Click the image for details The strong get stronger, and the beer industry's concentration continues to rise. The top five companies in the first tier, including Snow, Tsingtao, and Budweiser, have combined sales exceeding 80% of China's total beer sales. According to the 2018 semi-annual reports of eight listed beer companies in China, the top three (Snow, Tsingtao, and Yanjing) generated total revenue of 39.094 billion yuan, accounting for 89.66% of the total revenue of the eight listed companies. Frankly, the Chinese beer market has reached a near-monopoly situation, with the main competition among the top players. Beer expert Mr. Fang Gang once said that the current mainstream strategy in the beer market can be summarized in three words: buy, buy, buy. Outlets are bought; if one isn't enough, buy two; if two aren't enough, buy three... Establishing exclusivity through buyouts to create channel barriers is the mainstream model in beer market competition. Of course, besides buying outlets, there's also buying distributors, and if that fails, buying a factory. But against this backdrop, a local beer company, after nearly three years of growth, managed to tear open a gap right under the noses of the beer giants and break out of the encirclement. This company is Taishan Original Pulp. At the 2019 New Year Marketing Masterclass, Mr. Fang Gang commented that within a 300-kilometer radius, there are eight competitor factories. As the only "surviving" enterprise in Shandong, it is truly remarkable to bypass the giants' channel blockade and achieve counter-trend growth. At the masterclass, Mr. Ma Xiaolong, Marketing Director of Taishan Original Pulp, shared how they broke through against the odds and maintained 120% annual growth despite the giants' dominance and the industry's downturn. Additionally, with zero investment in traditional advertising, they went all-in on new media and achieved market coverage across 19 provinces in just three years. How did they do it? 01 Facing a new market, how did Taishan Beer go from 0 to 1? Taishan Original Pulp Beer (hereinafter referred to as Taishan Beer) was established in 1979. In 2010, it successfully developed its first short-shelf-life original pulp beer. Before 2014, original pulp beer accounted for only about 10% of the company's revenue, but by 2018, it had risen to nearly 80%. Positioning itself as fresh, short-shelf-life beer with original pulp as the core, this became Taishan Beer's foundational strategic cornerstone. Before interpreting Taishan Beer's marketing strategy, let's look at how they went from 0 to 1 in a blank market with no consumer awareness. According to Ma Xiaolong, when entering a new market, Taishan Beer does not distribute products or buy stores; it does only one thing: give away beer. First, Taishan Beer partners with local distributors to open a direct-operated store. There are two forms of beer giveaways: first, leveraging the distributor's personal influence and local network for in-store tasting events; second, using the direct-operated store as a radius, conducting tasting events at nearby small shops and restaurants. Consumers scan a QR code to follow the official account, participate in the activity, and share it with friends to receive a case of Taishan Original Pulp. Through these tasting activities, consumers experience a taste different from mainstream beer (freshness), combined with the new concept of "7-day shelf life" and the differentiated "720ml" size, leading to an experience that exceeds expectations. Especially for a new product they've never seen before, consumers treat it as a topic of conversation (social currency), giving it social attributes. The product spreads itself. There is an underlying logic here, the 1990 principle: 1 loyal fan can activate 9 fans, who then drive 90 consumers. When entering a new market, Taishan Beer uses tasting experiences to find consumers who like the product. Even if they give away 5,000 cases and only 1% convert, that's 50 initial fans. Through online interaction and offline activities (like beer gatherings), they cultivate these initial fans into loyal fans, who then recommend Taishan Beer to friends, completing the initial market setup. 02 From 1 to 100: Taishan Beer's "Three Axes" of Communication When entering a new market, the initial taste difference (compared to mainstream beer) and differentiated concepts and sizes create a short-lived social currency, leading to a wave of viral spread. But once some consumers become aware, the "novelty" wears off. How to design sustained awareness (communication) and build strong relationships (interaction) is key to moving from 1 to 100. At the event, Ma Xiaolong believes that users are the driving force for sustained growth. Taishan Beer uses a trilogy of "new media operations + tool application + offline interaction" to acquire and activate users. 