can be a topic, like the Forbidden City co-branding; it can be an image, like Three Squirrels; or even an action, like Nongfu Orchard's shake before drinking. The essence of IP is to help consumers remember your product or brand faster and more deeply. Dongdong Tea doesn't intend to develop IP in terms of product, at least not in the short term, but the two product-related points of jelly and "the more you shake, the more broken" can easily create creative IP related to the product. Using "shake" as IP, mobilizing people's initial memories of the Nongfu Spring brand, the foothold of brand communication becomes more solid, and consumers' experience becomes focused and rich. Focused on the participation of "shake," enriched by the nostalgia of "shake," this is the power of IP. -06- Dimension 6: Let at least 6-7 types of people see you Let more people see you, but spread the word around your product core; otherwise, even if you become a viral ad, it won't help. Here, just one example is enough: China Merchants Bank's tear-jerking viral ad—Tomato Fried Eggs. It moved everyone but failed to make people remember China Merchants Bank. Dongdong Tea's communication can start entirely from the product experience, which is the aforementioned "the more you shake, the more broken." Since you only have this one strong experience, why not make it detailed and thorough. Many companies like to evenly distribute marketing budgets. This behavior seems stable, but it's actually very dangerous. The best way is to focus on the product's core experience, first spend a large portion of money on a big event, and then use the remaining money to implement around this event. Let others quickly know you, and then do communication. Conclusion: Overall, the existence of Dongdong Tea is to form a series product combination with other products, helping Nongfu Spring solve brand communication problems. If treated as an independent product, it can neither solve the problem of category innovation breakthrough nor help Nongfu Spring solve sales problems, but its greatest contribution is to temporarily help Nongfu Spring occupy the category awareness of fruit tea + jelly and make new breakthroughs and attempts for industry innovation. So, the most direct way to analyze a product is to first see which type of problem it solves for the enterprise—
Does it solve product-related problems, such as product iteration, supplementing product structure, etc...
Does it solve brand-related problems, such as helping with brand positioning, operation, or communication strategy (Dongdong Tea is this type).
Does it solve customer-related problems, such as winning back lost users, but for FMCG, this is almost the most difficult and challenging task. Once you determine the problem the product can solve, you can roughly judge at the first moment—where the users are, whether the scenario is appropriate, whether the experience is in place, whether IP is needed, and where the focus of communication is.