---
title: "High-Price Competition: The Precipice Is Actually a Smooth Road"
description: "This article argues that high-price strategy, not low-price competition, is the key to success for brands facing dominant competitors or market saturation. Drawing on years of consulting experience, the author illustrates how premium pricing enables resource integration, consumer value creation, and market differentiation, citing examples like Matsushita, Shui Jing Fang, and Virgin."
author: "曾祥文"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2015-01-21"
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# High-Price Competition: The Precipice Is Actually a Smooth Road

> This article argues that high-price strategy, not low-price competition, is the key to success for brands facing dominant competitors or market saturation. Drawing on years of consulting experience, the author illustrates how premium pricing enables resource integration, consumer value creation, and market differentiation, citing examples like Matsushita, Shui Jing Fang, and Virgin.

**Tip: Click the blue text “FMCG Distributor Professional Consulting” above to learn more about marketing and distributor internal management.**

How to deal with an industry leader with high monopoly? I am already the industry leader, and market coverage has reached its peak—how to continue growing? What if product costs are higher than competitors? Channel costs are rising; doing promotions is suicide, not doing them is waiting to die—what to do? Core technology is controlled by competitors, key raw materials are controlled by competitors—can we defeat them?

Based on my over ten years of consulting experience, all strong brands are beneficiaries of some competitive model and paper tigers under other models; all brands with "four no's" (no funds, no quality cost advantage, no political backing, no brand awareness) have the potential to succeed.

Achieving success is not a one-day effort, but finding the crossroads to success is not difficult, because the signpost reads: a higher price than the strong brand.

When the price changes, the resource structure changes, opening up many possibilities.

**I. Proven Practice**

In 1993, I had been teaching at a university for seven years and was still very poor. There was a "master" named Du Jiyang who advertised heavily for "The Complete Works of Matsushita Konosuke's Management." Du claimed that anyone who finished reading it would be highly talented and could become a lifelong employee of his company, with a monthly salary of 1,000 yuan (ten times a university lecturer's salary!).

So, for the tempting 1,000 yuan, I ate pickles for half a year, saved over 200 yuan, and bought the set.

After reading it carefully, Du's company disappeared (perhaps because he was too busy selling books to read them), and the "1,000 yuan monthly salary" became a bubble. But I didn't feel cheated because I felt I gained more.

From the entire set, my deepest takeaway was Matsushita's "high-profit, high-volume" philosophy, thinking, and model. He insisted on selling high-priced batteries and light bulbs, resolutely rejecting customers' low-price temptations and resisting competitors' low-price competition. Along the way, he always defeated low prices with high prices!

In 2000, I did my first consulting for "Songchuan Enterprise Company" in Foshan, Guangdong, a food packaging machinery company with annual sales of about 60 million yuan. At that time, their product prices were about 20% higher than competitors in Wenzhou and Qingdao, and salespeople struggled.

I was hired as a marketing consultant. First, we raised prices by 100%, making them double the prices of Qingdao and Wenzhou products. Then, using the profit space from the price increase, we supported technological advancement and service improvement, implementing a "differentiated marketing" strategy, focusing on four food-enterprise-dense regions: Guangdong (Dongguan, Shantou), Chengdu, Shanghai, and Tianjin.

With the joint efforts of Chairman Huang Song, the sales team, and the technical team, performance doubled year after year. Two years later, factories were established in Shanghai Qingpu, Tianjin, and Chengdu Pengzhou, and customers in the four major food regions were basically locked in. The "industry leader" position was deeply rooted, while Qingdao and Wenzhou competitors, who were excited about low-price wars, were reduced to "gap-filling" enterprises.

This was my first experience with "price-increase marketing" and my "battle to escape poverty."

During my service to Songchuan, I happened to meet the newly formed team of Guangdong Shuijingfang, and hit it off with leaders like Jiang Jie and Zhou Peng. Our "high-price marketing" ideas inspired each other, leading to an 8-year cooperation in the baijiu industry, covering brands like Shuijingfang (almost double the price of the most expensive liquor at the time, Wuliangye), Shahewang (turning a few dozen yuan per case into 80 yuan per bottle), Wuliangye Red Sun (almost double Wuliangye's price), and Pinzhiwei (the most expensive mid-range liquor).

Industrial enterprises in Hainan are always at a cost disadvantage due to the lack of supporting enterprises on the island and being "two-headed outside" (raw materials and market outside). "Hainan Zhengye Zhongnong Hi-Tech" specializes in pesticides, and the sales team also complained about "high prices." If they priced according to the same ingredients as mainland products, Zhengye would lose money.

