---
title: "To Do Good Marketing, First Make a Name for 'Freshness'"
description: "Two examples illustrate the power of freshness as a marketing strategy. Tianhu Beer, despite being a small player next to industry giant China Resources, thrives by offering a 3-day freshness guarantee that competitors cannot match. Another small brewery, Taishan Raw Ale, expanded nationally with a 7-day freshness promise, demonstrating that freshness can be a high barrier to entry and a source of strong consumer loyalty."
author: "刘春雄"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2019-10-19"
categories: "Brand Marketing"
language: "en"
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---

# To Do Good Marketing, First Make a Name for 'Freshness'

> Two examples illustrate the power of freshness as a marketing strategy. Tianhu Beer, despite being a small player next to industry giant China Resources, thrives by offering a 3-day freshness guarantee that competitors cannot match. Another small brewery, Taishan Raw Ale, expanded nationally with a 7-day freshness promise, demonstrating that freshness can be a high barrier to entry and a source of strong consumer loyalty.

Let me start with two examples.
Tianhu Beer may be little known. The beer industry is highly concentrated, and unfortunately, Tianhu Beer is located right next to the industry leader, China Resources (Shenyang Snow). However, Tianhu is doing well. China Resources Beer has merged about 100 plants, but it can't do anything about Tianhu.
The reason is simple. **Tianhu Beer has a 3-day freshness period, which China Resources cannot achieve.**
**Freshness is the highest barrier. However, precisely because of freshness, Tianhu hasn't expanded beyond its region.**
Another small beer company has gone national: **Taishan Raw Ale, which also focuses on freshness, with a 7-day freshness.**
From production to consumption, there are only 7 days. So, Taishan Raw Ale starts production at midnight and ships nationwide immediately after production.
In the beer industry, scale and brand win. But Tianhu and Taishan Raw Ale resist the crushing force of scale by relying on the **"freshness card."**
**-01-**
In recent years, I've observed many industries making a fuss about freshness.
Sichuan's leisure food industry is well-developed. Many of the leisure food factories I've been in contact with are playing the freshness card, making **"short-shelf-life"** products.
The cake industry has also moved from "long-shelf-life" products to "medium-shelf-life" products, and is now entering "short-shelf-life" products.
Food with a short shelf life naturally tastes different. **Freshness itself is part of quality, and in the future, it will be an important quality parameter.**
Freshness marketing is easy for "front store, back factory" operations, and relatively easy for local operations. But national-level freshness is difficult.
Where is the difficulty? Two aspects: one is the difficulty of the supply chain, and the other is the difficulty of short-term sales.
China is vast. Unless products are produced and sold locally, cross-regional storage and transportation are required. Products with freshness requirements sometimes also require cold-chain transportation.
In 1999, I participated in the Shuanghui cold fresh meat project. The requirement was that cold fresh meat must be on the shelves the same day, and if not sold that day, it had to be returned to the factory. At that time, there wasn't even management software for similar projects in China, so Shuanghui had to set up its own software company to develop a fresh sales management system.
Taishan Raw Ale products can be delivered to distributors within 24 hours of coming off the production line, which is a huge test of production management and supply chain.
Another test is rapid sales. With 7-day freshness, by the time the product reaches the store, more than a day has passed, leaving only about 5 days. And in the last 2 days, consumers are very sensitive. So, the actual sales window might be only about 3 days. To quickly sell within about 3 days requires very high sales capability and sales management skills.
**If you can't sell quickly, leftover stock is a direct loss.**
**The harder the task, the higher the barrier.** Freshness is the highest barrier because it's so difficult.
When freshness marketing is done well, consumers tend to form strong loyalty. The taste dependence formed by freshness is hard to replace with other technical means.
**-02-**
Tianhu's freshness marketing is built on high density in a local area, with rapid sales and rapid replenishment, creating a fast turnover of goods. Any competitor that can't do this is eliminated within a few days. That's the competitive barrier formed by freshness.
Taishan Raw Ale went national without regional high density. If they had also gone through traditional channels, the products might have expired before they even started selling. So, **their sales model is B2C, meaning they go directly to the C-end through distributors.**
Even if it's not B2C, it must be B2B2C, not B2B.
What's the difference between B2B and B2B2C? B2B only makes the B-end controllable, while the C-end is uncontrollable. B2B2C, regardless of how many levels there are in the B-end, must make the C-end controllable.
This is the benefit brought by communities. In traditional marketing, with scattered consumers, it's hard for manufacturers to connect directly with them unless it's direct sales. In the era of social media, this is not difficult to achieve.
