Introduction: The primary issue that short-shelf-life craft beer brands must confront is the supply chain. Author 丨Zhao Bo Craft beer has been extremely hot in the industry over the past two years. New craft beer brands are emerging all over the country. This round of craft beer brands is significantly different from the wave of craft beer explosion more than a decade ago, reflected in product flavors that are more suitable for beginners and more affordable prices. Moreover, business models have also become diverse. From traditional craft beer bars, it has gradually evolved into various models: small craft beer factories + direct delivery, front warehouses + delivery, small pub on-site experiences, and online e-commerce + offline Hema distribution. Currently, we see that although craft beer is lively in China, most craft beers have not truly broken out of their niche to reach the mass market. I asked GPT, and he helped me analyze the following points: 1. Limited consumer awareness: Although craft beer has gradually risen in the Chinese market in recent years, many consumers still have limited understanding of it. Compared to mainstream brands like Tsingtao Beer and Snow Beer, craft beer's visibility in the Chinese market is relatively low. 2. Price factor: The production cost of craft beer is relatively high, leading to higher retail prices than regular beer. In price-sensitive lower-tier markets, many consumers may choose cheaper mainstream beer brands. 3. Insufficient market promotion: Compared to large beer enterprises, many craft beer brands invest relatively less in market promotion. This results in lower exposure in the market, making it difficult to attract a large number of consumers. 4. Limited distribution channels: Craft beer brands have relatively few distribution channels, mainly concentrated in bars, restaurants, and other venues in big cities. This limits the coverage of craft beer in the foodservice market. More importantly, the foodservice channel is controlled by the five major giants, with extremely high barriers to entry, which also restricts the popularization of craft beer. 5. Cultural and taste differences: Chinese consumers have long been accustomed to light-flavored beer. The taste and style of craft beer are diverse, and some consumers may need time to adapt to these new flavors. GPT's answer basically aligns with my understanding. Clearly, breaking out of the niche is not just a Chinese issue; the American craft beer industry faces the same problem. Otherwise, GPT wouldn't have answered so accurately. But this wave of craft beer in China is fundamentally different from our traditional understanding of craft beer, which is the fundamental reason why craft beer can quickly spread to the public eye. However, despite the rapid popularization, except for a very few brands, most products with craft beer concepts can only be considered as breaking out of the niche, not yet truly achieving brand leapfrogging. There are many reasons for this. Besides some of GPT's answers above, I think there are about four problems that have not been solved for craft beer to truly break through. What are the four problems? Let's first mention a craft beer brand that has broken out of the niche: Taishan Original Pulp. Taishan Original Pulp was first launched in 2008, but initially it was a lager, later evolving into white beer. Before entering the public eye, it went through about five years of exploration. It wasn't until 2013, when WeChat launched official accounts, that Taishan Beer leveraged the social fission of new media to do a lot of consumer outreach actions, such as sharing to get free beer, offline fan meetings, and factory experience tours. Through these consumer interactions, they gradually found their footing. They gradually opened key markets like Jinan, Tai'an, Handan, and Northeast China. With a base volume, they gradually refined their supply chain, and through continuous exploration and iteration, found their own distribution model of dealers + direct-operated stores + one-code-one-code distribution. As Taishan Beer's General Manager Zhang Kaili shared at New Distribution's 2018 Channel Innovation Conference: Taishan Original Pulp's success relied on three things: new media, good products, and supply chain. I think this summary is quite accurate. Without social networks and media outreach, Taishan Original Pulp would have found it hard to achieve a huge breakthrough. This is the dividend of the times, and frankly, few companies can seize it. But new media can only be a lever; the real reason for Taishan Original Pulp's success, I think, is a product that is memorable and sufficiently differentiated, coupled with extreme supply chain management. This is the fundamental reason for Taishan Original Pulp's success. Why didn't Yanjing Beer succeed when it imitated Taishan Original Pulp at the pixel level in Beijing back then? Why haven't other brands followed suit with 7-day shelf-life bottled beer? Up to now, apart from Tianhu and Taishan Original Pulp, there are few extremely short-shelf-life products aimed at the mass market. The core issue behind this is the extremely high supply chain management capability. Production and sales coordination, warehousing and logistics, management of large-date products in the market, and a series of refined operational methods are all very difficult. More importantly, after Taishan Original Pulp broke out of the niche through new media, it quickly launched a direct-operated store model, quickly transferring the rights to user operations to the store owners. The direct-operated store model bypasses the blockade of giant foodservice channels, leveraging the store owner's private domain traffic and delivery infrastructure to complete rapid product delivery. This not only directly connects with consumers but also avoids the difficulty of managing beer age in foodservice. It can be said that the direct-operated store is the fourth element of Taishan Original Pulp's true success. Good products, new media (one-code-one-code), supply chain, and direct-operated stores—the combination of these four completes the closed loop of Taishan Original Pulp's business model. So, do you think you can replicate the same product by following Taishan Beer's example? I think it's very difficult. On one hand, Taishan Original Pulp already exists in the market, and consumers don't need a second one. On the other hand, Taishan Original Pulp has built very high barriers in terms of differentiated product selling points, supply chain management, and business model creation. It may not be easy for latecomers to compete with Taishan Original Pulp. If you really want to create a mass-market craft beer, based on the experience summarized from Taishan Original Pulp, I think there are several important things to solve. 1. A sufficiently differentiated good product The sufficient differentiation here should be a complete differentiation in the product's outer packaging form, product concept, and product contents. This differentiation should not only make consumers feel that good beer should be like this, but also give consumers a significant recognition and memory of the product compared to others, from packaging to concept, so that they can't forget it after one drink. This is the core of all concepts. I previously proposed a concept to Luo Fei Craft Beer: the Master Series, 7-day craft beer, highlighting the personal IP of brewing master Luo Fei, focusing on the master brewer and master brewing, and superimposing Luo Fei's IP and story onto the product. Also highlight craft beer, beer brewed by a master (various flavors, such as Master's Reserve No. 1, Master's Flavor No. 2, Master's Handcrafted No. 3, Master's Enjoyment No. 4, etc.). Third: only do 7-day short shelf life, emphasizing that you can drink craft beer as fresh as in a craft beer bar, using the best craftsmanship and the most powerful supply chain to make the freshest beer. To summarize in one sentence: Provide consumers with an irresistible reason to buy.

