---
title: "FMCG Calls for 'High-Level Deep Distribution'"
description: "As internet dividends fade and online profits dwindle, FMCG companies are increasingly returning to offline channels. Marketing expert Liu Chunxiong proposes 'high-level deep distribution' as a response, emphasizing promotion over mere coverage, and using China Resources Snow Breweries' 'Five Points One Line' methodology as a successful example."
author: "陈思廷"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2022-09-13"
language: "en"
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# FMCG Calls for 'High-Level Deep Distribution'

> As internet dividends fade and online profits dwindle, FMCG companies are increasingly returning to offline channels. Marketing expert Liu Chunxiong proposes 'high-level deep distribution' as a response, emphasizing promotion over mere coverage, and using China Resources Snow Breweries' 'Five Points One Line' methodology as a successful example.

**01 Deep Distribution Evolves into the High-Level Era**
"High-level deep distribution" is a new concept coined by renowned marketing expert Liu Chunxiong during a recent visit to Jiangxiaobai, in discussion with Jiangxiaobai's Lao Tao.
This term is used because, on one hand, the essence of deep distribution operations remains unchanged; on the other hand, deep distribution is well-understood, making the term accessible.
With the disappearance of internet dividends and the difficulty of profiting online, there is a growing call for FMCG to return to and rebuild their offline foundation. Teacher Liu's "high-level deep distribution" responds to this call and serves as the best refinement and summary of effective tactics for rebuilding the offline base.
Teacher Liu's concept of "high-level deep distribution" contains at least two layers of meaning.
First, deep distribution remains the most effective model for offline market conquest. For FMCG companies to establish a strong offline presence and strengthen their base, no other model can currently replace deep distribution.
This is an important judgment. We cannot conclude that "deep distribution has failed" simply because our own operations are not working well, sales are poor, or profits are elusive.
Second, if there is "high-level deep distribution," there must be a corresponding "low-level deep distribution." What marketers perceive as failure is the simple, mechanical, and outdated "low-level deep distribution."
Both belong to the deep distribution family, but they differ significantly, and in many ways may even be opposites.

**02 Differences Between High-Level and Low-Level Deep Distribution**
**First, the core operation is completely different.**
High-level deep distribution is a system centered on "promotion," while low-level, or traditional, deep distribution is centered on "coverage."
Different cores lead to vastly different outcomes. In the past, it was an era of channel hegemony; whatever the terminal sold, you roughly had to buy. The more visual presence you occupied, the greater the chance of being chosen. Thus, the core purpose of deep distribution was to make products "visible everywhere and accessible at hand."
Today, we are in an era of consumer sovereignty, with FMCG products achieving a certain abundance. If your brand and products haven't left an impression in consumers' minds, they will likely "see but not notice, hear but not listen," which is why many marketers feel deep distribution has failed.
Therefore, high-level deep distribution operates with the core of "using terminals as a base to conduct effective brand and product promotion activities targeting consumers."

**Second, organizational models and functions are completely different.**
In low-level deep distribution, the frontline is a purely channel sales team, with core functions of distribution, shelf placement, and repeated cycles.
In high-level deep distribution, the frontline significantly reduces the sales team and strengthens the promotion team. Previously, the frontline focused on sales, often operating individually. Now, with promotion as the core, team-based and joint operations are the main forms. Moreover, high-level deep distribution requires headquarters to continuously provide frontline teams with promotional creativity, methods, and tools.

**Third, system and data capability requirements are completely different.**
Low-level deep distribution is fragmented and extensive, focusing on market breadth, where wasting resources is inevitable and normal.
High-level deep distribution is precise and quality-oriented, focusing on specific points, where every resource is useful and efficient.
Consequently, the demands on a company's system and data capabilities are vastly different. The former may only need an SFA sales system, while the latter requires consumer profiles, behavioral data, and comprehensive terminal data as support.
A company with weak system and data capabilities cannot effectively operate the relatively complex "high-level deep distribution" model.

