From Perrier and Schweppes to colas, the stimulating, refreshing, and addictive appeal of bubbles has made sparkling beverages a global phenomenon. Amid health trends, sugary carbonated drinks saw sluggish growth, but in recent years, giants like cola brands have sought category extensions and crossovers toward health. This has made low-sugar, low-calorie sparkling beverages an irreversible new trend. New trends bring new competition. In the new marketing environment, how can new sparkling beverage products identify innovation directions? How can new products and brands seize entry opportunities? How can new brands achieve long-term success after their initial spotlight? The theme this time is "Fancy Bubbles: An Irreversible New Trend" , so today's sharing topic is to discuss with you some research insights from the Zhuopu Brand Marketing Research Team on the rapidly heating-up emerging beverage category of "sparkling beverages." Let's explore together:
**1. What drivers are fueling the rapid development of sparkling beverages?****2. What's their staying power?****3. Let's look at the blockbuster products in sparkling beverages—what underlying innovation logic do they have?****4. What commonalities are worth borrowing?**5. What inspirations do they offer for the growth of other new beverage products? Why has there been an explosion of "fancy bubbles" in the beverage industry? Currently, China's beverage market has formed a 5+N category structure. Among these major categories—including bottled water, protein drinks, tea drinks, juices, carbonated drinks, sports and energy drinks, and coffee—only carbonated drinks with gas are an independent category; other gas-containing categories are not separately classified. For a long time, most Chinese consumers equated sparkling beverages with carbonated drinks. When the concept of sparkling water emerged over a decade ago, it was the exclusive name for naturally carbonated mineral water. The representative brand is Perrier, with its green glass bottle, which entered the Chinese market 30 years ago. Initially, it was expensive (about 20-30 yuan per bottle) and only available in limited channels such as five-star hotels, bars, and high-end supermarkets, giving it an image of nobility and rarity. In recent years, the meaning of sparkling water has expanded to include soda water and gas-containing near-water beverages. Many consumers even consider soda water to be sparkling water. Overall, for a long time, people's understanding of sparkling water was essentially equivalent to "gas-containing, nearly colorless and tasteless beverages." With changes in the demands of new consumer groups in beverages in recent years, new products have been launched continuously, and brands have shown endless creativity in marketing. So now the understanding of gas-containing beverages is becoming broader, and basically, all major categories originally divided in the beverage industry have begun to see new gas-containing subcategories. Thus, recently, another perception has emerged: what consumers now call sparkling beverages specifically refers to new, healthier gas-containing drinks other than old carbonated drinks like cola. It seems the concept of "sparkling beverages" is meant to draw a clear line from carbonated drinks, which appear less healthy. In the past two to three years, major beverage companies have rushed to launch new gas-containing drinks. For example, sparkling juices . Uni-President's "Da Qi," Huiyuan's "95° Black," and Nongfu Spring's "Bubble Tea" are all sparkling juice categories; Coca-Cola's new product "Appletiser," with the Chinese name "Huanledi," is a "99% high-concentration sparkling juice" that combines the wonderful taste of real juice with the fun element of bubbles. 100% juice is healthy, carbonation is cool, combining health and fashion, which is easily accepted by the younger generation. For example, sparkling coffee . Luckin Coffee and 7-Eleven have both launched sparkling coffee, and even KFC has sparkling coffee. Now domestic FMCG giants Yili and Nongfu Spring have launched their own sparkling coffee products. These sparkling coffees emphasize cold-brew technology to ensure taste, promoting sugar-free, fat-free or low-sugar, low-fat health claims. There are also sparkling sports energy drinks like Monster and War Horse, as well as sparkling protein drinks already launched abroad, which are believed to appear in the domestic market soon. Among sparkling beverages, the fastest-growing and most new-product-launching category is gas-containing near-water beverages . The representative product is Genki Forest's Yuanqi Water, which promotes "0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calories," with moderate sweetness and fruit flavor, and the slogan "No sugar, with gas, drink Yuanqi Water." It is very popular among young consumers and is called "healthy cola." At the same time, beverage giants such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Evian, Yili, Tsingtao Beer, Starbucks, and Vita Coco have all launched new gas-containing near-water beverage products in the Chinese market recently. So, from the actual market performance, we can clearly see that gas-containing drinks have expanded from initially just naturally carbonated mineral water and soda water to gas-containing near-water beverages and fruit-flavored drinks, and now to gas-containing pure juices, sparkling coffee, and sparkling protein drinks. It seems we are entering a period of blossoming fancy sparkling beverages. In the past two years, media headlines often feature topics like "Sparkling beverages will become the new windfall in the beverage industry" or "Sparkling water will be the next big single product." Here, we won't discuss whether the so-called windfall or big single product is appropriate or whether it might mislead corporate marketing planning. We can explore the phenomenon of blossoming sparkling beverages from another dimension: Why did sparkling water take 20 years after entering China to explode in the past two years? In the beverage industry, with fierce competition and relatively fixed patterns, where big brands once dominated, why did a phenomenal new brand like Genki Forest emerge recently? Many factors drive industry change, including technological innovation, organizational innovation, and model innovation. It's hard to analyze them one by one, so here, the Zhuopu research team only explores some market factors driving the prosperity of sparkling beverages from the brand marketing dimension. **-01- **Collective Rise in Health Awareness From Dingxiang Doctor's "2019 National Health Insight Report," we noted these data: In terms of life attitudes , when comparing physical health with wealth and work, 93% of the public believe physical health is the most important thing, with "happy family" and "mental health" ranking second and third. The public's emphasis on health far exceeds "having wealth" and "satisfying work." In knowledge acquisition , dietary nutrition