Click image for details Click image for details Click image for details This article is not about brand aging, but about how to revive a brand that has been sold to death. A few days ago, a Tianya netizen added my WeChat, saying they had read my articles on daily chemicals and wanted to discuss how to restart an old brand. The friend wanted to restart an old toothpaste brand—Tianqi. Currently, his only plan was to offer more concessions. He roughly described his idea: offer policies 50% more favorable than other manufacturers, advertising subsidies, rebates, and other standard perks, and also allocate 20% of Tianqi's proposed IPO shares as options to provincial distributors. It's clear this friend is eager to do well with the Tianqi brand. However, for such an old brand, which already gives consumers the impression of being low-end, suddenly offering greater incentives to distributors—will that really work? Old products don't sell well, often not because of price, but because of the company's operational approach and chaotic management system. All problems just manifest in price. Is Nostalgia Easy to Sell? In recent years, many companies that have disappeared for a while have tried to revive their brands, and their revival paths have all chosen to "sell nostalgia." Nostalgia is a good thing, but selling too much of it turns into melodrama; memories are good, but selling too much turns into spoiled chicken soup. When your brand dies, it means you are dead in consumers' minds. Your so-called revival is just a lingering ghost haunting them. Your brand revival might even shatter the last bit of fondness consumers have for your product. There's a psychological phenomenon called the "first love effect." Indeed, first love gives people many beautiful feelings and unfulfilled desires. Once you have some strength, you want to make up for the feeling of "meeting the person you most want to take care of when you couldn't." But when the two actually get close, will it blossom? On the contrary, more often than not, people think, "Good thing we didn't end up together." Similarly, those brands from our childhood memories died either due to management issues, corruption, quality problems, or because they couldn't keep up with the market. Consumers eliminated you. What you need to do now is forget your glorious past and start a new life. But brand managers are still immersed in their former glory, trying to evoke memories by selling nostalgia. This is basically like an old man ravaged by time trying to win back his lover's heart with rouge and powder. After all, in the brand world, your brand is getting older, but your lover's heart is still young. How can you satisfy it? Let's look at brands that have been revived in recent years. Which one has come back to life by selling nostalgia? Huli 28, when it returned to Shashi Daily Chemicals, cheated both distributors and employees. In the 1990s, the famous "Two Colas Flooded Seven Armies" incident involved Beijing Beibingyang, Shenyang Bawangsi, Tianjin Shanhaiguan, Qingdao Laoshan, Wuhan Daqiao, Chongqing Tianfu Cola, and Guangzhou Asian Soda being acquired by Pepsi and Coca-Cola. In recent years, first Beibingyang and then Tianfu Cola have made comebacks with heavy nostalgia marketing. Beibingyang even launched Beibingyang Cola, Yili Bread, and bagged ice cream. Indeed, they attracted consumer attention at first, and many adults brought their children to seek past memories. But that wave passed, and now Beibingyang is just a decent regional brand in Beijing and surrounding counties, far from its former glory. Tianfu Cola returned in 2010, launching a plant-based cola with a nostalgic style. In an era of overall decline in cola beverages, what market can Tianfu Cola's nostalgia capture? Resources of Old Brands Compared to Beibingyang and Tianfu Cola, which left childhood memories of joy and aspiration—for post-80s consumers, they were rewards for good behavior—that nostalgia has a bit of "Yesterday Once More" charm. But what childhood memories do toothpaste brands like Liangmianzhen and Tianqi leave? Post-80s started brushing teeth regularly, but their feelings about brushing, especially with herbal toothpaste, were not good. When the brand's memory itself cannot bring consumers pleasure, can you still sell nostalgia? Actually, whether it's brands like Liangmianzhen and Tianqi or Beibingyang and Tianfu, your brand is not an advantage but a stumbling block. We need to understand that society progresses, and brand memories also progress. If everything in the past was so excellent, what's the point of social progress? Does that mean these brands are useless? No. Besides the brand, they still have other wealth. But that wealth lies not with consumers, but in the stages before products reach consumers: production, distribution, and channels. These are hidden assets. First, production. These old brands have rich production experience, a good pursuit of quality, and a grasp of consumer tastes. When they introduce new ideas, they can produce more efficient products. For example, although Liangmianzhen