In China, tens of thousands of beverages are launched each year, but few truly succeed. There are several reasons. First, the beverage market is highly homogeneous, and consumer loyalty is low. What unique need does your product meet? If none, it will just blend in. Second, the current brand communication environment is overloaded with information and diverse scenarios. Balancing cost and effectiveness is a real test of marketing skill. Third, beverage consumption is non-planned and immediate, so channels and outlets are crucial. From regional start to national expansion, rich industry experience and solid offline fundamentals are indispensable. Doing any one of these well is not easy. Recently, New Distribution learned that Yunnan Gan Qing, launched in December 2021, took only one year to expand from its home market in Yunnan to nationwide, covering nearly 100,000 outlets and exceeding 300 million RMB in retail sales. Such achievements are rare among new beverage products! How did they do it? To this end, New Distribution conducted in-depth exchanges with the Gan Qing team. We found that, unlike first-generation functional beverages made from synthetic ingredients, Gan Qing is a second-generation functional beverage based on medicinal and edible plant ingredients. Its channel strategy, product positioning, and marketing planning are all outstanding. The Gan Qing team has deep thinking and long-term planning for what they do. It can be said that Gan Qing's success is no accident.
Solid and Fast: Starting from Offline Channels
Beverages have always been a hot spot for entrepreneurship, and many new consumer brands choose to start online. But the beverage market is mainly offline. While it's easy to gain temporary sales through traffic, achieving long-term, sustained growth and steadily expanding nationwide is very difficult. Gan Qing is different; it started offline from the beginning. In December 2021, Gan Qing products were launched in Yunnan, covering 16 prefectures and 129 counties within four months. Why so fast? This relies on Gan Qing's effective market operation strategy. Offline channels depend on distributors. Many brands think that as long as they give distributors enough profit margin, they will be willing to represent the brand, and sales will naturally follow. But in fact, distributors' willingness to represent is only the first step; helping them sell the products is the most critical. Gan Qing is very clear about this. On one hand, they designed a value distribution mechanism to ensure distributors get sufficient profit returns; on the other hand, they formulated a complete set of distribution and sales promotion strategies, and then executed, validated, and optimized them together with distributors. For example, to reduce the resistance of product placement and expand product display, they designed matching display racks for terminal stores. At the same time, they launched a terminal product sales incentive policy where small shop owners can redeem instant red packets for each bottle sold, encouraging them to recommend Gan Qing products to consumers. On the other hand, Gan Qing believes that for a new brand and new category of functional beverage, the premise for people to buy is that there are people who can sell! Various types of outlets are like Gan Qing's KOLs, and every store clerk can be a KOC (Key Opinion Consumer). After product launch, Gan Qing created community graphic content for different drinking scenarios based on product selling points, publishing continuously for 100 days to all distributor groups, continuously strengthening the mindset of "the people who sell the product." Through multi-matrix approaches such as giving profits to distributors, displays, sales incentives, and community marketing of product selling points, they quickly opened the market and created model markets. In this way, Gan Qing quickly accumulated market operation experience, then recruited distributors in other Yunnan regions, replicated the experience, and moved very fast. In May 2022, Gan Qing began its national layout, successively entering retail systems such as 7-Eleven, Lawson, Hema, Yonghui, Walmart, and Metro. By the end of 2022, it achieved 100% entry into core Chinese supermarket systems, over 50% entry into China's top 100 convenience store systems, and covered nearly 100,000 terminal outlets nationwide. The outlets where Gan Qing entered all showed strong sales momentum. For example, at Walmart, it sold over 35,000 boxes in 50 days; during the Spring Festival, Gan Qing gift boxes achieved the top 1 bestseller in Walmart's juice category and the top 1 in the New Year goods street. Through community marketing, it sold over 4,500 boxes in 30 days at Yunnan Baiyao (special channel); over 7,000 boxes in one month at 7-Eleven in South China; and no less than 6,000 boxes per month in the PetroChina system. Behind these numbers is the effective sales promotion method developed by the Gan Qing sales team based on the characteristics of different channels. Such achievements are inseparable from Gan Qing's effective channel strategy. But its premise is that the product must be good.
