Click the image for details In the two months before the Spring Festival, jokes about Six Walnuts were everywhere. The jokes basically fall into two categories: 1. The dispute over the annual sales of Yangyuan Six Walnuts: According to the prospectus submitted by Yangyuan on December 21, 2016, the sales revenue for the first half of 2016 was 3.98864 billion yuan, from which the full-year sales revenue for 2016 is estimated to be between 9 and 10 billion yuan. This is the first official disclosure by Yangyuan. 2. The "creativity" of counterfeit products of Yangyuan Six Walnuts: Six Hundred Million Walnuts, Six Walnuts, Six Fruit Walnuts, Six Big Walnuts... Walnuts are flooding the market! Yangyuan, which keeps a low profile, remains tight-lipped. For the management, instead of arguing with rumors, it is better to plan the next steps as the leader in the plant protein beverage category. No one can guarantee that a hit product that has been lucky enough to continue to grow. Steadily promoting the production capacity and sales of Six Walnuts is the real task. Brands that are flashy often do not achieve a perfect ending of sustainable development in China's FMCG industry. It is believed that Yangyuan's senior management has always been highly aware of this. Reviewing the success of the Six Walnuts brand, it is not difficult to find typical Chinese-style marketing characteristics:
1. Seize the category, use small to win big;
2. Label communication, first to speak wins;
3. After tasting the sweetness, lack of stamina. Seize the category, use small to win big: Yangyuan was not the pioneer of walnut or plant protein beverages, but it was able to surpass its peers and become synonymous with walnut milk, thanks to the courage of the Yao team. It is admirable to break away from Hengshui Laobaigan and start anew. It is also a clever move to seize the weakness of Lulu and quickly take advantage of it. Using the concept of brain nourishment to enter the student segment, and using the inherent resources of the liquor channel to develop catering/community/schools are all excellent moves in differentiated marketing. The brand name Six Walnuts determines that Yangyuan needs to fight a long-term walnut war. Using the raw material name directly as the brand name has both advantages and disadvantages. But there is no doubt that this naming method requires the brand to play the role of a benchmark in the category. However, Yangyuan has never deliberately strengthened the image of "walnut expert" from the beginning: whether it is the origin of walnut raw materials, ingredient introduction, processing technology, taste design, flavor blending, and other brand asset cultivation, to form regional and competitive advantages over other competitors. This can be seen from the product R&D investment listed in its prospectus. Successfully defending a category is much harder than seizing it, and evolving from category advantage to brand assets is the real beginning of the show—this means that consumers begin to clearly understand the rational attributes (consumption timing) and emotional value (emotional satisfaction) of the brand in their minds. If even Six Walnuts cannot clearly explain the value of walnuts to consumers, it undoubtedly leaves an opportunity for later challengers, especially those super big brands. Label communication, first to speak wins: "Brain nourishment" + "exams" + "Luyu" + "CCTV and satellite TV ads" + "ace variety shows" are all bold moves, and the effect is immediate. For brands that surround cities from rural areas, this tactic works repeatedly during the expansion period. But companies should be wary of: Do not overdraw the literal meaning of "walnut brain nourishment" and ignore the connection, development, and cultivation of the product itself with consumers' consumption timing. Do not overemphasize functions and effects that the product cannot promise, as it may lead to unnecessary negative impacts. After all, walnut brain nourishment is not the same as taurine refreshing; one is a vague folk legend, the other is an immediate functional response. What Six Walnuts really needs to do is to clearly expand "brain use moments" from the "exam season" to more timely occasions and situations, and truly define the concept label to meet the needs of more segmented groups. This is the way to improve the current obvious off-season and peak season, and to consolidate the competitive advantage barrier of Six Walnuts in the plant protein milk category. After tasting the sweetness, lack of stamina: In the years from 0 to 10 billion, Six Walnuts has done well in communication and sales, with strong execution. Especially the sales team's channel terminal execution, the use of inherent liquor sales resources, and the development and monitoring of outlets are commendable. But due to the shortcomings in product and brand planning, the sales force is in an awkward position: all the sales work has been done, but performance may lack follow-up momentum. The slowdown in sales velocity in many regions during this Spring Festival is a typical manifestation of "insufficient marketing, hard selling." Many Chinese brands fail here when sprinting from 10 billion to 20 billion. After all, it is a large plate carrying more than 1,500 distributors and 1 million terminal outlets. If the coordination among brand power, product power, and sales power is slightly off, the rhythm will be disrupted. Here, the company plays a crucial leading role. The thousands of distributors and sales forces need more