---
title: "The Thinking Logic Behind Uni-President's Frequent Hit Products: Concepts, Desires, and Emotions"
description: "A friend in the health supplement industry asked the author about product thinking. The author argues that product thinking is consumer behavior based on market demand, and uses Uni-President's new product strategy to illustrate three key aspects: understanding consumer concepts, invoking shared emotions, and stimulating desires."
author: "龙小龙"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2017-05-23"
language: "en"
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---

# The Thinking Logic Behind Uni-President's Frequent Hit Products: Concepts, Desires, and Emotions

> A friend in the health supplement industry asked the author about product thinking. The author argues that product thinking is consumer behavior based on market demand, and uses Uni-President's new product strategy to illustrate three key aspects: understanding consumer concepts, invoking shared emotions, and stimulating desires.

I have a friend who makes mid-to-high-end health supplements, targeting mainly the elderly and children. It's been three years since the new product launched, and it's still in the "product" stage. One day he suddenly asked me, "Xiaolong, what do you think product thinking is?" I replied that my understanding of product thinking is consumer behavior thinking based on market demand.

After further deep thought, I still couldn't overturn my view, but rather it became more profound and ingrained!

Today, Xiaolong will interpret product thinking through Uni-President's new product strategy. Why choose Uni-President as the subject? In the FMCG industry, there's a saying: if the new product development model in the liquor industry is at 1.0, then Uni-President is between 2.5 and 3.0. From this, we can see that Uni-President's new product strategy is far ahead of the industry.

So what is the key to product thinking?

Based on my product development process, I divide product development into three categories:

> **First: Intuitive type**
> 
> Predicting consumer needs based on peer reference and market feedback. This is the product development thinking of most market followers and a few market challengers.
> 
> **Second: Self-centered type**
> 
> "I think consumers need this?" Most startups fall into this "self-centered" trap.
> 
> **Third: "Co-conspiracy" with consumers**
> 
> This type is the focus of our discussion today, and we'll interpret it in detail through Uni-President's new product strategy.

To conspire with consumers, we must first understand them better. The focus of this article is why we need to understand consumers and how to do it.

**Why is understanding consumers the key to product thinking?**

**1. Product attributes**
> **Convenience: Consumers habitually buy nearby.**
> 
> **Visual products: Consumers are easily influenced by the store atmosphere when purchasing.**
> 
> **Low brand loyalty: Consumers easily switch brands among similar products.**

These characteristics determine consumers' buying habits for FMCG: simple, quick, impulsive, emotional... Especially today when even a small supermarket can have 40,000+ products, understanding consumers is more important than anything.

**2. Definition of market**
> **Having a group of actual customers.**
> 
> **These customers generally have certain needs.**
> 
> **A series of products or services can meet their needs.**
> 
> **Perfect "grafting" channels.**

From the definition of market, it's clear that consumers are the core of the entire market. In today's easily replaceable environment, understanding consumers is even more important.

Next, let's detail how Uni-President understands consumers in the early stages of new product development.

Psychologists divide the reasons people do things into:
> **Cognition (thinking xxx is xxx) - mainly controlled by the cerebral cortex**
> 
> **Emotion (feeling xxx) - mainly regulated by internal hormones, hypothalamus, adrenal glands, dopamine...**
> 
> **Desire (wanting xxx) - mainly controlled by the reptilian brain**

For FMCG purchases, the process is inherently more emotional than rational, especially at the moment of consumer choice.

**Three Steps to Understand Consumers**

**Step 1: Cater to mass consumption concepts**

So-called product thinking upgrade first comes from the upgrade of mass consumption concepts. Euromonitor's earlier report "2016 Global Consumer Trends" pointed out that consumers are now more willing to spend money to buy time, eat healthier, become more picky, and prefer high-cost-performance products with value innovation. As I said before, consumers now want both good quality and high cost-performance.

Concept upgrade 1: From coping with life to managing and enjoying life

Consumers pay more attention not just to eating well, but to eating healthier. Uni-President seems to have realized this early, as seen from their new product development and selling points. In 2014 when vitamin functional drinks were still very popular, Uni-President didn't blindly follow but focused on juices and enzyme drinks!