Creating a Good Product Requires Unique Positioning
The beverage market is already a red ocean. Consumers have no shortage of choices, and because the trial cost is low, they have no loyalty. In such a market environment, what kind of product can possibly succeed? Previously, Gan Qing's CMO Fan Hao summarized three elements for a successful beverage product: First, it must taste good and be distinctive; second, it must have functionality; third, it can be sold as a gift. Gan Qing is a new generation of plant-based functional beverage based on this insight. Gan Qing's products use Yunnan's Dian olive as the raw material, a well-known medicinal and edible plant in Yunnan with effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, soothing the throat and promoting fluid, and moistening the lungs and resolving phlegm. However, Dian olive itself is bitter and astringent, making it not easy to turn into a beverage. Previously, it was rarely commercially utilized, mostly sold as a local specialty. Gan Qing spent three years developing a unique "bitter-breaking and astringency-removing" technology for Dian olive fruit, and developed two Dian olive juice products: "Daily Gan Qing" and "HOHO Gan Qing." "Daily Gan Qing" uses a process similar to boiling Chinese medicine, boiling wild Dian olive fresh fruit to maximize its medicinal value, positioning it as "throat care and moistening." "HOHO Gan Qing" uses fresh fruit cold-pressing to retain the fruit fiber, tannins, and other components, positioning it as "de-oiling and de-greasing." In 2023, Gan Qing further delved into market demand and launched new products. Based on the original "Daily Gan Qing" extra-concentrated type, they launched the "Gan Qing" refreshing series, focusing on the core selling point of "throat care," increasing the capacity from 245mL to 300mL, while retaining the sweet aftertaste of Dian olive, removing some fiber and pectin from the fruit, and reducing concentration for a more refreshing taste without affecting medicinal value. The Gan Qing refreshing series enters the mainstream price band of 5 yuan per bottle and adds a "0 sucrose" product, meeting the needs of a broader consumer base for new plant-based functional beverages with larger capacity, healthier options, and more affordable prices. HOHO Gan Qing, in addition to adding a "0 sucrose" product, also has a "lemongrass" flavor and a 1L sharing size, embracing young consumers with diverse flavors and different specifications to meet consumption needs in various scenarios. Moreover, Gan Qing also fits well with distributors' needs in terms of channels. Beverage homogenization is very serious; how to find a good product? In addition to profit margins and sales support, Gan Qing's unique product positioning makes it easy to integrate into distributors' category mix, which is also an important factor in persuading distributors to represent its products. Of course, for a new brand to grow quickly, in addition to successful channel strategy and precise product positioning, effective advertising and marketing investment are essential. In this regard, Gan Qing's approach is also worth learning from. Effective Advertising: Building Brand Awareness Density As soon as Gan Qing was launched, it aimed to become "China's No.1 Dian Olive Brand." In its home market Yunnan, Gan Qing carried out six months of "high-altitude advertising" and saturation attacks to increase brand awareness density and occupy consumer minds. For example, they placed video and frame ads in Kunming's business district parking lots, Focus Media buildings, and cinemas, ensuring that both people walking on the ground and underground could see them. They maximized ad exposure in crowded and mobile places, including entire train sets in the subway system, themed decorations at core hub transfer stations, and ads on Kunming buses. Saturation advertising quickly made consumers aware of Gan Qing, continuously increasing its brand awareness in Yunnan, while precise channel marketing accelerated channel partners' understanding and recognition of Gan Qing. The combination effectively promoted Gan Qing's rapid distribution and sales in the Yunnan market. Additionally, on Xiaohongshu, where new-generation consumers gather, Gan Qing invited KOCs to "plant grass" for Gan Qing products as real users, driving brand awareness and product reputation among a broader consumer base. The three-dimensional, combined, and effective marketing investment also quickly gained recognition and approval from more platforms. In February this year, at Oriental Selection's Yunnan special session, Gan Qing was recommended as a Yunnan brand. Teachers Dong Yuhui and Dun Dun personally explained and tasted it, recommending Gan Qing products to national audiences. This livestream also achieved 45.9 million views and a single-session cumulative sales of over 1.7 million RMB. As Gan Qing's national layout expands, its marketing methods are also changing. It is reported that in 2023, Gan Qing will continue to increase precise advertising investment, select core channels or systems nationwide for joint advertising, and use the radius of 1-2KM around core channel stores as the advertising range, focusing on LBS (location-based) segmented advertising to enhance Gan Qing's local awareness density and pave the way for the next step of fully igniting regional awareness. In the current environment of information overload and diverse scenarios, what advertising methods should be adopted to quickly build brand awareness? What marketing mix can better support channel output? These are difficult problems many brands face. Obviously, Gan Qing's answer to this question is excellent. It can be said that whether it is channel strategy, product positioning, or brand marketing, Gan Qing, as a startup brand, demonstrates a very high level. The Gan Qing team told New Distribution that in 2023, Gan Qing will continue to fully cultivate channels and markets by product, by channel, and by distribution partners.
Final Thoughts
Beverages are an industry with both low and high barriers. It's low because you can register a brand, find an OEM, and rely on online traffic to quickly gain volume. This is the approach most startup brands take. It's high because any shortcoming in product positioning, brand marketing, channel sales, etc., will prevent success and long-term sustainability. For startups, this is a difficult path. However, if you want to last long, this is the only correct path. Gan Qing chose a difficult but correct path from the beginning, moving both fast and steadily. It can be said that it is a brand case worth paying attention to and studying among innovative consumer brands in recent years. I hope this article brings you some inspiration.