Click to read the original article for details 2020 was a breakout year for China's new consumer brands. After two years of dormancy and growth, many new consumer brands have shown remarkable visibility and sales in their respective tracks, almost to the point of "rising." The emergence of new consumer brands is ultimately because, in today's era and social context, changes in consumer demand are faster than changes in supply, leaving room for new consumer brands that hit the pain points of the new generation of consumers to grow and develop. The rise of the new consumer market not only gives opportunities to emerging brands, but established brands can also leverage its characteristics to expand their user base or refresh their brand image. Ms. Zong Fuli feels this deeply. As president of Hongsheng Beverage Group, director of Wahaha Group's Brand Public Relations Department, and deputy general manager of Wahaha Group's Sales Company, she has personally participated in and promoted the evolution of KellyOne and Wahaha, one emerging and one established, in line with the times. President of Hongsheng Beverage Group, Director of Wahaha Group's Brand Public Relations Department, Deputy General Manager of Wahaha Group's Sales Company, Zong Fuli "Beverages represent a lifestyle and attitude towards life" Building an emerging brand driven by consumer demand Industry reports show that in the past few years, food and beverages have been a key area for new consumer brands, and in 2020, food and beverages were also one of the most favored categories by capital. The reason is that the main consumers of beverages are young people. And Generation Z, who have stepped onto the main stage of consumption, have a completely different consumption concept from the previous generation—for socializing, for persona, and for self-pleasure. They focus on consumption experience, buying not only products but also the spiritual value beyond the product. As Zong Fuli said: "Beverages are not just to solve physiological needs; I have always believed that beverages represent a lifestyle and attitude towards life." That is why the KellyOne brand was established in 2016. As a brand completely independent of Wahaha, KellyOne targets the new generation in first- and second-tier cities as its core consumer group. Zong Fuli introduced that KellyOne is a "consumer demand-driven" brand, which designs products based on "what best meets consumer needs," and then decides what production is more suitable based on the product's characteristics. Following the brand concept of "Discovering Pure Beauty," over the past five years, KellyOne has been patiently polishing premium beverages, successively launching products such as pure tea, sparkling water, and juice-flavored tea, bringing consumers more value experiences, and in the past two years has begun to make efforts online and offline, growing rapidly. KellyOne Yicha KellyOne CHACHA KellyOne Popper Soda Sparkling Water is a new product of KellyOne in 2020 and one of its main product lines, with 0 sugar, 0 calories, 0 fat, and 2.5 times the bubbles as important features. In the past two years, the sugar-free sparkling water category has a very high presence in the domestic beverage market, with both new and old brands hoping to get a piece of the pie. Zong Fuli told us that KellyOne's entry was not following the trend; the team had started R&D reserves three or four years ago. KellyOne found that past sparkling water mainly targeted the middle class, with high prices and not yet popularized drinking habits. The sugar-free sparkling water that emerged after technology and market matured was born out of the needs of the younger generation, maintaining a fresh taste while focusing on health. Its "explosive popularity" had early signs. Due to early R&D layout, KellyOne Popper Soda Sparkling Water went through hundreds of evaluations and tests during the R&D process, finally brewing a product that better matches consumer preferences. KellyOne Shengqi Bobo If the health attributes of 0 sugar, 0 calories, and 0 fat satisfy consumers' rational needs, what is even more rare is that Shengqi Bobo Soda Sparkling Water also makes a strong emotional dimension, targeting the emotional needs that similar products rarely focused on before. First, 2.5 times the abundant bubbles bring a rich layered taste while adding more fun to drinking water. Second, Shengqi Bobo Soda Sparkling Water uses "New Chinese Style" as its brand tone, combining Chinese style with modernity, resonating with contemporary young people's deep sense of identity with Chinese culture and Chinese creativity. While highlighting its domestic identity, it also allows this lively expression of Chinese culture to appear more and more in our lives. Zong Fuli said: "What we want to do is not as simple as painting an auspicious cloud on the packaging, but to convey cultural connotations and let sparkling water tell Chinese stories. Through Shengqi Bobo, we hope consumers can feel that Chinese culture can have many forms of expression." Returning to consumers, comprehensive digitalization The path