Chairman Wang Zhan'e heard about the "high-price marketing" theory and first asked me to give a lecture to the sales team. Regional managers laughed and said, "Professor, pesticides aren't Shuijingfang; bugs won't drink expensive pesticides for face." I smiled and replied, "Don't worry, some bugs want to die from more expensive pesticides."

We took a "two-pronged approach": existing products and channels remained unchanged, and we launched new products for "high-consumption crops" at prices 50% higher than similar products. At the same time, we expanded the technical department and moved it to high-consumption crop areas.

After half a year of exploring new terminals and new models, at the year-end distributor conference, orders from old customers remained unchanged, but orders from the new model equaled those from the old model. This meant a 100% increase in sales! Of course, the profit contribution from new customers was much higher than old customers!

Hainan Zhengye has since entered the fast track and become the second-largest in China's "compound pesticide" industry.

In 2007, Shandong China Tobacco Industry Company hired us to develop "Shandong's most expensive cigarette" (Ru Feng Taishan) to change the low-end image of Shandong cigarettes. Later, we served Fujian Jiatong Group to plan the "most expensive diaper."

For over ten years, "only doing expensive, not doing right," we have deepened our understanding of "high-price marketing."

**II. High-Profit, High-Volume Is the Right Path**

**1. Conventional Prices: Live to Old Age, Tired to Old Age**

Catering to the market, producing according to sales, drifting with the tide, speculation, playing edge balls, counterfeiting—on the surface, making money is easy, but in reality, the world is dangerous.

(1) Consumers are never loyal: With conventional or low prices, consumers compare follow-up products to industry benchmark products. Follow-up products only have reference value, not life elements, and leave no special impression. There is never brand recognition or loyalty.

(2) Competitors keep raising the stakes: Strong brands have obvious cost advantages, such as scale, which reduces production and transportation costs; high awareness, which reduces channel costs. To prevent followers, leading brands continuously lower prices and increase quantities, constantly refreshing the industry's "break-even point." For example, instant noodles: in the early 1980s, the break-even point was about 1 million packs; now it might be 20 million packs.

If you adopt "lower prices" or conventional prices, your profit margin is always lower than the industry leader's. The thin profits you earn each year must be reinvested in production and expansion because the industry's break-even point has moved forward.

After several years or decades, profits are all used to increase machinery and factory buildings, possibly even adding bank loans. Continuing forward means never having cash income; retreating means selling the factory at a low price to the industry leader or selling equipment as scrap, just enough to repay loans.

Countless followers, if they don't imitate or cheat, can only be "teased" for a lifetime.

For example, facing Coca-Cola, countless mediocre players chose "lower prices, similar channels, similar communication methods," leading to "Very Cola, very dead," and "Fenhuang Cola, crazy with joy."

Instant noodle companies that followed Master Kong also mostly couldn't last to the end.

(3) Impossibility of Improving Operational Strategy

Under low prices and low profits, the operational strategies available to a company are very limited. Usually, they imitate the industry leader and strengthen violent marketing tactics, such as terminal coverage, terminal interception, terminal promotions, or bribery marketing by increasing distributor profits.

Their own operational technology remains at a low level.

**2. High-Price Competition: Overlooking, Strategically, Easily Dismantling Strong Brands**

Compared to countless enterprises that struggle endlessly with admirable spirit but questionable wisdom, other enterprises easily achieve high-profit, high-volume. They always cut the most important market of the industry leader brand at high prices and high-end, forcing the leader to compromise. After a short period of "hills and rivers without end," they immediately achieve success with ease.

Matsushita Konosuke did this, Songchuan Machinery did this, Zhengye Zhongnong did this, and Shuijingfang did this. Among them, the greatest achievement is Virgin.

Virgin is not well-known, but its asset scale ranks 11th in the Global 500, and its profitability far exceeds famous brands like P&G and Coca-Cola. The core of Virgin's strategy is high-position cutting. From records, cinemas, cola, kindergartens, to airlines, Virgin enters over 200 industries, cutting the most profitable profits from the territories of "alliance leaders, gang leaders, and sect leaders" at high prices, achieving the status of "first challenger" and "eccentric hero of the martial world."

Take cola as an example. Facing Coca-Cola, Virgin didn't struggle like Very Cola or Fenhuang Cola. Its Virgin Ginger Ale, with high pricing and high profits, easily cut the most lucrative share of the two colas.

