Recently, multiple dealers shared with the author that Wahaha announced adjusted 2025 dealer targets: a sales task increase of about 50%, with dealerships revoked if not met within a certain period! This 'Great Leap Forward' target setting has shaken the industry. Facing fierce market competition, how can brand owners break through and achieve performance growth? Let's explore 2025 market layout from several key strategies.

Respect First, Reconstruct Cooperation Models

Recently, at a business seminar, a business leader shared methods to boost client confidence and achieve stable performance growth amid current weak distribution and high targets. The key takeaways are respect and reconstruction in client management, with practical steps including building client alliances and digital platform empowerment.

1. Build Client Alliances

Select capable clients who identify with the company's values for deep cooperation. Alliance chambers have standardized management, with bylaws and emblems, regular joint meetings, and members jointly maintain market pricing and discuss countermeasures at key marketing nodes.

Provide customer-first differentiated services. Send gifts and condolences during festivals, organize periodic trips for clients and their families, and offer ceremonial, meticulous service from the manufacturer.

Provide platforms for expanding networks. Clients meet more regional business partners, and cross-regional study visits are organized periodically to achieve resource expansion and experience improvement.

2. Digital Platform Empowerment

System empowerment. When implementing B2b digital platforms, reserve multi-product interfaces for clients, allowing them to integrate other products into management and operations in the future.

Resource empowerment. Leverage the strong incentive promotional policies launched on the manufacturer's system, enabling clients to quickly establish effective links with downstream terminals under their jurisdiction.

Channel clients' self-awareness has risen. How to truly think from the client's perspective and create a win-win situation is the primary issue brand manufacturers must address.

Focus on Scenarios, Boost Promotion

Enhance Brand Emotional Connection

Consumer shopping experiences and needs are evolving, and the emotional value of products will play a more important role. Scenarios contain emotions; whichever product meets this value delivery will become the consumer's top choice. How to focus on effective scenarios to closely touch consumers and stimulate emotional resonance is an effective way to generate sales increments in the future.

1. Lock Down Core Consumption Channels.

Every product has high-consumption channels that best fit its drinking scenarios. During high-growth periods, numerous external growth opportunities masked the lack of solid core channel management. These channels are the commanding heights for product audience education and sell-through, and manufacturers must firmly hold them. For example, functional drinks for anti-fatigue and energy replenishment should solidify core channels like factory stores, gas stations, internet cafes, chess and card rooms, and sports venues; for soda water promoting health and hangover relief, core channels include community supermarkets, restaurants, tobacco and alcohol stores, and yoga studios.

Survey operational status. Before year-end, survey the number of natural outlets in core consumption channels, as well as product distribution and sell-through, to understand expansion space in detail.

Develop multi-dimensional plans. Include numerical distribution rate improvement, enhanced in-store display vitality standards, visit frequency, relationship maintenance, and staff incentives.

Core management points. Value leader terminals, seek cooperation first, and establish regional negotiation coverage advantages; sign annual cooperation agreements with competitors in advance, lock key display positions, and clarify vitality and distribution requirements; high-frequency visits and resource tilt to ensure standard daily display execution and an atmosphere far superior to competitors; provide sales incentives to staff, such as collecting pull rings or bottle caps or digital distribution counting rewards; additionally, these channels should be the priority for population promotion and cultivation.

2. Strengthen Business Promotion Actions.

Many manufacturers and distributors still rely on purchase and display reward resources to exchange for distribution volume, but sluggish terminal sell-through makes input-output increasingly unreasonable.

The overemphasis on order assessment for frontline sales staff needs to change to healthier, more orderly terminal operations, investing more energy to help terminals turn over and increase product share in store business. For example, recently, Nongfu Spring's Beijing region proposed a strategy to create profits for dealers and store partners at its 2025 kickoff meeting. This is the foundation of business.

Daily business promotion. Add normalized promotion actions to frontline staff's daily work and include them in assessments. For example, a 4+1 visit model: 4 days of route visits and 1 day of market promotion. Work requirements should be clarified quarterly in advance by the manufacturer's promotion department, with matching material resources (gifts, free samples, etc.), and staff should select channels or blocks with concentrated target audiences in advance.

Intervention for low sell-through stores. For stores with correct distribution channels but low sell-through, try in-store promotion support, such as placing lucky draw boxes, scratch cards, bundle gifts, or increasing digital winning probabilities in the backend.

Strengthen business insight training. Enhance staff's insight into in-store consumer shopping habits to customize more flexible and differentiated displays, vitality, or promotional methods. For example, for outlets with whole-box sales opportunities, maximize whole-box pallet displays in-store, equip sufficient shopping bags, and use eye-catching price labels to inform consumers of whole-box promotional prices and box code promotional intensity.

Create Model Areas, Go Downstream

Seize Incremental Opportunities

In extraordinary times, returning to marketing basics, creating model markets, and consolidating incremental market network layouts often yield surprising results.