of innovation and upgrading for established brands In the red ocean of the beverage track, it is difficult to start a new brand from scratch, and even established brands with years of accumulated advantages must quickly respond to market changes and cannot relax for a moment. At the same time, holding an important position in the industry-leading brand Wahaha Group, Zong Fuli has a deep understanding of this. Zong Fuli said that with the development of the internet, the biggest change in the industry ecosystem is that the boundaries of the traditional retail industry's "people, goods, and places" have been broken, the path between production enterprises and consumers has become shorter, and product communication methods have undergone fission. This requires brands to stand more at the forefront of the stage and to put the focus back on "people," that is, consumers themselves. Internet intelligent technology provides Wahaha with tools to return to consumers, and the application of consumer big data is one of them. After more than 30 years of development, Wahaha has formed a brand that produces all categories of beverages, has millions of sales points, and has sales scale of tens of billions, accumulating a large amount of related market and consumer data information. Wahaha has built the "Haba Playground" content-based interactive marketing platform, which integrates content, social, and e-commerce, and is an online paradise loved by young people. Through the data middle platform of Haba Playground, Wahaha understands and collects the consumption trends of young consumer groups online, operates private domain traffic, creates platform hit products, and then feeds back to offline channel sales, helping new products quickly open the market. AD Calcium Milk "Today Underage" In addition, consumer data also helps Wahaha build a deeper supply chain barrier. "The traditional advantage of China's consumer goods manufacturing industry lies in having the world's most mature full industry supply chain system, and competition between brands is often competition in supply chain value." Zong Fuli said, "Using consumer big data to force the supply chain system, especially the innovation and upgrading of R&D and production ends, from scale competitive advantage to value competitive advantage, can build a 'protective charm' for sustainable development." At the end of 2019, Chairman Zong Qinghou mentioned in a public speech that Wahaha is shifting to comprehensive digitalization and intelligence. At present, Wahaha's digital transformation runs through the entire domain of production, R&D, management, and channels: In production, Wahaha's Qiaosi base has the first digital and intelligent beverage production line in China. Through modern sensing technology and automation technology, based on the production data system, real-time data collection, status monitoring, and analysis can be carried out, achieving equipment interconnection, formula automation management, real-time quality monitoring, and full traceability. Wahaha intelligent beverage production line In R&D, Wahaha has built an intelligent strain production workshop, where the entire production process data can be monitored in real time through a large screen in the central control room. After more than ten years of unremitting efforts, Wahaha has established a strain resource bank preserving more than 4,000 strains, a probiotic screening platform, and a fermentation performance research platform, with more than 10 probiotic strains with independent intellectual property rights. In management, Wahaha connects suppliers, enterprises, customers, and consumers through a digital network, realizing information management of the entire process from dealers placing orders, to formulating procurement plans, production plans, shipping plans, logistics management, and then to customer settlement. In channels, Wahaha has built a "Fast Sales Network" digital platform, incorporating dealers, wholesalers, and retail terminals into the network, opening up offline and online data, and further upgrading the joint sales system. Communication strategy advancing with the times "Same frequency resonance" to engage young groups Brand communication has entered an era where "even good wine fears the depth of the alley." In today's world where brands are infinitely close to consumers and consumers place great importance on spiritual value, brands must not only fully meet consumers' new and segmented needs with innovative products, but also communicate in ways they are more familiar with and prefer. Zong Fuli said that circle marketing and building proprietary IP are the strategic focus of Wahaha's consumer communication in the past two years. In recent years, Wahaha has continuously made efforts in circles where young people gather, such as two-dimensional (anime), e-sports, and trendy toys. Taking e-sports as an example, starting in 2020, Wahaha has been an official partner of the League of Legends Pro League for two consecutive years and launched an LPL co-branded sparkling water. Wahaha also held Wahaha League of Legends City