The FMCG industry is characterized by high volume, fast turnover, broad consumer base, and high homogeneity. The key to success in FMCG is to form habitual consumption. Once consumers are used to your product, it naturally blocks competitors from entering.

According to surveys, in blind brand awareness tests, 75% of consumers can only remember the top three brands. This means that the top three brands can achieve a market share that meets monopoly standards. The FMCG industry inevitably has low entry barriers, large market scale, and numerous brands.

We will not discuss how big brands capture market share; instead, we focus on how weak brands can win market share.

In market competition, weak brands face the following main contradictions during new product promotion:

  1. The benchmark effect of strong brands: brand loyalty, benchmark products, strong channel control, and powerful marketing resources (sales force, promotional expenses, advertising budget).
  2. Their own weak market position: low consumer awareness, product imitation, second- or third-tier distributors, and limited marketing resources.

To win market share and successfully launch new products, weak brands often first consider differentiated competition. There are numerous such cases. However, for most brands in the industry, diligently cultivating the market is the most realistic and reliable approach, and the application of unconventional tactics is a good solution.

What is the sales focus of strong brands in new product promotion? The product itself. What is the sales focus for weak brands? Successful experience.

The unconventional tactic for weak brands in new product promotion is case management. Weak brands are weak because they have more problems to solve and more adverse factors affecting the success of new product promotion compared to strong brands. The failure of a weak brand's new product is not necessarily due to the product itself; in fact, simple consumer product tests often show that the product wins.

Key elements of case management:

  1. Must create a successful case market.
  2. Have a successful, replicable market operation method for the brand.
  3. In the 4P market, the most critical is consumer validation of the product; channel validation of profit distribution; timely revision to ensure success.
  4. Visit, summarize, improve, replicate.

Operating procedures for case management:

  1. Choose the market based on the principle that "each has its strengths and weaknesses." Any strong brand has weak markets, and any weak brand has strong markets. Choose your own strong market for breakthrough. There are two reasons: in your strong market, the differences with competitors in brand, channel, sales force, and consumer awareness are minimal, or you have an advantage. It is more conducive to showcasing the product's competitive value. The willingness of customers in your strong market represents that of customers in other markets.
  2. Correct target concept. The FMCG industry is a low-margin, volume-driven industry. In simpler terms, brand is first and foremost sales volume. Weak brand operators often focus too much on sales volume, shipping to all customers regardless of size, and using quantity to boost sales. In reality, in terms of sales force and distributor control, this is beyond their capability. Once products become unsold and are returned, if not handled promptly, it creates greater resistance to new product promotion. Therefore, what is the correct target concept? The operation method of a successful market. A successful market operation method must be executable, replicable, improvable, and sustainable in the long term. Do not distort the operation of the case market for the sake of pursuing sales volume.
  3. Revision. Revision means improving the core product to ensure appropriate product strength, channel profit, and effective promotional methods. That is, what profit margins can distributors, wholesalers, and retail stores accept to sell the product? What promotional methods are more easily accepted and boost sales? Are there any defects in the product design itself?
  4. Summary. The true value of case management lies in summarization. What cannot be summarized cannot be considered a successful case; what cannot be replicated cannot be considered successful experience. The summary results need to include: 4-1. Standard conditions for a successful market. This includes seven major aspects: market environment, competitive environment, distributor management, business market operation standards, product management standards, information tracking standards, and marketing action standards, with several items under each. Subsequent markets should be opened for operation based on the number of conditions met. Markets that do not meet basic conditions must not be opened. 4-2. Challenging goal setting. FMCG ultimately requires sales volume; the only criterion for whether a case market is successful is the achievement of sales targets; this is also the only criterion that all personnel focus on. If achieved, all operations will be recognized and replicated; otherwise, everything returns to zero. This target setting is a proactive action; the target value should be 1.5 to 2 times the recognized target. 4-3. People who can narrate experience. This includes sales personnel and distributors. Cultivate sales personnel and distributors who can do, speak, and teach. Use their actual operations and cognitive change processes to dispel the concerns of other sales personnel and distributors. That is, combine personal demonstration, illustrated explanations, and factual presentation in an educational training model. 4-4. Replication. Point-based sales success solves the problems of how to do it and how to do it well, but it does not solve the volume problem for the survival of weak brands. Therefore, replicating the experience of the case market is a decisive step. To replicate the case, organize field visits and inspections of the case market for sales personnel and distributors. Let each person determine their own market operation plan, including two parts: basic actions that must be executed + flexible market operations. The former is the standard, the latter is the operation plan; after all, markets differ, and the most important thing is to adapt to market needs. If field visits are not possible, create text, images, and video files for display.

For weak brands launching new products, case management means letting go of various tangled premises, problems, worries, and doubts; peeling away layers to find the most important obstacles. Actively seek suitable markets, set challenging goals, use various methods to achieve targets, record and summarize the entire marketing process (from EMKT.com.cn), and distill it into standards. The most critical thing is to showcase the entire process and achieve convincing results, thereby guiding other markets and sales personnel to execute existing plans with improvement.

Case management is the best way for weak brands to demonstrate their ability to operate and manage markets; it is the core key to winning under weak competitive conditions; it is a powerful weapon to seize market share and form their own core markets. It is a key step in driving the entire marketing team to success.

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