Text | Liu Chunxiong /Teacher Liu's Forum (ID: liuchunxiong1964) + Tang Daren suddenly became popular! The first time Tang Daren gained widespread attention was in 2015, because it suddenly exploded with a surge in sales; the second time was in August 2017, when Uni-President's Lo Chih-hsien said they would gradually exit the instant noodle market but focus on doing Tang Daren well. In fact, Tang Daren has always been around, but most of us just didn't pay attention to it before. It was around the time Uni-President was promoting its Laotan Sauerkraut flavor that Tang Daren was launched, specifically in 2009. In 2009, right after the U.S. financial crisis, the market was bleak, yet this product was launched and lay in wait for six years before its first big success. During that period, in KA (key accounts), the shelf space ratio between Laotan Sauerkraut and Tang Daren was 2:1. We all know that shelf space is an important resource, and it is proportional to sales. 01 Uni-President's Laotan Sauerkraut was a "catch-up" product. Overall, it was a big product compared to Braised Beef Noodles. The reason it's called catch-up is that it belonged to the traditional consumption level. It was able to rapidly increase volume because it was the mainstream quality and price point at the time. After Laotan Sauerkraut, there were no more big products at that tier. I have always had great respect for Uni-President's Liu Xinhua, not only because he successfully launched Laotan Sauerkraut, but more importantly because of his strategic layout for Tang Daren. It is said that while promoting Laotan Sauerkraut, Liu Xinhua even managed to find time to pursue a PhD. When senior management at Uni-President learned of this, they said he must have untapped potential. I have always admired Zhou Enlai's skill in placing "idle chess pieces" on the hidden front. These "idle chess pieces" seem casually placed, but are actually carefully planned. In 2009, Tang Daren was such an idle chess piece. It was nurtured slowly, without urgency, waiting for the right moment to explode. 02 Strategic layout is a matter of strategy. Strategy is about working backward from the future to the present. Many of us misunderstand it as planning for the future, as if it has nothing to do with the present. In fact, strategy is precisely about the present. These words are easy for experts to say, but hard to put into practice. The first challenge is predicting the future. For example, in 2009, it was extremely difficult to judge that Tang Daren was a product of the future. Moreover, Laotan Sauerkraut had not yet established a firm foothold. The second challenge is how far the present is from the future. "Persistence is victory" is easy to say, but how long must one persist? The third challenge is that when there are no sales, persisting invites doubt: Is persistence valuable? Persisting on the wrong path only leads further astray. 03 After Tang Daren was launched, I kept an eye on it. Every time I bought instant noodles, I usually bought two cups: one Tang Daren and one other brand. The purpose was to compare. Looking back, it was just a marketer's intuition. This expensive product wasn't selling well, yet they persisted. What was Uni-President up to? When Tang Daren was launched, competitors also launched similar products. But when Tang Daren exploded, the competitors did not. It can only be said that while Tang Daren lay in wait for six years, competitors did not persist as Tang Daren did. Marketing expert Jin Huanmin once said something interesting: Don't declare success too early, and don't declare failure too early. A product designed for the future cannot be harvested for sales in the current period. Since sales cannot be the criterion for success, there must be some other standard. Personally, I judge Tang Daren as a middle-class product, both in price and quality, aimed at the middle class. Since the target is the middle class, we should look at who consumes it and the repurchase rate. As long as it meets these criteria, we can patiently wait for the era of middle-class consumption. 04 In recent years, many things we have long awaited have suddenly arrived. For example, product upgrades. The middle class has arrived en masse, so products naturally need to be upgraded. Another example is convenience stores. Convenience stores are a standard feature for the middle class. Their arrival is unrelated to the internet, but their form is related to it. We should not overestimate Tang Daren as a product; it should be viewed in connection with middle-class consumption. The explosion of Tang Daren coincided with the surge in middle-class consumption. If you thoroughly understand the rhythm of consumption changes, you can dare to plan ahead and wait patiently. This is not foresight; it is basic skill in market research. -END-