sells poorly, its OEM products for other companies sell well. Second, distributors. The mainstream or powerful distributors in the market today have come up with these old brands. It's just that these old brands, for one reason or another, have hurt distributors' feelings, but distributors still have hope for such companies. They believe that if the company changes its old ways and launches a couple of products, they are willing to cooperate again. That sells a bit of nostalgia and a bit of resources. Third, channels. Although old brands died because they didn't manage channels well, with the company's endorsement, quality endorsement, and distributor support, they still have some control over channels. However, the most important thing is the step of repurchase. The products are distributed, profits are okay, but consumers don't choose them. Remember, consumers have a tendency to like the new and dislike the old. Rather than selling rotten nostalgia, it's better to start fresh and create a brand-new brand. If Not Nostalgia, What to Sell? In my view, daily chemical brands like Liangmianzhen and Tianqi have inherent flaws. Their brand names limit them to selling the herbal feature. Indeed, due to the hot sales of Yunnan Baiyao toothpaste, the concept of Chinese herbal medicine still holds a mainstream position in consumers' minds. But these two products are positioned as low-end in consumers' minds, and the low-end toothpaste market is shrinking. Even Yunnan Baiyao faces a serious problem: besides the hemostatic toothpaste, other categories don't sell well. That's because Yunnan Baiyao has the endorsement of stopping bleeding. For old products, I'm not saying you should completely abandon the brand, but rather launch a brand-new brand, with the old brand serving as an OEM for the new one. For example, Jianlibao. Actually, Jianlibao still has a market share of over a billion yuan and is still a strong brand in some regions. But now Jianlibao's promotion is basically forced nostalgia, and the death of Li Jingwei made Jianlibao's nostalgia worthless. Its development should be to launch new product lines, while Jianlibao operates as a regional brand to help the new products enter the market. If old brands don't sell nostalgia, what do they sell? Of course, they sell quality and innovation. The worst thing is to engage in price wars. Old brands are already synonymous with low quality and low price in consumers' minds, and if you play price wars with distributors and make promises easily (like options that may never be realized), distributors will only trust the brand less. On the contrary, if you pursue quality and high prices, distributors have profits, and the company has new brands. For example, Heilongjiang Ruby Company's "Dongbei Daban" (Northeast Big Board). Some say Dongbei Daban sells the nostalgia of an old brand. As a post-80s from the Northeast, I didn't have such a brand in my childhood. Actually, Dongbei Daban is a brand-new brand launched by Ruby in 2013, while Ruby Group was founded in 1992. Dongbei Daban was carefully positioned by Ruby Group. It uses a very rustic state-owned enterprise packaging, making consumers feel a bit of nostalgia. Its name gives a sense of Northeast people's boldness and authenticity. Also, it's large in size and tastes great. In early promotion, it focused on sales staff sweeping streets and distributor benefits. It didn't solely sell nostalgia. Its "rusticity" is "pretend," and some old brands' "fashionableness" is also pretend, but these two "pretends" are worlds apart. Another example is Henan Kedi Company. Kedi is also an old brand over 20 years old, on the verge of death, especially in the frozen food industry. Kedi was once an infinitely glorious company, but also a brand that was almost sold to death. In the milk industry, it is definitely a brand-new brand. Perhaps because Kedi never played the nostalgia card, many current consumers don't know it's an old brand. Instead, that laid the foundation for its milk to go viral. Kedi's viral milk also used a "rustic, low-end" transparent packaging. But when consumers got the product, they realized the thoughtfulness, because the transparent packaging was completely different from the loose milk around, and it was a new packaging design. It applied for a new patent, and this packaging also avoided the impact of color masterbatch precipitation from traditional Tetra Pak and Combibloc packaging on milk taste. In a world where all milk is like delicate, coquettish things, Kedi's transparent pillow pack stood out and naturally received rave reviews. In terms of sales network, since Kedi itself is a frozen food company, it didn't have good channels for milk. The transparent pillow pack cooperated with Alibaba's team to open up through e-commerce platforms. Outside e-commerce, the highly developed WeChat business also laid a good foundation for the hot sales of the transparent pillow pack. Here we see a new channel: the WeChat business platform. They have good resources, but what they lack most is products with solid quality. They don't care what