knowledge accounts for the highest proportion at 67%. Paying attention to body shape is not low, with nearly half of the people having dieted in the past year. And weight loss is no longer exclusive to women; 42% of men have also dieted, with more men joining the ranks of maintaining their figure. Attention to physical health, specifically reflected in beverage demand, is the rejection of high sugar, high calories, and high fat, vigilance against artificial additives, and preference for beverages with natural ingredients and healthy components. **-02- **Big Brands Are No Longer "Hardcore" In the past three years, the top five brands in most categories have almost all lost market share; Zooming out to the entire beverage market, it's not hard to see that the absolute leadership of former industry leaders is being challenged, becoming a common phenomenon. Overall, the original industry giants in the Chinese market still hold a relatively leading position in the domestic beverage market, but with the fragmentation of consumer market regions, the overall competitive landscape of the beverage market is intensifying, industry concentration is decreasing, and the marginal benefits of channel dividends have emerged. Especially for mainstream brands deeply rooted in traditional channels, relying on existing brands to extract incremental growth from channels is now very difficult. As big brands like Wahaha, Uni-President, Master Kong, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo gradually weaken their control over the market and traditional channels, many new brands and products have gained opportunities for development. **-03- Consumer Diversification in the Context of "Life Online" The rapid development of mobile internet, from early "information online" to today's "life online," has made consumers' information sources diverse, product choices numerous, and purchase channels varied, greatly increasing the possibility of consumers having different consumption needs for the same type of product; At the same time, China's vast territory and uneven development are also important factors causing consumers in the same region to have different consumption needs for the same type of product. There is now a saying: "The new era of beverage consumption—the era of smallness—is coming." It is precisely due to the fragmented nature of the mobile internet era that consumers' individuality has been greatly unleashed, directly affecting consumption behavior and creating fragmented needs, thus giving rise to "the era of smallness in beverages—niche products, niche brands." In today's marketing context, "niche" is completely different from its meaning in the traditional marketing era: today's "niche products" do not pursue the "smallness" of audience numbers, but rather the "small portion" of mass demand. So, in the past, there was no niche; the so-called niche was merely "mass products with smaller sales volumes"; **In the future, there will be no mass; the so-called mass is merely "cross-border popular niche." The brand influence of niche products will surpass their sales volumes; this will be the norm in the future. That is to say, in the current environment, products that enter the market by meeting small needs of the mass population are definitely "wearing the coat of niche, but with the core of mass." **-04- **The "Taste Consumption" of the New Generation of Consumers Although this factor is listed last, it is actually the most important. Because the subject of marketing is people, and the core is also people, especially in the beverage industry, where consumer evolution is accelerating, and the demands for brand evolution are also increasing. According to Nielsen data, China's new generation (15-29 years old) numbers over 300 million, more than the U.S. population; compared to the overall population, their spending growth rate on food and beverages is 6.8 times that of the overall population. They are the main consumer group for beverage products. These consumers can be described in four words: "clear likes and dislikes" . Consumers born in the 60s and 70s might value cost-effectiveness, requiring good quality, good taste, good packaging, and everything else good before purchasing. But the new generation prefers products that excel in one particular aspect. If a product achieves perfection in one point, even if other aspects are slightly weaker, these consumers will still pay for it. These consumers' income and economic capacity are not very high, but compared to other age groups, they are more willing to buy foods priced above the market average, such as tea and other beverages. At the same time, these consumers rarely buy a product purely because it's cheap. So they engage in "tasteful consumption." Their consumption must reflect self-worth. Beyond the physical function of the product, it must also reflect their aesthetics, allow them to experience the joy of consumption, and align with their personality and temperament; Their consumption is very rational, not blindly following , with their own judgment standards. They need sufficient reasons—either full of personality, outstanding quality, or high cost-effectiveness; it must hit at least one. If a product can satisfy two or three reasons at once, it can make them scream; Their consumption is also a manifestation of their personal image . Sharing consumption results is a standard action; if they consume without sharing, they feel the money was wasted. So, whether driven by the beverage industry's own innovation or induced by external factors in the consumer market, the reality of fancy sparkling beverages has objectively been promoted. The beverage industry seems to have entered a new era of "no beverage without bubbles." The "bubbling" phenomenon in beverages can be seen as a fashion trend. This is precisely an important marketing measure for these beverage brands to respond to the demand trends of young consumer groups, and an expression of brand rejuvenation in line with consumption trends. With sparkling beverages as a product handle that more easily attracts young consumers' attention, it is inevitably more conducive to brand rejuvenation and helps companies find marketing breakthroughs targeting young consumers! In the current new marketing era of market diversity and consumption diversification , the product logic of "one Spring Festival Gala satisfying the whole nation" is no longer applicable. The opportunity to build a brand or company with a single product is rare. The possibility of another Wanglaoji or Red Bull-sized enterprise is increasingly slim, but dozens or even hundreds of emerging beverage brands like Genki Forest, Saturdan, Yixiaonian, and Hankou No.2 Factory will appear. Only beverage brands that satisfy the different needs, small categories, and small emotions of the mass population will win opportunities for future market development. Source: Zhuopu Brand Marketing Group (ID: GEOPOE) Tips: 400-2000 yuan will be paid once the tip is adopted.