---
title: "Meeting Consumer Demand ≠ Changing Packaging ≠ Acting Cute: How Should Distributors Cater to 2017 Market Trends?"
description: "To rescue declining beverage sales, companies rely on new products, but they often fall into misconceptions. This article analyzes Uni-President's mistakes, such as overemphasizing packaging and cuteness, and suggests that traditional Chinese ingredients like hawthorn and tangerine peel, with their health benefits, offer a promising market opportunity."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-12-20"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/fFSUUeo1Qe_Z2hhPbZlS-A"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E6%BB%A1%E8%B6%B3%E6%B6%88%E8%B4%B9%E9%9C%80%E6%B1%82-%E6%8D%A2%E5%8C%85%E8%A3%85-%E5%8D%96%E8%90%8C-%E7%BB%8F%E9%94%80%E5%95%86%E5%A6%82%E4%BD%95%E8%BF%8E%E5%90%882017%E5%B8%82%E5%9C%BA%E8%B6%8B%E5%8A%BF-247d8210.md"
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---

# Meeting Consumer Demand ≠ Changing Packaging ≠ Acting Cute: How Should Distributors Cater to 2017 Market Trends?

> To rescue declining beverage sales, companies rely on new products, but they often fall into misconceptions. This article analyzes Uni-President's mistakes, such as overemphasizing packaging and cuteness, and suggests that traditional Chinese ingredients like hawthorn and tangerine peel, with their health benefits, offer a promising market opportunity.

To rescue declining beverage sales, companies rely on new products, but they often fall into misconceptions...

> **Uni-President's Misconceptions**
>
Recently, the news about Uni-President merging its water and noodle businesses has caused a stir. One can't help but ask: What's wrong with Uni-President? In fact, Uni-President's third-quarter profit saw a slight decline, due to both personnel adjustments and issues with this year's beverage innovations.
First, we must acknowledge that Uni-President's team has strong execution; its channels, though not as powerful as Master Kong's, rank among the top five in the industry; its strategy of high-margin products is essential for corporate development; and its new products in recent years have been leading the market.
However, I believe the decline in Uni-President's third-quarter 2016 profit is not just a one-quarter issue, but a manifestation of accumulated problems from the previous two quarters. **This year, Uni-President's consistent strategy hasn't changed; the team is stable, execution is strong, and channels remain powerful. The only issue is new products.**
In 2014, Uni-President's Hai Zhi Yan (Sea Words) brought a fresh breeze; in 2015, Xiao Ming Tong Xue (Little Ming Classmate) sparked a trend of acting cute. However, in 2016, Hai Zhi Yan lost its momentum, and the similarly salt-selling "Xiao Yang Ru Suan Yan" (Little Yogurt Salt) also flopped; new products "Tilatu" and "Orange Plus Lemon" showed weak performance.
Both new products are priced at the current mainstream 5 yuan, but why haven't they made waves?
Tilatu is a Western-style fruit and herbal tea, targeting urban white-collar women. Unfortunately, urban white-collar women clearly prefer real tea, coffee, and plain water over so-called Western-style fruit and herbal tea. Uni-President's packaging design is exquisite, but it over-pursues packaging beauty, making the product closer to art and forgetting its essence as a beverage. As for Orange Plus Lemon, I feel it's a case of overdoing the cuteness. How are consumers supposed to read this product name?
Xiao Ming Tong Xue succeeded by connecting with a more down-to-earth, self-deprecating group—students and grassroots workers—with moderate cuteness; the product is a cold-brewed tea, giving a refreshing summer feel. But Western-style fruit and herbal tea always feels like it's been steeped in lukewarm water (there's a Chinese saying: "望文生义"—when we first learn about things, we interpret them literally).
In fact, the success of Uni-President's new products in recent years has led many companies to learn from and imitate Uni-President, always thinking that creating a new category is the way to launch new products, and that only adding ingredients to tea can create a market.
Have you ever considered that the last 10-billion-yuan product was Six Walnuts, and the one that split the family but still thrived was herbal tea?
No matter how mainstream media looks down on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), and no matter that it lacks international recognition, sorry, but in the hearts of the vast Chinese public, we still believe in this system, called **TCM's principle of medicine and food sharing the same origin**. Led by herbal tea and Six Walnuts, the precious resources in China's mountains should continue to be promoted. It's just that the new trend brought by Uni-President has made everyone feel like we're returning to Western-style beverages, thinking that urban men and women's style is mainstream.
It's time to correct this course!