1. New Media Operations: Currently, Taishan Beer's main new media platforms are WeChat (subscription and service accounts), Weibo, and Douyin. On WeChat, they combine service and subscription accounts. The service account focuses on brand communication, including corporate events, key activities, and new product launches. Local subscription accounts focus on sales promotion, building local traffic pools, with content mainly about local activities. To date, the Taishan Original Pulp Beer official account has 3 million followers; among city subscription accounts, for example, "Fresh Jinan" has 150,000 followers. Besides regular event posts, the main activity types are: 1) Life trivia or hot topics + likes; 2) Emotional stories + custom bottle labels. 2. Tool Application: The one-item-one-code tool. In Ma Xiaolong's view, if a company purely does content, writing "chicken soup" articles, it's hard to gain sustained attention and sharing, and may even be rejected by users. Therefore, by having target users who are consuming offline scan bottle codes for promotional interactions, users can participate in online interactions while consuming. Main form: specific time nodes + bottle code scanning + red packet rewards/prizes. According to Ma Xiaolong, nearly 45% of users have participated in scanning activities, directly driving nearly one-third of market sales. 3. Offline Interaction: Based on loyal fans, they form "Jiangsi Hui" (fan clubs) as self-organized groups, and hold various beer gatherings by city. Additionally, Taishan Beer regularly recruits "Jiangsi" from various places to visit the factory for tours, gain in-depth understanding of the original pulp process, and participate in new product suggestions. The core function of offline activities is to cultivate the stickiness of core consumers. At the event, Ma Xiaolong frankly admitted that without new media (social networks in the internet age), Taishan Original Pulp might not have achieved its counter-trend growth today. In the view of New Distribution, Taishan Original Pulp used WeChat official accounts (subscription and service) and WeChat groups to help the company establish consumer awareness and relationships. From the perspective of "awareness," in the past, building consumer awareness typically relied on centralized media like TV ads. But today, in the internet age, as long as you have a good product or good content, you can create communication momentum through social networks, with more efficient and lower-cost communication. From the perspective of "relationships," through the application of the one-item-one-code tool, companies can deposit users in the WeChat ecosystem (user privatization) and build private traffic. Through various online interactions (likes, red packets, customization, and other benefits), they form "strong relationships" with consumers. With awareness and relationships, transactions naturally follow. 03 Good Products + New Communication: The Standard for Brands in the New Era As is well known, before the internet, traditional marketing followed a funnel filtering logic. Companies used centralized media, broadcasting like a loudspeaker, to filter step by step from attention to interest, then search, memory, and purchase, ultimately filtering out target consumers. Maybe 100 million people saw it, but only 100,000 converted. That was the logic of pushing products to the mass market in the past. But today, with the proliferation of mobile internet, consumers are online in real time, and word-of-mouth is connected. A good product, even if only 100,000 people see it, can achieve 10 million views through the recommendations of 10,000 people. This is why, when Taishan Beer enters a new market, it can quickly leverage the market just through tasting giveaways. What is the standard for a good product? Mr. Zhao Bo, founder of New Distribution, has a phrase that accurately summarizes it: Any product you don't want to take a photo of and post to your Moments after the first purchase is not a qualified good product. Regarding new communication, the purpose of building a new communication system via the internet is not simply because centralized media has failed, but to shift to solving awareness problems through social platforms like WeChat. More critically, through WeChat as a carrier, companies build their own independent traffic, aggregating fans on the platform, and through various forms of interaction, complete the establishment of strong relationships with consumers. Through a series of interactions and experiences, these followers are not only consumers but also communicators, and even collaborators. Ma Xiaolong told New Distribution that since 2015, fans have participated in the R&D process of new products, including taste, alcohol content, packaging, and bottle label design. Of course, there is another point: behind a good product, there must be a strong and efficient supply chain system, especially the new marketing model driven by the demand chain. In the internet age, the uncontrollability of communication often brings uncertainty in demand, which places higher demands on the backend supply chain. Flexible, precise, and efficient supply chains are the basic guarantee for companies transforming to a user-centric business model. In Mr. Fang Gang's view, while the mainstream beer strategy is intensive cultivation, Taishan Beer chose a different path, fully leveraging the internet's communication dividend, avoiding opponents' strengths, and attacking their weaknesses. For small and medium enterprises, going against the grain is the opportunity.