**3. High-Profit, High-Volume Is the Entrepreneur's Responsibility**

This was said by Matsushita Konosuke: without high profits, even if you make a lot of money, you're just a rich person, not an entrepreneur in Mr. Matsushita's view.

Entrepreneurs drive the market and integrate resources. This is the entrepreneur's responsibility.

(1) Channel Responsibility: What Is "Maximizing Customer Interests"

"Concessions" to distributors, retailers, or terminal salespeople—bribing the channel, stimulating the channel, trying to mobilize channel enthusiasm while shirking brand responsibility—will inevitably lead some channel partners to use the manufacturer's concessions for price wars. High prices quickly become chaotic prices and collapsing prices. The "concessions" channel merchants superficially receive are just virtual profits and short-term profits.

After brand operators gain more resource space through high prices, they innovate resource allocation and convey the brand's special value, making the brand a high-priced name recognized by consumers. Only then can channel partners get reasonable returns.

From Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and P&G to Wuliangye and Moutai, all brands that give channel partners long-term, substantial benefits are those with prices higher than similar products and price differences to distributors smaller than similar products.

(2) Consumer Responsibility: "Concessions" Harm the New and the Old; High Profits Protect Existing Consumers

Mid-course price cuts make consumers who have already purchased feel "cheated," and those who haven't bought wait and see (buying on the rise, not the fall).

(3) Employee Responsibility

Matsushita often talked about his employees' hard work when refusing customer demands for concessions. Europe and America have formed laws that firmly prohibit "sweatshops" and oppose "cheap labor advantages and low-cost competition" that sacrifice employee interests.

**4. A Single Slip Can Cause Lasting Regret; Looking Back, It's Already a Hundred Years**

Some say you can start with low prices, earn easy thin profits, and later raise prices and build a brand.

My view is that low prices are a one-way street.

Once you concede to distributors (which will eventually pass to consumers), you block the path to brand success.

**III. High-Price Strategy—Consumer Value**

With conventional prices, consumers are satisfied; with low prices, they are surprised.

What about high prices? High prices are not about deceiving consumers. No one wants to be a fool, and the rich are no exception. Poor consumers are already hard to deceive, let alone the rich.

High prices are about making consumers "overjoyed," "never expected, truly unexpected, unexpectedly so."

Look at Kotler's original text to understand the accurate meaning of "cheap and good":

**1. What Is "Cheap and Good"**

From consumer satisfaction to consumer overjoy, the foundation is, of course, "cheap and good."

Countless enterprises fall into price wars, promotion wars, and attrition wars because they haven't fully understood two words in "cheap and good":

"Cheap" (价) refers to the consumer's total payment (cost), not the price (price);

"Good" (物) at a shallow level means the offering (offering); at a deeper level, it means the benefits the offering can provide, i.e., the total value (value) the buyer can obtain; not the goods (goods).

It's another translation problem. In English, cost vs. price, offering vs. goods are clearly different, but when translated into Chinese, the first two both have "价" and the last two both have "物," leading to misunderstanding.

The success of high-price marketing is the highest realm of "cheap and good":

Not only does it significantly reduce consumers' total expenditure (cost) and increase consumers' total value (value), but it also brings consumers to a new world and shows them a new realm.

**2. Reduce Consumers' Total Expenditure**

It doesn't necessarily mean lowering prices; lowering prices is too simple and uncreative; lowering prices also makes those who bought regret and those who haven't wait.

You can raise prices, as long as the increase is less than the decrease in consumers' total expenditure, their overall expenditure still decreases.

(1) Improve Products to Reduce Consumers' Total Cost

For field crops (cotton, rice, etc.), the cost of spraying labor accounts for a large proportion of consumers' pesticide payments. Often, farmers lay water pipes to the fields and remotely spray when needed.

Hainan Zhengye Zhongnong Company, according to crop seasonal patterns, launched integrated products priced higher than the sum of individual products, but farmers can reduce spraying frequency and save labor costs.

After the product launch, Zhengye's product prices increased, revenue increased, farmers' direct monetary expenditure increased, but labor costs decreased. Overall costs decreased.

(2) Increase Technical Services to Eliminate Customer Worries and Reduce Total Consumer Costs

After puffed food is produced, it must be packaged immediately; otherwise, it may get damp, waste, and increase production costs; delayed orders may also affect market competitiveness and sacrifice profits.