It wasn't until Mizone stopped selling well and the overall demand for sports functional drinks declined that many brands realized that in consumers' minds, these products were not conducive to health.

Even more surprising is that in April this year, Uni-President launched a plant-based energy drink - "够燃" (Gou Ran), with the main selling point of not adding chemical ingredients like taurine, but extracting natural plant ingredients to process the product, catering to the public's demand for health and subverting the vitamin functional drink market.

Concept 2: Product entertainment and fashion youthfulness

I once did a small survey about shopping motivation in supermarkets. Over 80% of respondents said they had difficulty choosing because of too many categories; they all said they mostly buy based on "appearance" because they feel product quality is similar; nearly 90% said they would buy for "fresh things," especially interesting and fun products.

Uni-President places great importance on the "0.2-second economy," and since 2015, the packaging of new products shows the "aesthetics win" strategy. Interesting and fun Xiao Ming Tong Xue, fashionable and beautiful Tian Mi Guang Nian, mysterious Thai-style lemon tea...

Concept 3: More emphasis on innovative product consumption

Nielsen research found that **innovation has become the main driving force for the upgrade and growth of China's FMCG consumption.**

In the past year, among the Chinese FMCG monitored by Nielsen, 89% of breakthrough new products had average prices higher than the FMCG average, and new product sales were 1.2 times the net growth of the entire FMCG market. It can be seen that innovation has become the primary driver of China's FMCG growth in the next 2-3 years.

**Step 2: Invoke shared consumer emotions**

Regarding the emotions of modern young people, Jiang Nanchun, founder of Focus Media, once said: consumers fear death, fear aging, love beauty, lack love...

Today's young people more or less carry some common negative emotions, and anti-chicken-soup, reverse "sang" culture seems to bring more fun.

I believe emotion is the biggest "enemy" of rationality; emotion is the booster of sensibility. If you can reasonably invoke a certain emotion commonly present in consumers, you can infinitely narrow the distance with consumers!

Uni-President has developed a series of new products targeting consumer emotions, such as the Natural Lab series, positioned as plant-based energy drinks, focusing on psychological needs like "calming the mind, inner peace." They better understand consumers who are brilliant on the outside but quiet on the inside!

**Step 3: Stimulate consumer desires**

The premise of stimulating consumer desires is understanding consumers' shared emotions. Let's learn how Uni-President stimulates consumer desires:

1. Desire for beauty - corresponding to fear of aging and ugliness

**Weight loss** - Natural Lab series, plant-based functional drinks. Compared to girls who only eat two apples a day to lose weight, drinking beverages to aid weight loss might be more novel;

**Digestion aid** - Shui Qu Duo (lactic acid bacteria), Qing Chang Jiao Zhu (enzyme drink). Their biggest selling point is aiding digestion; good digestion promotes the elimination of toxins from the body, which is widely recognized.

**Beauty and skincare** - Tomato juice, Ti La Tu flower and fruit tea. Flower and fruit tea contains various vitamins, fruit acids, and minerals; the natural flavor of flowers and fruits mixed with rich tea aroma can soothe emotions and also beautify the skin. Tomato juice is even a flagship product for beauty, especially since Uni-President's is completely additive-free.

2. Desire for health - corresponding to fear of death

**Zero additives** - New fruit juices, plant-based sports functional drink - Gou Ran, zero additives, no harm, no need to elaborate.

**Natural ingredients** - non-artificial chemical synthesis

3. Desire for fun - corresponding to loneliness, lack of love, curiosity

**New concepts** - Xiao Ming Tong Xue, tasty and fun, creative.

**Companionship** - Qing Chang Jiao Zhu, Xiao Ming, and other personalized characters; they share the same emotions as consumers, expressing emotions that consumers dare not or cannot express. This enhances intimacy, and consumers also find "partners" similar to themselves, escaping loneliness.

Of course, consumers' consumption concepts, emotions, and desires are all results of countless frontline visits and surveys. Don't expect consumers to tell you what they need; what we can do is observe consumer behavior and use the "Three Steps to Understand You" to gradually dig out consumers' true inner needs.

-END-


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