  1. Renowned brewing master (professional)
  2. Craft beer (delicious)
  3. 7 days (fresh) But this is not enough; there must also be significant differentiation in the product's packaging form, packaging materials, and packaging design, clearly conveying to users: In Chongqing, the best beer is Luo Fei's Master Craft Beer Series. 2. Connect the two chains The two chains here are the supply chain and the relationship chain. This is also the core part of the product's success in a regional market. Let's talk about the relationship chain first. This is the core of whether a product can break through in a city. In China, most beer is consumed at the dinner table, so doing well in foodservice is the core issue. No matter how good your product is, if no acquaintance introduces you to this beer, you may find it hard to actively choose an unknown product. But if you are treated to this beer by a friend, there must be a reason—either the leader likes it, or you are the host and can tell the guest in three sentences what's great about this beer. Here, there are three key elements: relationship, story, and momentum. 1. Relationship: Chinese people, whether friends or clients, have circles of acquaintances, and within these circles, they likely drink the same type of beer. So, for a product to succeed in a city, someone must bring this product into these circles. A city has various circles and various people. Circles are interconnected in countless ways, and this connection we call the relationship chain. 2. Momentum: Who first introduced you to this beer—leader, client, or friend—and what kind of drinking occasion led to being treated to this beer? This means that from the consumer's psychology, the value of this beer equals the status of the host. 3. Story: What story did the host tell you about this beer? How did they tell you how great this beer is? Did they know the owner, have they visited the factory? Whether they are a leader, an influencer, or an expert can directly affect your perception of this beer. If this beer is associated with a powerful leader who tells you they visited the factory, know the owner, and vouches for the beer's quality, and tells you the special features in detail, I believe you will feel it's extraordinary when you drink it. There are many ways to connect the relationship chain: KOLs, industry opinion leaders, company leaders, etc. The core issue is how to find these people and leverage their momentum and relationships to build high momentum for the product, ultimately achieving more consumer education. In the relationship chain, there is a 1990 theory, with many explanations online. The core is how to quickly identify the 1% and 9% of people in a city's population. This is the key to the problem and the core test of whether a brand can take root in a city. Now let's talk about the supply chain. If it weren't for short shelf life, selling craft beer today, I think only channel brands like Beer Auntie or light drink bars could emerge; it would be difficult for a powerful craft beer brand to emerge alone. There are two reasons: long-shelf-life craft beer, if it doesn't have extremely strong characteristics, is hard for consumers to recognize, but this individuality is precisely what distances it from the mass market, so it's a paradox. What we're discussing today is the supply chain issue for short-shelf-life craft beer products. Actually, finding a distributor in a city is not difficult. The difficulty lies in production-sales coordination, inventory, supply chain management, and beer age management. This is a big issue and the primary problem that all craft beer brands must face. But most brands choose to avoid this problem, opting for a 28- or 30-day shelf life and selling through retail channels. That's fine, but the problem is that if there are already 7-day shelf-life products on the market, unless your one-month product is good enough, it's hard to convince consumers that your product is better. Another reason for choosing 30 days, I think, is that the business model hasn't been figured out; they want to reduce the difficulty of supply chain management by extending the shelf time in stores, but essentially they haven't found the key password to open a city's consumption. So, when making craft beer, you can't avoid this issue. Selling in Hema or foodservice is fine, but the problem is that if you don't enter the consumer's relationship chain, the supply chain will be very tiring; even a month, six months, might end up expiring. Here, I think Taishan Original Pulp's direct-operated store model is really worth learning from. The direct-operated store essentially has dual value: on one hand, it's a sales venue, with both foot traffic and LBS-based online O2O orders; on the other hand, the store owner is both an entrepreneur and a KOL in the beer field within their social circle. So, the true core value of the direct-operated store is as a hub connecting the supply chain and the relationship chain. This hub can connect three scenes: the nearby community residents' near-field, the online O2O delivery field, and the social field in the circle of friends. It can do relationships and achieve rapid delivery, killing multiple birds with one stone. Of course, this hub is like a bunker. In a city, based on foodservice streets, community types, and consumption capacity, if you lay out a certain density, you can basically cover the entire city's population. The behind-the-scenes distributor, orders, and activity support are all natural follow-throughs. 3. Light a fire Another thing that is overlooked about Taishan Beer is that their operations are city-by-city, fighting one city at a time, with a three-dimensional approach combining online, offline, foodservice, delivery, and social circles. They first build density, then expand breadth. This is very critical. Many craft beer entrepreneurs have never considered that beer is a heavy product with high logistics costs; you must have sufficient density to have breadth. Without density, no matter how much traffic, you can't create momentum. So, when attacking a market, you need to do research: how to fight this market, how to light the fire to quickly raise the heat in a short time. Without heat, it's like adding firewood in a battle; no matter how much ammunition, the market won't boil.