than just favorable purchasing policies. Only by accurately predicting consumer demand and reflecting it in competitive advantages in product and brand power can they release regional profitability throughout the sales process. In recent years, the development of China's FMCG industry has been quite confusing, and the past smooth dividends have disappeared one by one. Therefore, as a successful case, Six Walnuts hopes to accumulate strength and steadily achieve its long-cherished wish of reaching 10 billion, which means: more terminal outlets can see Six Walnuts, more frequent repeat purchases occur, and more consumers with purchasing power and higher quality requirements become loyal to the brand. This emerging category is becoming increasingly competitive due to the entry of first-line brands such as Yili and Mengniu. In the ambient yogurt category, Bright's Mosilian is the pioneer brand, but because it neglected to establish a complete multi-level product purchase and consumption timing, channel distribution management resources, and real-time execution capability supervision in the national market, it was eventually overtaken by Yili's Anmuxi. Putting aside the jokes flying around, the next step for Six Walnuts is undoubtedly to achieve higher sales performance goals. The author's strategic suggestions for Yangyuan management to urgently improve include: 1. Product competitiveness Let the product speak for itself, not hearsay. Walnuts are not a rarity in China. Although there is a traditional perception of "like nourishes like," its influence on different consumer segments varies. Take "Wahaha Nutrition Express" as an example: fifteen years ago, consumers would pay for thick, sweet taste, but today's urban young consumers would reject it after reading the ingredient list. Therefore, whether Yangyuan can clearly define the definition of high-quality walnut milk in product R&D to give different consumers a legitimate reason for brain nourishment is a required course for the category leader. The craftsmanship spirit of many century-old brands in Europe, America, and Japan is exactly what Yangyuan should learn from at this time. 2. Segmentation of consumer groups Modern people do overuse their brains, which is closely related to modern lifestyles. Walnut milk should not only be a study companion bought by parents for students, nor just a decent gift for Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival from younger to older generations. 365 days a year, segmenting different brain use/nourishment consumption occasions for different groups is the most practical way to improve market performance: Promising brain nourishment occasions for office workers will motivate urban supermarkets and convenience stores to make money; promising the elderly to compete with grandchildren in wits will make young couples replenish supplies regularly... The segmentation of consumer needs is the source of sales velocity. 3. Emotional bond in communication Add emotional propositions to brand assets: Echo consumption occasions, so that brain nourishment is no longer so utilitarian. Brain nourishment is not necessarily scoring 100 on every exam, but a remedy to relieve psychological pressure in high-pressure modern life, which no one can escape. Many current life scenarios have extremely resonant communication soil. By using brain, nourishing brain, releasing, and relieving, we can further win audience attention and interaction, allowing every brain-burning consumer to participate in the Six Walnuts communication platform. This is the strongest brain of marketing. 4. Marketing leads, sales support On the above basis, help sales channel outlet types diversify, forming more effective distribution and sales velocity possibilities. At the same time, align with the multiple consumer groups and consumption occasions at the marketing level, helping channel distributors sell goods more smartly. In any case, as a type of beverage, Six Walnuts cannot escape the basic attributes of the FMCG industry: consumers' random and impulsive consumption behavior. This makes the sales process must subtly touch the contact points most likely to sell goods, and guide consumers' purchase reasons accordingly. Under this, every sales outlet that can effectively close a deal becomes crucial. In the FMCG industry, the control of inventory pressure is crucial. But the premise is to press the right product, the right people, the right outlets, and the right confidence of distributors in the brand. Otherwise, sales performance is like looking at flowers in the fog or the moon in the water. Marketing strategies will also be high-sounding talk in the meeting room, lacking the soil to turn into real sales. Haobo Chief Marketing Officer and General Manager of East China Region, Moli Interconnect WeChat: hopekong China's first generation of foreign advertising industry practitioners; More than 21 years of experience in marketing and brand communication. Moli Interconnect Is an integrated service provider of full-process sales management cloud solution systems. The service team is composed of domestic and foreign experts in marketing management, mobile technology, enterprise informatization, big data analysis, etc., providing professional and complete services from informatization consulting, system planning, system development, operation and maintenance, to after-sales. Long press the fingerprint > Identify the QR code > Add follow Official website: www.fbi-china.com Source: Sales A (ID: realsales)******** -END-