Any packaging machine can malfunction, such as conveyor belt wear, breakage, or part failure. Whether a packaging machine failure is repaired in 2 hours or 24 hours can be more important than the machine's value itself for puffed food enterprises.

Foshan Songchuan Machinery, to reduce customers' total costs, significantly raised product prices, e.g., biscuit packaging machines from 60,000 to 110,000 yuan. At the same time, they established raw material warehouses in food factory clusters like Dongguan, Shantou, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Tianjin, stored backup machines, and deployed professional technicians to ensure "2-hour recovery." This reduced customers' total costs.

For high-priced cash crops, farmers have "high input, high output," with high indirect costs. For example, winter jujube: per mu output is about 10 times that of rice, but input is greater, and pesticide use is about 100 times that of rice! If harvest is good, per mu income is several thousand more than rice; if pests occur, investment losses are far greater than rice.

Hainan Zhengye Zhongnong Hi-Tech Company, in "high-consumption crop" production areas, selected "core terminals," deployed experts in agrochemicals and plant protection, and provided full guidance to reassure growers. For this, they raised prices by 25% (an additional 200 yuan per mu investment), and growers had no worries, only feeling "too cost-effective" (ensuring 10,000 yuan per mu output!).

**3. Innovate Value to Increase Consumers' Total Benefits**

(1) Export "Personnel Image" Benefits to Create "Emotional" Value

Some high-end consumers in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and other places have accepted the "sommelier" service of imported wines: high-priced quality wines with professional sommeliers.

When consumers entertain guests, the sommelier's presence increases the host's personal brand value; the sommelier's professional handling of the wine enhances the product's value and the drinker's value. Consumers are willing to pay for this.

McDonald's as food is worth a certain amount. But McDonald's annually creates novel toys that are only given away, not sold; McDonald's service staff lead young consumers in singing and dancing daily; McDonald's offers reference patterns for children to assemble with fries—when McDonald's becomes a children's paradise with these "image benefits," the cost of fries and the current price become irrelevant.

(2) Turn "Utensils" into "Tools," Changing to a Higher-Priced Value Scale

The use value of a product is something everyone has a scale for.

When the product's use changes, consumers will have new evaluation standards, and the price scale in their minds will be elevated.

In Guangdong and Vietnam, rice noodles (pho) can only fill the stomach, so they sell for only 5 yuan.

Vietnam's An Nam Group's "24 Pho" is "exotic," not losing face when entertaining guests, and conveys concepts like "hard work, saving time."

Enjoying An Nam Group's pho saves on "entertaining clients" expenses, reducing consumers' total costs.

(3) Turn "Utensils" into "Props," Again Raising Price Tolerance

At high-end banquets, some people don't drink wine or baijiu. Previously, they had to settle for cheap beer or drinks. Responding to this demand, Blue Ribbon Company launched beer at over 100 yuan per bottle, and many companies launched fresh corn juice or purple sweet potato juice at over 100 yuan per pitcher. The product cost itself is still under 5 yuan, but the total value has changed.

When signing a contract with an important client, if you use a "Montblanc pen" to sign and tell them that the Hong Kong handover agreement, the Middle East ceasefire agreement, and the German ceasefire agreement all used this brand,

Then, is a Montblanc pen selling for a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of yuan cheap?

When entertaining a superior leader, you don't know their liquor preference; but if you bring out Wuliangye, even if the leader doesn't drink baijiu, they can't blame you. Is spending 800 yuan for "personal brand image safety" cost-effective?

At a banquet, drinking 5,000 yuan Lafite makes the client feel pressure, and the 1 million yuan deal must be signed; if you only drink 300 yuan "local specialty liquor," although it doesn't lose face, the client feels it's just ordinary hospitality, a courtesy exchange. The deal can be signed or not.

One of my clients, "Beijing Hanjin," is a professional "high-price marketing" company. One of their proud works last year was selecting certain teas and bundling them with specific calligraphy, paintings, and Go sets, giving the combination the meaning of "no longer discussing business, just drinking tea and playing Go to enjoy old age," particularly suitable for "farewell to leaders stepping down" or "rich first-generation handing over power." The highest price reached 500,000 yuan per jin of tea.

(4) Turn "Utensils" into "Toys"—Only the Useless Can Be the Most Expensive

Useless things can be worthless or "priceless treasures."

The most expensive wines are not the best-tasting ones, but those that have missed their drinking period, stored for 30 or even 50 years or more, and are no longer drinkable.

