****Jiang Xiaobai has become the target of criticism in the baijiu industry in recent years; it is the rebel of baijiu, and it is the niche. ——Liu Chunxiong We will find that baijiu has two extreme trends: the big industry gets bigger, and the small industry gets smaller, even dying out. Big companies have never looked down on small companies that are homogeneous with them, but when a marginal baijiu company stands in the same place as the big companies, the result is predictable. The same applies to beer: originally almost every county had a brewery, but they were eliminated by these big factories, leaving only three domestic giants (Tsingtao, Snow, Yanjing) plus a few others. In the future, there will be no small beer companies. What makes beer giants sit up and take notice is not learning from them, not doing things differently from them, and not even doing better than them, but who stands on the opposite side of beer companies. They are the mass; we want to be the niche. Is the niche small? If the niche succeeds in crossing boundaries, it is not small, because in China, any niche multiplied by China's population is a massive amount of data. In this industry, what can truly stand firm is the niche, which is standing on the opposite side of the mass. The word 'niche' may mislead people into thinking that small sales volume means niche, but niche is definitely niche because of individuality. Procter & Gamble's market share decline has brought an insight: in the era of mass consumption, the scarcest thing is brand, but in the era of consumption stratification, the scarcest thing is individuality. Our era has two directions: one is upgrading, and the other is stratification. Upgrading means being better than before. The upgraded market is still mass, because upgrading is mass at higher price points and higher quality; what we earn is stratification, which is the scarcity of a specific group of people. It is individual, and because of individuality, it is niche. New Beer Many people misunderstand, thinking that beer's mass consumption peaked in 2013 at over 50 million tons, and now it is declining. The decline indicates that beer has entered an era of both upgrading and stratification. Upgrading is traditional beer; stratification is new beer. Stratification is not more levels (tiers) but more circles; a circle is the consumption of a type of person, and beer is for that type of person. New Beer: Individuality Individuality and niche are different. We cannot call a small-volume mass product niche, nor can we call the edge of the mass niche. We are not differentiation from the mass either. Note that in the past, when we developed products, we often talked about differentiation. Differentiation is different from the mass; it may become the edge of the mass or become a new mass, so differentiation is not better but has more advantages. Niche is individuality, character, and personality. For example, Wusu is a brand, but how big is Wusu's individuality? Individuality can be expressed and spread on the internet. A company will have three types of IP: the boss is IP, the product is IP, and the brand is IP. What is the boss IP? It is the boss's embodiment in the product. For example, Master Gao: the boss's individuality is reflected. Of course, his commercialization is another matter. It is very important to clearly understand the difference between differentiation and individuality. Differentiation is a physical expression: you add this, I add that, that's differentiation. Most of us mistakenly think differentiation is individuality. That's wrong. Individuality must be personified, so individuality equals character, equals personality. What is individuality? Individuality must resonate with consumers' hearts. In the golden three rules of fan marketing, there is one called emotionalization. Because it is circle-based, it is emotional, and emotional can resonate. So when we drink other alcohols, it's just drinking to liven up the atmosphere. There is a craft brewery that lost 200 million yuan in two years. The departing professional manager complained that the boss didn't have enough money; if there were enough money, they could burn it out, because his method of making beer and burning the brand was in mass channels. But the West has severe stratification and has long formed commercial channels corresponding to individuality. Can you find established sales channels for craft beer? Currently, craft beer consumers in China account for about 1%. That means in mass communication channels, to find that 1%, you waste 99%, because you don't have the channel. How to sell goods? You need to do hotels (restaurants), because when consumers believe and see it in hotels, they might drink it. Then you'll find that after stocking the goods, only 1% drink it, and others don't know about it. The beer sits for a month without being drunk, and finally the boss says the product is terrible. He won't say he can't find consumers, because it's only 1%. Using mass consumption channels to do individual products, the biggest difficulty in China is that you are doing market like looking for a needle in the sea. You've tried many ways and haven't found it, unless you weave a particularly large net to fish it out, but even then it's not cost-effective. So at this time, individual products must solve the problem that China has no niche consumption channels, no individual consumption channels. Even if there are none, you must persist, because consumer demand has emerged, but society doesn't have such commercial channels. So the marketing of niche products is to create a niche commercial system. In a niche commercial system, it is easy to find consumers who match the individuality. If it were 5 years ago, first, there was no foundation; second, there were no tools. Today, the emergence of China's new middle class and the internet are synchronized, allowing our business to quickly seize these two opportunities: First, the increase in consumer income gives us the opportunity to do upgrading and individuality; Second, internet tools give us the opportunity to easily fish out these consumers. Where to fish? Two major channels: communities and vertical platforms. Currently, the craft breweries that do well basically use communities. Why can communities succeed? It's simple: the typical characteristic of a community is that