**03 Understanding High-Level Deep Distribution Through Snow Beer's "Five Points One Line"**
"Five Points One Line" was personally proposed by Hou Xiaohai, CEO of China Resources Snow Breweries, as the core methodology to guide Snow Beer's high-end strategy. It has been the greatest weapon in Snow Beer's consecutive victories in the high-end battle in recent years.
When Mr. Hou proposed the "Five Points One Line" methodology, the term "high-level deep distribution" did not exist, but we find that "Five Points One Line" is almost a perfect practice of it. Clearly, in marketing, practice has once again outpaced theory. The following content is mainly derived from Mr. Hou's thoughts and speeches.
The "Five Points" refer to the strategic product at the core, around which five key points emerge: "people, product, customers, commanding heights, and channel marketing." The "One Line" means to thoroughly execute these five points, threading them together.

**First, people are the most important.**
Without professional and capable people, problems cannot be solved. Talent selection, development, utilization, and retention are extremely critical here.
Many managers make mistakes in selection, afraid to bring in people stronger than themselves. Their talk of "team" often becomes an excuse to avoid recruiting true talent.
True talent can bring tremendous change. For example, if your company wants to attack a new market, finding the right person can achieve the effect of "bringing in one person, securing a district of stores, and generating a volume of sales."

**Second, a good product is the foundation.**
Even with professional people, lacking good weapons is insufficient. A good product is the most powerful weapon to attract consumers and defeat competitors.
Look at the large single products still thriving at billions in scale today—aren't they all classics in quality, taste, and appearance?
Without a good product as a weapon, even the best marketing strategy will be short-lived.

**Third, quality distributor customers.**
With capable people and sharp tools, but lacking strong customers with resources, even the best products cannot enter desired terminals or hold their ground once inside.
Major customers control many resources, including mid-to-high-end terminal resources, brand resources, and social resources. If your company targets the mid-to-high-end market, without high-end major customers, you cannot solve the problem of entering target terminals.

**Fourth, commanding height terminals are the main battlefield, core stage, and final battleground.**
The terminals where our brand's target consumers gather and consume are our main sales positions, the core stage for brand display and promotion, and the final battlefield for market conquest. Only by seizing the commanding height terminals—the "ox nose"—can we grasp everything.
Snow Beer once proposed the "Thousand Streets, Ten Thousand Stores" plan, referring to commanding height terminals. It does not mean a thousand streets and ten thousand stores, but rather the image terminals and image districts within commanding heights, including internet-famous stores, experience stores, specialty stores, chain stores, and food streets, style streets, crayfish streets, barbecue streets, etc. "Thousand Streets, Ten Thousand Stores" is a symbol representing key commanding height locations.

**Fifth, channel marketing is the final step to complete consumer promotion.**
Snow Beer's channel marketing is often also called terminal marketing.
With people, products, and customers in place, and access to stores, without channel marketing—lacking in-store activities, brand promotion, product experience, and communication with consumers—you cannot achieve a good consumption experience, build a beloved brand, or secure sales at commanding heights.
Thus, the "Five Points One Line" are mutually foundational and indispensable, with a complete logic and sequence.
First, without people, nothing works; people come first. Then product, customers, commanding heights, and channel marketing, all connected from left to right; missing any link prevents final sales.
If people are inadequate, nothing can be accomplished; if the product is poor, even capable people will struggle to find good customers, let alone enter stores; if people and product are good but customers are not, entering high-end stores is difficult, and even if entered, commanding heights cannot be secured.
If people, product, and customers are all in place but commanding heights are not captured, it's like fishing for the moon in water. Even after entering commanding heights, will sales follow? Certainly not. Without brand activities, precision marketing, or consumption experiences, who will consume? This requires channel marketing.
Therefore, breaking through the "Five Points" into "One Line" opens the channel from our brand products to consumers, breaking through market barriers.
The success of Snow Beer's "Five Points One Line" confirms and interprets the immense power of "high-level deep distribution" in the market. In fact, many excellent brand companies have explored their own paths of "high-level deep distribution" in practice.
For example, Meijian plum wine has risen abruptly in the past three years, galloping ahead, reviving a traditional Chinese product that had nearly faded into history. Currently, Meijian plum wine has precisely covered hundreds of thousands of terminals nationwide, rapidly exceeding one billion yuan in scale, becoming the category champion and the most outstanding representative of "old flavor, new life" in reviving traditional products. Meijian's high-level deep distribution system also aligns with the underlying logic of Snow Beer's "Five Points One Line" methodology.
Deep distribution centered on "coverage" is destined to fade; high-level deep distribution centered on "promotion" is destined to shine brightly.


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