Bricks are building materials. Bricks that can't be used as building materials are more expensive than useful ones. The rubble from the Berlin Wall has less construction utility than new bricks. But new bricks cost only a few cents, while Berlin Wall rubble sells for 5 to 30 marks!

Some waste stones with artists' paintings sold for up to 40 or 50 marks. Those who trucked wall bricks home back then got rich overnight.

**IV. High-Price Strategy—Integrating Market Resources**

**1. "Integrating Market Resources" Strategy Is the Most Important Strategy**

Is science and technology the primary productive force?

Production technology is definitely not the primary productive force; because the value of production technology in "high-priced products" is definitely less than 10%, usually only 1%.

"Operational technology" that integrates market resources is the primary productive force. Only when "science and technology mainly refers to the technology of integrating market resources" can "science and technology are the primary productive force" hold.

Germans master the core technology of beer, but that doesn't prevent an American company like AB from far exceeding the total beer output of Germany; Germans monopolize almost all core solar technology, but that doesn't prevent Chinese companies from buying German technology and then driving German companies out of Africa and Southeast Asia: Shenzhen's "Shanzhai phones" bought technology from European and American companies, selling 1.5 billion units annually at their peak, sweeping Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Many small and medium-sized liquor factories in Sichuan have quality and cost advantages in baijiu, but that doesn't stop Yanghe Blue Classic from buying Sichuan liquor and far surpassing Sichuan liquor factories; even if Lanzhou pulled noodles charged patent fees, each bowl would be worth at most 1 yuan, a drop in the bucket compared to Ajisen Ramen at 25 yuan per serving.

**2. High Prices Provide the Economic Foundation for Resource Integration**

Sima Qian said, "Long sleeves help dance, much money helps business," and the saying "people looking for money is not as good as money looking for money" both mean that integrating resources requires not only concepts, goals, technology, strategies, and methods, but also price space to support it.

The success of high-price enterprises is based on a correct understanding of the value of high prices: high prices don't necessarily immediately show as higher "direct profits"; even if high prices temporarily reduce sales and total profits, they may be very worthwhile because high prices amplify the "operating space" for resource integration. Used well, this space can support more resource integration techniques and gain the most competitive advantages.

The Taiwanese boss of "24 Beef Pho," Chairman of Vietnam's An Nam Group, LY QUI TRUNG, has a famous saying: "I was once penniless; but my philosophy determines I cannot be poor. Even if I picked up stones on the roadside in Vietnam and sold them to Vietnamese at high prices, I could become a billionaire." During Vietnam's anti-Chinese movement, his property was confiscated. In June 2003, he picked up a stone—pho, common everywhere in Vietnam—first proposed a new high price, then used the new operating space to support new terminal models, differentiated terminal resources, and differentiated terminal cooperation models. The chain quickly expanded to Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and recently entered Guangdong and Zhejiang. He became a billionaire again.

**3. Re-evaluate the Value of External Market Resources**

Distributors, retailers, and terminal service providers who follow the industry leader most want the company to lower prices, give gifts, promote, buy-one-get-one, and pay entry fees—

Before consumers recognize the product, they instinctively reject products priced above market.

High pricing means re-evaluating existing channel members.

When Shuijingfang burst onto the scene, its first battle was in Guangzhou. Salespeople visited restaurants and got the most common response: "Are you crazy? Wuliangye is only 200-something; how can you, a small factory, sell for over 400?"

When the brand's unique benefits began to be accepted by consumers, distributors and restaurants were still excited about the price. Salespeople's "customer feedback" often included: "A distributor boss said if you lower the price to Wuliangye or Moutai's level, he'd pay 1 million yuan." Behind this, you might occasionally see foolish salespeople's suggestions: "Our costs can't be higher than Wuliangye or Moutai, right? Selling at their prices wouldn't lose money, right?"

In short, when you set a high price, you must be prepared to do brand promotion yourself, cultivate consumers' "value feeling," and make consumers willingly pay for high prices.

Distributors are just logistics providers; retail terminals are just "promotion platforms":

**4. Optimize the Structure of External Market Resources, Compress "Sales Partners'" Profits, Expand "Marketing Partners'" Space**

The interests of sales partners (distributors, retailers) are inversely proportional to brand competitiveness.

Expenditures on marketing partners (advertising agencies, PR companies, brand communication companies that undertake consumer education) are the key to brand success.

Shuijingfang's success in Guangdong relied on compressing "sales link" expenses (refusing to follow the trend of "entry fees") and increasing marketing link investment (giving terminals a series of differentiated benefits, such as intelligent PR, training marketing, liquor ceremony demonstrations, etc.).