1. Combine Points and Lines to Create Models.

Creating model markets was once a business approach for many excellent brands to rise, and it still has significant meaning for increasing market increments.

Clarify standards and complement manufacturer and distributor resources. Manufacturer and distributor representatives sit together to define model market standards, including model stores and model streets, clarify display requirements, in-store and out-of-store vitality standards, and resource budgets. Brand owners invest appropriate special resources, lead the design and distribution of vitality materials, including freezers, display racks, posters, barriers, and gifts. Distributors and secondary delivery customers should leverage local relationship resources to gain maximum support from relevant terminal stores or channel merchants.

Carefully select markets and strengthen population cultivation. Model selection should align with the product's core consumption channels. Conduct population cultivation activities on weekends or important holidays, fully showcasing product selling points, drinking scenarios, and ingredient advantages, especially designing fun interactive games with target consumers to enhance brand awareness.

Regular evaluation and review. Periodically evaluate resource investment and marketing innovation actions, and quickly replicate good experiences. Brand manufacturers should coordinate cross-regional sharing of model market experiences.

2. Refine Downstream Market Network Layout.

Incremental opportunities in downstream markets are already a consensus among many beverage manufacturers. Last month, at JDB's Spring Festival battle kickoff meeting, group management proposed the CNY strategy of 'exploding downstream markets,' indicating that 2025 will inevitably see a market battle among beverage manufacturers in downstream markets.

Evaluate existing systems. Comprehensively review the operational efficiency of existing downstream channel systems, including channel and outlet coverage, delivery timeliness and service quality, business share, price management, and promotional cooperation. Set up scorecards for evaluation and quickly consider replacing clients with failing scores.

Reserve excellent clients. Research local first- and second-tier brand distributors or secondary wholesalers, especially listening to terminals' objective evaluations of these clients. During research, listen more to their market judgments to assess whether their business thinking aligns with your products.

Prioritize high-potential areas. Combine market population, channels, outlets, competitor performance, and other factors to comprehensively evaluate downstream market development potential, set priority order, and gradually promote launch. For markets where business scale cannot yet reach profitable volume, do not over-refine or multi-layer operations.

Seize local consumption opportunities. Fully grasp local customs such as weddings, market fairs, and temple fairs, customize sales packages and promotional materials, and create a positioning of fashion, novelty, health, and face in promotions.

Select excellent management talent. Choose outstanding management talent as leaders, avoiding the situation where, to reduce costs, unqualified resident representatives are selected, given only sales targets without market operation capabilities, ultimately leading to frequent irregular goods flow and missing the best market development opportunities.

Innovation Opportunities, Product Upgrades

Keep Up with New Consumption Trends

Many first-tier old beverage brands' core consumers are entering middle age, adopting health-preserving lifestyles like drinking goji berry tea from thermos cups, while the younger generation's brand loyalty has greatly decreased, causing a consumption gap for original products. Therefore, at the consumer level, beverage manufacturers must not only practice existing internal skills but also strive to find new opportunities for old products and develop new products for new consumers.

1. Find New Opportunities for Old Products.

Early on, Coca-Cola advocated the '3-degree temptation,' meaning 3 degrees Celsius is the optimal taste, and even in winter, they persisted with this brand promotion. But later, they suddenly discovered that many middle-aged and elderly people in northern winters believed that 'cola boiled with ginger' could dispel cold and prevent colds. Management quickly seized this opportunity, especially designing 'ginger silk cola' posters in catering channels, and even launched ginger silk cola as a new product, achieving channel incremental opportunities.

2. Develop New Products to Attract Young Consumers.

The popularity of double-pomelo juice and coconut water beverages in some markets this year shows that the beverage market still has expansion space. By paying attention to the consumption needs of the younger generation and developing new products that match various consumption scenarios, are healthy and innovative, and provide personalized emotional value, brand owners can better navigate the economic downturn cycle and achieve longer-term operations.

Doing market is like rolling a snowball. If you can withstand pressure and climb over hurdles, the snowball will gradually form scale advantages and lead competitors; but if you retreat under pressure, the scale shrinks, and it will be harder to roll the snowball again to surpass competitors.

The 2025 beverage market will be more complex and changeable. Only through strategies such as refined management, innovative products, and scenario marketing can brands stand out in competition. Whether it's Wahaha's 'Great Leap Forward' or other brands' steady progress, ultimately, achieving performance growth still depends on strong market insight and execution.

Xing Renbao, with 18 years of marketing management experience, has served at Coca-Cola, Yili, Red Bull, and other well-known FMCG companies. Currently, he is the Assistant to the Chief Marketing Executive of Huabin FMCG Group, focusing on corporate marketing diagnosis, manufacturer-distributor relations, channel operations, and digital transformation.

【New Order · Symbiosis】

The 10th China FMCG Innovation Conference

Time: March 17-19, 2025

Location: Chengdu, China