> **Give Hawthorn and Tangerine Peel a Chance**
Looking back, we've launched plenty of new products over the years, and plenty have died. So we've fallen into a vicious cycle: the more we launch, the more they die, and the more we feel compelled to launch. But no one stops to look back at the products they've launched—is it really that the products aren't good?
**I want to ask: As FMCG professionals, aren't we launching new products too fast? Shouldn't we stop and wait for our products?** When your pace runs faster than the speed at which consumers accept your product, you'll end up like the worker in the picture, thinking there's no water below.
(No water below, dig elsewhere)
**In the market, products based on the Chinese concept of "medicine and food sharing the same origin"—undoubtedly, hawthorn and tangerine peel make a great combination.**
First, both products have a solid market foundation. Hawthorn is one of the most overlooked treasures; it treats indigestion, loss of appetite, and abdominal distension. Tangerine peel has the effects of promoting qi circulation, removing stagnation, and strengthening the spleen and stomach. These benefits are well known to consumers without any corporate promotion.
Second, both products have strong brand endorsements, but have been poorly executed. **Master Kong once launched a hawthorn juice**, which tasted good but was too beverage-like, lacking the strong hawthorn flavor. As for tangerine peel, **Wahaha once launched a product called Xiao Chen Chen**, a TCM treasure that went the cute route, feeling like an old man dressing up as a little girl—overdone. But this doesn't affect consumers' recognition of the product itself. Currently, hawthorn beverages are showing signs of resurgence. **Master Kong's hawthorn juice is preparing to make a comeback, and a certain local beverage has already achieved 1 billion yuan in sales by focusing on hawthorn's appetite-stimulating properties.**
Finally, consider the appeal behind internet memes. Wei Long, Lao Gan Ma, and Wuling Hongguang have become famous nationwide through internet memes in recent years. "Confucius said: If you don't nap at noon, you'll collapse in the afternoon; Mencius said: Confucius is right." This meme has appeared in countless people's WeChat Moments and QQ statuses. Its popularity highlights the basic needs of modern people. In this busy society, most people eat breakfast out, sit all morning, then grab a quick lunch, rush back to the office, and nap at their desks. Meituan Waimai is getting more popular not just because people are lazy, but mainly because they want to squeeze out more time for a nap. This situation also means that food hasn't been digested before sleep, especially for those who nap at their desks, leading to poor qi flow.
Let me ask a simple question: Why do you still have bad breath even after brushing your teeth twice a day? It's not your toothpaste's fault; it's your stomach.
We don't position hawthorn and tangerine peel as a product for urban white-collar workers. **This product is suitable for every hardworking person. With its ability to regulate qi, aid digestion, and great taste, this "old product" in a new combination will surely become a new growth point.**

> **Product Prospects**
>
The market potential for hawthorn and tangerine peel is a 10-billion-yuan market. Consider that Jiangzhong Monkey Mushroom Biscuits, using the concept of stomach nourishment, captured the high-end market and achieved 1.8 billion yuan in sales upon launch. Jiangzhong Jianwei Xiaoshi Pian (stomach-strengthening and digestion-aiding tablets) has been a bestseller for over a decade, becoming a staple in almost every household.
The 10-billion-yuan stomach-digestion market won't open just by waiting. After all, Jiangzhong's monkey mushroom beverage didn't perform well. The reasons for its poor performance are: first, the product price was too high; second, the channel strategy relied on pharmacies; third, negative news about monkey mushroom.
In contrast, the hawthorn and tangerine peel combination **has an affordable price**, and can choose **schools and C/D-class dining outlets as entry points**, using a broad circulation model to avoid high channel costs. Currently, beverages in schools and C/D-class dining outlets are dominated by glass-bottle cola, but consumers are moving away from carbonated drinks due to their unhealthy nature.
The hawthorn and tangerine peel beverage has endorsements, can use appropriate outlets as entry points, and if manufacturers produce products that don't go astray—selecting quality hawthorn and tangerine peel rather than using flavorings—the next plant-based beverage era will be that of the hawthorn and tangerine peel combination.
Xiaoshile: "Xiao Zhang Xiao Zhang, drink Xiaoshile"—creating a new era of digestion-aiding beverages.
**Xiaoshile, produced in Jiaozuo**, where, as the joke goes, the Foolish Old Man moved mountains for Wi-Fi. In fact, Jiaozuo's mountains are full of treasures: Huai yam, hawthorn, tangerine peel—all gems just waiting for the right entry point. **Now Xiaoshile, combining hawthorn, tangerine peel, with Radix Pseudostellariae and Huai yam, will create an era of digestion-aiding beverages.**

-END-

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