brand it is, as long as they can tell a good story. So for those dead brands or brands barely surviving, instead of struggling, it's better to change image and create a new brand with solid quality. And the viral success of Kedi milk didn't help its frozen food brand become younger or sell better. Of course, for those brands that want to revive, the top priority is that your product quality is excellent, selling points are prominent, and profit margins at all levels are appropriate. It's not about compromising and sacrificing your interests to please distributors. The more you debase yourself, the more distributors look down on you. Old Na's comment: Chinese business managers have all drunk this chicken soup: "Even if all Coca-Cola factories burn down, as long as I have the Coca-Cola brand, I can rebuild tomorrow." This toxic chicken soup makes many business owners think the brand is everything. So even if they fight tooth and nail, they want that shiny brand no matter what. So more and more entrepreneurs start acquiring old brands, wanting to create a so-called big IP, while those companies whose brands are clearly dying refuse to give up their brands. Wake up! Your brand is rotten. No matter how hard you try, it won't work. A simple truth: If VIVO and OPPO were still called Bubugao or Subor, would you buy them? New Distribution's "7th B-end E-commerce Study Tour" is now recruiting! Activity Schedule:

June 19-23, Suzhou·Shanghai·Hangzhou 19th: Check in at designated hotel in Suzhou; 20th: Visit Suzhou Maidlin; 21st: Visit Shanghai Hd; 22nd: Visit Hangzhou Wangcang; 23rd: Return or free arrangement for sightseeing; Introduction to the Platforms to Visit: Maidlin Youshang Software, a well-known domestic information system provider. In 2015, it launched the "Maidlin" brand. Maidlin, based on Youshang Software's products, uses artificial intelligence technology as its core and efficient operations as a breakthrough, helping distributors build new B2B business models. It has already provided software technical services to distributors in more than 50 cities nationwide. Hd Company Shanghai Hd Information Engineering Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Hd Company) is a domestic first-class management consulting and software R&D company for commercial circulation, e-commerce, and modern logistics solutions. Since its establishment over 20 years ago, it has been committed to creating modern commercial management models for clients. Hd's systematic products and solutions with independent intellectual property rights are highly competitive in three business formats: chain retail, commercial real estate, and warehousing logistics. It has supported more than 500 well-known large and medium-sized commercial enterprises and group users across 30 provinces and cities nationwide. It is the largest retail software provider in China. Wangcang Zhejiang Wangcang Technology Co., Ltd. was established in June 2011. It is the earliest and currently the only large-scale independent fourth-party intelligent warehousing and distribution service provider in China. Wangcang has been committed to innovation, implementation, and daily operations of refined and collaborative solutions for e-commerce warehousing and distribution. Today, Wangcang has the capability to provide solutions from B2C e-commerce warehousing and distribution to full supply chain integration (warehousing and distribution) for B2B+B2C. Relying on its self-developed adaptive warehousing and distribution integrated management system, combined with years of warehouse construction and management experience, as well as self-developed equipment, Wangcang has formed comprehensive competitive advantages. Wangcang's system can seamlessly connect with all sales platforms, enterprise ERPs, logistics and express resources, and in-warehouse operating resources (such as equipment, labor, storage area application, etc.). Through our services, single-warehouse efficiency can be greatly improved, and resource interaction and allocation between warehouses can be achieved. Through big data, we provide value-added services such as supply chain optimization and supply chain finance for cargo owners. At the same time, through open systems and management advantages, we provide franchise business for warehouse owners. Organization Form ************1. Company visit

  1. Actual market case visit
  2. On-site explanation
  3. One-on-one communication************ Participating distributors only need to pay a 200 yuan registration fee. Other expenses are self-paid. Long press this QR code or click "Read Original" to register. Long press QR code to add WeChat for registration Group Photos from Previous Tours: 6th B-end E-commerce Tour Group Photo, from top to bottom: Zhongke Shangruan, Shuhai Supply Chain, Yunmei Shares, Yishang Logistics. 5th B-end E-commerce Tour Group Photo, from top to bottom: Huiwangxing, Beiquan, Tongying Tianxia, Quanshihui, Zhongke Shangruan. 4th B-end E-commerce Tour Group Photo, from top to bottom: Alibaba Retail Link, Qianmi Network. Click "Read Original" to register -END-