Recently, the success of a series of imported wines, I believe, is also related to the new model of "specialty stores + group buying." The new model increases marketing and reduces sales.

Ajisen Ramen can be priced 5 times higher than Lanzhou pulled noodles, and the "24 Beef Pho" run by a Taiwanese-Vietnamese sells for 24 yuan, about 5 times higher than ordinary beef pho, also relying on changes in the "sales and marketing" structure.

**5. Adjust the Weight of Internal Market Resources (Human Resources)**

This issue deserves a separate article, but here I'll briefly mention a case:

There's a liquor factory in East China with government support, a huge market behind it, and strong financial strength. It has always made low-end liquor. The boss is hardworking, previously "a boss by day, sleeping on the floor by night," and after success still "lives a healthy rich life" (i.e., never frequenting high-consumption places). The team he leads is loyal, obedient, hardworking, and dedicated;

The entire corporate culture looks down on "drinking, bragging, and counting money" PR men and socialites.

Forced by government requirements and market temptations, they tried several times to break into the high-end market but failed.

The boss repeatedly invited me to join, but I had to decline each time. Of course, the boss understood our disagreement was in "values."

The talent values of high-end products differ greatly from low-end products, and corporate cultures are vastly different. The boss is accustomed to low-end liquor culture and can at most tolerate a high-end team; but any tolerance has its limits;

The original team is like the "Red Army" at Jinggangshan: straw sandals, rifles, physically strong, acting collectively 15 hours a day, loyal, and trusted by the boss; but performance is poor.

The new high-end team is like a modern missile force: they browse the internet, check missile devices, may not be physically strong, and can wear glasses; they may only need to work collectively 2 hours a day; but they win from thousands of miles away, and their killing effect is incomparable to the Red Army. They are knowledgeable, independent, and may rely on the boss even less than the "Red Army."

The two teams will inevitably look down on each other.

If you can't change the culture, any talent who goes in is just going to die!

**V. Waiting to Die, or Dying for a Cause?**

Chen Sheng and Wu Guang decided to rise up because not rising was a dead end, but rising could lead to a world-shaking cause.

In today's market competition, low prices, mediocrity, and catering to the market lead to a war of attrition with homogeneous customers, products, channels, operational models, and team models. From then on, it's a lifetime of storms and unrest. Even if you occasionally succeed, life has little meaning.

High prices don't guarantee success because there are many details ahead; but you only need to pass through a dark tunnel to enter "a bright future."

How long is this tunnel? My opinion is about "from Shuijingfang to Wuliangye."

That year, Shenzhen Guixing Liquor Company took over Shuijingfang's market in six southern provinces (Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangxi), and I performed on stage with Ding Bangqing, creative director of Guangdong Advertising Company. Ding sang a march; he introduced the meaning of his "noble life elements" positioning and why he could get Taiwanese writer Lin Qingxuan to give his poem line "warm a pot of moonlight to drink with wine" to Shuijingfang for free—he believed Shuijingfang was China's only luxury brand: "Wuliangye can be drunk in slippers at a roadside stall, but Shuijingfang must be enjoyed in a luxurious atmosphere." I sang an inspirational song. I said, "I must be devout. I must be solemn. We can criticize Wuliangye's brand technology as crude; but the problem is, it can afford to be crude. It has no promotional items, its counterfeit control is weak—but consumer loyalty is hard to shake. Shuijingfang, on the other hand, we deliberately build associations with noble life elements, including carefully planned promotional items, sponsoring the Three Tenors concert, and the 'dialogue between the world's top baijiu and top wine' with Bordeaux wines, to build luxury associations; why must we be so careful and diligent, while Wuliangye can act freely? How dare it? Why does it dare? This is because Wuliangye has already passed through the tunnel, while Shuijingfang hasn't!

But Shuijingfang has chosen the right crossroads—high price—and has already passed through that tunnel. In the first two years, we ignored competitors' gloating expectations and distributors' indifference; there was no applause, no flowers, no flashbulbs. After passing through the tunnel, although there's still a distance from Wuliangye-like "self-orbit," it's already a bright future!

This effort is just a short-term pain, and then it's all smooth sailing; it's better than a lifetime of drifting in the low-price world!

High price—taking the high-price shortcut to growth—is the easiest choice for enterprise success.

Daonong recently opened a public account specifically about how traditional enterprises can do WeChat marketing well. If you're interested, you can follow it. Search for the WeChat ID above or scan the QR code below.

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