The Apparent and Hidden Aspects of Success

A friend once talked to me about Jiangxiaobai, saying he wanted to learn from their approach to product development. I told him not to rush, that he needed to understand the core essence of Jiangxiaobai's success. Without that understanding, blindly imitating would only lead to an awkward situation.

Most of us, when talking about Jiangxiaobai, would say their success is due to the copy on the bottle. But have you ever considered that writing copy on bottles has been done for many years?

For example, there is a snack brand in Yunnan called Maoduoli. Their snack bags are printed with many interesting slogans. Their tagline was created by the famous Lansheng Advertising back then: "Idle mouth, dangerous."

The copy on Maoduoli's snack bags is also very interesting. Let's look at the big screen to appreciate it:

Around 2012, Lansheng created this advertisement for Maoduoli and began writing copy on the packaging. In my opinion, the copy is truly excellent. But why hasn't Maoduoli become as popular as Jiangxiaobai (even though their business is doing well)?

I coined a term called the apparent and hidden aspects of success. The apparent aspects are the factors that everyone knows or thinks they know, such as Jiangxiaobai's expression bottles. The hidden aspects are the factors that people don't know or overlook.

Jiangxiaobai's expression bottles indeed contributed to its success and played a significant role. But this is a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. If you decide to write even more brilliant expressions, can you surpass Jiangxiaobai?

The answer is: not necessarily.

What you don't know is that Jiangxiaobai has the ability to quickly distribute its products to millions of restaurants across the country. Every consumer who knows Jiangxiaobai, when they want to have a drink with friends, Jiangxiaobai is right there waiting for them to buy. It's not like you say, "I want to drink Jiangxiaobai," and the owner says, "Sorry, we don't have it."

Copy is easy to learn; the teams from Qipa Shuo and Tucao Dahui can come up with 100 lines off the top of their heads. But it's useless if the store doesn't have it when you want to drink.

Take Chu Orange, for example. An old man who once dominated the scene going to plant oranges in his 70s is indeed touching, but you can't imitate Chu Orange. Fruits are typical channel-driven products, and building an independent brand is very difficult. You only see the success of Chu Orange, but you don't think about the connections, prestige, and unimaginable channel resources accumulated by Chu Shijian over decades. Even without media coverage, distributors could still buy out Chu Orange. If you want to learn from Chu Orange to build a fruit brand, what exactly are you learning?

At the end of 2013, I met an entrepreneur, and for a while, we brainstormed names for a tea brand with his team. Later, the name was decided: Xiaoguan Tea. This entrepreneur is Du Guoying.

Later, I saw many tea brands imitating Xiaoguan Tea's packaging, and I sighed inwardly. They only saw the apparent success, not the hidden aspects.

In fact, Xiaoguan Tea's success is the result of a combination of product, positioning, design, channels, and advertising, not a single factor.

The product is endorsed by eight Chinese tea masters. The positioning shapes Xiaoguan Tea as a high-end business gift in the tea category. The packaging design was done by Japanese design master Sakahara Hideo. The flagship stores were designed by the team behind Apple stores. Advertising and channels are the traditional strengths of the Xiaoguan Tea team, as they previously operated Haojixing and e-people e-book.

Even if you think the canister looks nice, you cannot achieve the fine craftsmanship of vacuum nitrogen filling and aluminum can production. If you don't understand the apparent and hidden aspects of success, you are just imitating awkwardly.

Whenever a phenomenal product or business model appears, a wave of followers emerges. However, most followers do not compare their core capabilities with the successful project.

Fan Deng Reading Club is very successful. Last year on Double 11, they sold 100 million yuan in membership fees in one day. You see this model is simple: one person gives 50 book talks a year and earns several hundred million? Let me try that too.

Do you know that Fan Deng Reading Club has over 3,000 agents nationwide? Do you know that my fellow Xi'an Jiaotong University alumnus was a key member of the national college debate champion team? Do you know that Fan Deng worked at CCTV for ten years, including hosting "Tell It Like It Is"?

If you can't see the hidden aspects of success, you can't find the path to success.

Similarly, since Dedao launched knowledge payment products, countless versions of knowledge payment products have appeared in the market. This time, it's okay; many have done quite well.

But many imitators only see the surface and don't learn the essence, so it's natural that they don't sell well.

This issue applies to individuals as well. You must not only see the apparent success of others but also understand the hidden aspects behind their success.

There are indeed successes that happen by luck, but behind most successes are hidden aspects that you overlook.

Source: Xiaoma Song (ID: zhongguowenlian), independent strategic marketing consultant, Luojisiwei marketing external brain.

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