**-03-**
If the freshness mentioned above mainly refers to short-shelf-life products, then another kind of freshness is channel management.
In 2006, when I was hosting a topic for "Sales and Marketing," someone proposed the concept of **"freshness marketing,"** and it was an eye-opener.
At that time, freshness referred to products nearing their expiry date caused by channel stuffing. Freshness marketing means clearing the channel before releasing water. For freshness marketing, a concept of "net sales" was also proposed.
**Net sales = current period purchases + previous period inventory - current period inventory**
Net sales are the real sales. Sales from channel stuffing are at best fake sales. Fake sales result in stagnant inventory, returns, and discounted sales (near-expiry products sold at low prices).
Later, the concept of freshness marketing not only wasn't promoted, but channel stuffing became more severe. Originally, salespeople stuffed the channel; now companies systematically stuff the channel. Where is the freshness marketing then?
In recent years, Uni-President has been a breath of fresh air. Uni-President no longer assesses sales volume but assesses shelf life. This is a way of freshness marketing, indicating that the company has entered a virtuous cycle. The virtuous cycle is because they've entered a new marketing track.
I believe the problem of increasing sales through channel stuffing will be greatly alleviated in a few years. The current channel stuffing is just the inertia of traditional marketing. Either they transform successfully and stop stuffing, or they stuff until they die.
**-04-**
**Freshness marketing may be an important feature of Chinese marketing.**
As an agricultural people, we have a natural affinity for freshness.
Industrial society interrupted China's freshness chain. Many city dwellers envy the semi-self-sufficient fresh consumption of farmers.
In the future, China's freshness will not be the self-sufficiency of agricultural society, but a new supply chain after high industrialization and informatization.
The higher the consumption level, the stronger the Chinese consumer's desire for freshness.
Freshness is the original taste.
Fresh produce, seafood, fresh, flowers. **Freshness is the Chinese measure of value.**
**Freshness is a consumption value, and freshness is a marketing value. Freshness marketing will become a marketing organizational system.**
**-05-**
2019 was a year of freshness explosion.
Having been in the agricultural materials industry for many years, I feel this year is special. In the last 4 months, I've looked at agricultural products in 9 provinces and found a characteristic: **this year, agricultural products have no low prices (except for seasonal fluctuations).**
**The better the quality, the higher the price, and the better the sales.**
In previous years, there were also high prices, but often one crop would be high while another was low. This year, there are no low prices overall, and basically no unsold stock.
Looking more broadly, we've found several phenomena related to fresh produce:
First, there are so many street fruit shops. In the past, there were many bank branches; now there are many fruit shops, and business is generally good.
Second, new retail is mostly leading with fresh produce. Community group buying uses mass fresh produce to drive traffic; Hema uses high-end fresh produce (including seafood) to lead; Pinduoduo also has a significant proportion of fresh produce in its categories.
**-06-**
**2019 is a year of middle-class consumption explosion and also a year of fresh produce explosion. When Chinese people have enough purchasing power, freshness as a measure of consumption value will continue to expand.**
In addition to the rise of middle-class consumption, new business models are also helping the rise of fresh produce, namely B2C and B2B2C. **In the past, even fresh produce followed the B2B route.** Agricultural products would go through second-hand dealers and third-hand dealers, then be transported across regions, then enter retail through wholesale markets, totaling more than 5 links.
With so many links, even fresh things are no longer fresh. Because the storage and transportation time is unknown, they are picked before they are ripe.
Not long ago, I placed an order with an agricultural service provider who was awarded the "King of Kiwi" by "Agricultural Materials and Market" (direct sales by the agricultural service provider). Since we were familiar, the other party immediately asked on WeChat whether I would eat them right away, and then told me, "I'll send them after they ripen."
I bought 2 boxes, one was ripened and I ate it immediately; the other ripened while I was eating. Today's freshness has already surpassed consumers' imagination; it's a freshness management supply chain supported by technology.
**Today's freshness has already surpassed consumers' imagination; it's a freshness management supply chain supported by technology.**
**Source: Teacher Liu's New Marketing (ID: liuchunxiong1964)**
**Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted**
**China FMCG + Internet Professional New Media**
**Committed to FMCG manufacturer and distributor transformation and channel digitalization solutions**
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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 刘春雄
- Published: 2019-10-19
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/to-do-good-marketing-first-make-a-name-for-freshness-1ab6cf80/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/A6B7OI2y_LXakmVce2lDnA

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