Challenge in multiple cities across the country, launched the e-sports "Youth Training Program," and built a stage for young people with strength and e-sports dreams to pursue their dreams. Wahaha becomes official partner of 2021 League of Legends Pro League Entering circles is actually to "break out of the circle." Wahaha's circle marketing is essentially to connect consumers with resonant emotions and same-frequency language, ultimately radiating from each vertical circle to the entire young group, triggering more consumption scenarios and giving the brand more diverse connotations. In terms of proprietary IP, Wahaha has promoted the IP creation of ace products such as AD Calcium Milk and Nutrition Express through various methods such as cross-border co-branding and classic renewal, giving them more personality content and emotional connotations. The aforementioned Haba Playground is also based on Wahaha's two-dimensional image, covering young circles in content, closely following brand activities in interaction, focusing on building a brand matrix, promoting single-product big IPs, and accumulating unique brand cultural assets for Wahaha. Wahaha AD Calcium Milk lands at Bilibili offline carnival Wahaha pH9.0 sparkling water joins hands with trendy toy brand to launch "blind water" Speaking of brand communication, celebrity endorsement marketing is also one of the strategies that cannot be ignored today. Coincidentally, both Wahaha and KellyOne have recently made major moves in celebrity endorsement marketing. In March, Wahaha's Nutrition Express brand officially announced that Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun, the two leading actors of the hit drama "Word of Honor," would serve as spokespersons for the vanilla ice cream flavor and original flavor; in mid-May, KellyOne announced that popular artist Wang Yibo would serve as the spokesperson for the entire "Shengqi Bobo" sparkling water series. Zong Fuli said that the two brands are at different stages, and inviting spokespersons is for different considerations, hoping to achieve different expected results. For Wahaha, which has very high national recognition, the spokesperson cooperation is to increase Nutrition Express's perception and appeal among young people. The post-80s and post-90s have deep memories of Nutrition Express products. Relatively speaking, the connection between post-95s and post-00s and the brand is weaker. Wahaha Nutrition Express's endorsement cooperation with actors from popular film and TV IPs is an expression to young people that the brand accompanies them in watching dramas. With same-frequency resonance, it extends the audience boundary of Nutrition Express and shortens the psychological distance between young people and Nutrition Express. Zong Fuli mentioned that with this endorsement activity, Nutrition Express also launched a new low-sugar version, achieving a dual upgrade of brand and product. Nutrition Express low-sugar new product For KellyOne, which is in the brand building and rapid growth period, after the word-of-mouth foundation of early seed users is laid, it needs high exposure to further open social awareness and move from small and beautiful to the mass market. This endorsement cooperation is like a "window" to open public awareness, hoping that more and more people will know KellyOne from this, and gradually complete their understanding of the KellyOne brand through products and services, and become loyal users of KellyOne. Shengqi Bobo One emerging, one established. The growth and upgrading paths of KellyOne and Wahaha seem completely different, but there are two points that are the same and run through: one is the insight into and respect for consumers' needs in different dimensions, and the other is the innovation that occurs in every link of the brand. With these two concepts, I believe these two brands will go further and more steadily. Zong Fuli has higher expectations for the future of the two brands. She said that if the market is seen as a dance floor, Wahaha and KellyOne are a pair of partners who are independent but tacitly complementary. Wahaha is steady but not lacking in sharpness, with deep skills and strong strength; KellyOne is trendy and flexible, lightly jumping into new postures. Ultimately, whether in products, channels, or brands, I hope Wahaha and KellyOne will complement and achieve each other. Source: Digital Marketing Market (ID: ishuziyingxiao) -END- PS: From August 24-26, 2021, the 2021 (4th) China FMCG Conference hosted by New Distribution will open in Shanghai. Centered on "Industry Frontier Collection" + "Practical Exploration New Cases" + "Industry Connection New Growth" as the core, 100+ big-name guests, 10 special forums, bringing an ideological feast about industry trends for FMCG practitioners! Some of the heavy guests confirmed so far include: **1. Tao Shiquan, founder of Jiangxiaobai; **2. Yao Xuhong, general manager of Meiyijia Holdings Co., Ltd.; **3. Bi Chaojiao, general manager of China Resources Snow Breweries (China) Marketing Center; 4. 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