birds of a feather flock together, which is exactly concentrating the 1% of people for you. In this, I can't say 100%, but fishing out 50% is enough. The cost difference between fishing out 50% and fishing out 1% from traditional channels is clear. The value of a community is not that the community can sell goods; the community can spread. It fishes out the 1% that merge like items. There will definitely be some people in the group who quickly influence a group of people; this is called opinion leaders. In the era of the rise of the new middle class, pursuing individuality is an inherent gene. Individuality is something that money may not buy; individuality is that I want to be inconsistent with you, to be able to identify myself. When you gather all your target consumer groups together, one net cast and you catch a bunch, completely different from casting into the sea and catching all fish. For individual products, there is no other way than community and vertical platform channels, because other costs are too high, and you can't catch fish. Individuality and Density Individuality naturally has no density. Marketing without density is like looking for a needle in a haystack. We must find a market with density, because density is too important to us. For example, when a flour factory produces flour, flour particles can float in the air. If the concentration of flour particles is too high, reaching 7.9 grams per cubic meter, and if the temperature is high or there is a spark or electricity, it will explode. The exploding particles are equivalent to a bomb. When density is large enough, it will detonate. So marketing is about detonating in a small space. For example, a new craft beer has started selling, and no one knows about it. That's okay; you can detonate it in a vertical platform. In the past, we couldn't do this; we only did TV media placements, either no one knew or everyone knew. The cost of everyone knowing might kill you before reaching the whole world, like the professional manager who lost 200 million because the money wasn't enough. In this world, as long as you have enough money, you can do a business that never loses, like gambling. If you lose every hand but still have money, that's called filling the pit. If you have the ability to fill the pit, you can do this. In the future, we don't spend money on advertising for communication; we use content. This content resonates. The content may not be self-generated, like Jiang Xiaobai's expression bottle, which resonates and makes people fans of the product. Fans support you in return. Through fans, they sell for you, shout for you, and sell desperately, even to the point of annoyance, but they still say it. Why? Because I am your fan. In a prefecture-level city, you only need 200 iron fans to take the city, because there is the 1990 principle: one iron fan can drive 9 fans, 9 fans can drive 90 ordinary consumers. One iron fan drives 100, 200 iron fans drive 20,000 people. When a city has 20,000 people consuming craft beer, the market is still detonated. What is density? In the past, we called it the density of distribution, but now it's not the density of distribution; it's the density of reaching your target consumers. We need to connect with the C-end, but the people distributing are not fans. If it sells, I say it's good; if it doesn't sell, I stop selling. So the more these products are distributed, the more money is spent, and finally, they become harder to sell. Why? Because the sellers don't have emotion. When density reaches a critical point, it detonates. If it doesn't reach the critical point, you fill the pit. In the past, we did business by saying it's okay to wait slowly, the market will be cultivated slowly. Slow cultivation is waiting for you after a period. In the internet era, slow cultivation doesn't work; only detonation works. And niche is detonated in specific communities and specific vertical platforms. So in the past, advertising was done three times today, three times tomorrow, three times the day after, and after continuous repetition, it rose. I don't need everyone to know. In the past, advertising was so that both those who drink and those who don't know. If we treat brand as a cognitive density, we have three types of cognition: first, both drinkers and non-drinkers know; second, drinkers don't know, but the industry knows; third, only my users know, and non-users don't know at all. If it's only 1%, then let 1% know. Our cognition must form density here. Individuality: Cognitive Density Two paths: communities and vertical platforms. This is the sales system for individual marketing. How to spread quickly? A tells B a piece of news; B knows it, and the news is interesting, so B says let me send it to C to see. This means we need communication penetration and cognitive intensity. Density is not enough, because there is no intensity inside. Individuality: Cognitive Intensity There must be a sense of participation. Cognition gained through experience is the deepest. We know the world's first highest peak is Mount Everest, but what about the second and third? But I know all the mountains I've climbed. Why? Because I experienced them and participated. If the product itself has an advantage called photo-worthy, I want to take a photo and post it on Moments as soon as I see it. So there is a standard: a product that doesn't make you want to post on Moments is not a good product. At this time, you'll find that the density of communication is high, and then you'll find it detonates. In China, the mass has long been segmented. The next goal for the mass is upgrading. What we can most easily build high stickiness with consumers and form high-frequency efficiency is individual niche. This is definitely a direction. But if this individual niche is done with traditional thinking, using mass channels and mass brands, it will fail, because traditional Chinese commerce has no space for individual channels and individual products. So if we do individual products well, it's yours, because this industry channel is created by you. Because the channel is yours, this market is exclusively yours. Source: New Beer (ID: newbeer_BJ) Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted. China FMCG + Internet Professional New Media Committed to FMCG manufacturers' transformation and upgrading and channel digital solutions